Gallant 'she-soldiers'
Boadicea, Queen of the Iceni, from a Victorian costume collection ©
Very little filters out from British history during the next 16 centuries about women at war, though British troops encountered Joan of Arc between 1429-31.
'... the birth of a son unmasked her.'
A 17th-century soldier, one Private Clarke, was perhaps the next recorded example in British history of a woman combatant, possibly representing many other, unrecorded examples. She served in the same regiment as her husband for nine years, until the birth of a son unmasked her.
In 1655, Clarke was commemorated in an affectionate four-verse ballad, 'The Gallant She-Soldier', all the more remarkable for its composition during the strict Puritan era.
With musket on her shoulder, her part she acted then, And every one supposed that she had been a man; Her bandeleers about her neck, and sword hang’d by her side, In many brave adventures her valour have been tried.
With musket on her shoulder, her part she acted then, And every one supposed that she had been a man; Her bandeleers about her neck, and sword hang’d by her side, In many brave adventures her valour have been tried.
For other manly practices she gain’d the love of all, For leaping and for running or wrestling for a fall, For cudgels or for cuffing, if that occasion were, There’s hardly any one of ten men that might with her compare.
Yet civil in her carriage and modest still was she, But with her fellow souldiers she oft would merry be; She would drink and take tobacco, and spend her money too, When as occasion served that she had nothing else to do.
Women in Battle, John Laffin
Published: 2005-03-01
