Scoundrel’s Alley Presents: The Scholarly Scoundrel on A Continuing Series of Thoughts Pertinent to Historical Scoundrels Everywhere.

What mighty ills have not been done by woman? Who was’t betrayed the Capitol? A woman! Who lost Mark Antony the world? A woman! Who was the cause of a long ten years’ war, And laid at last old Troy in ashes? Woman! Destructive, damnable, deceitful woman. T. Otway.

N.B. Greetings, Dear Reader. Once again we come to you from our own Stop Hole Abbey to give you a peek at the underside of the world in which you live. It is said that leisure time gives way to idle hands, and idle hands are-at least according to Chaucer, the devil’s tools. To combat this, the 17th and 18th century saw an uptick in morality lectures and laws which were set in place to warn of the rampant sin presented in leisure theatrical entertainment in an attempt to preclude or at least slow the moral downfall of youth. Indeed, as proof of such criminations directed at the stage, it is often pointed out that authors will take it upon themselves to pen works that highlighted criminals in a friendly, if often misunderstood way after their deaths: Robin Hood, Edwin Teach, Mary Webb and Johnathon Wild come to mind to name but a few. And it was not after some long passing of time that these people came to be memorialized on stage. For instance, ’Honest Jack’ Sheppherd had his exploits presented in the pantomime entitled ‘Harlequine Sheppard’ a mere two weeks after his execution at Tyburn Tree near London’s famed Newgate Prison. He was hanged November 16, 1724 and the play of his exploits premiered on the 28th of that same month at the famed Theatre Royal on Duty Lane. Today tho, with your kind indulgence we would like to introduce two lovely lady criminals who were well known to both lawless and law abiding citizens alike, to readers of criminal court broadsides as well as readers of theater playbills. For their exploits were so outlandish, so colorful that not only were they immortalized on stage before their deaths, judgements or even ultimate capture, they stepped off of the criminal path and onto the theater boards long enough to play themselves in theatrical stories of their own exploits! Let us present to you ‘The Roaring Girl’ and ‘The German Princess’, to wit: Mary Frith and Mary Carleton. After reading of their exploits, we will leave it up to you, Dear Reader to place them in history’s zograscope and choose for yourself how they should be remembered: criminal, actress, neither or both.

Mary Frith-‘The Roaring Girl’ (1584/5-1659)

Early Life Mary Frith, sometimes known as Mal (Moll) Cutpurse or Tom Faconer, known as a ‘wearer of men’s fashion’ and the ‘first English woman smoker’, was born in late fall 1584 or early spring of 1585 to Ron Stuart. A shoemaker by trade, little is known of her mother, other than the possibility of her name being Catherine. The area they lived, however was the section of London called ‘The Barbican’ and would be her biggest influence. The Barbican itself was outside of the old city walls of London. Originally a barbican was a building that sat outside of the city gates, acting like the first line of defense. This particular barbican lay outside the ‘parish of St. Giles without Cripplegate’, meaning that it was located outside of the walls near the Cripplegate entrance in an area that was nothing short of a marsh. It was mentioned first as an area called ‘the Barbican’ by Edward III in 1336 when he gifted it to Robert Brandon, the Earl of Suffolk. An area where offal and suicides were regularly thrown into Fleet Ditch, it was known as the ‘Great Sink of London’. The city regularly cleaned the streets-by the use of pigs let loose after dark. In short, it was a diseased, filthy morass. The perfect place for crime and the theater to flourish. By Mary Frith’s time it had grown to be rather well known to the denizens of the theater. William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Nicholas Bretton, Edward Allyn and John Trundle, all well known in the world of the theater lived there in Mary’s early years. It is no wonder that she was familiar with the theater. Besides the plays being presented in the ’Bear Gardens’ when bear baiting was not going on, in 1600 the Fortune Theater would be built nearby as a competitor to the Globe and Mary found both very much to her liking. As a child she was a ‘tomrig and rumpskuttle she was, and delighted and sported in boys’ play and pastime,’ and indeed if her mother was alive she had very little influence on Mary. She regularly fought with the other boys, often beating them. So ‘unfeminine’ was she that it the senior Stuart allowed his brother, a minister of the cloth to take matters into his own hands by having her placed on a boat bound for the colony of New England. The intent was for Mary to be sold there as an indentured servant in order to cure her of her ‘issues’ and give her a proper education as would be seeming for a young girl, in addition to possibly marrying her off to a good, upstanding husband. She never made it to New England. She never made it out of the harbor. Jumping overboard before the captain could even weigh anchor, Mary swam to the shore and refused to go near her uncle again. Instead, she found other ways to make her way through life, most of which centered around Bear Garden.Bear Garden was located across the river Thames in Southwark. Believed to have been first established by the Romans, it had been a site for bear and bull baiting as well as dog fighting since. By the time Mary arrived after her near indentureship, the building-round, stone and capable of seating over a thousand persons-had already been standing since at least 1542. Torn down and rebuilt as the ‘Hope Theater’ in 1614, it continued the practice of both plays and bloodsports until the latter was ended in 1682, but continued on as an active theater and major area for criminal enterprises to flourish. Criminal life It was in this environment that Mary would flourish. ‘Canting Crews’-groups of beggars and criminals who acted as their own family frequented the area and Mary found their free-spirited ways much to her liking. Clothing styles were changing, and the ‘cutpurse’-the thief who would cut the strings from bags holding valuables from a person’s belt-was falling out of favor in direct correlation to the popularity of sewn-in pockets. Instead, a new thief was coming on-the ‘diver’. These industrious and agile persons needed to be quick, subtle and possessing the ‘marks of a happy, industrious hand, having a long middle finger, equally suited with what they call the fool’s or first finger’. Unfortunately for Mary, she was neither quick nor subtle. She did, however possess strength, guile and a friendly personality, useful attributes along with her skill in both sword and short club known as a cudgel. These traits, along with her kindness and generosity quickly led to her advancement and in short order she soon rose in ranks to the position of ‘Upright Man’, a term Canting Crews of the time assigned to their elected leader. And she ran her crew with intelligence and an inflexible justice, treating her ‘people’ with kindness and loyalty and expected the same in return. Mary was known as a leader who protected those around her and in her care, but would turn on anyone who was found cheating her.So respected was Mary in her honesty, that when she started a ‘Lost Property Office’ to move the stolen goods that her crew fenced, a number of highwaymen started using her as their own personal banker to hold their money! She herself admitted to being a noted fence as well as a pimp, not only of young women for men, but young men for wealthier women even tho she was known to physically attack men who referred to women as prostitutes. Mary was quick to realize the best way to keep from punishment was to avoid the necessity of a trial. So when she learned that the clerk of Newgate Prison, Ralph Briscoe at the time, was a lover of the blood sport of bear baiting Mary took it upon herself to make sure he always had a seat available as well as providing the best mastiffs for the spectacle when he was in attendance. In exchange he would pack the jury or even write a reprieve for members of her crew. In addition, she befriended Gregory Brandon, known as Gregory the Hangman who was the ‘Common Executioner of London’. Whether this was so anyone of her crew that used Gregory’s expertise could expect a quick and easy time going through or just because Mary was an outgoing and friendly person can only be speculated on. But it really wasn’t necessary. For Mary had her own unique way of dealing with things. Once, she received a stolen watch at her ‘Lost Property Office’. Usually items like this were set aside for a time until the ‘heat cooled off’. For some reason Mary put it out for resale the next morning. Unfortunately the owner happened by and recognized it, but instead of going in and paying the ‘finder’s fee’, he recognized the shop for what it was and left, returning with the constable. Mary was arrested and taken to Newgate to stand trial for receiving stolen goods, a verdict of guilty which would very possibly lead to her meeting up with her friend Gregory the Hangman in a situations she would rather avoid. At this time in history, the stolen items were not kept at a central location as ‘evidence’, but instead had to be kept in the possession of the accusing constable and then presented at Sessions to be used as the evidence. Mary, however, made arrangements with one of her own ‘Divers’ to slip in and steal the watch from the pocket of the constable right before her case was presented. Having no evidence to produce, Mary was released. Mary’s penchant for wearing men’s clothing also caused a number of issues. Early on she had adopted as her preferred means of dress a jerkin, doublet, galligaskins and petticoat. Finally she replaced the galligaskins with ‘Dutch slops’, the wide-legged trousers favored by sailors and ceased wearing petticoats altogether. This, of course often led to run-ins in a time when morality and the law were constantly changing. Once, Mary was picked up by a constable named Dogberry for wearing ‘men’s clothing in a public arena’. Taken to the ‘Round House’ where the magistrate allowed her to pay her garrish, the next day she met with the Lord Mayor and had him cancel the charges. But Mary was not done with Constable Dogberry. Mary eschewed violence as revenge unless she herself was led to do it and forced her people to respect that decision. But she wasn’t above a bit of revenge, especially if she found humor in it. So, she had her people investigate Dogberry and found out the constable had a rich uncle in Shropshire. Arranging for a retainer who spoke the dialect to dress the part, she had him arrive at the constables house with news that the uncle had died and left the entire estate to him. Immediately, Dogberry purchased appropriate clothing, horse and livery and set off to Ludlow. Upon his arrival he found his uncle very much alive and not at all interested in leaving his estate to his nephew. Dogberry instead returned home in ridicule and contempt. Mary herself lived on Fleet Street near Newgate and ran her empire from there. She was at one time known as the ‘Queen of Thieves’, a title often bestowed upon the ‘Great Tawney Prince’. This was the person elected by the area ‘Canting Crews’ as the arbiter between the different criminal groups. Theater life Mary was well versed not only in the criminal element around the theaters and entertainments, but on the stage itself. A frequent performer, singing and playing the lute in between acts at the Fortune Theater in the early years of the 17th century, as her criminal reputation grew and her outlandish dress and activities caught the public’s attention, between 1610 and 1613 there were three known stories written and published that included Mary. ‘The Madde Prankes of Merry Moll of the Bankside’, a chapbook by John Day, , ‘Amends for Ladies’ a play written by Nathan Field, and ‘The Roaring Girl’, a play written by Thomas Dekker and Thomas Middleton. Dekker, a noted author, publisher and playwright was well versed in the world of the criminal ‘Canting Crews’, having previously published his work on the history and language of them, entitled ‘Lanthorne and Candlelight, or the bellman’s second night-walkIn which he brings to light, a brood of more strange villainies than ever were all this year discovered.’ It is to Dekker’s play about her, while being performed at the Fortune Theater that Mary is believed to have stepped in more than once to play herself. It is also where she was given her nickname ‘The Roaring Girl’, a nod to the ‘roaring boys’ of the times, those rough and tumble carefree ne’er do wells that throughout history have always been known as the ‘high-spirited boys who just want a bit of fun’. While Mary created quite a stir, it was not solely based on the plays written about her. At the turn of the 17th century and going through the final years of the reign of King James, there were enough women acting and dressing like men both on stage and off that in 1615 the term ‘Hic Mulier’ (Latin for ‘this ‘manlike’ woman’) was coined in a phamplet of that name complaining about ‘transvesticism’ being an affront to God, nature and society. By 1620 the practice was widespread enough to cause James to direct his clergy to teach “against the insolencie of our women, and their wearing of broad brimmed hats, pointed dublets, their hair cut short or shorn, and some of them stilettoes or poinards, and such other trinckets of like moment.” The fashion, as all do, soon fell out of favor. Or at least as an object of worry. Later life While no record can be found that she ever ‘officially’ married, she was known to have been courted by a number of men, and might have actually married the son of a playwright in 1614, but is thought that if this indeed happened it was purely for appearance sake. Rather than submit to the feminine ideals of womanhood and affections, she chose instead to lavish her affection on her dogs, providing each with a bed and blankets of their own and insisting in preparing and feeding them herself. Tho manly in dress, her house was feminine and full of mirrors as befitted her own personal vanity. In her later years she lived an ‘orderly and lawful life’, she was known for her absolute hatred of anyone who would mistreat a child, and a number of times she herself was known to have physically assaulted people who referred to women as prostitutes. No other records have been found that might suggest she gave up her criminal empire, tho the lack of court records seem to suggest she did ‘step down’ from much of the work. Nor does evidence suggest she appeared on the stage after her early years. Her final years were spent in quiet repose at her home in Fleet Street where, on July 26, 1659 at the age of 73 she once and for all put aside her manly dress and passed from this earth, a victim of age and dropsy.

Mary Carleton-‘The German Princess’ (1642-1673)

Mary Carleton, unlike Mary Frith did not grow up around the theater. Instead she seemed to go through life taking Shakespeare’s words literally, that ‘All the world is a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts…’ Early life Mary Carleton was born Mary Moders in Canterbury on 11 August, 1642. Little is known about her upbringing save that her father was employed by Canterbury Cathedral as a chorister and ‘fiddle player’. Of her mother nothing is know. Perhaps because of her father’s connections to the Cathedral and access to the library housed there, she somehow obtained an education, learning a number of languages in the process. This would serve her well in what would become her chosen profession. It has been suggested that her first-and possibly only ‘legitimate’ marriage was an arranged one to Thomas Stedman, an apprentice shoemaker when she was 17, a position that certainly was well below what she had dreamed of aspiring to. She had dreams, plans and desires and the station in life she seemed to be destined to was not to her liking. She gave birth twice, both children dying early in infancy and after that she left Canterbury, leaving behind her husband but not bothering with the legalities of a separation. Her early life was, if anything uneventful and-probably in her mind-blessedly short. Criminal life After leaving her husband, Mary would end up in Dover, meeting and marrying a much older surgeon, John Day. Shortly after she was accused of bigamy, but because Stedman was unable to travel to the trial, she was acquitted and in late 1661 she fled, presumably with much of Day’s money, to Cologne, Germany. Again, without the bothersome notion of a legal separation. There, at the age of 20 she found herself employed in a brothel, where she met and was wooed by an older statesman. After she had succeeded in getting a proposal of marriage-and evidently the dowry itself, she slipped out and made her way to Holland. There she sold most of the jewelry and much of the finery, returning finally to Billingsgate, England not as Mary Moders or Mary Stedman or even Mary Day, but instead as Henrietta Maria Von Wolway, daughter of Henry Von Wolway, Lord of Holmstein and the ‘German Princess’ was born. Her first night back and she succeeded in convincing the patrons and the owner of the Exchange Tavern of her harrowing escape from an overbearing father and an upcoming forced arranged marriage. So convincing was she, that the patrons took up a collection for her and the owner gave her lodging for free. Mary took very little time in establishing herself as a desirable and single young lady of breeding, soon capturing the eye of a law student, John Carleton. He, with the help of his relatives pretended to be a Lord. She, with the help of forged letters and documents claimed to be the wealthy Princess. The wedding soon followed and was almost immediately followed by an anonymous letter to Carleton’s father, unmasking her true identity and her (never would be) annulled marriage to the shoemaker Stedman. She was arrested, charged with bigamy and taken to the Old Baily for trial.A battle of self-serving and self-written and published pamphlets ensued between Mary and Carleton, ensnaring the interest of Londoners who fell on the side of Mary. She convinced not only the public but the jurors at the trial, that she was the innocent of the wiles of Carleton, who had duped her with his claims of being a Lord. Once again Stedman failed to appear to attest to the marriage and the judge ruled that the evidence presented-one witness and the aforementioned anonymous letter-was scandalous hearsay and inadmissible. Mary, on the other hand presented herself well as the innocent victim of Carleton’s family and so Mary, head held high, walked free-and right onto the stage of London. Theater life Mary found herself once again without funds but not without her wits. She immediately captured London’s attention yet once again by encouraging the printing of pamphlets about her ‘wrongful’ imprisonment, writing and publishing one herself, entitled The Case of Madam Mary Carleton Lately Stiled the German Princess, Truely Stated: With an Historical Relation of Her Birth, Education, and Fortunes; in an Appeal to His Illustrious Highness Prince Rupert. Not to be outdone, John Carleton fired back by writing and publishing The Ultimum Vale of John Carleton of the Middle Temple, London. But Mary had struck first and hardest, and became London’s new fascination. These two pamphlets will lend the foundation for a series of ‘True Crime’ pamphlets that will be combined in the 18th century and begin the famed ‘Newgate Calendar’. Mary spent the following year acting the part of the falsely accused, being woo’d by a number of suitors and bilking them in return. So great was her success and admiration by Londoners that a year after the trial Mary stepped onto the stage to play herself in a comedic farce about her own life entitled The German Princess by John Holden. There seems to be some disagreement on whether this play was a success, or whether it was-as Samuel Pepys described it after seeing it on 15 April 1655: ‘….and then with my wife by coach to the Duke’s house, and there saw The German Princess acted, by the woman herself; but never was any thing so well done in earnest, worse performed in jest upon the stage; and indeed the whole play, abating the drollery of him that acts her husband, is very simple, unless here and there a witty sprinkle or two.’ Regardless, after performing as herself Mary disappears from the record for the next 7 years. Though she continued her acting career is undeniable, tho not on the stage but in public life. She claimed to be a virginal heiress, complete with forged papers, jewelry from former suitors and a handmaid to keep up appearances. The sheer volume of anecdotal stories of her many suitors she picked up, used then cast aside after taking their monies bears weight to the notion that she did something that caused severe embarrassment to her victims, enough so that while quiet innuendo abounded, no proof was brought to light. Even so, it would seem that her star, as all such that tread the boards must, faded with the fickleness of the audience. Later life Some might say that her final years were but the final payment for the piper she danced to. The documentable record picks up in 1671. For whatever reason, she seemed to have turned to petty crime as well as continuing to bilk her suitors. A ‘clank knapper’ in the Canting Tongue, a stealer of tankards, Mary was apprehended in February of that year and was listed as having the alias’ of Maria Darnton, Mary Blacke, Mary Kirton, Maria Lyon and Mary Carlston. This crime, what we today would think of as a minor misdemeanor, if not just a prank, was punishable either by death or transportation-the forced seven year indentureship away from England. Mary herself was transported to Port Royal, Jamaica where she was treated more like royalty than a criminal, tho some sources indicated she worked as a prostitute instead of being sold into the intended indentureship. Regardless, Mary returned to England sometime in 1672, seemingly unconcerned that the penalty for breaking the transportation indentureship was hanging. In December of that year she was recognized by a jailer who happened to see her while looking for stolen property. She was recaptured and taken to Newgate Prison to await her fate. She tried one last bit of acting, that of claiming to be pregnant, or ‘pleading the belly’. It was found that she indeed was not, and on 22 Jan., 1673 was hanged, the curtain finally falling on her short but eventful life. She was buried in St. Martin’s churchyard, and on her grave was written: The German Princess here, against her will, lies underneath, and yet, oh strange! lies still.

Bibliography

-‘Scoundrel’s Alley’ is the collaboration of Faire Wynds Entertainments and Parson John Living History. The ‘Scholarly Scoundrel’ is Eric Paul Scites (1962-2023)