MARY AMBREE.
Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, ii. 230.
"In the year 1584, the Spaniards, under the command of Alexander Farnese, Prince of Parma, began to gain great advantages in Flanders and Brabant, by recovering many strongholds and cities from the
Hollanders, as Ghent (called then by the English Gaunt), Antwerp, Mechlin, &c. See Stow's Annals, p. 711. Some attempt made with the assistance of English volunteers to retrieve the former of those places, probably gave occasion to this ballad. I can find no mention of our heroine in history, but the following rhymes rendered her famous among our poets. Ben Jonson often mentions her, and calls any remarkable virago by her name. See his Epic[oe]ne, first acted in 1609, Act 4, sc. 2: his Tale of a Tub, Act 4, sc. 4: and his masque entitled The Fortunate Isles, 1626, where he quotes the very words of the ballad,
—— Mary Ambree,
(Who marched so free
To the siege of Gaunt,
And death could not daunt,
As the ballad doth vaunt)
Were a braver wight, &c.
She is also mentioned in Fletcher's Scornful Lady, Act 5, sub finem.
"This ballad is printed from a black-letter copy in the Pepys Collection, improved from the Editor's folio MS., and by conjecture. The full title is, "The valourous acts performed at Gaunt by the brave bonnie lass Mary Ambree, who, in revenge of her lovers death, did play her part most gallantly". The tune is, The blind beggar, &c."—Percy.
When captaines couragious, whom death cold not daunte,
Did march to the siege of the citty of Gaunt,
They mustred their souldiers by two and by three,
And the formost in battle was Mary Ambree.
When [the] brave sergeant-major] was slaine in her sight,5
Who was her true lover, her joy, and delight,
Because he was slaine most treacherouslìe,
Then vowd to revenge him Mary Ambree.