Mary Carleton

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MC , who was active in London in the Restoration years, was at some level or other a confidence trickster or woman living on her wits. When she stood trial and became the subject of pamphlet controversy, she proved herself equal to joining in with several pieces of autobiographical and legalistic self-vindication, which show her possessed of skills very close to those of writers of fiction, travel writing, or romance.
  • BirthName: Mary Meders, Moders, or Mauders
  • Nickname: The German Princess
  • Self-constructed: Maria van Wolway
    None of MC 's multiple names is unproblematic. According to her own account she was born Maria van Wolway. According to the evidence presented by the Carleton or Carlton family at her bigamy trial, and the later contemporary or near-contemporary sources, she was born Mary Moders (occasionally given as Mauders and in the Newgate Calendar as Meders) and had acquired the married names first of Stedman and then of Day. Many of these sources render her own version of her birthname with von instead of van. She complains about the association, made as soon as she became news, of von Volvay with vulva, attributing the lewdness in the parallel to her critics. (Some later commentators assume it is insulting to suppose her too modest to make this association herself.) It is worth remembering that though the Newgate Calendar has an official sound, it recycled at least some material from purely fictional accounts of MC . Its first, five-volume edition appeared in 1760.
    Graham, Elspeth et al., editors. Her Own Life. Routledge, 1989.
    136
    Suzuki, Mihoko. “The Case of Madam Mary Carleton: Representing the Female Subject, 1663-73”. Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, 1 Mar.–31 May 1993, pp. 61-83.
    64
    “The Complete Newgate Calendar”. University of Texas at Austin: Tarlton Law Library: Law in Popular Culture Collection: E-texts.
    ; Madam Carlton
  • Married: Stedman; Day; Carleton or Carlton
Etching and line engraving of Mary Carleton with three male figures, by James Basire after F. Nicholls. It is an action scene: Carleton, in dark street clothes, gesticulating, a lawyer kneeling, and the other two men disputing a raised sword. A caption reads: "The German Princess with her Suppos'd Husband and Lawyer." These are two different people: extensive letterpress explains that the lawyer was another victim of her swindles. National Portrait Gallery.

Milestones

11 January 1642

The Newgate Calendar categorically assigned MC 's birth to this date and to Canterbury in Kent; she herself equivocated about the date and gave the place as a different cathedral city: Cologne in Germany.
“The Complete Newgate Calendar”. University of Texas at Austin: Tarlton Law Library: Law in Popular Culture Collection: E-texts.
1: 249
Suzuki, Mihoko. “The Case of Madam Mary Carleton: Representing the Female Subject, 1663-73”. Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, 1 Mar.–31 May 1993, pp. 61-83.
67
Graham, Elspeth et al., editors. Her Own Life. Routledge, 1989.
131

Perhaps July 1663

Among the flood of pamphlets addressing MC 's identity and her marriage, The Case of Madam Mary Carleton appears to be her own work, though that has been doubted by some readers from the beginning.
English Short Title Catalogue. http://estc.bl.uk/.
Suzuki, Mihoko. “The Case of Madam Mary Carleton: Representing the Female Subject, 1663-73”. Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, 1 Mar.–31 May 1993, pp. 61-83.
63-4

22 January 1673

MC was publicly hanged at Tyburn after conviction either for further crimes of theft or else for the crime of returning from transportation.
“The Complete Newgate Calendar”. University of Texas at Austin: Tarlton Law Library: Law in Popular Culture Collection: E-texts.
1: 265-6
Graham, Elspeth et al., editors. Her Own Life. Routledge, 1989.
134

Biography

Stories of Origins

11 January 1642

The Newgate Calendar categorically assigned MC 's birth to this date and to Canterbury in Kent; she herself equivocated about the date and gave the place as a different cathedral city: Cologne in Germany.
“The Complete Newgate Calendar”. University of Texas at Austin: Tarlton Law Library: Law in Popular Culture Collection: E-texts.
1: 249
Suzuki, Mihoko. “The Case of Madam Mary Carleton: Representing the Female Subject, 1663-73”. Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, 1 Mar.–31 May 1993, pp. 61-83.
67
Graham, Elspeth et al., editors. Her Own Life. Routledge, 1989.
131

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