There was something of the Robin Hood in Nevison’s character, if we are to believe the almost legendary stories told in Yorkshire of this darling of the Yorkshire peasantry. He robbed the rich and gave to the poor, and many are the tales still told of his generosity. Such an one is the tale that tells of his being at a village inn, when the talk turned upon the affairs of an unfortunate farmer whose home had been sold up for rent. Among those in the place was the bailiff, with the proceeds of the sale on him. Nevison contrived to relieve him of the cash, and restored it to the farmer. Perhaps he was not so well-liked by the cattle-dealers along the Great North Road, whom he and his gang robbed so regularly that at length they commuted their involuntary contributions for a quarterly allowance, which at the same time cleared the road for them and afforded them protection against any other bands. Indeed, Nevison, or Bracy, as his real name appears to have been, was in this respect almost a counterpart of those old German barons on the Rhine, who levied dues on the travellers whose business unfortunately led them their way. The parallel goes no greater distance, for those picturesque miscreants were anything but the idols of the people. Nevison was sufficiently popular to have been the hero of a rural ballad, still occasionally heard in the neighbourhood of his haunts at Knaresborough, Ferrybridge, York, or Newark. Here are two verses of it; not perhaps distinguished by wealth of fancy or resourcefulness of rhyme:—
Did you ever hear tell of that hero;
Bold Nevison, that was his name?
He rode about like a bold hero,
And with that he gain’d great fame.He maintained himself like a gentleman,
Besides, he was good to the poor;
He rode about like a great hero,
And he gain’d himself favour therefore.
Yorkshire will not willingly let the fame of her Nevison die. Is not his Leap shown, and is not the inn at Sandal, where he was last captured, still pointed out? Then there is the tale of how he and twenty of his gang attacked fifteen butchers who were riding to Northallerton Fair, an encounter recounted in a pamphlet dated 1674, luridly styled Bloody News from Yorkshire. Another memory is of the half dozen men who at another time attempted to take him prisoner. He escaped and shot one of them, also a butcher. Nevison and butchers were evidently antipathetic. Released once on promising to enter the army, he, like Boulter, deserted. That he could break prison with the best he demonstrated fully at Wakefield; but his final capture was on a trivial charge. It sufficed to do his business, though, for the prosecution were now prepared with the fullest evidence against him and his associates, and their way of life. They had secured Mary Brandon, who acted as housekeeper for the gang. According to her story, they were John Nevison, of York; Edmund Bracy, of Nottingham; Thomas Wilbere, of the same town; Thomas Tankard, vaguely described as “of Lincolnshire”; and two men named Bromett and Iverson. This last was “commonly at the ‘Talbott,’ in Newarke,” which was their headquarters. The landlord of that inn was supposed to be cognisant of their doings, as also the ostler, one William Anwood, “shee haveinge often scene the said partyes give him good summs of money, and order him to keepe their horses close, and never to water them but in the night time.” They kept rooms at the “Talbot” all the year round, and in them divided their spoil, which in one year, as the result of ten great robberies, came to over £1,500. No other highwaymen can hold a candle to this gang, either for their business-like habits or the success of their operations.
V
That once dreaded mid-eighteenth century highwayman, Thomas Boulter, junior, of Poulshot in Wiltshire, once made acquaintance with York Castle. The extent of his depredations was as wide as his indifference to danger was great. A West-countryman, his most obvious sphere of operations was the country through which the Exeter Road passed; but being greedy and insatiable, he soon exhausted those districts, and thought it expedient to strike out for roads where the name of Boulter was unknown, and along which the lieges still dared to carry their watches and their gold. He came up to town at the beginning of 1777 from his haunts near Devizes, and, refitting in apparel and pistols, gaily took the Great North Road. Many adventures and much spoil fell to him in and about Newark, Leeds, and Doncaster; but an encounter between Sheffield and Ripon proved his undoing. He had relieved a gentleman on horseback of purse and jewellery, and was ambling negligently away when the traveller’s man-servant, who had fallen some distance behind his master, came galloping up. Thus reinforced, the plundered one chased Mr. Boulter, and, running him to earth, haled him off to the nearest Justice, who, quite unmoved by his story of being an unfortunate young man in the grocery line, appropriately enough named Poore, committed him to York Castle, where, at the March assizes, he was duly found guilty and sentenced to be hanged within fifteen days. Heavily ironed, escape was out of the question, and he gave himself up for lost, until, on the morning appointed for his execution, the news arrived that he might claim a free pardon if he would enter his Majesty’s service as a soldier, and reform his life. His Majesty badly wanted soldiers in A.D. 1777, and was not nice as to the character of his recruits; and indeed the British army until the close of the Peninsular War was composed of as arrant a set of rascals as ever wore out shoe-leather. No wonder the Duke of Wellington spoke of his army in Spain as “my blackguards.” But they could fight.
This by the way. To return to Mr. Thomas Boulter, who, full of moral resolutions and martial ardour, now joined the first marching regiment halting at York. For four days he toiled and strove in the barrack-yard, finding with every hour the burdens of military life growing heavier. On the fifth day he determined to desert, and on the sixth put that determination into practice; for if he had waited until the morrow, when his uniform would have been ready, escape would have been difficult. Stealing forth at dead of night, without mishap, he made across country to Nottingham, and so disappears altogether from these pages. The further deeds that he did, and the story of his end are duly chronicled in the pages of the Exeter Road, to which they properly belong.
The authorities did well to secure their criminal prisoners with irons, because escape seems to have otherwise been easy enough. In 1761, for instance, there were a hundred and twenty-one French prisoners of war confined in York Castle, and such captives were of course not ironed. Some of them filed through the bars of their prison and twenty escaped. Of these, six were recaptured, but the rest were never again heard of, which seems to be proof that the prison was scarcely worthy of the name, and that the city of York contained traitors who secretly conveyed the fugitives away to the coast.
The troubles and escapades of military captives are all in the course of their career, and provoke interested sympathy but not compassion, because we know full well that they would do the same to their foes, did fortune give the opportunity. Altogether different was the position of the unfortunate old women who, ill-favoured or crazy, were charged on the evidence of ill-looks or silly talk with being witches, and thrown into the noisome cells that existed here for such. Theirs were sad cases, for the world took witchcraft seriously and burnt or strangled those alleged practitioners of it who had survived being “swum” in the river close by. The humour of that old method of trying an alleged witch was grimly sardonic. She was simply thrown into the water, and if she sank was innocent. If, on the other hand, she floated, that was proof that Satan was protecting his own, and she was fished out and barbarously put to death. Trials for witchcraft were continued until long after the absurdity of the charges became apparent, and judges simply treated the accusations with humorous contempt: as when a crazy old woman who pretended to supernatural powers was brought before Judge Powell. “Do you say you can fly?” asked the Judge, interposing. “Yes, I can,” said she. “So you may, if you will then,” rejoined that dry humorist. “I have no law against it.” The accused did not respond to the invitation.
So farewell, grim Castle of York, old-time prison of such strangely assorted captives as religious pioneers, poor debtors, highwaymen, prisoners of war, and suspected witches; and modern gaol whose romance is concealed beneath contemporary common-places. Blood stains your stones, and persecution is writ large on the page of your story. Infidel Jews, Protestants, Catholics, and Nonconformists of every shade of nonconformity have suffered within your walls in greater or less degree, and even now the black flag occasionally floats dolorously in the breeze from your roofs, in token that the penalty for the crime of Cain has been exacted.