Mary Carleton (born Mary Moders; 11 August 1642 – 22 January 1673) was an Englishwoman who used false identities, such as a German princess, to marry and defraud a number of men. Early life Born Mary Moders in Canterbury. According to later accounts she married a journeyman shoemaker named Thomas Stedman and gave birth to two children who died in infancy. She later left her husband to move to Dover where she married a surgeon by the name of Thomas Day, prompting her arrest and trial in Maidstone for bigamy. After the trial she visited Cologne where she had a brief affair with a local nobleman. He gave her valuable presents, pressed her for marriage and began the preparations for a wedding. She, however, slipped out of Germany with all the presents and most of her landlady's money, returning to England through the Netherlands. Life of crime She returned to London in 1663 and took on the persona of an orphaned Princess van Wolway from Cologne. She claimed that she was born in Cologne and that her father was Henry van Wolway, Lord of Holmstein and that she had fled a possessive lover. In April 1663, she used this guise to marry a surgeon John Carleton, who was the brother-in-law of the landlord of the Exchange tavern which she frequented. After the wedding, however, an anonymous letter exposed her. Her trial in 1663 was the first recorded appearance of Mary Carleton. She was charged for masquerading as a German princess and marrying John Carleton in London under that identity. She claimed that John Carleton himself had claimed to be a lord, and was only trying to extract himself from marriage as he had discovered there was no money in it. Both sides of the conflict published pamphlets to support their own story. Mary Carleton was eventually acquitted. Afterwards Mary Carleton wrote her own account, The Case of Madam Mary Carleton, under her own name directly addressing Prince Rupert. She also acted in a play about her life and gained a number of admirers who gave her more valuable gifts. She eventually married one of her admirers. Predictably she left him too, taking with her his money, valuables and keys while he was drunk. Carleton next pretended to be a rich virgin heiress fleeing an undesirable suitor whom her father had arranged for her. She even arranged that someone would send