Eleven weeks after the death of Welsh, his sorrowing widow was persuaded to bestow her hand on Hugh Jones, Grenadier, who was killed at the siege of St. Venant, 1710. During this and the following year Christian held the post of under-cook in Lord Stair's kitchen.
On the close of the campaign of 1712 she returned to England, and called on the Duke of Marlborough; but he, being in disgrace, advised her to wait on the Duke of Argyle. The latter told Christian to draw up a petition to the Queen. Her majesty received Mother Ross very graciously, and gave her an order on the Earl of Oxford for fifty pounds. But having waited on the Earl several times and seen neither him nor the money, she petitioned the Queen again. Anne granted a second order for the same sum, payable this time on Sir William Windham, and Christian was also put on the pension list for a shilling a day. Sir William at once paid the fifty pounds; but the Earl of Oxford, without speaking to Queen Anne, cut down the pension to five-pence. On the accession of George I., she succeeded in having it raised again to a shilling; and this pension she retained till her death.
Immediately after receiving the money, Christian returned to Dublin; but being unable to recover either her house or furniture, she set up a beershop. She was keeping herself very comfortably, "till my evil genius," she laments, "entangled me in a third marriage." This time the bridegroom was named Davies, and belonged to the Welsh Fusileers. His regiment was ordered, soon after the marriage, to England; Christian therefore sold her effects, and returned to London, where she established a shop in Willow Walk, Tothill Fields, Westminster, for the sale of strong liquors and farthing pies. This was in 1715. She prospered so well, that after the return of her husband from Preston (where he had gone to fight the Pretender), she was able to purchase his discharge; but "in two days after his arrival in London, being drunk, he enlisted in the Guards." During the November of this year, Mother Ross kept a sutler's tent in Hyde Park where the Life and Foot Guards were encamped.
Her husband was a constant source of trouble and vexation. Some friends having obtained his discharge, he spent her money so fast that she was obliged to give up, successively, public-houses at Paddington and in Charles-street, Westminster. She returned to Dublin, when the Lord-Lieutenant granted her the exclusive privilege of selling beer in the Phœnix Park on review-days. Tiring of this, in less than a year, she returned to England; and after living three years in Chester, she entered Chelsea College as a Pensioner. She also succeeded in obtaining a sergeantcy in the College for her husband. Here she resided till her death: being supported by the benevolence of several members of the nobility—principally officers who had known her as Mother Ross. She went to Court twice a-week to keep herself in the minds of her patrons; "but," she laments, "the expense of coach-hire, as both my lameness and age increases, for I cannot walk ten yards without help, is a terrible tax upon their charity, and at the same time many of my old friends no longer going to Court, my former subsistence is greatly diminished from what it was."
For some months previous to her death Christian Davies's health was undermined by dropsy, scurvy, and other disorders. But the chief cause of her last illness was sitting up several nights by the bed-side of her husband. This brought on a severe cold, which threw her into a fever, of which she died, July 7th, 1739. She was interred with military honours in the burial-ground of Chelsea College. Her autobiography, edited by Daniel Defoe, was published in 1740. A second edition came out in 1741, with a vignette frontispiece representing Christian Davies first in her Dragoon's uniform, and then in the dress of a sutler.
According to the embarkation returns of the 20th Foot, dated 1st July, 1702, preserved among the Harleian MSS. at the British Museum, one of the soldiers in Captain St. Clair's Company was found to be a woman. The regiment was embarking to join the expedition against Cadiz.
During the war of the Spanish Succession, Catalonia having declared against Philip, the French claimant to the crown, was invaded and ravaged by the forces of Louis Quatorze. Barcelona, the capital, was invested for several months, and the formidable artillery of France played, almost unceasingly, on the walls. But the people, nothing daunted by the arrival of Marshal Berwick with twenty thousand men to reinforce the besiegers, made a most resolute defence. All who could bear arms flew to aid in the defence; the priests and the women enrolled themselves in the ranks, and fought with the same desperate valour as the rest. Their courage, however, was unavailing; for the city was taken by assault, Sept. 11th, 1714.