CHRISTIAN DAVIES: (c.1667-1739)
Alias “Mother” Ross, Kit “Kitty” Cavenaugh, Christian Davies was a female soldier and adventurer, apparently born in Dublin, daughter of a brewer and maltster named Cavenaugh. It is difficult to establish the truth about her colourful career; most accounts follow uncritically an account of her life, The life and adventures of Mrs Christian Davies, published posthumously in 1740, that contains many inaccuracies and embellishments. According to this account she lived with her aunt, a Dublin innkeeper, after a failed relationship, inheriting the inn on her aunt’s death (1688). By this time Christian had fallen in love with a waiter Richard Welsh, whom she married, bearing three children. In 1692 Welsh disappeared, and Christian later heard he had been press-ganged into the British army. Undaunted, she set out to Flanders to rescue her husband and, disguising herself as a man, enlisted. She fought and was wounded at Landen (1693).
Returning to Dublin (1701), she continued in her male disguise before rejoining the army in 1702. In 1704 she marched to the Danube, where she was wounded in the hip at Schellenberg. On her recovery she fought at Blenheim (August 1704), finally encountering her husband. Furious at finding him with a Dutch woman, she sliced off her rival’s nose before persuading Welsh to resume their relationship. Continuing in her male disguise, in 1706 she fought at Ramillies, where part of her skull was blown away, and her gender subsequently discovered. Welsh was killed at Malplaquet (September 1709), and Christian was so distraught that she gained the sobriquet “Mother Ross” after a Captain Ross witnessed her plight.
Retiring from service, in 1712 she visited England where she was presented to Queen Anne, who granted her a pension of a shilling a day for life. Returning to Dublin, she opened a beer and pie house, and profited from certain privileges given to her by the government. She married a soldier called Davies, an alcoholic who squandered all their money. She became less and less respectable, and ended her days at the Pensioner’s College at Chelsea, London, where she died on July 7th, 1739. She was given full military honours, and three grand volleys were fired over her grave.
Adapted from the Royal Irish Academy’s Dictionary of Irish Biography. See dib.ie
