She was well-known in her lifetime - in 1765 at Beverley races, one of the horses was Mr. Wormley's bay mare, 'Alcey Marley',[3] suggesting her name was well known.
However, on their march towards Scotland during the Jacobite risings in 1745, the Dutch mercenary troops used the inn for target practice, and it remained "in a tattered condition" for many years after.
She suffered from a long, severe illness, and on 5 August 1768, was found drowned in a flooded coal pit near Vigo, near Birtley, Tyne and Wear.
The report in the Newcastle Chronicle reads "Thursday sen'night, in the morning, Alice Marley, Vigo, near Chester-le-Street, remarkable for the celebrated song composed upon her, was found drowned in a pond near that place."
The account in the Newcastle Courant is more detailed: "Yesterday sen'night the well-known Alice Marley, of Picktree near Chester-le-Street, shaking in fever, got out of her house and went into a field where there was an old coal(pit) full of water, which she fell into, and was drowned."
One verse of the song, not printed in Ritson's early version,[7] but noted by Sharp some years later as being current in the neighbourhood, reads: Elsie Marley wore a straw hat But now she's getten a velvet cap The Lambton lads mun pay for that Do ye ken Elsie Marley, hinny?
The tune is also referenced in the lyrics of "Byker Hill", another traditional Northeast English folk song.