Claude Duval

Claude Du Val
William Powell Frith's 1860 painting, Claude Duvall
Born	1643 Domfront, Orne, Normandy, France
Died	January 21, 1670(1670-01-21) Tyburn Tree Gallows, Middlesex, London, England
Resting place	St Paul's, Covent Garden, London, England
Nationality	French
Other names	Claude Duvall
Occupation	servant, highwayman
Known for	He was a French-born, gentleman highwayman in post-Restoration Britain

Claude Du Vall (1643 – 21 January 1670) was a French-born, gentleman highwayman in post-Restoration Britain.

Claude Duvall was born in Domfront, Orne, Normandy in 1643 to a noble family stripped of title and land. His origin and parentage are in dispute. He did however have a brother Daniel Du Val. At the age of 14 he was sent to Paris where he worked as a domestic servant. He later became a stable boy for a group of English royalists and moved to England in the time of the English Restoration as a footman of the Duke of Richmond (possibly a relation) and rented a house in Wokingham.

The legend goes that before long Du Val became a successful highwayman who robbed the passing stagecoaches in the roads to London, especially Holloway between Highgate and Islington, and that unlike most other highwaymen, he distinguished himself with rather gentlemanly behaviour and fashionable clothes. However, there is no valid historical source for this assertion.

He reputedly never used violence. One of his victims was Squire Roper, Master of the Royal Buckhounds, whom he relieved of 50 guineas and tied to a tree.

There are many tales about Du Val. One particularly famous one — placed in more than one location and later published by William Pope — claims that he took only a part of his potential loot from a gentleman when his wife agreed to dance the "courante" with him in the wayside, a scene immortalised by William Powell Frith in his 1860 painting Claude Du Val.