Roads around London were especially dangerous, as were country roads along which wealthy people travelled, such as those to Bath and Dover. The roads were quiet, with few buildings along the way, and it was all too easy for a highwayman to commit his crime and disappear into the well-wooded countryside.
Travellers did their best not to turn themselves into tempting prospects for a robber. They would disguise themselves as poor people, or band together to travel in a convoy. Many armed themselves; some had a small amount of cash ready to hand to the highwayman, while they hid the rest in secret pockets and other – they hoped – ingenious places.
The highwayman was the lone masked stranger on horseback, brandishing a pistol and stepping menacingly out in front of his victim. The age when most of these daring robbers flourished was from about 1640 to 1800. The English Civil War produced a number of desperate ex-soldiers who turned to this form of crime to make a living, often loyally robbing only members of the opposite side; thus a Royalist would only rob a Roundhead and vice versa.
The punishment for highway robbery was death, and the hanging of a highwayman, particularly a notorious one, was a popular public event. Many captured highwaymen spent their last days in London’s Newgate Prison, which was filthy and stank horribly. The prison’s water supply was polluted by a cesspool, and the building was crawling with vermin, so disease was rife.
Those highwaymen who were simply hanged were the lucky ones. Some, like Royalist James Hind, were hanged, drawn and quartered. This punishment usually meant that the victim was cut down from the noose while still alive, then had his insides removed and burned in front of him. Finally his body was cut into quarters. The four bits were preserved, then displayed in four different places, as an awful warning to others.
The body of highwayman Jerry Abershaw, who decorated his prison walls with pictures of his exploits, was hung in a metal cage known as a gibbet. Again, this was to be a warning to others, and his corpse was visited by hundreds of sightseers. There are records of men who were put in the gibbet while still alive, where they hung for days in agony until they died and rotted.
But these hideous punishments weren’t enough to put many men off turning to highway robbery. Or women! Moll Cutpurse (real name, Mary Frith) was a tomboy and teenage rebel who began her criminal career as a pickpocket. She became a pipe-smoking fence who sold the goods other thieves had stolen, in her shop in London’s Fleet Street. It’s said that she became so well known that people who’d been robbed would go to her shop to buy back their own possessions! Moll caught the public imagination, and many stories sprang up around her. It’s said that she once robbed a famous general, and galloped away with the loot. Unfortunately for her, she rode her horse so hard it collapsed, exhausted, and she was caught and imprisoned. But by then Moll was so wealthy she was able to pay up the sum of £2,000, which saved her from the rope. In today’s terms, she’d probably have to pay a hundred times that amount!
Not all highwaymen or women were so unusual or eccentric. When William Davis was captured, people who knew him were astounded. By day he was a farmer but, at the drop of a hat, he’d don a disguise and go off highway-robbing. His disguises were so good that he once robbed his landlord of 70 guineas that he, Davis, had paid him in rent just an hour or so before! He became known as the Golden Farmer, because he always paid his debts in gold, and he met his end dangling from a noose.
Some highwaymen, like Frenchman Claude Duval, became glamorous figures of legend, but even the pleas of lady admirers failed to save them from execution.
The end of the road came for highwaymen with better policing, mounted patrols and toll roads, which had manned gates. Their legends grew, and ballads and tales of their daring exploits and bravery on the gallows abounded. They’re often glamorized in films, plays, opera and books, but the reality was that they were dangerous, often vicious criminals who terrorized the traveller.
Timeline
1642 King Charles I wants to rule without Parliament. Civil wars, between the Cavaliers (Royalists supporting the king) and Oliver Cromwell’s Roundheads (supporters of Parliament), begin, and continue until 1649.
1649
Jan 30 Charles I is executed.
Mar 17/19 Parliament abolishes the House of Lords and the monarchy.
May Oliver Cromwell declares Britain is a republic, known as the Commonwealth.
1651
Jan 1 Charles’s son is crowned King Charles II at Scone in Scotland.
Sept 3 Charles II is defeated in battle at Worcester, by Cromwell.
Oct Charles escapes to France. He’s in exile for the next nine years.
1653
Dec Cromwell becomes Lord Protector. He was invited to become king, but turned the offer down.
1658
Sept 3 Oliver Cromwell dies. His son Richard is named as his successor.
1659
May 25 Richard Cromwell resigns after pressure from the discontented army.
1660
Jan 1 Samuel Pepys begins his famous diary.
May 29 Charles II is restored to the throne. He enters London on his 30th birthday, to general rejoicing.
1662
May 21 Charles II marries the Portuguese princess Catherine of Braganza.
1665 The Great Plague of London kills over 50,000 people.
1666
Sept 2–5 The Great Fire of London destroys hundreds of churches, including St Paul’s Cathedral, and makes thousands homeless. Newgate prison is burned.
1669
May 31 Samuel Pepys stops writing his diary, fearing he’s losing his sight.
1672 Newgate prison is rebuilt. Conditions are still dreadful.
1675 Sir Christopher Wren begins rebuilding St Paul’s Cathedral.
1682 approx Londoners could buy fire insurance for the first time.
1685
Feb 6 Charles II dies, succeeded by his brother, James II.
1832 Gibbeting is abolished.
1861 The death penalty is limited to four crimes: murder, treason, arson in royal dockyards and piracy with violence.
1868 Last public execution.
1902 Newgate prison is demolished. The Central Criminal Court, known as the Old Bailey, stands on the site.
1969 British MPs vote to suspend the death penalty for five years. It is never reintroduced.
Experience history first-hand with My Story – a series of vividly imagined accounts of life in the past.
While the events described and some of the characters in this book may be based on actual historical events and real people, Susannah Makepeace is a fictional character, created by the author, and her diary is a work of fiction.
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First published in the UK by Scholastic Ltd, 2009
This electronic edition published by Scholastic Ltd, 2015
Text © Valerie Wilding, 2009
Cover photography © Jeff Cottenden, 2015
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eISBN 978 1407 15676 7
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