Note 89 — ACT II., SCENE 1.

Two celebrated English heroines. The achievements of Mary Ambree at the siege of Ghent, in 1584, are celebrated in a ballad which goes by her name in Percy's "Reliques," ii. 239, edit. 1812. She is mentioned by Fletcher, Ben Jonson, and many other dramatists; some of whom were her contemporaries. Dr Percy conjectured that the "English Mall" of Butler was the same female soldier, but he probably alluded to Mall or Moll Cutpurse who forms a character in this play. Long Meg is Long Meg of Westminster, also a masculine lady of great notoriety, and after whom a cannon in Dover Castle, and a large flagstone in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey are still called. Her life and "merry pranks" were detailed in a pamphlet dated in [1582], and reprinted [from a later edition] in 1816. It is conjectured that she was dead in 1594, but she is often spoken of in our old writers. It will be seen by a subsequent note that Long Meg was the heroine of a play which has not survived.