Note 318 — A BOOK FOR A RAINY DAY (continued 3)

Du Val’s Lane is now represented by Hornsey Road. It seems to have been originally “Devil’s Lane,” but to have been popularly re-named from Claude Duval (1643-70), the highwayman, who, like Dick Turpin, favoured this district. Born at Domfront in Normandy, Du Val came to England in the train of the Duke of Richmond, and took to the road. He was famous for his gallantries to his victims. He was captured on January 17, 1669 or 1670, in the Hole-in-the-Wall Tavern, Chandos Street, and although intercession was made for him by ladies of rank, he was hanged at Tyburn within four days. The exhibition of his body at the Tangier Tavern, St. Giles’s, drew such crowds that it had to be stopped. It is hard to believe that Du Val was accorded a grave in the centre aisle of Covent Garden Church, and that his epitaph began—

but it is so stated in the Memoirs of Monsieur Du Val, 1670. His funeral, we read, “was attended with many flambeaux, and a numerous train of mourners, whereof most were of the beautiful sex.”