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  HALF-HOURS WITH
  THE HIGHWAYMEN




WORKS BY CHARLES G. HARPER


     =The Portsmouth Road=, and its Tributaries: To-day and in Days of
     Old.

     =The Dover Road=: Annals of an Ancient Turnpike.

     =The Bath Road=: History, Fashion, and Frivolity on an Old
     Highway.

     =The Exeter Road=: The Story of the West of England Highway.

     =The Great North Road=: The Old Mail Road to Scotland. Two Vols.

     =The Norwich Road=: An East Anglian Highway.

     =The Holyhead Road=: The Mail-Coach Road to Dublin. Two Vols.

     =The Cambridge, Ely, and King's Lynn Road=: The Great Fenland
     Highway.

     =The Newmarket, Bury, Thetford, and Cromer Road=: Sport and
     History on an East Anglian Turnpike.

     =The Oxford, Gloucester, and Milford Haven Road=: The Ready Way
     to South Wales. Two Vols.

     =The Brighton Road=: Speed, Sport, and History on the Classic
     Highway.

     =The Hastings Road= and the "Happy Springs of Tunbridge."

     =Cycle Rides Round London.=

     =A Practical Handbook of Drawing for Modern Methods of
     Reproduction.=

     =Stage Coach and Mail in Days of Yore.= Two Vols.

     =The Ingoldsby Country=: Literary Landmarks of "The Ingoldsby
     Legends."

     =The Hardy Country=: Literary Landmarks of the Wessex Novels.

     =The Dorset Coast.=

     =The South Devon Coast.=

     =The North Devon Coast.=

     =The Old Inns of Old England.= Two Vols.

     =Love in the Harbour=: a Longshore Comedy.

     =Rural Nooks Round London= (Middlesex and Surrey).

     =The Manchester and Glasgow Road=; This way to Gretna Green. Two
     Vols.

     =Haunted Houses=; Tales of the Supernatural.

     =The Somerset Coast.=      [_In the Press._]




[Illustration:

  _I walke the_ Strand, _and_ Westminster; _and scorne
  to march i'th'_ Cittie, _though I beare the_ Horne.
  _My_ Feather, _and my yellow_ Band _accord
  to proue me_ Courtier: _My_ Boote, Spurr, _and sword_

  _My smokinge_ Pipe, Scarfe, Garter, Rose _on shoe;
  showe my brave minde t'affect what_ Gallants _doe.
  I singe, dance, drinke, and merrily passe the day,
  and like a Chimney sweepe all care away_

  MULLED SACK.]




  HALF-HOURS WITH
  THE HIGHWAYMEN


  _PICTURESQUE BIOGRAPHIES AND
  TRADITIONS OF THE "KNIGHTS
  OF THE ROAD"_


  BY CHARLES G. HARPER


  VOL. I

  [Illustration: [++] Man on Horseback.]


  _Illustrated by Paul Hardy and by the Author, and
  from Old Prints_


  LONDON

  CHAPMAN & HALL, LIMITED

  1908


  _All rights reserved_




  PRINTED AND BOUND BY
  HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LD.,
  LONDON AND AYLESBURY.




[Illustration: [++] Two Men on Horseback.]




Preface


_In a series of books designed to tell the story of the roads, and
not only of the roads, but of all subjects connected with road-travel
in all ages, a book on the Highwaymen was sooner or later inevitable.
We have had in this series the story of the rise and progress towards
perfection of coaching, and of the decay of stage-coach and mail when
the era of steam came in; and we have had two volumes on the Old Inns
of Old England, to which the travellers of a bygone age came, wearied,
when the day's tedious travel was done. The story of the highwaymen,
who robbed those travellers, is now told, for the first time since
Captain Alexander Smith in 1719-20, in three small octavo volumes,
and Captain Charles Johnson in 1742, in one folio volume, collated
the numerous chapbooks and "last dying speeches and confessions" of
that and earlier ages. Captain Johnson, who stole extensively from
Smith, who himself was prone to include the most extravagant myths in
his pages, calls his folio A GENERAL AND TRUE HISTORY OF THE LIVES AND
ACTIONS OF THE MOST FAMOUS HIGHWAYMEN. Both of them include pirates and
murderers. Of the "truth" of much in Smith and Johnson, the less said
the better._

_No one has ever reprinted those authors in their original
extravagance, or their grossness. It would be impossible; and, if
possible, it would not be entertaining. Nor has any one ever edited
them, or even written an independent history of the highwaymen. When we
consider how astonishingly popular those romances have ever been which
have had Claude Du Vall, and Turpin, and their like for heroes, this is
not a little surprising._

_Perhaps the task has been abandoned because of the difficulty—the
almost insuperable difficulty—of sifting fact from fiction, and because
of a chilling sense that it would be a thankless task to present
the highwayman as he really was: a fellow rarely heroic, generally
foul-mouthed and cruel, and often cowardly. No novelist would be likely
to thank the frank historian for this disservice; and I do not think
the historian who came to the subject in this cold scientific spirit
of a demonstrator in surgery would be widely read. Most of us like to
keep a few of the illusions we believed in when schoolboys. Scientific
historians have degraded many of our ancient heroes and exalted the
villains, for whom of old no mud was too thick and slab. Beliefs are
being assailed on every side. To abolish the traditional courtesy
of Claude Du Vall or the considerate conduct of Captain Hind would,
therefore, be strokes of the unkindest, and I have here attempted
no such iconoclasm. Even where I cannot believe, I have told the
tale—whenever it has been worth the telling—as it is found in criminal
trials, or in Smith or Johnson, and other old sources, decorously
stripped of much vile language. For really, where much that seems
incredible may be fully proved, and where the believable turns out not
rarely to be false, 'tis your only way._

_To continue the story of the highwaymen from Smith and Johnson down
to the approaching end of all such things in the beginning of the
nineteenth century, is like taking up and concluding a half-told tale.
But it was worth the doing. Only in respect of the great figure Turpin
has always made, has it been found really necessary to seriously
consider and re-state the career of that much-overrated scoundrel, and
to put him in his proper place: a very much lower one than he usually
occupies._

_Hero-worshippers of the highwaymen we cannot be; as thorough
disbelievers of their picturesque exploits we dare not pose: for the
rest, the proper spirit in which to treat the subject is that of ironic
tolerance._

                                        CHARLES G. HARPER.

  PETERSHAM,
    SURREY,
      _October 1908_.




CONTENTS


  CHAPTER                                                          PAGE

  I. INTRODUCTORY: THE GENERAL DECLENSION FROM OUTLAW TO
  HIGHWAYMAN, AND THENCE TO FOOTPAD, THIEF, AND BURGLAR—GAMALIEL
  RATSEY—THOMAS DUN, OF DUNSTABLE                                     1

  II. ROBIN HOOD AND HIS MERRY MEN                                   23

  III. THE "HAND OF GLORY"—LIABILITY OF COUNTRY DISTRICTS FOR
  ROBBERIES—EXEMPTION IN RESPECT OF SUNDAY TRAVELLING                49

  IV. THE YOUNGER SONS—JUDGE POPHAM—SHAKESPEAREAN HIGHWAYMEN—THE
  "CAVALIER" BRIGANDS—A SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY RELIGIOUS TRACT          62

  V. ENORMOUS CAPTURES MADE BY HIGHWAY GANGS—BRACY'S GANG—ROBBERIES
  ON THE ROAD TO NEWMARKET—ADVERTISEMENTS OF THE PERIOD—AUGUSTIN
  KING—PLUNDER AND BATTLE ON THE ST. ALBANS ROAD—SOLDIERS AS
  HIGHWAYMEN                                                         75

  VI.