Twysden was father of the then Lady Jersey, and great-grandfather of the present Earl.
In the midst of this wild waste of Hounslow—according to the Honble Grantley Berkeley, "Houndslot"—Heath, the pretty village of Cranford stood; and there, too, was, and still is, Cranford Park, long a seat of the Fitzhardinge Berkeleys. Cranford was a favourite with the fifth Earl of Berkeley (died 1810), and he used frequently to stay there from Saturdays to Mondays, even although the journey between it and London was not infrequently made hazardous by the enterprising gentlemen who found the Heath a veritable "Tom Tiddler's ground," where they were always pretty sure to pick up gold and silver. Twice my lord's carriage had been stopped between Cranford and the village of Hounslow, and robbed: on the second occasion by a footpad dressed as a sailor, who with trembling hand pointed a fully cocked pistol at him. While the Earl was collecting his loose change, the trigger was accidentally pulled by this nervous footpad. Fortunately it missed fire, or else there would have been another tragic episode to chronicle. "I beg your pardon, my lord," exclaimed the man, humbly deprecating his clumsiness; and, re-cocking his pistol, went off with the Earl's involuntary contribution.
There are several variants of Lord Berkeley's adventures here. According to one, which rather discredits his having been actually robbed here as well as stopped, he is said to have declared that, while it was no disgrace to be overpowered by numbers, he at any rate would never consent to be robbed by a single highwayman. The high-toby gentry (this version continues) heard of his boast, and one was deputed to try his mettle. He stopped my lord's carriage and said, "You are Lord Berkeley, I think?"
"Yes," replied his lordship.
"Then," rejoined the man, "I am a single highwayman, and I demand your money or your life!"
"You cowardly scoundrel!" exclaimed the Earl, "d'ye think I can't see your confederate standing behind you?"
Startled by this, and hurriedly glancing over his shoulder, the highwayman's attention was for the moment distracted, and Lord Berkeley shot him dead.
In the story told by the Earl's son, the Honble Grantley Berkeley, he says his father, after the adventure with the sailor footpad, swore he would never be robbed again; and thereafter always travelled at night with a short carriage-gun and a brace of pistols. It was a November night in 1774, and his carriage, or postchaise, was nearing Hounslow, from Cranford, when a voice called upon the postboy to halt, and a man rode up, and, as Lord Berkeley let down the glass, thrust in the muzzle of a pistol. With his left hand Lord Berkeley seized it and turned it away, while with the other he pushed the short, double-barrelled carbine he had with him against the man's body and fired once. The man was mortally wounded and his clothes on fire, but he rode away some fifty yards, and fell lifeless. Two accomplices who were hovering about then fled, leaving the body of their comrade. The Gentleman's Magazine of that date has an account of the affair in which it is said that the dead highwayman was traced by means of the horse he rode, which he had that morning hired in London. His lodgings were in Mercer Street, Long Acre, and the Bow Street officers had hardly entered them when a youth, booted and spurred, called and asked for "Cran Jones," which apparently was the name of the deceased. The youth, who was an accomplice, was seized, and impeached two others: one a clerk to a laceman in Bury Street, St. James's, who was traced along the Portsmouth Road, and to Farnham, where, at three o'clock in the morning, he was surprised in bed. He was then taken to London. The other was also apprehended, and all three were brought before Sir John Fielding. Their names were Peter Houltum, John Richard Lane, and William Sampson. The last-named had £50 due to him for wages. An evening newspaper later stated that there were in all seven youths in custody over this affair. They were from eighteen to twenty years of age, and the parents of some of them were in easy, and others in affluent, circumstances; all of them overwhelmed with sorrow by the sins of their unhappy sons."
Sir John Fielding, the Bow Street magistrate, had in 1773 written to Garrick asking him to suppress the Beggar's Opera, which he produced. He said the exploits of Macheath, the highwayman hero, and the glorification of the criminal life on the stage, were calculated to reinforce the ranks of the real highwaymen from the scatterbrain and stage-struck apprentices of town; and it would indeed appear from the foregoing account that he was correct.