Lloyd recorded it as "Sovay the Female Highwayman" on "Bold sportsmen All" in 1962. It appeared on the album "Fair Game and Foul: The Folk Songs of Britain vol 7" in 1970. Cyril Tawney recorded Timothy Walsh singing "Sylvia" in 1960.This presents a speculative source for a song In it he tells the semi-fictional tale of Katherine Ferrers, a possible Lady turned highwayman. John Edwin Cussens wrote "A History of Hertfordshire" (3 vols 1870 - 1881). It seems strange that the earliest versions of the song are not found until the 1870s. The wikipedia article " Highwayman" says that the last recorded robbery by a mounted highwayman was in 1831. In 1903 Cecil Sharp collected a version which he published in "Folk Songs From Somerset" (1905).
Sabine Baring-Gould collected a song called "Lady Turned Highwayman" ("Saucy Sally on one day") in Devon in 1890. The Bodleian Library has a printed version called "Sylvia's Request and William's Denial" dated to 1877. The name 'Sovay' is probably a corruption of 'Sophie' or 'Sylvie' – both of which appear instead in some versions of the song.
Sovay subsequently confesses the ruse to her lover and returns his various possessions, admonishing him only that had he indeed given up the ring, she would have killed him. In disguise she robs her suitor of nearly all his possessions, but even under threat of death he refuses to give up the gold ring given by Sovay, thus proving his devotion. Sovay is a traditional English folk song ( Roud 7, Laws N21) about a young woman who dresses and arms herself as a highwayman in order to test her suitor. It is not to be confused with Andrew Bird's original song with the same title. This article is about the English folk song.
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