The Chronicles of Newgate (Vol. 1&2). Griffiths Arthur
peruke and hat, worth £100; but the keeper refused to let him wear them, because they would disguise him from being known.”[70] Whitney made many attempts to purchase pardon. He offered to discover his associates, and those that give notice when and where the money is conveyed on the roads in coaches and waggons. He was, however, put upon his trial, and eventually convicted and sentenced to death. He went in the cart to the place of execution, but was reprieved and brought back to Newgate with a rope round his neck, followed by a “vast” crowd. Next night he was carried to Whitehall and examined as to the persons who hired the highwaymen to rob the mails. But he was again ordered for execution, and once more sought to gain a reprieve by writing a letter in which he offered, if he might have his pardon, to betray a conspiracy to kill the king. His last appeal was refused, and he suffered at Porter’s Block, near Cow Cross, Smithfield.
Determined efforts were made from time to time to put down these robberies, which were often so disgracefully prevalent that people hardly dared to travel along the roads. Parties of horse were quartered in most of the towns along the great highways. Handsome rewards were offered for the apprehension of offenders. A proclamation promised £10 for every highwayman taken, and this was ere long increased to £40, to be given to any who might supply information leading to an arrest. Horses standing at livery in and about London, whose ownership was at all doubtful, were seized on suspicion, and often never claimed. It was customary to parade before Newgate persons in custody who were thought to be highwaymen. They were shown in their riding-dresses with their horses, and all gentlemen who had been robbed were invited to inspect this singular exhibition.[71] But the practice flourished in spite of all attempts at repression.
One or two types of the highwaymen of the seventeenth century may here be fitly introduced. One of the earliest and most celebrated was Jack Cottington, alias Mulled Sack, who had been a depredator throughout the Commonwealth epoch, and who enjoyed the credit of having robbed Oliver Cromwell himself on Hounslow Heath. His confederate in this, Horne,
“Mulled Sack.”
once a captain in Downe’s foot regiment, was overtaken, captured, and hanged, but Cottington escaped. Jack Cottington began as a chimney-sweep, first as an apprentice, then on his own account, when he gained his soubriquet from his powers in drinking mulled sack. From this he graduated, and soon gained a high reputation as a pickpocket, his chief hunting-ground being churches and puritan meeting-houses, which he frequented demurely dressed in black with a black roquelaire. He succeeded in robbing Lady Fairfax of a gold watch set with diamonds and a gold chain as she was on her way to Dr. Jacomb’s lecture at Ludgate; and a second time by removing the lynch-pin from her Ladyship’s carriage when on her way to the same church, he upset the coach, and giving her his arm, relieved her of another gold watch and seals. After this he became the captain of a gang of thieves and night prowlers, whom he organized and led to so much purpose that they alarmed the whole town. His impudence was so great that he was always ready to show off his skill as a thief in any public-house if he was paid for it, in a performance he styled “moving the bung.” He was not content to operate in the city, but visited the Parliament House and Courts of Law at Westminster, and was actually caught in the act of picking the Protector’s pocket. He narrowly escaped hanging for this, and on coming out of gaol took permanently to the highway, where he soon achieved a still greater notoriety. With half-a-dozen comrades he robbed a government waggon conveying money to the army, and dispersed the twenty troopers who escorted it, by attacking them as they were watering their horses. The waggon contained £4000, intended to pay the troops quartered at Oxford and Gloucester. Another account states that near Wheatley, Cottington put a pistol to the carrier’s head and bade him stand, at which both carter and guard rode off for their lives, fearing an ambuscade. The town of Reading he laid under frequent contribution, breaking into a jeweller’s shop in that town and carrying off the contents, which he sported on his person in London. Again at Reading, hearing that the Receiver-General was about to send £6000 to London in an ammunition waggon, he entered the receiver’s house, bound the family, and decamped with the money. Being by this time so notorious a character, he was arrested on suspicion, and committed for trial at Abingdon Assizes. There, however, being flush of cash, he found means to corrupt the jury and secure acquittal, although Judge Jermyn exerted all his skill to hang him. His fame was now at its zenith. He became the burthen of street songs—a criminal hero who laughed the gallows to scorn. But about this time he was compelled to fly the country for the murder of Sir John Bridges, with whose wife he had had an intrigue. He made his way to Cologne, to the Court of Charles II., whom he robbed of plate worth £1500. Then he returned to England, after making overtures to Cromwell, to whom he offered certain secret papers if he might be allowed to go scot free. But he was brought to the gallows, and nobly deserved his fate.
Claude Duval is another hero whose name is familiar to all readers of criminal chronology. A certain halo of romance surrounds this notorious and most successful highwayman. Gallant and chivalrous in his bearing towards the fair sex, he would spare a victim’s pockets for the pleasure of dancing a “corranto” with the gentleman’s wife. The money he levied so recklessly he lavished as freely in intrigue. His success with the sex is said to have been extraordinary, both in London and in Paris. “Maids, widows, and wives,” says a contemporary account, “the rich, the poor, the noble, the vulgar, all submitted to the powerful Duval.” When justice at length overtook him, and he was cast for death, crowds of ladies visited him in the condemned hold; many more in masks were present at his execution. After hanging he lay in state in the Tangier Tavern at St. Giles, in a room draped with black and covered with escutcheons; eight wax tapers surrounded his bier, and “as many tall gentlemen in long cloaks.” Duval was a Frenchman by birth—a native of Domfront in Normandy, once a village of evil reputation. Its curé was greatly surprised, it is said, at finding that he baptized as many as a hundred children and yet buried nobody. At first he congratulated himself in residing in an air producing such longevity; but on closer inquiry he found that all who were born at Domfront were hanged at Rouen.
Duval did not long honour his native country with his presence. On the restoration of Charles II. he came to London as footman to a person of quality; but soon took to the road. Numerous stories are told of his boldness, his address, and fertility of resource. One of the most amusing is that in which he got an accomplice to dress up a mastiff in a cow’s-hide, put horns on his head, and let him down a chimney into a room where a bridal merry-making was in progress. Duval, who was one of the guests, dexterously profited by the general dismay to lighten the pockets of an old farmer whom he had seen secreting a hundred pounds. When the money was missed it was supposed that the devil had flown away with it. On another occasion, having revisited France, he ingratiated himself with a wealthy priest by pretending to possess the secret of the philosopher’s stone. This he effected by stirring up a potful of molten inferior metal with a stick, within which were enclosed a number of sprigs of pure gold, as black lead is in a pencil. When the baser metals were consumed by the fire, the pure gold remained at the bottom of the pot. Overjoyed at Duval’s skill as an alchemist, the priest made him his confidant and bosom friend, revealing him his secret hoards, and how they were bestowed. One day, when the priest was asleep after dinner, Duval gagged and bound him, removed his keys, unlocked his strong boxes, and went off with all the valuables he could carry. Duval was also an adroit card-sharper, and won considerable sums at play by “slipping a card”; and he was most astute in laying and winning wagers on matters he had previously fully mastered. His career was abruptly terminated by his capture when drunk at a tavern in Chandos St., and he was executed, after ten years of triumph, at the early age of twenty-seven.
William Nevison, a native-born member of the same fraternity, may be called, says Raine, “the Claude Duval of the north. The chroniclers of his deeds have told us of his daring and his charities, for he gave away to the poor much of the money he took from the rich.” Nevison was born at Pontefract in 1639, and began as a boy by stealing his father’s spoons. When chastised by the schoolmaster for this offence, he bolted with his master’s horse, having first robbed his father’s strong box. After spending some time in London thieving, he went to Flanders and served, not without distinction, in a regiment of English volunteers commanded by the Duke of York. He returned presently to England, and took to the road. Stories are told