At eighteen Lady Mary Fitzroy suffered the indignity of being held up by a highwayman and relived of her purse. The incident would firmly remain in Lady Mary’s thoughts throughout her formative years.

By the age of nineteen and some months old, and after being gifted with a book called ‘Robin of the Hood,’ she, like the character portrayed within the story, decided she too must help the poorer people. Confident that the only way forward for her, and to assuage her ambition to provide assistance where it was needed, was for her to steal money or valuables and divide them up amongst the poor, she became ‘Mary, the Highway Woman.’

Mary had not anticipated an encounter with Sir Michael Casby, Captain of the King’s Guard.