Chronicles of Newgate, Vol. 1: From the twelfth to the eighteenth centuryGriffiths, Arthur
History
Chronicles of Newgate, Vol. 1: From the twelfth to the eighteenth century
Griffiths, Arthur
Criminals -- Great Britain; Newgate (Prison : London, England); Prisons -- England; Punishment -- Great Britain
In the foregoing the softer sex were either victims or the innocent
incentives to crime. In the case of that clever and unscrupulous
impostor Mary Moders, otherwise Carelton, commonly called the German
Princess, it was exactly the opposite. The daughter of a chorister in
Canterbury Cathedral, she first married a shoemaker; then, dissatisfied
with her lot, ran off to Dover and committed bigamy with a doctor. She
was apprehended for this, tried, and acquitted for want of evidence.
She next passed over to Holland, and went the round of the German
spas, at one of which she encountered a foolish old gentleman of large
estate, who fell in love with her and offered marriage. She accepted
his proposals and presents; but having cajoled him into entrusting her
with a large sum to make preparations for the wedding, she absconded to
Amsterdam and Rotterdam, where she took ship and came over to London.
Alighting at the Exchange Tavern, kept by a Mr. King, she assumed
the state and title of a princess, giving herself out as the ill-used
child of Count Henry Van Wolway, a sovereign prince of the empire.
John Carelton, a brother-in-law of her landlord, at once, "in the most
dutiful and submissive manner," paid his addresses to her, and she at
last condescended to marry him. Carelton was presently undeceived by an
anonymous letter, which proved his wife to be a cheat and impostor.
The princess was arrested, committed to Newgate, and tried for polygamy
at the Old Bailey, but was again acquitted. On her release, deserted
by Carelton, she took to the stage, and gained some reputation, in
a piece especially written for her entitled the "German Princess."
Her fame spread through the town, and she was courted by numberless
admirers, two of whom she played off against each other; and having
fleeced both of several hundred pounds, flouted them for presuming to
make love to a princess. Another victim to her wiles was an elderly
man, worth about £400 per annum, who loaded her with gifts; he was
continually gratifying her with one costly present or another, which
she took care to receive with an appearance of being ashamed he should
heap so many obligations on her, telling him she was not worthy of so
many favours. One night when her lover came home in liquor, she got
him to bed, and when he was asleep rifled his pockets, securing his
keys and a bill on a goldsmith for a hundred pounds. Opening all his
escritoires and drawers, she stole everything, gold pieces, watches,
seals, and several pieces of plate, and then made off. After this
she led a life of vagabondage, moving her lodgings constantly, and
laying her hands on all she could steal. She was adroit in deceiving
tradesmen, and swindled first one and then another out of goods. At
last she was arrested for stealing a silver tankard in Covent Garden,
and committed again to Newgate. This time she was found guilty and cast
for death, but the sentence was commuted to transportation. She was
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