Pepy's Diary. 29 May 1663. Thence to the Cocke alehouse, and there having drunk, sent them with Creed to see "The German Princess¹, at the Gatehouse, at Westminster, and I to my brother's, and thence to my uncle Fenner's to have seen my aunt James (who has been long in town and goes away to-morrow and I not seen her), but did find none of them within, which I was glad of, and so back to my brother's to speak with him, and so home, and in my way did take two turns forwards and backwards through the Fleete Ally to see a couple of pretty [strumpets] that stood off the doors there, and God forgive me I could scarce stay myself from going into their houses with them, so apt is my nature to evil after once, as I have these two days, set upon pleasure again.

Note 1. Mary Moders (age 21), alias Stedman alias Carleton, a notorious impostor, who pretended to be a German princess. Her arrival as the German princess "at the Exchange Tavern, right against the Stocks betwixt the Poultry and Cornhill [Map], at 5 in the morning...., with her marriage to Carleton the taverner's wife's [her husband] brother", are incidents fully narrated in Francis Kirkman's "Counterfeit Lady Unveiled", 1673 ("Boyne's Tokens", ed. Williamson, vol. i., p. 703). Her adventures formed the plot of a tragi-comedy by T. P., entitled "A Witty Combat, or the Female Victor", 1663, which was acted with great applause by persons of quality in Whitsun week. Mary Carleton was tried at the Old Bailey for bigamy and acquitted, after which she appeared on the stage in her own character as the heroine of a play entitled "The German Princess". Pepys went to the Duke's house to see her on April 15th, 1664. The rest of her life was one continued course of robbery and fraud, and in 1678 she was executed at Tyburn [Map] for stealing a piece of plate in Chancery Lane.

In 1671 Mary Moders (age 28) was arrested after stealing a silver tankard, and was sentenced to penal transportation and sent to Port Royal, where she worked as a prostitute.

In Dec 1672 Mary Moders (age 30) was captured when a turnkey from Newgate Prison, London [Map] recognized her while searching for stolen loot.

On 16 Jan 1673 Mary Moders (age 31) was tried in the Old Bailey. Because she had returned from penal transportation without permission, she was sentenced to death. She tried to plead the belly ie that she was pregnant, but a jury of matrons was brought in to examine her found this was not the case.