Dame Margery is not named in the poem because at the time of writing (1805) she was still alive and known to be litigious. We know that it is meant to be her from the fact that in William Brown's painting of the ballad, "Hiring Croglin Watty at Carlisle Cross", it is she who figures in the foreground. About 1811, just before her death, Brown had already devoted another painting to her alone as she tramped through the town. That she is still amusedly remembered there is witnessed by the modern "Miser! The Musical" (2011), based on her life.