The Highwayman Who Danced With His Victims

Claude Duval was French, charming, and completely aware of his own myth. He robbed coaches on the roads outside London for a decade — but his signature wasn’t violence.

It was theatre. He once stopped a coach, discovered the lady inside was playing a flageolet, and invited her to dance with him on the roadside. Her husband paid a ransom. Duval returned half of it, as a gesture.

He was caught in January 1670 — not through any clever trap. He was seized at the Hole-in-the-Wall Tavern in Covent Garden, overcome by wine, and dragged to Newgate.

The Horror

Dames of high rank visited him in prison and with tears interceded for his life. The king would have granted a pardon — but Judge Morton, the terror of highwaymen, threatened to resign his office unless the law were carried into full effect. Duval was hanged at Tyburn on 21st January 1670. He was 26 years old. A speech he had written in praise of the ladies who mourned him was found in his pocket after the execution. He never got to read it.

After the execution, the corpse lay in state — wax lights, black hangings, formal mourners — until the same Judge Morton who had blocked the king’s pardon sent officers to forcibly disperse the crowd and shut it down. Morton denied him mercy in life. Then came back for him in death.

He was buried at St Paul’s Church, Covent Garden, under a white marble stone. The epitaph read: “Here lies Duval: Reader, if male thou art, look to thy purse; if female, to thy heart.” The Tribune

The Modern Relic

St Paul’s Church, Covent Garden still stands. The white marble gravestone is gone, but the burial is confirmed under the centre aisle. The church that holds him is now known as the Actors’ Church — which, for a man who made his entire life a performance, seems about right.

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