Part 11
This ferocious attack upon the farm at Edgewarebury was the first of a series in which the gang appeared on horseback. They had already done so well that they felt they could no longer deny themselves the luxury of being fully-furnished highwaymen. But they did not purchase; they merely hired; and imagination pictures some of them as very insufficient cavaliers, holding on by their horses' necks. For it is not given to a footpad, graduating in the higher branch of his profession, instantly to command an easy seat in the saddle; and the scene at the "Old Leaping Bar" inn, High Holborn, whence they set out to ride to the "Ninepin and Bowl" at Edgeware, must have been amusing in the extreme.
Six of Turpin's gang assembled next on the 7th of February at the "White Bear" inn, Drury Lane, and planned to rob the house of a Mr. Francis, a farmer in the then rural fields of Marylebone. Arriving at the farm about dusk, they first saw a man in a cowshed and seized and bound him, declaring they would shoot him if he should dare to make any attempt to break loose, or to cry out. In the stable they found another man, whom they served in the like manner. Scarcely had they done this when they met Mr. Francis at his own garden gate, returning home. Three of the gang laid their hands upon his shoulders and stopped him; and the farmer, thinking it to be a freak of some silly young fellows, out for the evening, was not at all alarmed. "Methinks you are mighty funny, gentlemen," he said good-humouredly; upon which, showing him their pistols in a threatening manner, he saw his mistake.
No harm, they said, should come to him if he would but give his daughter a note by one of them, authorising her to pay bearer a hundred pounds in cash.
Mr. Francis declared he could not do so; he had not anything like that amount in the house; upon which they ran him violently into the stable and tied him up also. Then, knocking at the door of the house, and Miss Francis opening it, they pushed into the passage and secured her as well. The foremost men were particularly rude and violent, but Turpin, who came in at the rear, appears to have remonstrated with them about this gross usage, and to have stopped it: only assuring her that it would be best she remained quiet, and that if she made any resistance she would be treated even worse.
A maid-servant, hearing this, cried out, "Lord, Mrs. Sarah! what have you done?"
One of the gang then struck the maid, and another hit Miss Francis, and swore they would be murdered if they did not hold their peace.
Mrs. Francis, hearing the disturbance from an inner room, called out, "What's the matter?" on which Fielder ran forward, and crying "D——n you, I'll stop your mouth presently!" broke her head with the handle of a whip he carried, and then tied her to a chair.
Miss Francis and the maid were tied to the kitchen-dresser, and Gregory was deputed to watch them, with a pistol in his hand, lest they should cry out for assistance or try to struggle free while the others were raiding the house.
A not very considerable reward met their unhallowed industry; including a silver tankard, a gold watch and chain, a silver medal of Charles the First, a number of minor silver articles, and four or five gold rings. A find of thirty-seven guineas was more to the point, and a brace of pistols was not to be despised. They were even so particular about details, in the hour-and-a-half search they made, that they took away with them such inconsiderable items as a wig, six handkerchiefs, four shirts, a velvet hat, and some pairs of stockings. A frugal and meticulous gang, this!
As a result of these bold attacks in the suburbs of London, a great feeling of indignation and insecurity arose, and a reward of £100 was at once offered for the apprehension of the gang, or of any members of it. Information having come to some of the Westminster peace-officers that these confederates were accustomed to meet in an alehouse situated in a low alley in Westminster, the place was beset, and Turpin, Fielder, Rose, and Wheeler were found there. After a short fight with cutlasses, the last three were secured. No one appears to have been seriously hurt in this affray, except the usual harmless, innocent person, present by mere chance; in this case, a certain Bob Berry, who received a dangerous cut on the arm, below the elbow. Turpin dexterously escaped out of window, and, obtaining a horse (_not_ the celebrated "Black Bess," who never existed outside the imagination of Harrison Ainsworth and the pages of his _Rookwood_), rode away to fresh fields and pastures new. Fielder and Rose were tried and found guilty, chiefly on the testimony of Wheeler, who turned King's evidence. They were hanged at Tyburn, and afterwards gibbeted.
The _Gentleman's Magazine_ refers shortly to the execution, and includes a certain, or an altogether uncertain, Saunders: "Monday, March 10th, the following malefactors, attended by a guard of fifty soldiers, were executed at Tyburn, appearing bold and undaunted; viz. Rose, Saunders, and Fielder, the Country Robbers." It is significant of the horrors of that era that ten others were hanged in company with them, for various crimes.
The gang was thus broken up, but rogues have, as it were, a magnetic attraction for one another, and Turpin was not long alone. It must have been a dull business waiting solitary on suitable, _i.e._ dark or foggy, nights in lonely situations for unsuspecting wayfarers; an experience calculated to get on the nerves, and so it is scarcely remarkable that many highwaymen elected to hunt in couples; although in the long run it was safer to work alone and unknown. No fear then of treachery on the part of a trusted comrade, always ready to "make a discovery," as the technical phrase ran, to save his own neck from the rope, a little while longer.
But Turpin seems to have sought, and found, one companion for a little while, for he duly appears in an account of how two gentlemen were robbed about eight o'clock on the evening of July 10th, between Wandsworth and Barnes commons, "by two Highwaymen, suppos'd to be Turpin the Butcher, and Rowden the Pewterer, the remaining two of Gregory's Gang, who robb'd them of their Money and dismounted them; made them pull off their Horse's Bridles, then turning them loose, they rode off towards Roehampton, where a Gentleman was robb'd (as suppos'd by the same Highwaymen), of a Watch and £4 in Money."
Old maps of this district hint, not obscurely, that this was no mere isolated, chance danger in the neighbourhood; for the eye, roaming along those charts, towards Richmond, notes "Thieves' Corner" boldly marked at what is now the junction of the Sheen Road and Queen's Road, where the "Black Horse" of old, a very shy and questionable kind of brick-built, white-washed alehouse, stood until it was pulled down about the year 1902 and rebuilt in the flashy modern style. Adjoining, was, and still is, for that matter, "Pest House Common": cheerful name! while Rocque's map of 1745, not marking that inimical corner, transfers the affected area to the stretch of highway between Marshgate and Manor Road and Richmond Town, and styles it "Thieves' Harbour." On the opposite side, in sharp contrast, is marked "Paradise Row." Rocque also styles the common, "Pestilent Common." Altogether, in fact, a pestilent neighbourhood.
How well-named was "Thieves' Corner" we may perhaps judge from a brief and matter-of-fact account (as though it were but an ordinary occurrence, demanding little notice) of a Reverend Mr. Amey, "a country clergyman who lodges at the 'Star' inn, in the Strand," being robbed two nights earlier than the foregoing robbery "two miles this side of Richmond in Surrey, of his Silver Watch, four Guineas, and some Silver, by two Highwaymen, well-mounted and well-dress'd. The Rogues turn'd his Horse loose and went off towards Richmond."
[Illustration: BOLD DICK TURPIN.
(_According to Skelt._)]
Again, this time in the _Grub Street Journal_ of July 24th, 1735, we find a trace of the busy Dick, in the following: "Monday, Mr. Omar, of Southwark, meeting between Barnes-Common and Wandsworth, Turpin the butcher, with another person, clapt spurs to his horse, but they coming up with him, oblig'd him to dismount, and Turpin suspecting that he knew him, would have shot him, but was prevented by the other, who pull'd the pistol out of his hand."
On Sunday, August 16th, Turpin and Rowden the Pewterer seem to have been particularly busy and to have had a good day; for it is recorded by the same authority that they robbed several gentlemen on horseback and in coaches. The district they favoured on this occasion was the Portsmouth Road between Putney and Kingston Hill.
In another fortnight's time or so, having made these parts of Surrey too hot to hold them longer, and being apparently unwilling to transfer their activities beyond ten or twelve miles' radius from London, they opened a most aggressive campaign in suburban Kent. "We hear," says the _Grub Street Journal_ of October 16th, "that for about six weeks past, Blackheath has been so infested by two highwaymen (suppos'd to be Rowden and Turpin) that 'tis dangerous for travellers to pass. On Thursday Turpin and Rowden had the insolence to ride through the City at noonday, and in Watling Street they were known by two or three porters, who had not the courage to attack them; they were indifferently mounted, and went towards the bridge; so 'tis thought are gone the Tonbridge road."
It was while patrolling the road towards Cambridge (on Stamford Hill, according to some historians) that Turpin first met Tom King. Observing a well-dressed and well-mounted stranger riding slowly along, Turpin spurred up to him, presented a pistol, and demanded his money. The stranger merely laughed, which threw Turpin into a passion, and he threatened him with instant death if he did not comply. King—for it was he—laughed again, and said, "What! dog eat dog? Come, come, brother Turpin; if you don't know me I know you, and shall be glad of your company."
[Illustration: TURPIN MEETS TOM KING.]
This was the beginning of an alliance. These brethren in iniquity soon struck up a bargain, and, immediately entering on business, committed so large a number of robberies that no landlord of any wayside inn of the least respectability cared to welcome them, for fear of being indicted for harbouring such guests. Thus situated, they fixed on a spot between the King's Oak and the Loughton road, in Epping Forest, where they made a cave, "large enough to receive them and their horses," says an old account. This was enclosed within a thicket of bushes and brambles, through which they could look, without themselves being observed. From this station they used to issue, and robbed such numbers of persons that at length the very pedlars who travelled the road carried firearms for their defence. At such times when they could not safely stir from this hiding-place, Turpin's wife was accustomed to secretly convey to them such articles of food and such other things as might be necessary to their comfort. When, at a later period, Turpin's cave was discovered, and he was reduced to skulking about the forest, it was found to be by no means a despicable retreat. It was dry, and carpeted with straw, hay, and dry leaves; and such articles as two clean shirts, two pairs of stockings, a piece of ham, a bottle of wine, and some feminine apparel, served to show that this was not altogether an anchorite's cell. Some old accounts go so far as to say that Turpin altogether occupied this cave for six years, but that is not credible.
One day, as Turpin and Tom King were spying up and down the road from their cave, through the screen of furze and bramble that hid them from passers-by, they saw a gentleman driving past whom King knew very well as a rich City merchant, of Broad Street. He was on his way to his country estate at Fairmead Bottom, in a carriage with his children. King made after him, and on the Loughton road called upon the coachman to stop. The merchant, however, was a man of spirit, and offered a resistance, supposing there to be only one highwayman; upon which, King called Turpin, by the name of "Jack," and bid him hold the horses' heads. They then proceeded to take his money, which he parted with, without any further trouble; but strongly demurred to parting with his watch, which he said was a family heirloom, the gift of his father. The altercation, although short, was accompanied by threats and menaces and frightened the children, who persuaded their father to give up the watch; and then an old mourning ring became an object of dispute. Its value was very small, but King insisted upon having it, when Turpin interposed and said they were not so ungentlemanly as to deprive a traveller of such a relic, and bade King desist. This concession prompted the merchant to ask whether they would not, as a favour, permit him to repurchase his watch from them; upon which King said: "Jack, he seems to be a good, honest fellow; shall we let him have the watch?"
"Aye," said Turpin; "do as you will."
The merchant, then inquiring the price, King replied, "Six guineas," adding, "we never sell one for more, even though it be worth six-and-thirty." Then the merchant promised not to discover them, and said he would leave the money at the "Sword Blade" coffee-house in Birchin Lane, and no questions asked.
The _Country Journal_ for April 23rd, 1737, says that on Saturday, April 16th, as a gentleman of West Ham and others were travelling to Epping, "the famous Turpin and a New Companion of his came up and attack'd the Coach, in order to rob it; the Gentleman had a Carbine in the Coach, loaded with Slugs, and seeing them coming, got it ready, and presented it at Turpin, on stopping the Coach, but it flash'd in the Pan; upon which says Turpin 'G—d D—— you, you have miss'd me, but I won't you,' and shot into the Coach at him, but the Ball miss'd him, passing between Him and a Lady in the Coach; and then they rode off towards Ongar, and dined afterwards at Hare Street, and robbed in the Evening several Passengers on the Forest between Loughton and Romford, who knew him; he has not robb'd on that Road for some Time before."
It is possible that this adventure gave Turpin the idea of providing himself with a carbine and slugs in addition to his pistols, for, following the contemporary newspaper record of his movements, we learn from several London papers, notably the _London Daily Post_ and the _Daily Advertiser_, that when a servant of Thompson, one of the under-keepers of Epping Forest, went in search of him and his retreat in those leafy recesses, with a higgler on Wednesday, May 4th, Turpin shot the man dead with a charge of slugs from a carbine. Detailed accounts set forth how Mr. Thompson's servant, animated with hopes of a hundred pounds reward, went out, armed with a gun, in company with the higgler, in search for Turpin. When they came near his hiding-place, the highwayman saw them, and, taking them for sportsmen, called out that there were no hares near that thicket.
"No," replied Mr. Thompson's man, "but I have found a Turpin!" and, presenting his gun, required him to surrender.
Turpin, replying to him in a friendly manner, and at the same time gradually retreating into the cave, slyly seized his carbine, and shot him in the stomach.
He then fled from the Forest, and was reported, by the _London Daily Post_ of May 12th, to have been very nearly captured in the small hours of the morning of the 11th by three peace-officers, who, late the night before, received information that he proposed to sleep at a certain house near Wellclose Square. Three men accordingly beset the house, but they were observed by a woman on the look-out, and Turpin, hurriedly aroused, fled through the roof, and over the chimneypots of the adjoining houses.
It will be observed by these various newspaper paragraphs and scattered notices, that Turpin was always changing his associates, and it is obvious that the stories which would have us believe he and Tom King set up an exclusive partnership, are not to be implicitly believed. Turpin and the many of his kind, with whom he associated from time to time, no doubt, worked together or apart, or in alliance with others, just as changing circumstances from week to week dictated.
[Illustration: TOM KING.
(_From Skelt's Drama._)]
Tom King is usually said to have been killed under dramatic circumstances in the yard of the "Red Lion" inn, at the corner of the Whitechapel Road and Leman Street; but although we read much of him in the picturesque romances of the highway, it is by no means easy to trace Tom's movements, and he remains, whatever brave figure he may be in fiction, a very shadowy figure as seen in recorded facts. He, it appears, was one of three brothers. The other two were named Matthew and Robert, and it was really Matthew King who was mortally wounded in the yard of the "Red Lion" in 1737, in the affray with the Bow Street runners. The newspapers of the time record how, a week later, he died of his wounds in the New Prison, Clerkenwell, on May 24th.
The affair was the outcome of Turpin having stolen a fine horse of considerable celebrity at that time, a racehorse named "White Stockings," belonging to a Mr. Major, who, riding it, was overtaken one evening by Turpin, Tom King, and a new ally of theirs, named Potter, near the "Green Man," Epping. Turpin made him dismount and exchange horses, and took away his riding-whip; and then the three confederates went their way to London.
Mr. Major immediately made his loss known at the "Green Man," to Mr. Bayes, the landlord, who at once said: "I daresay Turpin has done it, or one of that crew," and then advised him the best thing to do would be to get a number of handbills immediately printed, describing the horse, and offering a reward. It was characteristic of the thoroughpaced rascality of Turpin, that the very horse he had compelled Mr. Major to change with him was stolen. It was identified as one that had been missing from Plaistow marshes. And the saddle had been stolen too, and was afterwards claimed.
[Illustration: DICK TURPIN.
(_Skelt._)]
Although this was on Saturday night, the handbills were at once struck off and put into circulation, and by Monday morning information was brought to the "Green Man," that a horse answering the description of "White Stockings," had been left at the "Red Lion," in the Whitechapel Road. The innkeeper went to the house with some Bow Street runners, determined to wait there until some one called for the horse; and about eleven o'clock at night Matthew King came for it. When he was seized, he declared he had bought the animal; but a whip he held in his hand proved to be the identical one stolen by Turpin, and although a portion of the handle had been broken off, Mr. Major's name could still be read on it. An offer was made to Matthew King, that he would be released if he would disclose the actual robber, and he thereupon said it was a stout man in a white duffel coat, who was at that moment waiting in the street.
A movement was then made to capture the man in the duffel coat, who proved to be Tom King; but he resisted and fired at his would-be captors. The pistol merely flashed in the pan, and King then attempted to draw another; but it got twisted in his pocket, and Bayes' hands were being laid upon him, when he cried out to Turpin, who was waiting on horseback at a little distance, "Dick, shoot him, or we are taken, by God!"
Turpin was heavily armed. Nothing less than three brace of pistols contented him, in addition to a carbine slung across his back. He fired, and shot (the stories say) Tom King.
"Dick, you have shot me; make off," the wounded man is represented as saying, but is afterwards said to have cursed him for a coward, and to have informed the authorities that if they wanted him, he might most likely be found at a certain place on Hackney Marsh: indicating, no doubt, the "White House."
Turpin is indeed said to have at once made for that retreat and to have exclaimed, "What shall I do? where shall I go? d——n that Dick Bayes, I'll be the death of him, for I have lost the best fellow I ever had in my life. I shot poor King in endeavouring to kill that dog."
That is the accepted version, but it seems to be incorrect in several
## particulars. As before mentioned, Matthew King was the victim of that
ill-considered aim. A somewhat different account is given in Turpin's alleged confessions to the hangman, printed in the, in most respects, reliable pamphlet narrating his life and trial, published in York in four editions in 1739. In those pages Turpin "said he was confederate with one King, who was executed in London some time since, and that once, being very near taken, he fired a pistol in the crowd, and by mistake, shot the said King in the thigh, who was coming to rescue him."
[Illustration: TOM KING.
(_Skelt._)]
That entirely reverses the position, and may or may not be an imperfectly recollected account of what Turpin said.
There is no doubt that a Tom King, a highwayman, was executed at Tyburn, in 1753, many years after the Tom King who was supposed to have been shot dead.