Claude Duval was born in Normandy in 1643. Aged 14 he moved to Paris looking for work, before coming to England in 1660. He quickly gained a taste for drinking, gambling and womanising, and in order to finance these habits he turned to highway robbery.

Although a notorious highwayman, Duval also gained a reputation for gallantry. In his most famous exploit, he held up a lady's coach, knowing that there was £400 on board. He took only £100, allowing the lady to keep the rest on condition that she danced a coranto with him on the heath.

Not all stories, though, show him in such a positive light. On another occasion he held up a lady's coach, stealing everything including a silver baby's bottle, only returning it when forced to do so by an accomplice.

Duval was arrested while drunk in a London pub, and taken to Newgate Prison. It is said that many women of high standing pleaded for his pardon, but to no avail - he was hanged at Tyburn in 1670, aged only 26. He is buried in Covent Garden Church, under a stone bearing the following epitaph:

"Here lies Du Vall; reader, if male thou art,
Look to thy purse; if female, to thy heart.
Much havoc hath he made of both; for all
Men he made stand, and women he made fall."