The contemporary account in the "London Gazette" was as follows:
"The horse of their left wing seemed to make a stand to gain time for their foot to retire, but were charged so quickly and with so much bravery by the English, that they entirely abandoned the foot, and our Dragoons pushing into the village of Autreglize, made a terrible slaughter. The French King's Own regiment of foot called the regiment du Roi, begged for quarter, and delivered up their arms and colours to Lord John Hay's Dragoons (the Greys)."
In connection with the battle of Ramillies, some account must be given of a woman, Christian Davies, or Mother Ross, who served as a trooper in the Greys until, fighting at Ramillies, her skull was fractured, and her sex afterwards discovered.
In 1740 appeared a book of nearly 200 pages, purporting to record her life and adventures; also in 1893 she was included in a volume called "Women Adventurers," published by T. Fisher Unwin. The account of her given in the D. N. B. seems excellent. Presumably she was brave, but she seems to have been a very coarse woman. Born in Dublin in 1667, she married Richard Welsh. He, without her knowledge, was in some way forced to enlist in a foot regiment, and wrote letters to his wife which never reached her. At last she heard of his being in the army, and so disguised herself as a soldier to go in search of him.
She enlisted in Captain Tichborne's company of foot as Christopher Welch. In a skirmish before the battle of Landen she was wounded, and in the next year--1694--taken prisoner by the French, but exchanged.
At her own wish she was now allowed to join the Greys, and continued so until after the peace of Ryswick. On the renewal of war in 1701 she went back to Holland and re-enlisted in the Greys. She fought at Niuwegen, Venloo, Bonn, and in most of the engagements of the campaign, till at the battle of Donauwerth she received a ball in the hip, which caused a temporary retirement into hospital. The ball was never extracted, but Christian was again under arms in time to share in the spoil after Blenheim. While forming one of a guard to some prisoners taken in that battle, she again saw her husband after a separation of thirteen years. She lost no time in revealing her identity to him; but so enamoured was she of camp life that she extracted a promise from Welsh that he would pass himself off as her brother. After Ramillies she, of course, had to cease to be a trooper, but she still continued to live in camp, and accompanied her husband as his acknowledged wife. In 1709 Richard Welsh was killed at Malplaquet. Christian herself found his body, and her lamentations were so extravagant as to excite the open commiseration of a Captain Ross, whence it is said she gained the sobriquet of Mother Ross, by which she was known for the rest of her days. Although grieving so that for a whole week she refused to touch food, she married Hugh Jones, a grenadier, within three months. In 1710 Jones was killed at the siege of Saint-Venant. In 1712 she returned to England, was presented to Queen Anne, and awarded a life pension of a shilling a day. She afterwards went to Dublin and married a soldier named Davies. She died on July 7th, 1739, and, at her own request, her body was interred among the pensioners in Chelsea burying ground, and three grand volleys were fired over her grave.