Mary Ambree

DESCRIPTION: Mary disguises herself to join her lover's regiment. When he is slain, she becomes an officer. She leads her men bravely, but is at last captured when her supply officer betrays her. Threatened with death by the enemy, she reveals her sex and is spared
AUTHOR: probably William Elderton
EARLIEST DATE: 1629 (broadside; see notes)
KEYWORDS: war cross-dressing disguise battle reprieve
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (6 citations):
Hales/Furnival-BishopPercysFolioManuscript, volume I, pp. 515-519, "Marye Aumbree" (1 text)
Percy/Wheatley-ReliquesOfAncientEnglishPoetry II, pp. 232-237, "Mary Ambree" (2 text, one from the Folio manuscript and one touched up by Percy for the _Reliques_)
Bell-Combined-EarlyBallads-CustomsBalladsSongsPeasantryEngland, pp. 158-161, "Mary Ambree" (1 text)
Quiller-Couch-OxfordBookOfBallads 165, "Mary Ambree" (1 text)
Sidgwick-BalladsPoemsIllustratingEnglishHistory, pp. 103-105, "Mary Ambree" (1 text)
Olson-BroadsideBalladIndex, ZN468, "Captains courageous"; ZN2826, "When captains courageous, whom death could not daunt"
ST OBB165 (Partial)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Female Warrior (Pretty Polly)" [Laws N4] (plot: lover becomes officer)
cf. "On the First of November" (plot: lover becomes officer)
cf. "The Blind Beggar's Daughter of Bednall Green" [Laws N27] (tune)
SAME TUNE:
The Blind Beggar's Daughter of Bednall Green [Laws N27] (File: LN27)
NOTES [370 words]: This was reportedly alluded to by Ben Johnson in 1609; a song "Mary Ambre" was in William Thackeray's broadside catalog by 1690. Rollins, p. 242, mentions two broadsides which are surely this: #2803, "The valorous acts of Mary Ambrey," registered June 20, 1629 by Francis Coles & partners, and #2804, "The valourous act performed at Gaunt by Mary Ambree," registered March 1, 1675.
"The Female Warrior" and "Mary Ambree" have many points of similarity; I was tempted to classify them as the same ballad. Since, however, the former involves the navy and the latter the army, I have kept them separate.
Friedman, p. 30, calls likely author William Elderton "the cleverest of Elizabethan broadside-writers." Although almost forgotten today, he seems to have been quite well known in the late sixteenth century; Rollins, p. 62, lists the following items which used his name to promote sales, with Stationer's Register dates:
#666, "Eldertons edvise to beginne the newe year " (December 29, 1579)
#667, "Eldertos answere for his mery toyes &c" (c. 1561. The printer was fined for this, so it is probably some sort of unlicensed response to #670 below)
#668, "Eldertons Answere to F. W. apprint" (August 3, 1581)
#669, "Eldertons ell fortune" (c. 1570)
#670, "Eldertons Jests with his mery Toyes) (cf. 1561)
#671, "Eldertons parratt answered &c" (c. 1562)
#672, "Eldertons solace in tyme of his sickness conteyning sundrie sonnets vppon many pithie paraboles" (1578)
Rollins's index lists at least 19 other pieces by him that don't use his name in the title, and three others that might be his. Given that his career spanned several decades, that's not an extremely high number, but it is impressive that so many pieces were attributed to him.
For more about Elderton, see Hyder E. Rollins, "William Elderton, Elizabethan Actor and Ballad-Writer," Studies in Philology XVII (1920). I have not seen this extensive article (about 45 pages long). Chappell-PopularMusicOfTheOldenTime, pp. 106-107, quotes a poem starting "Will. Elderton's red nose is famous everywhere."
Sidgwick-BalladsPoemsIllustratingEnglishHistory, p. 199, says this is not historical but it "is supposed to have taken place at the siege of Ghent in 1584." - RBW
BibliographyLast updated in version 6.6
File: OBB165

Go to the Ballad Search form
Go to the Ballad Index Song List

Go to the Ballad Index Instructions
Go to the Ballad Index Bibliography or Discography

The Ballad Index Copyright 2024 by Robert B. Waltz and David G. Engle.