CHAPTER V
ENORMOUS CAPTURES MADE BY HIGHWAY GANGS—BRACY'S GANG—ROBBERIES ON THE ROAD TO NEWMARKET—ADVERTISEMENTS OF THE PERIOD—AUGUSTIN KING—PLUNDER AND BATTLE ON THE ST. ALBANS ROAD—SOLDIERS AS HIGHWAYMEN
Much has already been said in these pages of the imaginative character of a good deal to be found in Captain Alexander Smith's Lives of the Highwaymen, but at the same time it would not be proper to regard that work as a work of fiction. The amazing adventures of the highwaymen whose careers are treated of there can be readily paralleled in the actual trials of their kind, not only in the periods with which he deals, but at a much later time. The enormous booty they carry off in his pages may seem incredible, but time and again we find, in accounts that cannot be disputed, that the highwaymen did, in fact, secure extremely large sums. Instances might be multiplied indefinitely, if it were necessary to prove the truth of this statement. The trial at Derby in August 1679 of "Twelve Notorious Highway Men, Murderers, and Clippers of Money" is merely one case in point.
These were "Mr." Bracy, evidently superior to most of the gang, Richard Piggen, Roger Brookham, another superior person, one "Mr." Gerrat, John Barker, William Loe, John Roobottom, Thomas Ouldome, John Baker, Daniel Buck, Thomas Gillat, and one Smedley.
Bracy was captain of the gang: the head and brains of it. They broke one night into the house of "Captain John Munday, Esquire," at Morton, near Derby, took away £1200 in gold and silver, also plate, "binding the Esquire and all his Family in their beds, and using great insolences by threats, to make them confess their Treasures."
Two months after this exploit the gang "met" (not, we may suppose, casually) a waggon between Lenton and Newark, in which were several small barrels of money, and others of gold lace. Securing the waggoner, they hauled out the barrels, and, breaking open the barrel-heads with the hatchets they had been careful to bring with them, they secured a booty of eighteen hundred pounds, "which," we are told, "they divided, and so disperst."
Buck, together with a man named Ryley, was shortly afterwards taken at Ockbrook, near Derby. Both were hanged. The rest of the company continued their former practices. Breaking open the house of Lady Jane Scroop, at Everston, near Nottingham, they took £600, "missing two or three thousands by being one day too forward in their Actions." They then must needs quarrel over dividing the spoil. The affair is best told in the words of the original account:
"Upon the discussing of this booty, one of the company and Bracy falling at a difference, they had a small Combate with their Swords, the other cutting the Throate of a Mare that Bracy rode upon, which for swiftness and goodness was hardly to be compar'd in England."
The gang next proposed to raid the house of one Squire Gilbert, at Locko, near Derby, and that of Mr. Garland at Lenton; but in the meanwhile most of them were arrested. Bracy, who at that time had hurried off to his wife's death-bed, at an inn she kept, twelve miles north of Nottingham, was betrayed by one of the servants of the inn, who informed the Justices that the highwayman who was being sought was in the house. The inn was presently surrounded, and Bracy's son, looking out of a window, saw there was little chance of his father escaping. What chance there remained was tried. Taking a horse out of the stable at the back, he bid his father mount, leap the fence, and make a dash for it. It was a poor chance, and was made worse by the horse refusing the jump. A sheriff's man then shot the horse dead, and with a second bullet wounded Bracy himself. The highwayman, however, continued the combat until he sank, mortally wounded. He was then carried to a bed in the inn, where he died.