Mary Ambree

Mary Ambree (fl. 1584) was an English army captain from Antwerp[1] who participated in the liberation of the Belgian city Ghent during the war against Spain.[2] While she has not been recorded extensively in history, she was featured in ballads and referenced in culture from the 1620s onwards.[3] Notably, one ballad about Mary Ambree was one of the most popular ballads of the 17th century.[4]

Mary Ambree
An illustration of The Ballad of Mary Ambree.
An illustrated ballad telling the story of Mary Ambree
Years activefl. 1584
Known formilitary captain who inspired songs and stories

In 1584 the Spanish captured Ghent, and Captain Mary Ambree, along with several other Dutch and English volunteers, fought to liberate the city. It was said that she was avenging her lover, Sir John Major, a sergeant major who died during the siege.[2][3]

English and Folklore professor Dianne Dugaw dates the story of Ambree based on a ballad about her being listed on 1590's song sheets. Dugaw claims that this would have originally been a "news song" that told the public current events.[1]

"Then captains courageous, whom death could not daunt,
Did march to the siege of the city of Gaunt,
They mustered their soldiers by two and by three,
And the foremost in battle was Mary Ambree."[5]

Legacy

She was a popular subject of ballads during the 17th-century from 1620s onwards. She was also referenced in many works and by various writers and other artists. Because of her notoriety, Mary Ambree became an "archetype of gender disguise."[6]

  • Ambree was the subject of the ballad "The valorous acts performed at Gunt by the brave bonnie lass Mary Ambree, who in revenge of her lovers death did play her part most gallantly. The tune is, The blinde beggar, &c." preserved by Thomas Percy in the Pepys Collection.[3][7]
    • This ballad provided the title for Rudyard Kipling's well-known novel, Captains Courageous.[8]
    • The first lines of this ballad are quoted in The First Part of the Return from Parnassus from The Three Parnassus Plays[9]
  • A female French Legionnaire in the book Sowing Glory by P.C. Wren was referred to by the pseudonym of Mary Ambree in order to protect her identity.
  • Ambree is mentioned in The Scornful Lady[3]
  • Ambree may have been the "English Mall" Samuel Butler (poet) referenced in Hudibras[3]
  • Ben Jonson references Mary Ambree in Epicœne, or The Silent Woman and The Fortunate Isles[4][9]
  • Jonathan Swift references Ambree in A Tale of a Tub[9]

References
  1. Back Page 296 Dianne Dugaw, "Warrior Women and Popular Balladry, 1650-1850", retrieved 1 July 2022
  2. Commire, Anne, ed. (2002). "Ambree, Mary (fl. 1584)". Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia. Waterford, Connecticut: Yorkin Publications. ISBN 0-7876-4074-3. Archived from the original on 24 September 2015.
  3. Percy, Thomas (1767). Reliques of ancient English poetry: consisting of old heroic ballads, songs, and other pieces of our earlier poets, (chiefly of the lyric kind.) Together with some few of later date. Vol. 2. London: Printed for J. Dodsley in Pall-Mall.
  4. "Epicoene; Or, the Silent Woman, by Ben Jonson". Retrieved 1 July 2022 – via Project Gutenberg.
  5. Black-letter copy in the Pepys Collection, from Mary Ambree, in Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, Edited By THOMAS PERCY.
  6. Cressy, David (1996). "Gender Trouble and Cross-Dressing in Early Modern England". Journal of British Studies. 35 (4): 438–465. doi:10.1086/386118. ISSN 0021-9371. JSTOR 176000. S2CID 162152219.
  7. Full text of the ballad may be found on this site, which notes that it is taken by Percy from a piece in the Pepys Collection.
  8. from text notes on kipling.org, based on those written by Leonee Ormond for the OXFORD WORLD'S CLASSICS edition of Captains Courageous
  9. Dugaw, Dianne (1996). Warrior Women and Popular Balladry, 1650-1850. University of Chicago Press.
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