Accordingly on January 27, 1662:—“This morning, going to take water, upon Tower-hill we met with three sleddes standing there to carry my Lord Monson and Sir H. Mildmay and another to the gallows and back again, with ropes about their necks: which is to be repeated every year, this being the day of their sentencing the king.”[193]
The Act, however, contains nothing as to the repetition of the ceremony.
1661. This year witnessed the outbreak of the Fifth Monarchy men. John James, a small-coal man, was executed at Tyburn. “The sheriff and hangman were so civil to him in his execution, as to suffer him to be dead before he was cut down, beheaded, bowelled, and quartered. His quarters were set on the gates of the City, his head was first fixed on London bridge, but afterwards upon a pole, near Bulstake Alley, Whitechapel, in which was James’s meeting-house.”[194]
1662. December 22. Thomas Tonge, George Phillips, Francis Stubbs and Nathaniel Gibbs, convicted of taking part in a plot to seize the Tower and Whitehall, to kill the King and declare a Commonwealth. They were drawn to Tyburn on two hurdles, hanged, beheaded and quartered; their heads were set up on poles on Tower Hill.[195]
1668. May 9. This day Thomas Limerick, Edward Cotton, Peter Messenger, and Richard Beasley, four of the persons formerly apprehended in the Tumult during the Easter Holydays, having upon their Trial at Hicks-Hall been found guilty and since sentenced as Traytors, were accordingly Drawn, Hang’d, and Quartered at Tyburn, where they showed many signs of their penitence, their quarters permitted Burial, only two of their Heads ordered to be fixt upon London-Bridge.[196]
1670. In February of this year ended the brilliant career of Claude Duval, the famous highwayman. There had been highwaymen before Duval, as he was succeeded by others. But the great merit of Duval is that he gave a tone and dignity to the profession which it never wholly lost. Before giving any account of this prince of highwaymen it may be permitted to say something on this branch of the profession of the art of thieving.
The century from 1650 to 1750 may be considered the era of the highwayman. When civil war rages bands of marauders will spring up, whose operations present a resemblance to the methods of a soldiery not kept well in hand. Thus during the Commonwealth James Hinde was the captain of a band of twenty or more whose operations were coloured by a pretence of acting for the king. On November 11, 1651, Hinde was examined by the Council of State, and “confessed his serving of the king in England, Scotland and Ireland.” Highwayman as he was, his pretensions as a servant of the king must have been admitted, as he was condemned at the Old Bailey, sent to Worcester, and drawn, hanged, and quartered, for high treason against the State. Accounts of his exploits were printed even a century after his death. The catalogue of the British Museum contains more than twenty entries relating to this worthy.
The prevalence of highway robbery is shown by the great number of Proclamations issued during the reigns of Charles II. and his immediate successors. Thus royal Proclamations offering rewards for the apprehension of highwaymen were issued on December 23 and 30, 1668. These were followed by others in 1677, 1679-80, 1681, 1682-3. In this last eleven notorious robbers are specially named. In 1684 and 1684-5, two more Proclamations were issued, followed in 1687 by an Order in Council of the same tenor. In 1690 came a new Proclamation. These Proclamations were not wholly successful in breaking up gangs, for in December, 1691, the Worcester waggon was plundered by sixteen highwaymen of £2,500 of the King’s money.
Still worse, in 1692 seven highwaymen robbed the Manchester carrier of £15,000 of royal treasure. A Proclamation was now issued raising the reward for capture. In the earliest Proclamations this had been fixed at £10, afterwards raised to £20. The reward now offered was £40. In the same year, 1692, was passed the Act 4 William and Mary, c. 8, taking effect after March 25, 1693. The reward of £40 was to be paid by the sheriff, or if he was not in funds, by the Treasury. Under date April 8, 1693, Luttrell writes, “Some moneys have been issued out of the Exchequer pursuant to the late Act for taking highwaymen.”
To return to Duval. He was born in Normandy, and came over to England as page to the Duke of Richmond. His best-known exploit is told at length in memoirs, ascribed to William Pope (reprinted in “Harleian Miscellany,” iii. 308-16):—