Mary Read She accepted the King's pardon c. 1718–1719, then took a commission to privateer, but joined the crew in mutiny. In 1720 she joined pirate John "Calico Jack" Rackham and his companion, Anne Bonny, who both believed her to be a man. On 22 August 1720, the three stole an armed sloop named "William" from port in Nassau. Scholars are uncertain how female pirates like Read and Bonny concealed their sex in a male-dominated environment. Some scholars, however, have theorized that the wearing of breeches by female pirates may have been either a method of hiding their identity or simply as
Mary Anne Clarke is now housed in the National Portrait Gallery, London. Through her daughter who married Louis-Mathurin Busson du Maurier, Clarke was an ancestress of author Daphne du Maurier, who wrote the novel "Mary Anne" about her life. Mary Anne Thompson was born on 3 April 1776 in London, the daughter of a humble tradesman. Attractive and intelligent, she was married before the age of 18, to a man named Clarke, who worked as a stonemason. However, shortly after the marriage, her husband went bankrupt, and Mary Anne Clarke left him because of this. By 1803 Clarke had been established long enough