Then, much to our surprise, we read of Sir Richard, who appears to have
known Whitney very well by sight, saying, "Captain, I'll give you a
breakfast, with a fowl or two." It would have come more naturally to
read that he offered to give him in charge!
Whitney politely declined, but said he would drink to the knight's
health then and there; and, halting a passing waggon, broached a cask
out of it on the spot.
In spite of a conflict of testimony, it seems to be clearly established
that Whitney was finally captured on December 31st, 1692. He appears
to have at some earlier time been taken, after a desperate fight
with a "bagonet," and lodged in Newgate, whence he broke out with
a four-pound weight on each leg. On this last occasion he made a
determined resistance at the door of the house in which he was beset,
fighting for over an hour with the officers and the mob. Most of his
gang were afterwards captured; including a livery-stable keeper, a
goldsmith, and a man-milliner.
Whitney appears to have been a man of medium height, to have had a
scarred face, and to have lost one thumb: sliced off, probably, in one
of his encounters with the patrols.
He endeavoured to purchase his liberty by "offering to discover his
accomplices, and those that give notice where and when money is
conveyed on the road in coaches and waggons." This offer was not
accepted, and the order went forth that he was to be hanged at the
Maypole in the Strand. Then he shifted his ground to include more
startling secrets that he was ready to divulge, "if he may have his
pardon." Jacobite plots were the commonplaces of that day. King James
was not greatly liked by even the most ardent Jacobite, but King
William was detested, and even those who had placed William on the
throne did so merely as a political expedient. Thus the personally
unpopular King was for ever harassed with plots hatched to assassinate
him; and when Whitney hinted, not obscurely, that he could tell
terrible tales if he would, it was thought advisable to have the
highwayman out in a sedan-chair and to take him to Kensington,
under escort, that he might be examined, touching these plots. But
it was soon discovered that he really knew nothing and that his idle
"confessions" and "revelations" had no basis in fact.
He was not content to remain in Newgate in worn and shabby clothes.
"He had his taylor," says Luttrell, "make him a rich embroidered suit,
with perug and hat, worth £100; but the keeper refused to let him wear
them, because they would disguise him from being known."
That somewhat obscure phrase seems to mean that Whitney intended, under
cover of his fine new suit, to make a dash for liberty.
His execution was finally fixed for February 1st, 1693, at Porter's
Block, Smithfield. He made a very proper and a singularly restrained
and well-chosen speech at the fatal spot:
"I have been a very great offender, both against God and my country, by
transgressing all laws, human and divine. I believe there is not one
here present but has often heard my name before my confinement, and
have seen a large catalogue of my crimes, which have been made public
since. Why should I then pretend to vindicate a life stained with deeds
of violence? The sentence passed on me is just, and I can see the
footsteps of Providence, which I had before profanely laughed at, in
my apprehension and conviction. I hope the sense which I have of these
things has enabled me to make my peace with Heaven, the only thing
that is now of any concern to me. Join in your prayers with me, my dear
countrymen, that God will not forsake me in my last moments."
"He seem to dye very penitent," says the original chronicler of these
things: "and was an hour and a halfe in the cart before being turned
off."
TWM SHON CATTI
A singular character, half mythical, and his exploits almost wholly so,
is Twm Shon Catti; a prankish creature whom, nevertheless, the people
of Carmarthenshire and Cardiganshire will not willingly let die.
Twm, it need hardly be said, was a Welshman. His name, duly translated
from Cymraeg into English, means "Tom John Kate," _i.e._ "Tom, the son
of Kate." Who was his other parent remains a matter of uncertainty, but
he is thought to have been a local magnate, Sir John Wynne of Gwydir.
Kate, his mother, was a country girl, of Tregaron, and Twm himself was
born apparently about the third quarter of the seventeenth century;
that is to say, if the half sprite and half human being of the legends
can be said to belong to any easily-ascertained span of years. Some of
his exploits certainly seem to belong to a later period.
But however that may be, he is yet the hero of a very wide countryside,
in which any peasant is still able to give a very fair biography of him
to the passing stranger, and is also quite competent to show him Twm's
cave, in Dinas Hill, or "Llidiard-y-Ffin," overlooking the river Towy,
near Ystrad Ffin. Composed in equal parts of Will-o'-Wisp, Dick Turpin
(the idealised Turpin of legend, not the cowardly brute of cold-drawn
fact), and Robin Hood, his career is one of marvels. Horse-thief,
highwayman at one time and out-witter of highwaymen at another, special
providence to the deserving, and scourge of the wicked, he always
comes successfully out of encounters and difficulties. If for that
peculiarity alone, he might reasonably be held mythical.
Starting in life as a farmer's boy, he afterwards found a place in the
service of the local lord of the manor, in which his Puck-like pranks
were first developed. As the secret of his birth was more or less an
open one, these escapades were not often visited with the punishment
another would almost certainly have incurred; and, besides, he was
generally looked upon as a "natural": as one, that is to say, who is
not more than half-witted. Thus, when he would steal the parson's horse
in Llandovery and sell it to a squire some twenty miles off, he proved
the truth of that old law which says one man may with impunity steal a
horse, while another may not safely even look over the fence.
It all depends upon the man. In Twm's case, such an exploit was not
the criminal business that would have brought an ordinary man to the
gallows, but merely an escapade serving, like Prince Hal and Poins'
fooling of Falstaff with the men in buckram, as "argument for a week,
laughter for a month, and a good jest for ever."
At the rather uncertain period in which Twm flourished there also
flourished a highwayman in the locality, who, from his daring and
savage disposition, was known as "Dio the Devil." This terrific person
had carried off the young and beautiful wife of Sir John Devereux, lord
of Ystrad Ffin, and Twm was successful in rescuing her. The obvious
reward for this service was, bearing Twm's almost gentle origin in
mind, to receive him in his house on equal terms: or, as some accounts
have it, he entered the service of Sir John as jester. But whether he
went as such, or not, he certainly acted the part very thoroughly, and
kept the establishment always well entertained.
Twm was a perfect centaur of a horseman, and Sir John Devereux was
almost as good in the saddle. Twm's custom was to back himself in
heavy wagers to perform extraordinary feats of horsemanship, and
then proceed, by hair-raising doings, to win the bets. Not only the
physical, but the mental agility of these things took strangers at an
utterly dumbfoundered disadvantage; but the most astonishing of all was
the one now to be related. An English guest who was staying with Sir
John happened also to be a remarkable horseman, and had the advantage
his Welsh host had not, of owning a thoroughbred. The talk ran high
one day on the subject of horses and equitation, and the whimsical
Twm promptly wagered twenty pounds he would put his horse to a jump
where the Englishman dare not follow. Conversant with the not very fine
specimens of horses to be found in his host's stable, the Englishman
with contempt accepted the bet, quite easy in his mind that he must win.
A "numerous and distinguished company," as a modern chronicler of
fashionable doings might say, assembled on the mountain-side on the
appointed day, to see the challenger take this as yet unknown leap, and
the stranger follow if he dared. They knew their Twm well enough to
be quite convinced he had some mad project in view, to discomfit the
Englishman; and what Welshman was there who would not have travelled
far, and at much discomfort, to witness the humiliation of the "Saxon."
Twm was last upon the to-be-contested field, and a great shout of
laughter went up as he was seen riding along upon a wretched horse,
in the last stage of decrepitude. The Englishman did not quite know
whether to feel insulted or amused, but Twm, once arrived on the scene,
did not linger. Quickly he took a thick cloth and bound it over the
head of his horse; and then, bidding the Englishman follow him, put his
mount at a rift in the mountain-side some hundreds of feet deep. Over
leapt the horse, and was in another half a minute lying dead, shattered
in its fall on the rocks below.
Even those of his countrymen who knew the resourcefulness of their
hero, and had backed him heavily, now lost heart; but in another
minute up rose the head and shoulders of Twm above the edge, and he
presently leapt among them unhurt, to receive his winnings from the
astounded Englishman. He had adroitly slipped from the horse's back
at the moment of his taking off, and leapt into the bushes that grew
out of the face of the cliff. The horse itself merely met its end in a
different manner from that already ordained for it that day, when it
was to have been slaughtered, as being past work.
His friend and patron, Sir John Devereux, perceiving how well able
Twm was to take care of himself, and being under the necessity of
despatching a considerable amount of money in gold to London, and
obliged at the same time to remain at home, he entrusted him with the
commission. He would have given Twm an escort of one or two servants,
but that worthy, shrewdly remarking that it would be as much worth
their while as that of a highwayman to rob him, declined all company,
and, in the oldest clothes he could find, set out alone on a shaggy
Welsh pony. He had gone two-thirds of his journey without adventure,
and put up one night, contentedly enough, at what is described as the
"Hop Pole," a "lonely inn on the bleak downs near Marlborough"—although
there really seems never to have been a house of that name near:
perhaps "Shepherd's Shore," or the "Waggon and Horses" at Beckhampton
would serve better. When he retired for the night, and was lying still
and wakeful, he overheard the landlady and a strange man discussing
him. The landlady was saying she did not suppose a traveller like our
Twm, "dressed like a scarecrow and mounted on a piece of animated
carrion, for which the rooks cawed as he rode along," was worth robbing.
"I don't know so much about that," he heard the other—obviously a
highwayman—reply. "Very often these miserable-looking people you see
on the roads disguise their wealth in this way, and are in reality
carrying a great deal of money about with them: sometimes half a year's
rent of a considerable estate. This fellow seems to be one of that
kind. We shall see to-morrow."
Twm remembered having seen a plaguey ill-looking fellow in the house,
and lay long awake, wondering what he should be at, and pleased that,
anyhow, he was not to be interfered with that night. But he felt sure
of being followed as soon as ever he left the house, and bethought
him, there and then, of an ingenious plan. Before their very eyes next
morning, he rummaged in the peak of his saddle, as if to arrange it
more comfortably, and in so doing managed to disclose some gold to
their covetous gaze. Then he was soon off; not travelling very fast, as
may be supposed, on his laden pony. So soon as he was out of sight of
the inn, he hopped off and transferred the money from the saddle to his
pockets. Then he resumed his way.
Presently, as he had expected, he heard the highwayman thundering
along in his rear. When the pursuer came well in sight, Twm hurriedly
dismounted again, and, unloosening the saddle, flung it as far as he
was able into a pond that spread by the wayside. Dismounting himself,
the highwayman, leaving Twm for the moment, plunged knee-deep into the
pond for the treasure, as he supposed, and Twm leapt nimbly on his
thoroughbred horse: no highwayman of tradition ever riding a horse that
was not thoroughbred, whatever the sorry jades the real ones had often
to bestride.
When Twm cantered happily into Marlborough on the highwayman's steed,
and told his story, the townspeople, who it appears had suffered much
from the knights of the road, welcomed him as a hero, and entertained
him at the Town Hall. If he had not been in a hurry, they might perhaps
have presented him with the freedom of the borough. Perhaps they did so
on his return. He sold his horse for a good round sum, for he thought
it dangerous to ride up to London on so fine a mount. Therefore, armed
with one pistol, he resumed the journey on foot, and to my mind it
seems either a testimony to the honesty or the lack of enterprise among
the burgesses of Marlborough, that some one or other of them did not
follow him into the secluded glades of Savernake Forest, through which
his road lay, and do for him.
But he neared London without other encounters, until he came upon
Hounslow Heath. Here the tale of the confiding highwayman and the
apparently stupid countryman, often told, but always fresh, had its
origin. Twm was duly pulled up on the Heath by a robber, who appears
to have been none other than Tom Dorbel, famous in his day. Dorbel was
bristling with an armoury of pistols. Our ingenious Twm, affecting to
be seized with the abject terror of a country lout, earnestly begged
the ruffian, before he robbed him, to put half-a-dozen bullets through
his coat, so that his master might easily see how good a fight he had
made of it, before yielding his treasure. He took off his coat for the
purpose, and the highwayman very obligingly complied with this very
reasonable request.
Twm capered about like the idiot he pretended to be. "That wass ferry
coot of you—yess, inteet," he said; "and if you wass put another look
you, through my hat, it wass pe petter still, whateffer."
The highwayman, wondering what special kind of lunatic he had happened
upon, fired his last pistol through the hat as desired, when "Now,"
said Twm, himself producing a pistol, "it iss my turn. Out with your
coin, or I will put a pig hole through your pody." And Twm not only
saved his master's coin, but robbed the highwayman as well.
[Illustration: 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.
This singular narrative was heard by the Cardinal with much surprise,
and at the close of it he exclaimed, fervently, "A miracle indeed!"
All who had heard it also shared the same opinion and "it being justly
concluded that none had a better right to dispose of the money than the
Virgin herself, to whom it was devoted," Withers was carried in solemn
procession, as a convert singularly honoured, and placed before the
high altar while an Ave Maria was sung.
It is not, it may be added, necessary to believe this precious story in
its entirety. Withers was, of course, as we shall see, capable of worse
than this, and the probability is that the actual theft was committed
by him; but we can hardly believe the Roman Catholic clergy quite such
fools as they figure here.
At Antwerp, Withers made a second essay in sacrilege. There he stole a
great silver crucifix. But he felt that there was really no career for
him in these enterprises, and so, deserting from the army, he crossed
to England, and took up the profession of highwayman.
It would be of little interest to follow Withers in all his highway
doings, but the adventure of himself and two companions with an actor
on the road is perhaps worth repeating. They espied one morning a
gentleman walking alone and displaying all the gestures of passion,
distraction, and fury to excess; casting his eyes to heaven, stretching
forth his arms imploringly, or folding them moodily upon his breast.
Near by was a pond.
"Make haste!" exclaimed Withers to his companions, "'tis even as we
thought; the poor gentleman is just going to kill himself for love."
Then, rushing towards him, two of them taking an arm each, Withers
addressed him earnestly: "Pray, sir, consider what you do! what a
sad thing it would be to drown yourself here. Be better advised and
consider, before it is too late."
The actor was indignant. "What a plague is all this for?" he asked. "I
am not going to hang, stab, or drown myself. I am not in love, but only
a player, learning a part."
"A player, are you?" rejoined Withers. "If I had thought that, you
should have drowned yourself, or hanged yourself indeed, before we had
taken the pains to follow you up and down. But, to make amends for our
trouble, the least you can do will be to give us what money you have."
So saying, they bound his hands and legs together, emptied his pockets
of ten shillings, and took away a silver-hilted sword he carried.
It is, in this connection, curious to observe the animus displayed
against the stage. It is met largely in the satire of the time, and not
merely in the literature inspired by the Puritans, but even in those
by no means puritanical books and plays in which the highwaymen figure
as heroes. Thus, in the play, the _Prince of Priggs_, written around
the career of Captain Hind, but not intended to be staged, we find the
prologue chiefly concerned with a sneer at those "apes and parrots,"
silenced under the sour rule of the Commonwealth:
Since that the Apes and Parrots of the Stage,
Are silenc'd by the Clamours of the Age;
Like Conies forc'd to feed on bran and grass,
(The true Desciples of _Pithagoras_)
Whose Copper-Lace,[1] and Copper-Noses once
Made them to think themselves great _Prester-Johns_:
You'l (sure) have cause to praise, and thank that man,
Can make each thief a compleat _Roscian_:
Then much good doe't you (Sirs) fall to and eat,
You ne're had cheaper (perhaps) better meat.
[1] _i.e._ imitation gold-lace.
The last adventure of Withers was that in which he and a companion,
William Edwards by name, near Beaconsfield beset a nobleman and his
servant. Withers' horse was shot in the resistance they made, and,
mounting behind his friend, they took to flight. But the horse with
two riders was no match for the others, not so heavily burdened; and,
being hard pressed along the road, the two fugitives dismounted and
ran across country in the direction of London. Sleeping in the hedges
overnight, the next morning they continued their flight. Meeting,
one mile on the London side of Uxbridge, with a penny postman, they
robbed him of eight shillings; and Withers, to prevent their being
identified, drew a large butcher's knife he carried, and barbarously
cut his throat. They then ripped up his body, filled his stomach with
stones, and flung him into the little stream that here flows across the
road. The burial registers of Hillingdon church bear witness to this
and to another murder they appear to have committed at, or near, the
same place; "1702, November 13. Will Harrison, Postman, murdered near
the Great Bridge between Hillingdon and Uxbridge. November 28. Edward
Symonds, Drover, murdered at the same time, and about the same place,
and by the same hands."
Withers and Edwards were arrested the following January in Norfolk,
for a highway robbery committed there, and were tried and executed at
Thetford, April 16th, 1703.
PATRICK O'BRIAN
"Patrick O'Brian," says Captain Alexander Smith, "was a native of
Ireland." Perhaps we might, without undue stress of mind, have
guessed as much. It seems that his parents were very indigent natives
of Loughrea, and so Patrick left his native land for England, and
presently enlisted in the Coldstream Guards. But he was not a good
soldier; or, at any rate, if good in that profession, infinitely better
in the practice of all kinds of vice. He was resolved not to want
money, if there were any to be obtained, no matter the means to it; but
began cautiously by running into debt at public-houses and shops; and
then followed up that first step by borrowing from every acquaintance,
until that source was dried up.
When all these means to existence were exhausted, O'Brian went upon
the road. The first person whom he met was, strange to say, another
unmitigated scoundrel: none other, in fact, than the Reverend William
Clewer, vicar of Croydon, who here demands a little paragraph entirely
to himself.
William Clewer, who was collated to the living of Croydon in 1660,
was notorious, we are told, for his singular love of litigation,
unparalleled extortions, and criminal and disgraceful conduct. His
character became so bad, and his ways of life so notorious, that he was
eventually ejected in 1684. He must have been, indeed, pre-eminently
bad, to have been ejected in that easy-going age. Dispossessed of his
living, on these substantial grounds, he at last died, in 1702, and was
buried in St. Bride's, Fleet Street.
We are indebted to Smith for the account of the meeting of O'Brian and
this shining light of the clerical profession: