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.
