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- [00:01]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Want to walk the halls of Anne Boleyn's childhood home? Or explore the castles that made up Henry VIII's English stronghold? With a subscription to History Hit, you can dive into our Tudor past alongside the world's leading historians and archaeologists. You'll also unlock hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a brand new release every single week covering everything from the ancient world to to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com subscribe
- [00:35]
Dr. Holly Marsden
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- [00:36]
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- [00:39]
Dr. Holly Marsden
Like the soccer tournament.
- [00:40]
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- [00:44]
Dr. Holly Marsden
It has a Carvana logo.
- [00:45]
Carvana Representative
Carvana made it. They buy and sell cars, so they made a car cup holder. So. Got any good cups lately?
- [00:53]
Carvana Customer
I used to.
- [00:53]
Dr. Holly Marsden
I just couldn't figure out where in the world to put them.
- [00:55]
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- [01:00]
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- [01:43]
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- [02:15]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Hello, I'm Professor Susannah Lipscomb and welcome to Not Just the Tudors From History Hit the podcast in which we explore everything from Anne Boleyn to the Aztecs, from Holbein to the Huguenots, from Shakespeare to Samurais, relieved by regular doses of murder, espionage and witchcraft. Not in other words, just the Tudors, but most definitely also the Tudors. Today we're going to meet a woman in late Elizabethan London who wanted nothing to do with the life or gender into which she was born. As a girl, Mary Thrith was above all breeding and instruction, a tomrig, a hoyden who delighted not in sewing or stitching, but in boys games, noise and danger. It was said she could barely look at the tools of respectable womanhood. A needle, a bodkin, a thimble, but wish they could be transformed into swords and daggers. Mary was born around 1584 into a shoemaker's household near Aldersgate street in the City of London. And for the next 70 years, she would make herself impossible to ignore and almost impossible to classify because history would remember her as Mole Cutpurse. Even that name is a puzzle. Mole could simply be a diminutive of Mary, but in the 16th and 17th centuries, it could also mean a disreputable woman, a woman on the margins. A Cutpurse was a particular kind of thief, a pickpocket who in the days before, sewn in pockets, sliced the string that tied a purse to a belt and raced off with its contents. But Moll was more than a thief. She was also called the Roaring Girl, a title borrowed from the roaring Boys of London. Swaggering hard, drinking, violence prone young men who strutted through the city imitating the fashions and aggression of their social superiors. Moll wore men's clothes, smoked a pipe, carried weapons, appeared on stage, made her way through taverns, theaters, prisons and courtrooms. She was scandalous, a celebrity, a joke and a legend. And the more people tried to name her, the less those names seemed to hold. Was Moll Cutpurse a criminal? A performer? A gender rebel? A carefully manufactured urban man myth? Or a woman surviving by turning herself into a spectacle before the city could do it for her? My guest today is Dr. Holly Marsden, assistant research curator at Kensington Palace. We've spoken to Holly before about Queen Mary II and the Glorious Revolution, and that is an episode well worth revisiting. But today, we're stepping out of the palace into the noisy, crowded streets of early modern London to follow the life and afterlife of Mol Cutpurse, a woman who made a career out of refusing to stay in her place. I'm Professor Suzanne Lipscomb, and this is Not Just the tudors from Historyhip. Dr. Marston. Holly, welcome back to Not Just the Tudors.
- [05:32]
Abercrombie Kids Announcer
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- [05:33]
Dr. Holly Marsden
Thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited to talk about Mary Frith or Moll Cut Purpose today.
- [05:39]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
So she starts life as Mary Thrift, as we said, set the scene for her early life for us what was London like in the 1580s and 90s?
- [05:48]
Dr. Holly Marsden
So London was an interesting time. It was noisy, busy, as you can imagine, smoke everywhere, smog. And Mary was born, as you mentioned, in the city itself. She was born into somewhat a working class household, if we can say, say working class for this time period. Her father was a shoemaker, he had a profession and her mother was a housewife. She worked in the home. Mary, like you said, also was a very loud and rambunctious child. She was wandering around the streets and I think fell into a life of petty crime quite quickly. She was arrested the first time that was recorded around the age of 15 and at this time in London, so. So there wasn't necessarily an organized police force, but people who had been robbed were able to try and capture the thieves themselves. And so if you can imagine this kind of chaotic world that Mary was running around in, of people being captured, taken to trial, and she was slipping in and under all of these people and she was caught often, but she was really caught up in this very busy world. And I think being a thief at this time is quite interesting because this is a time when people started to own more personal property and so petty thievery became quite commonplace as a way to survive, to function in society as someone who wasn't in the elite echelons.
- [07:17]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Oh yes, let's come back to talking a bit more about that sort of criminal underworld. But how early in Mary's life do we see her showing disdain so for conventional female behaviour and what's her family's response?
- [07:33]
Dr. Holly Marsden
So Mary was born in London around 1584 or 5, or some sources say 1589 as well. Unfortunately, her baptismal records don't exist, so it's very quite tricky to pinpoint these specific moments in her lifetime. And I'll talk about this a bit more throughout our talk, but there are lots of different sources that point to her life and some of these are recorded sources such as court records or her will, for example. But a lot of these are stories and rumors that are perpetuated by both personal and published writing. So Mary became a character and she. She really made a character for herself quite early on. So she was restless, she was boy like, as it's been commented, as a young child. And her parents really tried to squash this down and she was thrown into a household where she was sent into domestic service. And Mary rejected this. And this was all before the age of 15. She already rejected this. She was also told that she should marry. She rejected this as well. And There was a big intervention by her uncle who tried to send her to the New World. So at this time there was a lot of exploration and colonial projects into what was labeled New England. And Mary, in what's been since thought of as a semi autobiography, talks a lot about Virginia and the plantations and all of the treasures there. And her uncle finds this as a solution. He thinks she's not going into domestic service like women are supposed to. She's misbehaving, she's running around London thieving. Maybe we'll send her on a ship to the New World. And so she embarks on a journey. And it becomes very unclear, but she manages to escape. Either she escapes from the ship itself or she does travel to New England and then manages to make her way home. It's very unclear, but this was seen as a solution from her family to kind of squash her very rambunctious criminal behavior from such a young age. Her behavior is accompanied by her self presentation. So Mary from a young age presents in masculine clothing, and this was illegal at the time. This was deemed cross dressing. And she does so in full masculine clothing whilst committing these crimes. And this could have been a way to express herself. It could have been a way to get away with the crimes more easily. But there is a point a bit later on in her life when she's an adult that she starts wearing a petticoat with her male breeches, for example. And this might have been a way to avoid as many arrests because she was arrested multiple times for cross dressing. And it could have been one of her arrests. For example, there was one in 1612 that pushed her towards changing her appearance somewhat. Her dressing was slightly more acceptable because this was a huge no, no. And it really plays into the character she built for herself and the character everyone in London heralded her as. She really confused people by this outward expression of her gender and her mannerisms. So she was not only thieving from a very young age, she started smoking, which was not okay for women and was not done for women. And she kind of self allegedly self proclaimed that she was the first woman in England to smoke, which is quite interesting. And that's this is all before the age of 15.
- [10:55]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
She's already doing things that are rebellious and indeed illegal. And you say she enters this criminal underworld. How does that happen? And what do we know about the way that women pickpocketing gangs operated?
- [11:11]
Dr. Holly Marsden
So Mary enters this world by finding other women around her and who were interested in also committing petty crimes. And so she begins both by being a Pickpocket, and she gets the name cut Purse by these women in gangs together would physically cut people's purses. Usually people of the gentry, they would cut their purses and take what fell out from underneath them. And they occupied the streets of London in kind of a gang together. And there's this one story of a gang that Mary was involved with a lot of women, allegedly all called Elizabeth. And they traversed around London in this gang of Elizabeths, all in one. And some of them wearing female clothes and some of them wearing masculine clothes, like Mary Frith. But these women, it's been argued that this might not necessarily be an expression of. Of all these women's gender identity, but more a way to function in this society that doesn't really serve single women. And so Mary chose, until a later age, she chose to be a solo woman. She refused the idea of marriage, even though her parents tried to force that onto her, like a lot of the women around her. And they kind of formed this band of. And there were multiple groups operating in London at this time, all forming these bands of solo women who really looked after one another, lived in similar places, lived in and around the city. But Mary, interestingly, does get married in 1614, and there's a record for this wedding, but it's perhaps a marriage of convenience. She does state in her alleged autobiography that she doesn't possess a sexuality, which is quite interesting. And maybe it was to shield herself from a lot of the legal claims that were being pushed against her. Because if you were a wife rather than a solo woman, you kind of had the rights akin to a child, so your actions were not seen as your responsibility, which is quite interesting. But before that point, she was running around with these groups of women who were all operating this interesting system. So after being kind of a petty thief running around with these women, and she also dabbles in a bit of highway robbery as well. She sets up her own business, essentially fencing stolen goods, Robin Hood esque. But she's still stealing the goods back, which is quite interesting. But this was a way that women could have their own businesses, which is a really interesting way to look at her life. I think a lot of the. In this alleged autobiography, which is called the life of Mrs. Mary Frith, a lot of it surrounds women and work. And she talks a lot about the different women she knew during her life and the businesses they operated. And some of these were sex work, and some of them, she, at some point in her life starts kind of providing male escorts for her single women friends and for women, which is quite an interesting facet, her identity as well. And so she is a really, an. An example of an entrepreneur, really. She had this fencing business and made a lot of money for it. On her deathbed, she. She had a lot of money in the bank. So she. She did really well from all of these kind of entrepreneurial but criminal exploits.
- [14:26]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
So do we know about her encounters with the law? Is that where we get sort of the firm documentary evidence of her criminal career?
- [14:35]
Dr. Holly Marsden
Exactly, yeah. So she appears in lots of fictional or semi fictional writing. There are plays written about her. She appears in many, many books during her lifetime and after her death as well, or even just snippets of her. So in some publications there's references to Moll's breaches and this just gives an insight of the kind of celebrity status she had and the. I think she really played on this celebrity nature and she really played upon everyone's intrigue and fascination with her on the streets of London. But she's also present in kind of more cold, hard sources, if you will. Like other people's letters, she appears a lot in. So there is a gentleman who writes a letter to someone else in which he records seeing Moll giving penance at St. Paul's Cathedral. And so Mary was apprehended for her crimes multiple times, and these are recorded in court records. So, for example, the Court of Star Chamber, she was arrested in 1621, she was arrested in 1612 and sent to penance. So she was also punished. She was imprisoned as well in Newgate Prison and St Bride's Prison as well. So these are kind of markers as to where she was in her life at different points, because the fictional writings or semi fictional writings about her overreg a lot of. A lot of the stories, I think. But yeah, she was apprehended multiple times and this does cause, sometimes cause a slight change in her behavior.
- [16:08]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
And one of the times when she was prosecuted, her uncle, presumably the same one who'd tried to send her to the new world, secured her release. Does that give us a sense that the family felt responsible for her despite her apparent waywardness?
- [16:25]
Dr. Holly Marsden
I think possibly, yes. I think the fact she still remained quite close to her family throughout her lifetime, despite her multiple arrests, despite her criminal notoriety, she remains quite close to them and her will actually gives a lot of her estate to one of her nieces. So I think it's possibly a sense of responsibility, a sense of maybe support as well. And I think there must have been an awareness of her celebrity status. There must have been an awareness of the kind of money she was bringing in and perhaps she was able to support her family through her own exploits. It wasn't just stolen goods. She was also, at one point she appeared on stage and actually this is quite an interesting anecdote about her life because there was a play written about her by Middleton and Decca called the Roaring Girl and this play actually presents Mary quite favourably. It presents her as very strong minded. It was kind of forward thinking for the time period. So the play challenges gender roles and presents her as a lot more honest and a lot more admirable as some of the more quote unquote respectable characters. So it's quite a progressive play and the first performance of this play is quite difficult to date, but it was probably performed in 1611. This was prior to one of her arrests. And in the court records for her arrest in 1612 they note that Mary was seen on stage, which of course did not happen in this time period. Women were not permitted to be on stage and it's thought that maybe Mary performed herself, performed the role of herself, took over from the actor who was playing her and stood on stage and performed with a lute. Potentially there is a part in the play where the character of the Roaring Girl accompanies herself with a viol and it's potentially at this point that Mary plays herself, but she was then apprehended for this because she was on stage and performing a speech and she was wearing masculine clothing, which again was very, very shocking for the time period. But this kind of, all of this fame would have brought in some kind of financial gain or support for Mary's family. So it's. Perhaps they realize that she's an important character on the streets of London, both for their own kind of financial stability, but also perhaps they were accepting of who she was and her decision to follow an extremely different path in life from what they'd chosen for her.
- [19:04]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
It's so interesting, isn't it? Because of course we're familiar with Shakespeare's play as being absolutely jammed packed with cross dressing, but that's this sort of gender boundary transgressions, as it were at the time was being performed by men or boys. I believe Athena's a third gender. There's lots of discussion about that who were on stage. And the problem here seems to be, if we're reading the sources correctly, that Mary herself is on stage. Although I'm struck by the wording, it's very ambiguous, it could mean that she's being represented on stage doesn't it? Do you think the play by Middleton and Decca rehabilitates her reputation?
- [19:47]
Dr. Holly Marsden
I think possibly. I think it really. It's an interesting portrayal of her in comparison to the other plays or references to her in other works which really continuously associate her with this transgressiveness or Moll's breeches, or kind of really associating her with an inherent sexuality. Whereas this play, she's the moral character, she is very favourably presented. So perhaps you're correct and it does restore somewhat a reputation that had been tarnished by multiple arrests and public penance. And there's also a story of her turning up to penance whilst also being drunk. So she's. She's associated with multiple different transgressive behaviors. And these are cross dressing, these are smoking a pipe. And she's presented in a frontispiece to the Roaring Girl play, smoking a pipe. And she's associated with blasphemy, with swearing, with being drunkenly. And these were all together really shocking to the public at the time. And this is why I think people found her so. So fascinating, because she was defying all of these boundaries. But it's quite interesting also because at some point she is referenced as a hermaphrodite or as being intersex in the language of today by other people, but not by herself. And in her diary or supposed diary, which obviously we have to take all of these sources with a real pinch of salt, because as you mentioned, even the court record to the play is quite indecipherable, but people reference her as being intersex of double gender. She says that is not the case. And she was often coupled with other figures, other notorious figures, such as Anna Seedwater Robin. And some people referred to Anna Seed Water Robin as a male who dressed in women's clothes, but who Moll herself referenced as intersex. So this really interesting insight into how clothing was the signifier of gender at this time period, and anything that was confusing or crossed the Boundari was really shocking. And interestingly, Moll didn't like Anna Seedwater Robin. There was no kinship between them and she actually got a gang of her ladies to throw loads of dirt at Anna Seedwater Robin at one point, which is very unkind. But I think all of this points to a huge anxiety over masculine and feminine roles at this time, and especially as we go into James I and 6th of Scotland's England.
- [22:20]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Just as an aside, I want to talk a bit more about this gender question, but just as an aside, when does she start Using the name Mole Cutpurst. As far as we're aware, as far
- [22:28]
Dr. Holly Marsden
as we're aware, people start referencing her as Moll Cutpurse. I think around 1610, people start referencing her as Moll Cutpurse. But as you mentioned, Moll or Mal, is a nickname for Mary. And so that might have come about a lot earlier, but the action of her cutting people's purses and being a cutpurse and began quite early on. So it could have been possible that she was referencing herself in that way and other people were referencing her in that way. But it comes about in sources around 1610, I would say.
- [23:00]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
So she's clear that she's not, in the language of the time, a hermaphrodite. What do you think she was trying to say with the cross dressing and the pipe smoking? Is it a performance or a kind of fictional character behind which she could perform her crimes? Or is this a means of moving around more freely by appearing as a male, or was a genuine expression of what she might have considered a male identity?
- [23:27]
Dr. Holly Marsden
I think this is such an interesting question. I think it's a multiple of reasons, or it could be a multiple of reasons. Of course, we will never truly know how she felt on the inside, but we can kind of garner a sense of how she wanted to be perceived. And I do think there's a sense of this double identity. I think there's a sense of Mary herself. In her home, it was said that she bred mastiff dogs and that she had at least seven dogs, and she kept exotic birds like parrots in her home. And her home was full of frills and bows and as pink as can be imagined. And she references that part of herself as Mary. But Moll is an identity that she plays, and she's playing a character, I think, and this character, this character of Moll, who wears men's clothing to get around, but also as a criminal, but also to be provocative. I think it's intentionally provocative, her whole identity. And I think it's so interesting because it's a very early example of what to you, to use a kind of historical term, of self fashioning, of her fashioning her own identity, an identity that was intentionally constructed to portray certain ideas to the world. But I think maybe it began in a. As a way to be a solo woman. It seems, at least from the sources that persist, that she didn't want to be married, that she didn't want to be romantically attached to anyone, and it was almost impossible to be a solo woman at this time really. So. So I think perhaps it began as a way to do so. And that's how she met other women who experienced or who had similar ideas of the way they wanted to live their lives. And by committing crime, by banding together, by presenting in masculine clothing, that was a way of doing so. But yeah, I really do get a sense of this kind of hybrid nature of her, that she had her own personal identity. There was at home and and very few people, it seems, were kind of invited into her private space, but that the character she constructed on top of it was the one that she wanted to be known and that's the one that kind of gained her this fame. And she really played upon it. I think she did a very good job in playing to people's kind of negative reactions to her and using that to kind of gain even more fame and celebrity.
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- [26:08]
Dr. Holly Marsden
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- [26:13]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Was she brave?
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- [26:21]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Did you have to fight a dragon?
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- [26:25]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Was it scary?
- [26:26]
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- [26:29]
Dr. Holly Marsden
Did the car have a sunroof?
- [26:30]
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- [26:31]
Dr. Holly Marsden
Okay, good story.
- [26:33]
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- [28:24]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
What kind of punishments did she receive for these various indiscretions? These, you know, public indecency, theft? You know, she's getting a reputation as a celebrity as time goes on, but she's paying the price for it along the way, isn't she?
- [28:42]
Dr. Holly Marsden
She really is. So she is arrested many times and sometimes her uncle bails her out. Sometimes she's able to pay a hefty, hefty sum to get out of spending time in prison. One time she even managed to be released from prison by paying a 20,000 pound sum, which at the time was absolutely huge. But she did spend time in prison and she even actually spent time in Bethlehem Hospital. And this was a lot later towards her death, but she was incarcerated in this hospital for people who were mentally unwell. She did manage to leave that hospital. But it's interesting that she continuously performed these crimes and also continuously explored new avenues of crime. So not only did she cross dress, which was illegal, she swore she smoked tobacco, all of these, a lot of things that weren't actively illegal but kind of added into the case against her. She stole, she sold stolen goods, she robbed on the highway and at one point she allegedly robbed General Fairfax. And this is quite a big story in a lot of the stories that talk about her life. And she was a staunch royalist and this is quite an interesting facet of her personality. She was a staunch royalist and she often targeted parliamentary supporters. And there was this idea that she shot all of the horses of General Fairfax, who was a parliamentarian, and robbed him. And that ended in her going to Newgate Prison, which was one of the roughest prisons in London at the time. But still she was then released and she then there was a wager on whether she would ride through the city of London on a horse, on a famous performing horse called Morocco. So she continuously acted in all of these different kind of, what we can say, criminal ways, but was constantly being apprehended, like performing penance. So she performed penance at St. Paul's in 1612 and she allegedly, she was covered, according to a source, a letter, she was covered in a white cloth, but allegedly she was drunk when she performed penance. So that kind of caused even more of A stir because it was apparently very, very obvious, but she was being apprehended consistently.
- [31:00]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Yes. That penance performance is particularly interesting because the point of penitential displays like that was so that the person accused felt shame. And so we've got mo weeping bitterly and appearing penitent, but at the same time obviously drunk and maudlin about it. At the same time she's drunk and maudlin and so it all makes a mockery of the penitence and the shame that she's supposed to display. So she is performing even then, you know, she is the main attraction even in punishment. So is there any sense that the punishments are deterring her or are they basically endearing her to the public?
- [31:51]
Dr. Holly Marsden
I don't think they were deterring her at all. I think they were just another stage upon which she could play. And she really used all of the stages she was given and like you said, performed this kind of this weeping penance and then in another occasion kind of performed this weeping penance. And it's quite interesting because this is kind of alluded to in some of the literature. So, for example, Nathaniel Field's Amends for Ladies is another play in which she is a character. Moll Cutpurse is a character, not Mary Frith. And she's super aggressive in this version of her and unsavoury is quite a harsh word, but she is not presented well. And in this specific version of her, she is very dramatic and very kind of outwardly aggressive and outwardly performative and very different to the Middleton and Decca version of her, who is slightly more quite rational and a bit more put together. But I think that's just indicative of all of these versions of her that she performed herself and also that other people put onto her. I think everyone had. She was so famous at the time and among the streets of London that everyone had different ideas as to who she really was. And that's shown in all of these different versions of her. I think she was a multifaceted woman.
- [33:13]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
You've talked about the various forms of criminality she was involved in. And I'd like to discuss a little bit more about one of them, which you refer to as enterprising, which is that she's procurus or a pimp of women for wealthy men, but also men for respectable middle class women. So, you know, do you think that this sort of suggests a kind of gender equality or is she just doing whatever can make the most money?
- [33:39]
Dr. Holly Marsden
I think that's a really interesting question. I think she has a very smart head on her shoulders, at least. The idea that we can, I can gather from all of these various sources. I think she is very clever in that she sees opportunities to make money and this must have been an extremely niche market in very early 17th century London. But she finds an avenue, and perhaps it's from meeting one person and realizing that's what they want, and then she starts a business from it. But I do think there is a sense of equality. I think the way she presents herself, the fact that she's marauding around, she's wearing men's clothes, she feels like she should live with the same kind of respect and with the same power as men. And gender is power. Gender, the way you present yourself was equal power. And she was very aware of that. And she was trying to then take this power back for herself by wearing men's clothes and doing exactly what she wanted. So I do think that there must be a level of, of equality for it. But I think ultimately she, she's got a good head on her shoulders and she wants to make money. She wasn't born into wealth, so she is really trying kind of every avenue to make cash, and this is one of them. But it's, it's very interesting and she must have really captured a, a very small, a small market in London at this time.
- [35:05]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
And you mentioned that she's an ardent royalist. It feels strange to have someone who is financing herself through criminality and supporting the crown. How do you understand this paradox?
- [35:19]
Dr. Holly Marsden
It really is a paradox. In some kind of references to her, she's alluded as being quite politically conservative, which is also really interesting considering how she was presenting herself and how she didn't want to get married and kind of refused this traditional family structure. I think part of her love of performing really appreciated the kind of pomp and the ceremony of royalty and that she also demonstrates through her behavior and understanding of social hierarchy. And she was clearly very intentionally transgressing the many social hierarchies by doing what she did, by being a criminal, by wearing clothes, by smoking. But she's still aware that exists. And I think the monarchy being the structure that it was and the structure that it is today is something she understood. And it's a way to conceptualize the world and the world that she lived in. And I think she kind of appreciated that still existed, despite her wanting to kind of transgress those boundaries. But yeah, I do think she really enjoyed the kind of ceremonial nature of royalty and clearly did not appreciate that Cromwell's government did not appreciate Parliament taking more control at the time. It is quite interesting that we can call her kind of radical in her own practice and personal practice, but very much not radical in terms of her politics and in her support of the Crown. But it was said that she at one point tried to embezzle money from Cromwell's government. And what I find really sad about this is that she actually dies just before the monarchy was restored. So she didn't get to see this restoration of the monarchy that she championed all of her working life.
- [37:26]
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- [38:23]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Let's come back to her older life in just a second, because you've said repeatedly that she didn't seem to want to get married, but she does in 1614, which actually is when she's about 30 or so, perhaps, if we're right on her age. What's the reason behind this? Is it just, as you mentioned earlier, dodging criminal responsibility?
- [38:45]
Dr. Holly Marsden
I believe so. So she marries someone called Luke Na Markham, who might potentially is related to a playwright, and like you said, 1614, she's already about 30, which is quite old at this time, to get married. She was married at St Saviour's in Southwark and that marriage certificate exists. But it's possible that this was a marriage of convenience. I think the fact that she refused marriage beforehand and she's refused all of these opportunities to be tied to a traditional family structure and demonstrates that possibly this wouldn't be her first choice. But because of her multiple arrests, especially the kind of notorious1 in 1612 where she had to perform public penance and then after this point she starts changing her appearance slightly by incorporating more feminine clothing pieces like petticoats, I think that maybe suggests this was a marriage of convenience. This was to take away some personal responsibility. But it's really difficult to ascertain because there are very, very limited sources that point to her husband Lukna's life, but she did. Her name upon her death was Markham, was Mary Markham. So she did stay married to him until he passed away. We'll never know. But I don't think it would have been a marriage of love. I think if it was, this perhaps would have been alluded to more in the literature that surrounds her life, especially to the so called autobiography. And I should say that the autobiography, there's kind of an introduction and then there's a section which is allegedly her diaries. But there have been many, many theories as to how this autobiography came about. I'd really recommend reading it because it's really interesting. But one of them suggests, one of the theories is that Mary dictated this. And so because it wasn't hugely common for women to be able to write, and in her will, Mary signs just a simple X rather than her name. So it's quite possible that she didn't know how. So this could have been dictated. But I would have thought that if this was a marriage of love, that would have put an even more interesting spin on her life. It would surprise me if this was a marriage of love, that it didn't. It wasn't narrated more in literature surrounding her life.
- [41:07]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Talking about literature surrounding her life, what did people make of her gender fluidity? Did they try and explain it medically or as a sort of performance of a character?
- [41:20]
Dr. Holly Marsden
I think a bit of both. I think people were really confused by her gender and they called her of double gender. They called her a hermaphrodite, and she allegedly writes that that's not the case. Like I mentioned earlier, she is very unkind towards someone who she calls a hermaphrodite as well. I mentioned three images of her and these images are. Some of them are frontispieces to the plays that were written about her. But in one of them she is dressed all in male clothing, and she's accompanied by a parrot, a dog and a monkey. And these were all said to be pets of hers. But exotic animals were also symbols of deviant sexuality, which is quite interesting, or sexual transgression. And in the Roaring Girl frontispiece, she is in all male clothing with a sword and a pipe. And it's also been argued by some that these were extensions of her masculinity, that these were kind of. These phallic symbols were added to the masculine attire that she wore to cross this gender boundary. And in another print, she holds a looking glass, which is quite interesting because that was a symbol of vanity. So all of these depictions of her play on a character, and they play on a character being very confusing, wearing different clothes being ultimately transgressive. I think people tried to understand her by commenting that her clothing was symbolic of. Of being intersex, of double gender, as people called it in the 17th century. But this is not argued in every single piece of literature. So in the Decca Middleton play, they don't necessarily say that she was of double gender, but they do say that she is transgressing this boundary in. I'll just read a quote from Nathaniel Field's Amends for Ladies because it sums up how everyone felt about her. It reads, I not know what to term thee, man or woman for nature shaming to acknowledge thee, for either hath produced thee to the world without a sex. Some say thou art a woman, others a man, and many thou art both woman and man, but I think rather neither, or man and horse, as the old centaurs were feigned. So this suggests in this performance or this depiction of her, that she was her own thing, that this was a character, this was a performance, that her clothing was not indicative of her gender. But it really confused people. As you alluded to earlier, people tried to explain her difference away by using science or their understanding of gender.
- [44:01]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
So let's get up to the civil wars. By this time, you know, comparatively speaking, for the 17th century, she would have been considered relatively old. And she's well known as a royalist. How did she fare?
- [44:18]
Dr. Holly Marsden
She fared as a royalist. She gave word of her royalism through her actions. So like I mentioned, she would rob or target specific parliamentarians. But it seems she very much fared well during this time period because she seemed to have a purpose. She had a profession at this time, so she still had her multiple businesses, so she was financially stable. She also had a purpose in fighting against the parliamentarians. And she really disliked, or it seems from the accounts, disliked, anyone who supported and targeted them, which obviously allowed her to have more opportunities for financial gain. And it's quite difficult to know whether she lived with her husband at this time. Luke NA Markham. She definitely had her own home. Allegedly Red Bull mastiffs had parrots, but it's unknown whether she lived with her husband. But it seems like she fared pretty well despite not liking the lack of monarchy.
- [45:21]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
What do we know about her final years? How does she manage to survive so long into old age? Does she manage to garner some respectability?
- [45:30]
Dr. Holly Marsden
I think she does. I think as time goes on, she's kind of embedded herself in the fabric of London, so to speak. She is a notorious figure. She is somewhat respected by multiple classes, very much by the lower classes and by the criminal in this criminal underworld that she established herself in. She's really heralded as being of very high status at this time and she was being spoken about by multiple classes, the merchant class, that even the aristocracy. So although she has this status and somewhat power and money, she falls ill at some point. So she lived in. During this time, near Fleet Street. She lived allegedly within two doors of the Globe Tavern in Fleet Street. She was. She allegedly also experienced a false pregnancy. So although her status was pretty high, she'd established herself in multiple circles. She was quite respected. She was then incarcerated at Bethlehem Hospital, but she was released in 1644. So this is towards the. Towards the end of her life. And then she, after the false pregnancy earlier, that was kind of a symbol of swelling, she starts showing signs of dropsy and she. This is an illness, an edema illness, and she has this illness and it's documented in the Newgate calendar records. And then she dies in 1659 at the age of 74. Like I said, just before the restoration of the monarchy, which is very sad, but she, I think, lived quite well in her older years, despite this short incarceration in Bethlehem Hospital. I'm not quite sure as to why she was incarcerated in this specific institution, but she'd gained a lot of status, was living quite comfortably, then seems to have a period of perhaps mental instability or of performed some kind of crime and then was institutionalised, released. And then, unfortunately, she becomes quite physically unwell. But she does live a really, a very, very long life for the early 17th century, as we come to conclude.
- [47:42]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
I want to think about why Moll Cutpurse as a Persona, had such appeal as a kind of anti heroine to people at this time.
- [47:53]
Dr. Holly Marsden
What do you think she was symbolic of crossing boundaries in such a heavily controlled world? Moll was a symbol of someone who has tried to escape physically as well as kind of mentally. Subtle, really. She is someone who has gained a sense of freedom and a sense of power outside that which she was provided with at birth. So she, I think, was almost, yeah, an anti heroine of being able to be in charge of your own. Of your own life. She really forged a way for herself and she was constantly working at her image. She was working physically, like working at gaining her capital. She was an entrepreneur. She wore what she seemingly what she wanted to wear, or at least she showed to the outside world a different way. Of living in a world that was so heavily controlled and so heavily gendered. Moll was a symbol of difference, of what else could you be? And I think she was so fascinating because of this reason. She was so confusing and bedazzling by everyone because she defied all of these social norms. So she. She'd become well known. By the age of 20, she was already arrested. As a teenager, she constantly, I think, fashioned and refashioned herself based on. So this is where the marriage comes in. This is where she starts incorporating women's clothes into her outward attire. She is acutely aware of how others perceived her and I think of how she wanted to be perceived. And people also compared her at this time to other figures that we can deem as transgressive, like Joan of Arc, these kind of proto feminist, if you will, women who defied the boundaries they were placed in. I think confusion really, really comes to play a lot in terms of her reputation. I think her outward expression of gender was really, really confusing. And that really made people think and made people question their own genders or how they were told to function in the world. I mean, maybe that's like putting a lot on. On the early 17th century people. I think Mary was a real symbol of power, of creating her own power. And I think that was very special for people to see and very unusual. And I think this image has been entwined with other figures even now. For example, there's a book called the Cavalier Tale. So I think the controversies and the. Also the confusing nature of her being a royalist, but also her transgressing social norms. I think all of this confusion led to people finding her a fascinating figure. I think ultimately she was fascinating and a symbol of breaking free of social convention.
- [50:58]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
And finally, what do you think we can learn from Mole Cutpurst today?
- [51:02]
Dr. Holly Marsden
I think we can learn many things. I think we can learn that it's fun to be playful and to express yourself in unusual ways. I think what I really garner a sense of, yeah, a great sense of play, a great sense of fun, a great sense. When you read all the literature about Mull, you can kind of picture her traversing across London. It's all very quick and dramatic and I think there's a real sense of not taking things too seriously. And again, maybe that's reading too much into the very few sources that point to her life. But I think she's quite. I find her quite inspiring in that way. The sense of playfulness and of, like, testing other people's boundaries, I think that's quite exciting. I think we can also learn that if you commit crime, you will be punished, which did happen for her. So I think maybe we could learn a lesson of persistence, of going, of sticking to your guns. She refused to be put in a box and I think that's wonderfully inspiring, really.
- [52:04]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Dr. Holly Marsden, thank you so much for coming on to introduce us to the character of Moll Cutpurse.
- [52:11]
Dr. Holly Marsden
Thank you so much for having me. And I really, really recommend reading as much as you can about her and all of these wonderful plays and dramatizations of her life because they are absolutely fascinating.
- [52:25]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Thank you for listening to this episode, but not just the Tudors from history here. Thanks also to my researcher Max Wintle and my producer Rob Weinberg. We are always eager to hear from you, including receiving your brilliant ideas for subjects we can cover. So do drop us a line@notjusthetudorshistoryhit.com and I look forward to joining you again for another episode. Next time on Not Just the Tutors from History. Hit.
- [53:01]
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- [53:20]
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