Colonel Lady Plunket

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 42, 17 October 1907, Page 9

Colonel Lady Plunket

Her Excellency Lady Plunket has given a new and much-needed impetus to the volunteer movement in New Zealand. She holds fhe position of honorary, colonel of the North Canterbury Mounted Rifles,' and on last • Saturday reviewed her men at Culverden — decked out in the graceful "feminine version of the regimental uniform. War (as has been said or sung) taxes both sexes — it takes the blood of men and the tears of women. In the days of chivalry, the fair hands of gentle dames ■girded on the swords of the knights that went forth to do battle for faith or country. And in our- day, when war means so much, a woman in the position of her Excellency does good and patriotic se.rvice in aiding, where and how she properly may, to have the manhood of the nation prepared to develop its utmost power of defence when the drums beat to battle and there's something heavier than atmosphere in the air. Happily, apart from what may be called the accidents of war, the blood of women has not often mingled with that of men where the front of battle lowered. Yet the fighting instinct is not wholly undeveloped in the sex that is called gentle. And more than onee — as in the siege of Limerick— it Bas flared out to some purpose in conflicts in which religious freedom or national existence have been "threatened, or in which (as during the Paris Commune in 187 J) party passion rose to a high fever. Scottish history presents at least one case in which a lady was made the colonel of fighting 1 troops. We refer to the winsome Jennie Cameron, whom Bonnie Prince Charlie made colonel of the 250 sturdy claymorefighters "Ehat she marched into the Stuart camp one fine ,day in the 'forty-five. Long before Jennie Cameron's" day, Dame Nichola de Camville figured valiantly as a leader of men on ' the field of fame, fresh and gory '. She took the royal side in the war with the Barons and fought Lincoln Castle with skill" and daring against Gilbert de Gaunt, first for King John, afterwards for Henry 111. And more than once she verified the truth of the lines in ' Hudibras ' :—

' Women, you know, do seldom fail To make the stoutest meji turn tail '.-

Another Lady Valiant was the beautiful Countess of Salisbury. A hundred years later, and we come across the humble village maiden, Joan of Arc, the peerless queen of all women who drew the sword in defence of fatherland. She stands on a pedestal of honor, serene, unique, and all alone— this sainted Maiden of Orleans, the liberator of France. Even the glowing East has not been without a blue-b.lood heroine of war, despite the soft ease and the guarded retirement in^which its upperclass womanhood is nurtured. We are now nearing the golden jubilee of the passing of. the Ranee (Princess) of Jhansi, who led a brief but strenuous military life as a cavalry officer in Ehe Indian Mutiny. For several months after the fall of Delhi she handled squadrons of dasTiing cavalry in the field against the British, wielded in hand-to-hand conflicts the carved blade of a razoredged sword, and led charge after charge in right, gallant fasKon in the hard-fought battle of Gwalior. There she fell, at the head of Her men, ' with enough wounds in front ', says Justin McCarthy, 'to have done* credit to any hero '. She had met a foeman worthy of her steel. Her generous victor was Sir Hugh Rose, and he said in his General Order to the troops after the battle f/bat^' the best man upon Ihe side of the enemy was the woman found dead, the Ranee of Jhansi '. We hope the day is far distant indeed when even the manhood of New Zealand may have to stand embattled against a foreign foe for the defence of their country. But we think it a happy circumstances that, at a moment when

the ever-present need of preparedness for such an'emergency is 'too much lost sight of in Xhe eager rush of ' getting on ', a lady should be found capable of reading to the' country one of. . the warning lessons of the Sybilline Books. "