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.
If Turpin had been really so terrified for his safety after the
Whitechapel affair as represented, he must speedily have recovered
himself, for he was busy all that month in his vocation. Comrades
might die tragically, but his own pockets, always leaking like a
colander, must be replenished. Really, however narrowly the career
of this much-discussed highwayman is scanned, it seems hopeless to
paint a consistent picture of him. He was, by the testimony of many
witnesses, a cowardly fellow, not often with sufficient resolution
to rob unaccompanied, and even on those occasions when he did play a
lone hand, he wore a perfect armoury of weapons and attacked only the
unarmed. One Gordon, lying at Newgate on a charge of highway robbery,
told how he had once proposed to Turpin that himself and his brother,
Turpin, and another should seize the money going down to pay the
King's ships at Portsmouth. They were to stand in a very narrow pass
and with swords and pistols attack the convoy. The scheme recalls
the fine mid-seventeenth century exploits of "Mulled Sack" and his
contemporaries, and if the enterprise had been undertaken, a splendid
booty might have become theirs. But Turpin's courage failed him, and
he backed out. Gordon said he was sure Turpin would be guilty of many
cowardly actions, and die like a dog. His career, although a busy one,
never touched great heights, and was commonly concerned with mean
thefts and raids, but he must have been possessed of some nerve to
continue actively robbing in the neighbourhood of London where he was
so well known, after a hundred pounds was advertised to be waiting for
any one who brought about his arrest. It is not merely a tradition that
he so continued: we have the facts abundantly in the public prints of
the time.
[Illustration: TOM KING.
(_Skelt._)]
Thus, the _London Magazine_ has this note respecting him: "The
noted Highwayman, Turpin the Butcher, (who lately kill'd a Man who
endeavour'd to take him on Epping Forest) this Night robbed several
Gentlemen in their Coaches and Chaises at Holloway and the back Lanes
at Islington, and took from them several Sums of Money. One of the
Gentlemen signified to him that he had reigned a long Time, and Turpin
replied, ''Tis no matter for that. I am not afraid of being taken by
you; therefore don't stand hesitating, but give me the Cole.'" (Or, by
another account, "the coriander-seed.")
A London newspaper of the close of May is found stating that "Turpin,
the renown'd Butcher-Highwayman, committed a robbery almost every day
this month."
But these were his last exploits in the neighbourhood of London.
The position presently grew so difficult that the merest elementary
instincts of self-preservation suggested a flight to other scenes.
By a proclamation issued in the _London Gazette_ of June 25th, 1737,
"His Majesty was pleased to promise his most gracious pardon to any of
the Accomplices of Richard Turpin who shall discover him, so that he
may be apprehended and convicted of the Murder, or any of the Robberies
he has committed; as likewise a Reward of £200 to any Person or Persons
who shall discover the said Criminal, so that he may be apprehended
and convicted as aforesaid; over and above all other Rewards to which
they may be entitled." In this proclamation, Turpin is described as
being 5 feet 9 inches in height, and it further appears that he was not
by any means the prepossessing and even elegant figure he presents in
the engraving that shows him reclining exquisitely in his cave; dainty
boots on his feet, and a ladylike hand thrown over his carbine. He had
high cheekbones, his face tapered to a narrow point at his chin, and he
was deeply pitted with small-pox.
[Illustration: TURPIN IN HIS CAVE.
_From an old Engraving._]
Really, he was, it will be gathered, not an engaging ruffian; but there
is, unfortunately, no portrait existing which can lay the slightest
claim to be authentic. A rough woodcut, no doubt from the strictly
unauthentic imagination of the wood engraver, or the wood-chopper who
engraved, or rather hewed it out, appears in one of the popular old
chap-books, and shows him to have rather a plentiful development of
chin and an expression that somewhat baffles description, but which
conveys the very decided impression that he was not the kind of person
one would much like to meet in a lonely lane on a dark night.
[Illustration: DICK TURPIN.
(_From a strictly unauthentic source._)]
Rowden the Pewterer, whom we have shown to have accompanied Turpin so
frequently in 1735, chiefly in his adventures in Surrey, was taken
about this time and transported in July 1737.
With the price of £200 upon his head, and with the additional promise
of a pardon for any accomplice who would betray him, Turpin's position
was now more than ever desperate. He fully realised this, and took the
only possible course, that of removing himself into the country, far
away from his accustomed haunts. After three months at Long Sutton,
in Lincolnshire, he appears to have selected Yorkshire as the safest
part, and staying some time at the ferry-house. Brough, and then at
Market Cave and North Cave, to have settled at Welton, ten miles from
Beverley, in October 1737. There he posed as a gentleman horse-dealer,
Palmer by name. Sometimes he would range southward to Long Sutton
in Lincolnshire, but always where he went the farmers and others
missed their horses, in the most mysterious way. No one suspected
the "gentleman" horse-dealer, who mixed freely in the company of the
Yorkshire yeomen and knew a thing or two about cock-fighting and proved
himself a singularly good judge of stock—qualities which would render
any one popular at that time, with the Yorkshire tykes. His ugly mug
was a mere accident, and as for his rough manners, why the tykes
themselves were rough and ready, and so they easily excused, or perhaps
even did not notice, his overbearing ways.
But his evil temper got the better of him one day, when, returning from
a shooting expedition, and being perhaps half-drunk, he wantonly shot
one of his neighbour's fowls. When the owner resented this, Turpin, or
"Palmer," threatened to serve him in the same way (_i.e._ "if he would
only stay till he had charged his piece, he would shoot him too"), and
in the result he was arrested on a charge of brawling, at the "Green
Man" inn. When he came before the magistrates in Quarter Sessions at
Beverley, the singular fact was discovered that this man, so well
known in the neighbourhood, had many acquaintances, but no friends
who would speak to his character or go bail for him. It then appeared
that he had come as an entire stranger to the district less than two
years earlier; and in short, in one way and another, it was all at
once discovered that he was a suspicious character, whose doings had
better be investigated. He was accordingly remanded, and enquiries
resulted in his being charged with stealing a black mare, blind of the
near eye, off Heckington Common, in Lincolnshire, near Sleaford. He had
declared himself a native of Long Sutton, and said his father lived
there and his sister kept house for him. He had been, he continued, in
business there, but had been obliged to abscond, owing to his having
contracted some debts he found himself unable to pay, in an unfortunate
transaction in which he had bought some sheep that had proved to be
diseased. Enquiries proved these statements to be entirely false. He
had no relations at Long Sutton, but he was known there, and badly
wanted, as a sheep-stealer, suspected also of horse-stealing.
It is significant of Turpin's activity in horse-stealing, that the
_Worcester Journal_ of September 29th, 1738, has the following curious
item: "A few days since, the Father of the noted Turpin was committed
to Chelmsford Gaol, for having in his Possession a Horse supposed to
be stolen out of Lincolnshire, which, he pleads, was left with him by
his Son, to pay for Diet and Lodging." Research fails to discover the
result of this committal.
John Palmer, or Richard Turpin, was sent from Beverley to York
Castle to stand his trial at the assizes for stealing the horse from
Heckington; and from his grim dungeon cell, still in existence in the
Castle, he wrote a letter to his brother, or, according to the evidence
at his trial, his brother-in-law, at Hempstead, asking him to be a
referee as to character:
YORK, _Feb. 6, 1639_.
"DEAR BROTHER,
"I am sorry to acquaint you that I am now under confinement in
York Castle, for horse-stealing. If I could procure an evidence
from London to give me a character, that would go a great way
towards my being acquitted. I had not been long in this county
before my being apprehended, so that it would pass off the
readier. For heaven's sake, my dear brother, do not neglect me;
you will know what I mean when I say,
"I am, your's,
"JOHN PALMER."
The letter was not prepaid, and the recipient, not recognising the
handwriting of the address, refused to receive it and pay the sixpence
demanded. As it happened, Mr. Smith, the schoolmaster who had taught
Turpin to write, saw the letter, and recognising the handwriting,
carried it to the magistrates, so that it might legally be opened, and
perhaps the very much wanted Turpin be arrested from the information it
possibly contained. Perhaps this public-spirited person really thought
he saw a chance of obtaining the £200 reward offered; but, however that
may be, the letter disclosed the fact that Turpin was lying in prison
at York, and Smith eventually appeared at the trial and identified him.
It is not known who, if indeed any one, received the reward.
The rumour that Turpin had been taken, and was a prisoner in York
Castle, was no sooner circulated than people flocked from all parts
to get a sight of him, and debates ran very high whether he was the
real person or not. This making a holiday show of a prisoner in his
cell seems odd to us moderns; but it was then, as we see constantly in
these pages, the usual thing, and a practice that greatly enriched the
turnkeys; or the warders, as we should call them.
[Illustration: SIR RALPH ROOKWOOD AND SIMON SHARPSCENT.
(_Skelt._)]
Among others who visited Turpin was a young fellow who pretended to
know the famous highwayman. After having looked for a considerable time
at the prisoner, he turned to the warder on duty, and said he would bet
him half a guinea this was not Turpin; whereupon Turpin, in his turn
inclining to the warder, whispered, with cynical humour, "Lay him the
wager, you fool, and I'll go you halves!"
The trial of "John Palmer, _alias_ Paumer, _alias_ Richard Turpin," as
the official account of the proceedings has it, took place at the York
Assizes, March 22nd, 1739, "before the Hon. Sir William Chapple, one
of His Majesty's Justices of the Court of King's Bench, for stealing a
black gelding, the property of Thomas Creasy."
Thomas Creasy deposed that in the August of 1738 he was owner of the
black gelding, and missed it on the eighteenth of the month. He had
hired men and horses, and had ridden some forty miles to try and obtain
news of its whereabouts, and had paid criers to cry it in different
market towns. He had also told one Richard Grasby of his loss, and
described the animal to him, and at a later date Grasby told him his
horse was at an inn called the "Blue Bell" at Beverley. He then went
to Beverley and saw the landlord of the "Blue Bell," and described the
horse to him as a black gelding, with a little star on his forehead.
The landlord then took him to the stable and showed him the horse.
James Smith was then called, and asked if he knew the prisoner at the
bar. He said he did. He had known him at Hempstead, in Essex, where he
was born. He had known him since he was a child. His name was Richard
Turpin, and his father kept the "Bell" inn in that village. Richard
Turpin had married one of his maids. It was about five years since he
had last seen him. He had taught him at school, and there was no doubt
whatever that this was the same man.
Asked how it happened that, living so far distant as Essex, he
came to be present as a witness at this trial, he said that at the
Hempstead post-office one day he observed a letter directed to Turpin's
brother-in-law, who had refused to pay the postage on it. Looking
narrowly at the handwriting, he thought he recognised it as that of
Richard Turpin, whom he had taught to write. Turpin then being very
much in demand by the magistrates, he took the letter forthwith to a
local Justice of the Peace, who opened it, and found it was sent from
York Castle, and purported to come from one "John Palmer."
The justices had sent him a subpœna to appear for the prosecution at
York. He had been shown into the prison yard, and there he had seen and
recognised Turpin, who was there under the name of Palmer.
"Palmer," then informed that he might ask Mr. Smith any questions he
desired, merely replied he did not know him.
Mr. Edward Saward, of Hempstead, then called and asked if he knew
prisoner, said he did. He was born and brought up at the "Bell," kept
by his father, John Turpin. He had known him twenty-two years. ("Upon
my soul, I have," he added; to which counsel rejoined, "My friend, you
have sworn once already; you need not swear again.") "I knew him ever
since he was a boy and lived at the 'Bell.' He lived with his father
there, and I was friendly with him. I knew him also after he had set
up for himself, and I have bought a great many good joints of meat
from him." The prisoner had at first affected not to know him; but
afterwards had acknowledged the acquaintance, and had added: "Let's
bung our eyes up with drink."
[Illustration: TURPIN'S CELL IN YORK CASTLE.]
The prisoner's sole defence was that he had bought the horse; but he
could produce no evidence to show he had actually done so, and could
not mention the name of the person from whom he had bought him, nor the
place where the transaction had been completed.
The jury had no difficulty in returning a verdict of "guilty," and,
indeed, did so without leaving the court. Turpin was then formally
sentenced to death.
He wrote to his father, and made great efforts to obtain a reduction of
his sentence to transportation; but without result. A letter received
from his father was a feature of a pamphlet, detailing his trial and
adventures, published at York in April 1739. There is no reason to
doubt its genuine character:
_March 29, 1739._
"DEAR CHILD,
"I received you Letter this Instant, with a great deal of grief;
according to your Request, I have writ to your Brother John, and
Madam Peek, to make what intercession can be made to Col. Watson,
in order to obtain Transportation for your Misfortune; which, had
I £100 I would freely part with it to do you good; and for God's
Sake, give your whole Mind to beg of God to pardon your many
Transgressions, which the Thief upon the Cross received Pardon
for at the last Hour, tho' a very great Offender. The Lord be
your Comfort, and receive you into his eternal Kingdom.
"I am yours Distress'd,
"Yet Loving Father,
"JOHN TURPIN.
"HEMSTEAD.
"All our Loves to you, who are in much Grief to subscribe
ourselves your distressed Brother and Sister, with Relations."
Turpin principally concerned himself in those twenty-six days that
bridged the distance between sentence and execution in joking,
drinking with the many visitors who came to see him, and telling
stories of his adventures. He turned a deaf ear to the ministrations
of the Ordinary, and was infinitely more concerned that he should
make a last "respectable" appearance in this world, on the scaffold,
than for his welfare in the next. Nothing would satisfy him but new
clothes, a brand-new fustian frock, and a smart pair of pumps to die
in. On the morning before the fatal April 17th he gave the hangman £3
10_s._ 0_d._, to be divided among five men, who were to follow him as
mourners, and were to be furnished with black hat-bands and mourning
gloves. When the time came, and he went in the tumbril to be turned
off upon York's place of execution at Knavesmire, he bowed to the
ladies and flourished his hat like a hero. It is true that when he had
arrived at the tragic place his leg trembled, but he stamped it down
impatiently. He talked for half an hour with the hangman, until the
crowd began to grow impatient, but then mounted the ladder provided,
and threw himself off in the most resolute fashion. He had the reward
of his courage, for he died in a moment.
It should here be explained that hanging in those old times, before
the drop had been introduced, was generally a cruel and clumsy method.
As a rule, the culprit was driven up in the cart immediately under the
gallows, and the noose then adjusted round his neck. When all was
ready, the cart was simply drawn away and the victim left hanging, to
be slowly and agonisingly suffocated. Thus the horrible spectacle was
often witnessed of compassionate persons—and sometimes the relations of
the hanging man—pulling his legs to more speedily end his sufferings.
In the museum at Dorchester there may to this day be seen two heavy
weights made for the purpose of thus shortening the misery of criminals
hanged at the gaol there, and bearing the word MERCY.
It sometimes happened, in those days, that a criminal would be
ineffectually hanged, and afterwards cut down and revived. "Half-hanged
Smith" was a burglar who obtained his nickname in this manner at
Tyburn; but he was convicted, a few years later, of a similar crime,
and effectually hanged on that occasion. Another, cut down and revived,
declared the sensation of being hanged was sufficiently bad, but that
of being restored to life was indescribably agonising, and said he
wished those hanged who had cut him down.
[Illustration: RALPH OSTLER.
(_Skelt._)]
The shocking old alternative to being slowly hanged when the cart was
withdrawn was the method by which criminals with sufficient courage
were enabled to anticipate the modern drop, by throwing themselves off
the ladder, and so securing an instant and practically painless death.
But this was making the condemned their own executioners, and, to all
intents and purposes, suicides. It also required a considerable amount
of resolution.
Turpin's body lay in state for a day and a night at the "Blue Boar"
inn, Castlegate, York, and was buried the following morning in the
churchyard of St. George's, Fishergate Postern. That evening it was
disinterred by some of the city surgeons, for dissection, but the mob,
with whom Turpin had already become a hero, determined that his remains
should not be dishonoured, rescued the body and reinterred it in lime,
so as to effectually prevent any other attempts.
The Ride to York and Black Bess are alike myths, but the spot was
long pointed out upon the racecourse at York (perhaps it still is),
where that gallant mare sank down exhausted and died. So strong a hold
have myths upon the imagination, that it is hardly possible the most
painstaking historian will succeed in popularly discrediting the _bona
fides_ of that ride, invented and so stirringly described by Harrison
Ainsworth in 1834, in his _Rookwood_.
[Illustration: TURPIN'S WAIST-GIRDLE, WRIST-SHACKLES, AND LEG IRONS.]
Ainsworth was the unconscious predisposing cause of much of _Skelt's
Juvenile Drama_, that singular collection of remarkably mild plays for
toy theatres, allied with terrific scenes and the most picturesque
figures conceived, drawn and engraved in the wildest spirit of
melodrama, and in the most extravagant attitudes. No such scenery
ever existed as that drawn by Skelt's anonymous artists. It was a
decided improvement upon Nature; and no heroes so heroic and no
villains so villainous could possibly have lived and moved as those
imagined by his staff of draughtsmen. _Dick Turpin_ was of course
in the forefront of the thirty-three plays published by Skelt, and
the pictured characters do full justice—and perhaps a trifle over—to
the entirely illegitimate fame Turpin has acquired. You see them
reproduced here, engraved line for line from Skelt, scattered over the
pages of this reconsideration of Turpin. Firstly, you have the great
brethren, Turpin and Tom King, themselves, mounted on noble steeds
that stretch themselves gallantly in their stride; and then you have
Sir Ralph Rookwood and that intelligent officer, Simon Sharpscent,
also on horseback, hurrying off in company, but upon the trail of
the highwaymen. Simon Sharpscent, you will observe, has in his hand
a something that looks not unlike a Field Marshal's bâton. It is the
police-officer's crown-tipped staff of office; and producing it he will
presently say, dramatically: "I arrest you in the King's name!"