Katherine Ferrers gave to the female highway robber the glamour that Dick Turpin gave to male robbers.

Katherine was an English gentlewoman and heiress. According to popular legend, she was also the ‘Wicked Lady’, a highwayman who terrorised the English county of Hertfordshire.

She was born in 1634 in Hertfordshire, heir to a considerable fortune. The Ferrers family were great favourites of both Henry VIII and Edward VI, and they were granted extensive properties in Hertfordshire, including the family mansion at Flamstead and the manor house of Markyate Cell.

She grew up in the turbulent times of the English Civil War.

Markyate Cell was built on the site of a 12th century Benedictine Priory and takes its name from a cell, or smaller structure, that served the monastery. It was converted at great expense into a manor house in 1540, and then rebuilt in 1908 after being partly destroyed by a fire.

When her mother was widowed, she married Sir Simon Fanshawe. The Fanshawe family were committed Royalists, and when the Civil War broke out in 1642 Simon took his new wife and stepdaughter to join Charles I in Oxford, his wartime capital. Katherine’s mother died that winter, leaving eight-year-old Katherine in the care of her stepfather.

In 1643, the Sequestration Committee placed estates of known Royalists in the hands of local commissioners, with their rents and other income kept by Parliament. Simon had contributed heavily to the Royalist cause and now found his assets cut.

The Fanshawe family arranged for Katherine, now heir to the Ferrers estates, to marry Thomas Fanshawe, her stepfather’s nephew, when she reached marriageable age. In the17th century, this was deemed to be 12 years old.

In 1648, the ceremony took place at Hamerton, whereupon her 16-year-old husband took control of her considerable fortune.

After Cromwell’s death in 1658, The Protectorate did not endure and the monarchy was restored to power. Thomas Fanshawe had become involved in Booth’s uprising, a rebellion in the north of England, and was imprisoned in the Tower of London.

According to the popular legend, Katherine began her career in highway robbery in her husband’s absence in order to redress her fast dwindling fortune.

During this time, many highwaymen were Royalist supporters bereft of home, estates or income, who were left to make a living as best they could.

To travellers, highwaymen were dangerous criminals. To the general public, however, these mysterious bandits were glamorous figures. Some styled themselves as fallen gentlemen.

Katherine was supposed to have kept a suit of men’s clothing to wear while acting as a highwayman. It was hidden in a secret room in her house and consisted of a tricorn hat, a long black coat, a cloak, breeches, half-mask and a large scarf wound around the bottom half of her face.

She left her home at night by means of a secret passageway. Her hunting ground was Nomansland Common at Wheathampstead.

She was supposed to have hidden treasure in a secret room in her house, which gave rise to the rhyme: ‘Near the cell there is a well/Near the well there is a tree/And under the tree the treasure be’.

Legend has it that she teamed up with a local farmer, Ralph Chaplin, in her nocturnal adventures. Their robberies were violent and without mercy, and they were even said to have murdered some of their victims.

One of Katherine’s favourite methods of surprising an unsuspecting traveller was to wait in a tree overhanging the road and drop down in front of the coach, pistols drawn.

Chaplin died first. In her grief Katherine is supposed to have exacted a terrifying revenge on the people of Hertfordshire. She shot dead a constable on his own doorstep, slaughtered cattle and burned families in their homes as they slept.

The mysterious circumstances surrounding Katherine’s early death at the age of 26 have fuelled speculation. The most popular rumour is that she was shot while out as a highwayman on Nomansland Common in Wheathampstead, and died of her wounds while trying to ride back to a secret staircase entry at Markyate Cell. Her body was supposedly discovered wearing men’s clothing before her servants carried her home to be buried.

However, the more realistic story is that she died in childbirth.

The tale of the Wicked Lady has been so elaborated over the years that there is hardly any of the original left. Katherine’s supposed crimes not only consisted of highway robbery, but also included burglary, arson, cattle theft and murder.

Her ghost has been seen in the vicinity of Markyate Cell, often galloping on a black horse. The resident of Markyate Cell in the late 19th century declared that he had often seen her ghost on the stairs of the house, where he would bid her goodnight.