Mary Frith
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| Mary Frith | |
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 Image of Mary Frith from title page of The Roaring Girl
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| Born | 1584 |
| Died | July 26, 1659 Fleet Street, London |
| Occupation | Pickpocket and fence |
| Spouse | Lewknor Markham |
Mary Frith or Moll Cutpurse (c. 1584–July 26, 1659) was a notorious pickpocket and fence of the English underworld.
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[edit] Meaning of Nicknames
The name Moll Cutpurse was a rather complex pun: Moll was a common name for a young woman - usually of disreputable character- and Cutpurse both denoted her reputation as a thief (who would cut purses to steal the contents) and suggest that she was a castrating woman ('purse' being a euphemism for the scrotum). .
The other name by which she was known, "The Roaring Girl" is taken from roaring boys. The roaring boys were young gentlemen who caroused in taverns, and then picked brawls on the street.
[edit] An eccentric life
The facts of her life are extremely confused, with many exaggerations and myths attached to her name. The Life of Mrs Mary Frith, a sensationalised biography written in 1662, three years after her death, helped to perpetuate many of these myths.
Born of a shoemaker in the mid 1580s, Mary presented herself in public in a doublet and baggy breeches, smoking a pipe, and swearing, if she felt like it. It is believed that she first came to prominence in 1600 when she was indicted in Middlesex for stealing 2s 11d on the 26 August. She must have become fairly notorious, because two plays were written about her. First the 1610 work The Madde Pranckes of Mery Mall of the Bankside by John Day, the text of which is now lost. Another play (that has survived) came a year later by Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker, The Roaring Girl Both works dwelt on her scandalous behaviour of wearing male clothes, though the surviving play is fairly complementary to her in modern eyes.
Mary seems to have been given a fair amount of freedom in a society that so frowned upon women who acted unconventionally, even performing (in men's clothing, as always) in 1611 at the Fortune Theatre. On stage she bantered with the audience (like a stand-up comic) and sang a song while playing the lute. It can be assumed that the banter and song were rather saucy -- even playing in public was scoffing at a convention that women did not play publicly.
Such public actions led to some reprisal, being arrested for being dressed indecently on 25 December 1611 and accused of being involved in prostitution. On February 9, of 1612 Mary was required to do a penance for her "evil living" at St. Paul's Cross. She put on a performance then, as well. According to a letter by John Chamberland to Dudley Carlton, "She wept bitterly and seemed very pentinent, but it is since doubted she was maudlin drunk, being discovered to have tippled of three-quarters of sack"
She married, on 23 March 1614, to Lewknor Markham possibly the son of playwright Gervase Markham. Evidence shows that the whole thing was a pointless charade domestically, but it gave her a counter when suits against her referred to her as a "spinster".
By the 1620s she was, according to her own account, working as a fence and a pimp. She not only procured young women for men, but also respectable male lovers for middle-class wives. In one case where a wife confessed on her deathbed infidelity with lovers that Mary provided, Mary supposedly convinced the woman's lovers to send money for the maintenance of the children that were probably theirs. It is interesting to note that, women in men's clothing were generally considered "sexually riotous and uncontrolled", but Mary herself claimed to be disinterested in sex.
She is recorded as being released on 21 June 1644 from Bethlem Hospital after being cured of insanity.[1] Which may or not be related to the (possibly apocryphal) story that she robbed General Fairfax and shot him in the arm during the Civil War. It was said that to escape the gallows she paid a 2000 pound bribe.
She died of dropsy on 26 July 1659 on Fleet Street in London.
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ Bridewell Court Books, vol. 9/129, quoted in Mary Frith Alias Moll Cutpurse, in Life and Literature by Gustav Ungerer, Shakespeare Studies, vol. XXVIII
[edit] References
- Haynes, Alan. Sex in Elizabethan England. Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing Limited, 1997. ISBN 0-905-778-359
[edit] External links
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| NAME | Frith, Mary |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Cutpurse, Moll; Markham, Mary |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | Pickpocket and fence |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1584 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 26, 1659 |
| PLACE OF DEATH | Fleet Street, London |
