MARY FRITH OTHERWISE MOLL CUTPURSE

 

A famous Master-Thief and an Ugly, who dressed like a Man, and died in 1663

 Mary Frith(Moll) was born in 1559 in Barbican in Aldersgate Street, she was very well read and skilled, one of her skills was snatching purses and digging into the pockets of the wealthy ones. Her father was a shoemaker, and she was an only child.

 Her masculine spirit predominated her youthful life, she choose to play with boys and boy games, fight with as well. She was tough did not delight in having or being around girls. Grew up acting as a boy, and this was not quite acceptable for her father so he decided to ship her off with her Uncle. That night she managed to escape from his ship, swam into the night and was never seen again. 

 She was referred to as lusty, sturdy wench, libertine, she decided that she was not going to be enclosed in the limits of a private domestic life. She often expressed likeness towards children, but unfortunately she was barren, would never bare children. She was undoubtedly very ugly and was aware of it, she knew she was not fit or made for the pleasure of delight of a man; so she choose to be honored by him rather than with him. She was powerful and strong, demonstrated this by being able to command any person, and was able to beat up any man without and unnecessary help from others.

 Soon she befriended some fortune tellers who taught her how to steal, cheat, but her monies did not last very long. She decides to join a Society of Divers or file clyers, who cut purses or pick pockets, otherwise known as pirates. Left that life soon and began to commit robberies on rebels for a long time until the day she robbed General Fairfax, shooting him in his arm, she fled but was caught at Turnham Green, when her horse gave out on her. She was released after giving the adversary two thousand pounds.

 Moll took over a home and became a buyer of stolen goods, which went rather well for her, she made quite a bit of money. Turned her home into a brokerage with jewels, rings and watches, which were stolen of course. One day a gentleman approached her home in the hopes that he would recover his stolen watch. Moll denied having it but insisted in hearing him out and told him to return the next day, she made a trade with him, no questions asked. Moll then became an acquaintance of thieves who called themselves heavers, who robbed shop books from drapers and mercers or other rich traders.  

 Sooner than later she was sentenced to appear in the Court of Arches, being accused of wearing indecent and manly apparel, she did penance in a white sheet at St. Paul’s cross during a Sunday morning sermon. But nonetheless she continued to dress in men’s apparel, very decently dressed.  

 At the age of 74 she contracted a disease called dropsy, which had terrible and strange symptoms, she thought she was possessed and that the devil had got within her doublet, she wrapped her head in cloths, she looked like Mother Shipton. Moll knew she was going to die, while alive, she began to distribute her fortune amongst her chief companions and friends, gave her maids 100 pounds for both. Although she had committed many bad and sinful acts, she did not turn greedy and possessive of her fortune, everyone who she esteemed benefited from her death, even though she did not have a will. 

 When her death was nearing, she made her last wish, she wished to be buried with her breech upwards, saying “That she be as preposterous in her death as she had been all along in her infamous life.” (177) On her stone an epitaph was engraved reading: 

 Here lies, under this same marble,
Dust, for Time's last sieve to garble;
Dust, to perplex a Sadducee,
Whether it rise a He or She,
Or two in one, a single pair,
Nature's sport, and now her care.
For how she'll clothe it at last day,
Unless she sighs it all away;
Or where she'll place it, none can tell:
Some middle place 'twixt Heaven and Hell
And well 'tis Purgatory's found,
Else she must hide her under ground.
These reliques do deserve the doom,
Of that cheat Mahomet's fine tomb
For no communion she had,
Nor sorted with the good or bad;
That when the world shall be calcin'd,
And the mixd' mass of human kind
Shall sep'rate by that melting fire,
She'll stand alone, and none come nigh her.
Reader, here she lies till then,
When, truly, you'll see her again."
 

By Guadalupe Krop

Mary Read (1685–1721)

Mary Read posed herself as a male cross dresser for financial reasons. (From her mother who dressed her as a boy in order to get money and so she became a man for life). But she ran away and joined the British navy as a teenger. She was on the Flemish Calvary for a while. Then Mary was on the Dutch merchant vessal doing some bussiness and it was there that the pirate captian Charles Vane kinapped her aboard his English ship. She was given the choice as either facing execution or joing his crew, and she chose the latter. She went to the Carribean islands, looting, killing, and binge drinking with her fellow mates, a reputation she had created for herself, as well as other pirates of that time who knew her.

By Pascual Marin

Anne Bonny (1697 - 1720)

Born in Charleston, South Carolina, Anne Bonny had an unhappy childhood. She was sexually molested by a young man who held her at knifepoint, (fortunely for Anne, she managed to kill him with a knife too and escaped.) When she was 16 years old, she fell in love with a small time pirate James Bonny and married him. James took Anne to New Providence, which was another pirate hideout, but unfortuenly, thier marriage didn't work because of political implications. (James became an informer for the governor Woodes Rogers, a major disappointment for Anne Bonny). She left her husband and joined a group of other pirates that she made friends with. Together, she went on a killing spree, looting, and commiting other related crimes like other men. (she dressed herself as a man from a homosexul priate who offer her clothes at a tavern fashion). She went to the Carribbean Island and also met Mary Read, another cross dresser pirate, and they fell in love. But both of them were later tried for crimes and hanged. Anne Bonny was executed in October, 1720.

By Pascual Marin

Catalina de Erauso

De Erauso, Catalina. ­Lieutenant Nun: Memoir of a Basque Transvestite in the New World.

Trans. Michelle Stepto and Gabriel Stepto. Boston: Beacon Press Books, 1996

Images

http://viajeradeltiempo.files.wordpress.com/2007/09/29-catalina-erauso-article.jpg

Joan of Arc

“The Trial of Joan of Arc.” The Medieval Sourcebook. 28June 2009.

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/joanofarc-trial.html

Images

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/record/23/17/26c.gif

http://library.thinkquest.org/06aug/00314/396px-Joan_of_arc_miniature_graded.jpg

Mary Reed

"Mary Reed." The Women of Action Network. 01 July 2009.

http://www.woa.tv/articles/hi_readm.html

Images

http://web.uvic.ca/~ahdevor/HowMany/MaryReed.JPG

Anne Bonny

"Famous Pirate: Anne Bonny." The Way of the Pirates.

http://www.thewayofthepirates.com/famous-pirates/anne-bonny.php

Images

http://image.hotdog.hu/_data/members3/067/525067/images/b_mary_read_anne_bonny_calico_jack.jpg

MARY FRITH OTHERWISE MOLL CUTPURSE

"Mary Frith otherwise Moll Cutpurse." Tarlton Law Library. 01 July 2009. 

http://tarlton.law.utexas.edu/lpop/etext/newgate/frith.htm

Images

www.wilsonsalmanac.com/images1/moll_cutpurse1.gif

Catalina de Erauso

Catalina de Erauso was a cross-dressing Basque woman that gained fame in Spain for her adventures in the New World during the start of the seventeenth century. She went by the alias of Francisco de Loyola. At four years old, de Erauso was placed into a convent by her parents where she stayed until fifteen. She ran away after she received a beating by the hands of her large older sister. She did well as a cross dresser. She got jobs and even tricked her father, brother and uncle. She also encountered her mother when she decided to hear mass at the convent she used to be in. Even her mother evidently did not recognize her.

De Erauso became a soldier under her brother’s command. As a soldier she fought side by side with him without being discovered. She eventually killed her brother while participating in a duel. Symbolically this represents how Catalina de Erauso proved that women can succeed in a man’s world.

After she killed a man during a fight over a card game, she confessed her true self to a bishop and went through a medical examination that proved that she was truly both a woman and a virgin. The Bishop assisted her in safe passage back to Spain. Pope Urban VIII granted de Erauso permission to continue dressing as a man since she had garnered so much fame for the events that she lived while in the New World. Her memoirs are preserved as a book entitled Lieutenant Nun: Memoir of a Basque Transvestite in the New World.

Catalina de Erauso knew that if she looked like a woman on the outside, her opportunities would be vastly limited as opposed to someone that was perceived to be a man. She did kill a number of men and succeeded in what most would consider manly activities. She stands as a icon of woman ingenuity and success. On top of everything that she did, the most impressive thing that she accomplished was being granted permission to live the way that she wanted to live, even though everyone eventually knew that she was a woman. She embodies perseverance and resolve.

By Marcos Herrera

Joan of Arc

The most famous cross dresser of all time may just be none other than Joan of Arc.

Joan of Arc was a poor French girl that ultimately led the Dauphin forces to victory upon victory during the Hundred Years’ War in France. She confessed that the reason for her actions and subsequent success was because she herself was being led by God through her visions of him. She was ultimately captured by Burgundians and sold off the English and tried in an English church court in Rouen, France in 1431. Women were not allowed to participate in the army during this time. She, therefore, put on a man’s armor to impersonate a man and join the army. At the very beginning of the trial, Joan lets Bishop Cauchon, the man that is conducting the court session, that she refuses to swear to tell the truth about the Godly visions that she has received for she has only told Charles the King and would rather die than reveal them. She did reveal that she began to hear the voice of God when she was a mere thirteen years old. Joan also later confessed that she never had revelations from a divine being.

Joan was following here true belief that she was hearing the voice of God to lead the men to victory. She knew this was impossible as a girl, but as a man she would be able to succeed in her mission. She donned male’s clothing and fought victoriously.

Joan recanted her denial of hearing God’s voice. She was sentenced to execution for being a heretic. In one final act of defiance, Joan of Arc put men’s clothing on one more time and walked to the Old Market Place found in Rouen and, as her trial documents state, she heard everyone proclaim her relapse into heresy, in addition to the proclamation of her excommunication. She was then burned at the stake. A hero dead.

By Marcos Herrera

University of Texas at El Paso