LORD NOLAND

Sebastian Wengrave was contracted to marry Mary Fitzallard until his father, dissatisfied with the dowry, cancelled the arrangement; Sebastian plans to reverse 1611 his father’s decision by pretending infatuation with Moll Cutpurse. Sir Alexander employs Trapdoor to enter Moll’s service as a spy and agent provocateur. Trapdoor forewarns Sir Alexander of an assignation between Sebastian and Moll, and they plot to entrap her in.a false charge of theft. In fact, Moll uses the meeting to bring Sebastian together with Mary. Sir Alexander eavesdrops on them and gives Moll counterfeit coins. Moll recognizes Trapdoor as a spy and sacks him. He turns to begging, posing as an discharged soldier, but she sees through his disguise and buys his true allegiance. Sir Alexander hears that Sebastian has absconded with Moll to get married, but is stymied when Trapdoor brings him additional, contradictory (and false) information about their movements. This enables Sebastian to carry out his clandestine marriage with Mary unmolested. Relieved that his son has not married into the criminal classes after all, Sir Alexander settles lands on the couple and forgives Moll. In the second plot, Laxton and Goshawk are having adulterous affairs with the citizen wives, Mistress Gallipot and Mistress Openwork. Laxton also has a date with Moll, but changes his mind about it when she turns up cross-dressed. He sends Mistress Gallipot a love-letter and asks her for money. Gallipot catches her reading it, and she lies that Laxton had a prior claim to marry her but was thought to be dead. She persuades him to buy off his rival with the money Laxton had asked for. As a practical joke, Laxton pretends to use the deception to extort further money, but then repays the thirty pounds he first received from Gallipot. Meanwhile, Openwork outmanoeuvres Goshawk by claiming to be an adulterer himself. Goshawk tells Mistress Openwork, but she sees through it as merely a seduction gambit, proving her fidelity and enabling her husband to shame the rake into penitence. In the third plot, Sir Davy Dapper attempts to discipline his son’s prodigality by having him arrested and imprisoned, but Moll and Trapdoor help him to escape. Afterwards Moll saves him and his friends from being robbed by some cutpurses, whom she recognizes. She explains that her knowledge of petty criminals and their practices does not make her a cutpurse herself.