MOLL CUTPURSE

born 1584?, London died July 26, 1659, London byname of Mary Frith most notorious female member of 17th-century England's underworld, a friend of highwaymen and a receiver of stolen goods. London-born, she began her career as a pickpocket, or cutpurse, but after being caught four times, she assumed male attire and turned to highway robbery, until she was apprehended and jailed briefly at Newgate. She then achieved a safer and more profitable position in crime on opening a shop in Fleet Street, where for years she fenced stolen articles, receiving from thieves and catering to the privileged, until she died a natural death, aged 74, of dropsy (edema).