Is prepared to stand by the English woman (6)

I believe the answer is:

tessie

'woman' is the definition.

'is prepared to stand by the english' is the wordplay.
'prepared' becomes 'set' (set up or ready).
'to stand' is a reversal indicator (I've seen 'standing' mean this (in a down clue, letters stand up)).
'by' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'the english' becomes 'E' (abbreviation as in OED).
'is'+'set'='isset'
'isset' backwards is 'tessi'.
'tessi'+'e'='TESSIE'

I've seen this clue in the Evening Standard.

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