The Pretty Dragoon

In 1693, a Dublin publican cut her hair, borrowed a name, and walked into the British Army to find her missing husband. What followed was thirteen years of infantry combat, cavalry charges, a skull fracture at Ramillies, and a husband she eventually found flirting with a Dutch woman after Blenheim.

Christian Davies fought at Landen, Schellenberg, Blenheim, and Ramillies. She killed a sergeant in a duel. She paid child support to a prostitute rather than prove the claim impossible. She buried her husband under two hundred bodies on the field at Malplaquet. She was so convincing as a man that her regiment called her the pretty dragoon.

She was eventually admitted to the Royal Hospital Chelsea as a pensioner. Daniel Defoe wrote her story. Queen Anne gave her fifty pounds and a shilling a day.

Nobody gave her a category to fit into. She didn't seem to need one.