The remnant of this numerous band were indomitably active. Three of them beset two gentlemen in Needwood Forest, bidding them "Stand and deliver!" Refusing, one of them was shot; but the other, with sword and pistol, made a brisk resistance, until one of the thieves, creeping up behind, ran him through the body.
THE FIGHT IN NEEDWOOD FOREST.
These three were not long afterwards arrested for clipping money. Tried and convicted of that offence, itself involving capital punishment, they had no hesitation in confessing their other crimes.
Among others at that time under arrest were Piggen and Baker. Piggen turned King's evidence, and was pardoned: Baker also being pardoned, but why, we do not learn. Among the facts deposed to by these convicted criminals was that the gang were accustomed to meet at an inn called the "Cock," near St. Michael's Church, Derby, kept by a widow named Massey and John Baker, her son-in-law. There they had clipped in one night so much as £100. A boy of fifteen years of age was employed in the house, and by some means accidentally learnt too much of the gang's business. They thought him too dangerous, and so murdered him and buried his body in the cellar.
Where wealth gathered, there were the highwaymen also. There was no road more frequented by wealthy men in the reign of James the First and that of Charles the Second than the road to Newmarket. The Court was frequently there for the race-meetings, and gamblers of all kinds were naturally attracted. Many a gamester who had lost his all on horses or by cards at Newmarket took as a matter of course to robbing other sportsmen: either those hasting down to try their luck, or those fortunate ones who were returning home with pockets bulging with their winnings. One William Fennor, who in 1617 published a pamphlet called the Competers' Common-Wealth, has much that is interesting to disclose about these reckless blades. A "competer" was, of course, one of the gamesters aforesaid; and any of them who had the misfortune to lose his money went immediately, as he tells us, upon the Heath, to replenish his pockets. They were by no means proud, and did not disdain to rob rustics of their pence. "Poor Countrie people," he says, with bitter satire, "cannot passe quietly to the Cottages, but some Gentlemen will borrow all the money they have." Tyburn Tree and Wapping Gibbets, he added, had "many hangers-on," gathered in from among these gentry.
Fennor's disclosures did not end these practices. As the fame and vogue of Newmarket increased, so also did the highway robberies on the Newmarket Road. The culminating point of it all appears to have been a pitched battle which, according to the Domestic Intelligence of August 24th in that year, took place at the Devil's Ditch, through which the highway runs on to Newmarket Heath. Five highwaymen had here robbed a coach and taken £59, and a very considerable booty in the way of gold lace, silks, and linen. Before they could make off with the plunder, the exasperated countryfolk were roused, and were stationed in a body in the opening of that tall and steep bank, impracticable for horsemen, the only way by which the Heath may be entered or left. The highwaymen were thus completely shut in, and could only escape by abandoning their horses: an unthinkable alternative. Had they retreated, they would have been captured in Newmarket town. The only thing to be done was to make a dash for liberty. "Knowing themselves Dead Men by the Law, if they were taken," says that early newspaper, "they charged through the Countrymen, and by Firing upon them Wounded four, one of which we understand is Dead of his Wounds." Thus they got clear away: the whole incident leaving upon the mind a very vivid impression of a lawless and ill-policed country.
Not only were these men determined in resistance. They were ready to revenge such of their comrades as had been unfortunate enough to be captured; as we see from the diary of Sir John Reresby, who, writing in February 1677, says: "I went to London (from York) well guarded, for fear of some of my back friends and highwaymen, having caused the chief of them to be taken not long before."
The newspapers of that time were full of advertisements offering rewards for the recovery of property, or the apprehension of thieves. Some of them afford amusing reading. Thus, in the London Gazette of December 1st, 1681, we find the following: