A Complete History of the Lives and Robberies of the Most Notorious Highwaymen, Footpads, Shoplifts and Cheats of Both Sexes

Previously published 1719 and 1926

Captain Alexander Smith, Arthur L. Hayward

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136484230
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: History

A Complete History of the Highwaymen discloses the most secret and barbarous murders, unparalleled robberies, notorious thefts and unheard of cheats, setting them in a true light and exposing them to public view for the common benefit of mankind. The accounts and confessions are drawn from imprisoned villains who awaited their fate at the gallows.
This reprint makes available the 1926 reissue of Captain Smith's fifth edition and includes an introduction by Arthur L. Hayward, which sets the accounts in the appropriate historical context.

THE HISTORY OF THE HIGHWAYMEN

PREFACE TO VOLUME ONE

SINCE preceding generations have made it their grand care and labour not only to communicate to their voilerity the lives of good and honest men, that thereby men might fall in love with the smooth and beautiful face of virtue, but have also taken the same pains to recount the actions of criminals and wicked persons, that by the dreadful aspects of vice they may be deterred from embracing her illusions; we here present the public with ‘An History of the Lives of the most noted Highwaymen, Footpads, Housebreakers, Shoplifts, and other Malefactors of both sexes, which have been executed in and about London, and other Parts of Great Britain, for above a hundred years last past: With a whole discovery of the art and myilery of Theft, to the end all honest people may be prevented from being robbed for the future’.

Farthermore, this Biography or Book of the lives of most unaccountable offenders has met with such a general reception in the world that it has now met with five impressions, with additions of above two hundred robberies committed by the latest villains which have been executed at Tyburn. And still to make this History more complete, we have added to it the Thieves ‘New Canting Dictionary’, which explains the most myterious words, newest terms, significant phrases, and proper idioms, used at this present time among our modern villains whereby travellers may oftentimes save both their lives and money.

As for the order of time wherein these most notorious criminals suffered death, we have not confined ourselves to that exactness; but have given them precedency according as they excelled one another in villainy. In their several characters the reader will find the most unaccountable relations of irregular actions as ever were heard; penned all from their own mouths, not borrowed from the account given of malefactors by any of the Ordinaries of Newgate; wherefore, at the request of several worthy gentlemen, we have been persuaded to print them, as being the first impartial piece of this nature which ever appeared in Europe.

If we have here and there brought in some of these wicked offenders venting a profane oath or curse, which is dashed, it is to paint them in their proper colours, whose words are always so odious, detestable and foul, that some (as little acquainted with a God as they) would be apt to conclude that Nature spoiled them in the making, by setting their mouths at the wrong end of their bodies. Indeed, we have been at no small pains to collect the lives of these sinful wretches, being very pundual not only in deciphering their canting language, but also divulging their covert engagements, cunning flatteries, treacherous compositions, and underhand compliances, in all their illegal enterprises. Besides, we do not only set forth, the place of birth, parentage, education, trade, and age of those malefactors who made their exit in the country but likewise of them who suffered at Tyburn, or elsewhere about London; when many of them would not acquaint the Ordinaries of Newgate with such particular circumstances touching their lives and conversation and private offences, because they would not have their friends and relations exposed by those papers which are dispersed abroad under the title of ‘An Account of the Behaviour, last Dying Speeches, and Confessions of the Malefactors who were executed this day at Tyburn’.

For this reason they have been silent in the most material passages and minute occurrences of their wicked transactions, as being also informed by persons better knowing in theological matters than themselves, that they were obliged to confess their faults in particular to none but the Almighty, who knew the secrets of all men's hearts. And had they been sensible that these papers, after some years, as they were cut off by the hand of Justice, would have been made public to the world, they would not have been so free as they were, when in the land of the living, of declaring their enormous crimes to us. However, we do not expose the memory of those offending wretches with any design of making them the sport and ridicule of vain idle fellows, who only laugh at the misfortunes of such dying men, but rather revive their manifold transgressions for a means to instruct and convert the wicked and profane persons of this licentious age; and earnestly hope they will observe this advice of the poet:

Felix quern faciunt aliena pericula cautum.

As the Polypus is said to be always of the same colour with the neighbouring object, or as the looking-glass reflects as many different faces as are set against its own superficies; so, nowadays, a man here and there (I will not blame all) may be said not to be properly one person but to partake of the opinion, and the humour, and the fashion of his wicked companions, as near as his own weakness will permit him to imitate them; therefore this book is recommended for his instruction, as fearing all his vices, whatever deformity the dull eye of the world may apprehend to be in them, his over-weaning temper may look upon for the most absolute of all virtues. Moreover, it shews every honest gentleman how to travel the road, and the citizen to secure his own home with more safety than heretofore: and likewise how other honest people may escape being imposed upon by the unknown cheats of these criminals, which are fully discovered in the relation of their ignominious lives.

Though it was the sad fate of these unfortunate creatures to commence and take degress in vanity and wickedness to the very day of their deaths, yet I upbraid not their miserable catastrophe with rash and uncharitable censures, but only set forth how they laboured to show the world what a latitude there is in villainy.

ALEXANDER SMITH

SIR JOHN FALSTAFF, A HIGHWAYMAN

SIR JOHN FALSTAFF,¹ who lived in the reigns of the Kings Henry the Fourth and Fifth, was born at Potten in Bedfordshire, but having no great estate, and being of a most vicious inclination, his slender fortune incited him very early to take most irregular courses to support his extravagancy, and in order thereto he went on the highway, in the company of Poins, Bardolph and Peto. The first of these was a stout man; Bardolph and Peto were but indifferent; and Sir John was the worst of all, for he was a grand coward, although he was, in stature, big enough to fight any man upon earth.

From his large size and bulk, great stomach, and no less cowardice, his companions would commonly call him Ton of Man, Chops, Sack and Sugar, Fat-kidneyed Rascal, Bombast, Bare-bone, with many other ironical names. However he would bully and hector as well as the best of ’em, and sometimes was facetious and humorous among his riotous cronies, as appeared in his conversation with Prince Henry, the eldest son of King Henry the Fourth, who was so vicious as to enter into a gang of robbers. As he was one day on company with Sir John, he said to him for asking him the time of day, Thou art so fat-witted with drinking of old sack, and unbuttoning thee after supper, and sleeping upon benches in the afternoon, that thou hast forgotten to demand that truly, which thou wouldst truly know. What a devil hail thou to do with the time of the day? Unless hours were cups of sack, and minutes capons, and clocks the tongues of bawds, and dials the signs of leaping houses, and the blessed sun itself a fair hot wench in flame-coloured taffety, I see no reason why thou shouldst be so superfluous to demand the time of the day.

To which Sir John replied, Indeed you come near me now, Hal; for we that take purses go by the moon and seven stars, and not by Phoebus, that wandering knight so fair. And, I pray thee, sweet wag, when thou art king, as God save thy grace, majesty, I should say, for grace thou wilt have none; no, not so much as will serve to be prologue to an egg and butter. But marry then, sweet wag, when thou art king, let us not, that are squires of the night's body, be called thieves of the day's beauty. Let us be Diana's foresters, gentlemen of the shades, minions of the moon; and let men say, we be men of good government, being governed as the sea is, by our noble and chaste mistress the moon, under whose countenance we steal.¹

Sometimes Sir John was in a fit of turning honest, saying to Prince Henry, Thou art, indeed, able to corrupt a saint. Thou has done much harm to me, Hal; God forgive thee for it; Before I knew thee, Hal, I knew nothing, and I am, if a man should speak truly, little better than one of the wicked. I must give over this life, and I will give it over; an I do not, I am a villain. I'll be damned for never a King's son in Christendom. Hereupon, the Prince asking him where they should take a purse next day; Sir John answered, Where thou wilt, lad, I'll make one; an I do not, call me villain, and baffle me.² So the Prince seeing what a good amendment of life was likely to be in Sir John, by his falling from prayer to purse-taking, his Highness and Poins, knowing this comical knight had made a match with Bardolph, Rossil and Harvey, to rob at Gad's Hill some pilgrims that were going with rich offerings to Canterbury, the royal robber and his comrade made a match also to rob them again, and take the whole prize of the day from ’em all.

In the meantime, Sir John and his three companions had obtained their booty, which going to divide in a secret field, Prince Henry and Poins set upon them with such seeming fury, that they ran away, and left their spoil to the last plunderers. Shordy after Sir John and a couple of his Stout-hearted cronies that had been with him in this exploit, meeting Prince Henry and Poins at a tavern in Eastcheap, his worship to make himself a man of valour, began highly to exclaim against all cowards, saying, there were not three good men unhanged in England, and he was one of them; for he and three more had taken a thousand pounds that morning, but a hundred men setting upon them four, had taken it from ’em again. He had himself been at half sword with a dozen of ’em two hours together; he had escaped by miracle, as being eight times thrust through the doublet, four through the hose, his buckler cut through and through, and his sword hacked like a handsaw. Hereupon, the Prince and Poins bursting out laughing, and upbraiding Sir John of his cowardice, beside telling it was they who robbed him, his companions could not deny the matter, confessing also that Sir John had hackt his sword with his dagger, and ordered ’em to tickle their noses with speargrass to make them bleed, and then beslaber their garments with it, to make them believe it was the blood of true men.¹

After this discovery of Sir John's cowardice, he was for turning convert again, saying to one of his cronies, he had been as virtuously given as a gentleman need to be; virtuous enough, swore little, diced not above seven times a week, and went to a bawdy-house not above once in a quarter of an hour.

But now the Civil Wars breaking out betwixt the houses of Lancaster and York, the Prince for Sir John's raking humours bestowed on him a Captain's commission; but for what a pretty company he raised for the service of his royal master, take his own description of them: If I be not ashamed of my soldiers, I am a souced gurnet. I have misused the King's Press damnably. I have got, in exchange of 150 soldiers, 350 pounds. I press me none but good householders, yeomen's sons; enquire me out contracted bachelors, such as had been asked twice on the banns; such a commodity of warm slaves, as had as lief hear the devil, as a drum; such as fear the report of a culiver worse than a struck fowl, or a hurt wild duck. I press me none but such toasts and butter, with hearts in their bellies no bigger than pins’ heads, and they have bought out their services. And now my whole choice consists of ancients, corporals, lieutenants, gentlemen of companies, slaves as ragged as Lazarus in the painted cloth, where the glutton's dogs licked his sores, and such as indeed were never soldiers, but discarded unjust servingmen, younger sons to younger brothers, revolted tapsters and ostlers, trade-fallen, the cankers of a calm world and long peace; ten times more dishonourable, ragged, than an old faced ancient. And such have I to fill up the rooms of them that have bought out their services, that you would think I had a hundred and fifty tattered prodigals, lately come from swine-keeping, from eating draff and husks. A mad fellow met me on the way, and told me, I had unloaded all the gibbets and pressed the dead bodies. No eye has seen such scarecrows. I'll not march through Coventry with ’em, that's flat. Nay, and the villains march wide betwixt the legs as if they had gyves on, for indeed, I had the most of them out of prison. There's but a shirt and half in all my company, and the half shirt is two napkins tacked together, and thrown over the shoulders like an herald's coat without sleeves; and the shirt, to say the truth, stolen from my host at St. Albans, or the red nose inn keeper at Daintry. But that's all one, they'll find linen enough on every hedge.¹

But yet to give a further sketch of Sir John's sham manhood and faculty in lying, when he came into an engagement with the rebels, and saw the battle very hot, as Prince Henry fought Percy, Earl of Northumberland, whom he slew, Douglas, a Scotch nobleman, fell upon Falstaff, who fell down among the slain as if he were dead, and Prince Henry, thinking him really so, was talking, as he past by him, of having him embowelled in order to be embalmed. But no sooner was his highness out of sight, but Sir John got as soon upon his legs, saying:

Imbowelled! If thou imbowel me to-day, I'll give you leave to powder me, and eat me to-morrow. ’Twas time to counterfeit, or that hot termagant Scot had paid me Scot and Lot too. But I'm afraid yet of this gunpowder Piercy, though he be dead. How if he should counterfeit too, and rise? I am afraid he would prove the better counterfeit, therefore I'll make sure; yea, and I'll swear I killed him. And as he said, so he did; he ran him through the thigh. And presently after, Prince Henry claiming the honour of having killed that valiant nobleman, quoth Sir John, Didst thou? Lord, lord, how the world is given to lying! I grant you I was down and out of breath, and so was he but we both rose at an instant, and fought a long hour by Shrewsbury clock.¹

Thus much for the character which Shakespeare gives of this person, who to embellish his play of Henry the Fourth, brings him in (by a poetical license) as the greatest of cowards, when indeed we find from authentic history that he was quite the reverse, for he behaved himself with such bravery against the Yorkists, that the aforesaid king allowed him a pension of 400 marks per annum, a great estate in those days; but not being sufficient to support his exorbitant licentiousness, he took the resolution of rifling innocent passengers on the highway. Upon this unlawful project he first went by himself, but the age being vicious then as well as in these days, it was not long before he had some other riotous gentlemen listed themselves under his wicked banner, namely, Poins, Bardolf, Peto, Harvey, and Rossil, who were resolved to stand by him to the last. Thus Sir John having admitted these others into his society, it is almost incredible to relate how many robberies they committed, for they wanted not for arms either offensive or defensive, neither skill, coming but lately from the Lancastrian army, to use them; so that they continually ranged for 100 miles about, in the counties of Surrey, Sussex and Kent, and sparing no traveller of either sex whom they thought had money.

But the most usual place Sir John robbed at was on Gad's Hill, in Kent, where one day meeting a country farmer and asking what money he had about him, he replied that he used not to set out with much money, for fear of robbing. Hereupon Sir John commanded him to fall to prayers, and at the same time pulled out of his pocket a little manual, and fell on his knees, constraining the countryman to do the like. But he knew not what to infer from these commands, and would willingly have been in another place to make his orisons, for his devotion was much abated by his fear; yet, notwithstanding, he was forced to kneel down and wait the issue of the pious adventurer. When Sir John had mumbled three or four words betwixt his teeth, feigning an extraordinary devotion, he enquired of the countryman how it fared with him, telling him, withal, that Heaven was not ungrateful to the pious addresses of devout petitioners; wherefore he bid him feel in his pockets, that they might see what God had sent him; which the countryman did, but pretended he could find nothing. ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Title Page
• Introduction
• Table of Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Volume One
• Volume Two
• Volume Three
• Index