When John Lowman stepped into the chamber, he was not in search of Mary Carleton. The keeper of the Marshalsea prison was accompanying a Southwark brewer upon the trail of a thief named Lancaster. In that room on the second storey, a woman in a nightgown stood beside a table upon which lay three letters. She raised her voice against the intrusion; the ensuing altercation afforded Lowman leisure to scrutinize her countenance. He recognized her, addressed her by name, and departed bearing both the woman and the letters. It was December 1672. The chronicle that records this capture presents Mary successively as a German princess, a disputed wife, an actress, and a thief. At last, an identity long believed known brought her once more before the bar of justice.
The 1825 chronicle from which this scene is drawn juxtaposes formal trials, hearsay, and tales of larceny; its accusations reach us solely through the hand of its compiler. Throughout these episodes, Mary flits from name to name and city to city, the sobriquet of the “German Princess” opening to her the doors of taverns, matrimony, and the playhouse. The truth of her own origins remains contested.
According to this chronicle, she was born at Canterbury under the name of Mary Moders, the daughter of a cathedral chorister—or, as another version maintains, of a petty tradesman. She wed a shoemaker named Stedman, bore two children who both died in infancy, and presently abandoned her husband. At Dover, she is said to have married another, a surgeon by calling. Indicted for bigamy at Maidstone, she was acquitted for want of sufficient evidence. A third alliance, with John Carleton, brought her notoriety in London: her new husband’s kinsmen gave warning of her former marriages. She was committed to Newgate and prosecuted a second time for bigamy; here again, the court acquitted her.
Between the Dover marriage and her union with John Carleton, the chronicle carries her to Cologne. There she is said to have taken lodgings in an inn and repaired to Spa, where an elderly gentleman, described by the narrative as a man of substance, became enamoured of her. He bestowed upon her jewels, a chain of gold, and a medal won in his service under Count Tilly. He spoke of marriage; she consented, and he took his leave, entrusting her with money for the wedding preparations. Thereupon, the chronicle relates, she prevailed upon the landlady to secure her a carriage that would not return to Cologne. No sooner had the hostess quitted the house than Mary forced the chest wherein the woman kept her money, carrying off all its contents, including the share the landlady had received of the suitor’s gifts. She then made for Utrecht, sold a portion of the jewels at Amsterdam, passed through Rotterdam and the Brill, and took ship for England.
She landed at Billingsgate in the early morning, towards the end of March, and presently found harborage at the Exchange Tavern. There, in the company of several gentlemen, she recounted another history: she claimed to have been born at Cologne, the daughter of Henry Van Wolway, Lord of Holmstein, and to have been banished after wedding a nobleman beloved of her father. She told of this husband slain upon a false suspicion, and left her tears to complete the tale. The gentlemen at the tavern gave her what money they had about them and promised to return with further relief. The title of “German Princess” clung to her; the narrative asserts that she henceforth made public use of it.
John Carleton, brother to the tavern-keeper’s sister-in-law, began to pay her court. Yet he was not without warning: an anonymous letter addressed to his brother described the woman as an impostor, declaring that she had already married men in Kent and fled with their money. The missive even furnished bodily marks whereby she might be identified. Carleton nonetheless married the woman who styled herself a princess. This new union brought her once more before the magistrates; the chronicle records that she was acquitted, the depositions falling short of establishing the charge. The marriage did not put an end to her adventures. Shortly thereafter, players welcomed her into their company; a play founded upon the “German Princess” was performed, in which she sustained a principal part and spoke the epilogue.
The stage won her admirers. According to the chronicle, two suitors each offered her considerable sums before she dismissed them. Another, advanced in years, showered her with rings and jewels, settling upon her an annual maintenance. They lived together. One evening, after he had drunk freely, he gave her a precious stone; when he had fallen asleep, she rifled his pockets and found a pocketbook, a bill of exchange for one hundred pounds drawn upon a goldsmith, and the keys to his strongboxes. She likewise carried off twenty pieces of gold, a watch, a seal, a silver watch, plate, and other effects. In the morning she repaired to the goldsmith, who discharged the bill of exchange, never suspecting that it had not been presented by its lawful owner.
In Cheapside, a mercer saw her select six pounds’ worth of silk. Her purse, she explained, contained only ancient gold pieces which she dearly treasured; he therefore sent a shopman with her to her lodgings to receive payment. Near the Royal Exchange she alighted, feigning a desire to purchase matching ribbons. The apprentice remained in the coach with the goods; the woman and her maid vanished into the adjacent streets.
A French weaver in Spitalfields fell in his turn for the pretext of a wealthy customer. She bespoke forty pounds’ worth of silk, part of which, she alleged, was intended for a kinswoman lodged in the adjoining room. She plied him with wine while she carried the stuffs to this “relative.” When he at last knocked upon the door, the people of the house directed him to a back staircase; the lodger had already fled. A tailor was subsequently given the silk to make into apparel. For the evening on which she was to entertain guests, she gave twenty shillings to her landlady to provide a supper. The tailor became intoxicated. When the mistress of the house went upstairs to put him to bed, Mary and her companions slipped away, carrying off the plate and whatever garments were not upon their backs; her maid and the booty took coach, while the others departed by separate ways.
These exploits, accumulated by the compiler like so many feats of dexterity, brought her at length to Newgate. Arrested for the theft of a silver tankard in Covent Garden, Mary was convicted and condemned. Her sentence was commuted to transportation, and she was dispatched to Jamaica. Two years later, the chronicle reports, she was back in London, passing herself off this time as a wealthy heiress. She married an apothecary of Westminster, from whom she is said to have carried off more than three hundred pounds before deserting him.
Then came the room where Lowman had been seeking Lancaster. Once arrested, Mary was detained at the Marshalsea until the following 16th of January, when a writ of habeas corpus brought her to the bar of the Old Bailey. She was asked whether she was indeed the woman known by the name of Mary Carleton; she answered that she was. The court then demanded why she had returned so soon after her transportation. The account relates that she sought to gain time, and presently pleaded her belly. A jury of matrons declared her not pregnant. On the final day of the sessions, she received sentence of death.
In prison, a succession of visitors waited upon her: some led by curiosity, others to discourse of death and religion. To one of them Mary is said to have acknowledged herself a Roman Catholic, expressing regret for her past conduct and wishing she might begin her life anew. She likewise censured the women who had examined her, saying they could not be certain of their verdict and might well have allowed her further time.
On the 22nd of January 1673, her irons were struck off. Before departing, Mary pinned the portrait of her husband Carleton to her sleeve. She bade farewell in French to a gentleman who had visited her, while the passing bell of St. Sepulchre’s began to toll. A friend, Mr. Crouch, rode with her in the cart; to him she delivered two books of Catholic devotion, The Key of Paradise and The Manual of Daily Devotion.
At Tyburn, she declared before the multitude that she had been vain, that she besought God to forgive her even as she forgave her enemies, and that she had yet much to say in her own defense. Then she was turned off. Her body was placed in a coffin and laid to rest in the churchyard of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. The name of princess had availed nothing against the sentence; the likeness of the husband she had wed accompanied her to the very end of the journey.