Robert Young

Robert Young c.1657–1700 was an English forger and cheat. He was twice married and used bogus requests for references on household help to obtain signatures of men of note. He was jailed for various infractions including bigamy, perjury and fraud. Life Young was born about 1657, possibly at Warrington, then in Lancashire, and educated in Ireland. He himself, in one of his unveracious accounts of his career, states that he was educated at Enniskillen school, County Fermanagh, and afterwards at Trinity College, Dublin, but his name does not appear on the list of graduates. In 1675 he married Anne Yeabsly, and five years later, though she was still living, he went through the form of marriage with Mary, daughter of Simon Hutt, a Cavan innkeeper, who was thenceforth the favoured companion in his wanderings and accomplice in his crimes. Career Soon after 1680 Young managed to procure admission to deacon's orders at the hands of John Roan, Bishop of Killaloe, whom he circumvented by forging certificates of his learning and moral character. He obtained a curacy first at Tallogh in the county of Waterford, "whence for divers crimes he ran away on another man's horse, which he never restored". From his next curacy at Castlereagh, County Roscommon, he "was forced to flee for getting a bastard". While at Kildallon in the diocese of Kilmore he was delated to the bishop, Francis Marsh, afterwards Archbishop of Dublin, "for many extravagances, the least of which was marrying without banns or license". He now fled into the diocese of Raphoe, but was taken up for bigamy and imprisoned first at Lifford, then at Cavan. From gaol he wrote to both his wives, comparing himself to David, and assuring each of them that she alone was the object of his love. He succeeded in inducing his first wife not to appear against him, and seems to have been allowed benefit of clergy. Detained for non-payment of prison fees, he managed to procure his release by pretending to Ormonde (the "Popish Plot" being then in the air) that he could make disclosure of serious plots against the government. "The Scotchman", as Marsh calls him in a letter to Bishop Sprat, then ran away to England with his second wife. In England they operated at first under the name of Green, perambulating the country with forged testimonials, purporting to be in the hand of the archbishop of Canterbury. At Bury St. Edmunds, on 6 October 1684, they were pilloried as common cheats.