Background
She was a shepherdess and the daughter of the landlord of the Fish Inn in the village of Buttermere in England"s Lake District.
She was a shepherdess and the daughter of the landlord of the Fish Inn in the village of Buttermere in England"s Lake District.
She is the subject of Melvyn Bragg"s 1987 novel The Maid of Buttermere, which was adapted into a play by Lisa Evans and premiered at Keswick"s Theatre by the Lake in 2009. The marriage of the celebrated local beauty to the brother of an earl (as he claimed) was widely reported, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote in the London Morning Post of "The romantic marriage". Hatfield was exposed as an impostor, bigamist and forger, was arrested, escaped, was captured in South Wales, and was tried at Carlisle for forgery and hanged in 1803.
Mary"s story captured the public imagination, and subscriptions were raised on her behalf.
Her death was mentioned in the Annual Register and she is buried in the churchyard at Street Kentigern"s Church at Caldbeck (Street Kentigern is also known as Street Mungo).