TWM SHON CATTI AND THE HIGHWAYMAN.
JOHN WITHERS AND WILLIAM EDWARDS
John Withers, one of the most ferocious of those highwaymen who did not scruple to add murder to their crimes, was born in the last quarter of the seventeenth century, at Lichfield. He was the son of a butcher, in so small a way of business that his father could not find employment for him; and so, in order to get a start in life, he set off for London. Arrived there, he was drawn by his natural bent into the company of criminals, and, throwing in his lot with them, was soon arrested and found guilty on charges of larceny, with violence. He escaped punishment by accepting the offer, generally made at that time, of enlisting in the army, and was sent out to the Flanders expedition. Here, perhaps, we see an explanation of the well-known expression, "Our armies swore terribly in Flanders." If it was composed largely of reprieved criminals, there can be no doubt that its language could not have been choice, nor its conduct exemplary. "My blackguards," the Duke of Wellington styled his men, who fought so well and endured so greatly in the Peninsula; for even so lately as that period the rank-and-file were composed of the offscourings of society; but they must have been well-mannered gentlemen, compared with the soldiers of a century earlier.
Sacrilege presently engaged the attention of Withers in Flanders. Entering a church in Ghent during high mass, and observing the people placing money in a box that stood in front of a figure of the Virgin, he awaited a favourable opportunity, picked the lock, and filled his pockets with the contents. "Unfortunately," says his sympathetic biographer, "in haste to carry off his plunder, some of the money fell upon the pavement, ringing out sharply in the stillness of the church; so that he was detected in the act."
Taken before the venerable Cardinal, and examined, he was about to be taken off in custody; when, falling upon his knees, with uplifted hands he begged the Cardinal to listen to him. He then declared with ready lies, that, brought up as a heretic, and falling into evil ways that had brought him to want and misery, he had seen the folly of his life, and offered prayers before the effigy of the Virgin Mary. While he was thus praying, he continued, the figure pointed to the box, as if it were giving him leave to take what was necessary to supply his wants. In consequence of this singular interposition on his behalf, he concluded he had made up his mind to become a Roman Catholic, but at the moment of this decision he had been arrested.