One of the really notable highwaymen of the early years of the seventeenth century was John Clavel, who came from an ancient, if perhaps not particularly distinguished, family, tracing their descent back to Walter de Clavile, in the reign of William the Conqueror. For more than seven hundred years the Clavel, or Clavell, family flourished in a modest way upon their manor of Smedmore, on the Dorset coast, in the neighbourhood of Kimmeridge, and finally ended with the death, s.p., as genealogists would say, of George Clavel in 1774. The only Clavel who fully emerges from the obscurity in which the family were content to remain, from the days of the original Walter until those of the ultimate George, is John Clavel, whose vocation was robbery under arms upon the highway. What laid this calling upon him, the personal history of John Clavel does not inform us; but probably, when we consider that he was merely a nephew of Sir William Clavel, the head of the family, we shall be correct in placing him among those younger sons and expectant heirs who, however great were their expectations in some more or less remote future, were generally, in the present tense, not only poor, but head over ears in debt. As the history of the highwaymen has already shown us, their ranks were very largely recruited from those youthful members of reputable families, whose family name was better than their personal credit. Confound the law of primogeniture, and pity the sorrows of a younger son with an excellent ancestry and an empty purse!

Our present hero, John Clavel, who was born in 1603, was heir-presumptive to his uncle, the Dorset squire. Whether that uncle kept him shorter of money than an heir should be, or whether he was a gamester who sought to repair his losses at cards or dice by the hazard of the road, who shall say? Not I. Perhaps he even robbed on the highway for sheer joy of it: such sportsmen were not unknown. But, by all accounts and just inferences, he had been no mere amateur, out for a solitary adventure, when he was laid by the heels and cast into the King's Bench Prison. He had made an occupation of highway robbery.

Thus we read, in one of the News Letters written by Joseph Mead, that purveyor of London intelligence to country gentlemen in 1626: "February 11th, Mr. Clavell, a gentleman, a knight's eldest son (?), a great highway robber, and of posts, was, together with a soldier, his companion, arraigned and condemned, on Monday last, at the King's Bench bar. He pleaded for himself that he had never struck or wounded any man, had never taken anything from their bodies, as rings, etc., never cut their girths or saddles, or done them, when he robbed, any corporeal violence. He was, with his companion, reprieved. He sent the following verses to the King, for mercy:

He was reprieved, as the newsmonger tells us, but that was not sufficient. He must not merely escape the death-sentence, but be set free. To that end he wrote in October 1627, in prison, the curious pamphlet, largely in verse, styled the Recantation of an Ill-led Life, and published in the following year. He does not forget to style himself, on the title-page, "Gentleman," and has even a Latin tag; perhaps, you know, as evidence of his gentility. Yet he grovels through many pages in so abject a style no man of spirit could endure. Whether he was so thorough-paced a highwayman as he tearfully declares himself to have been is, of course, not to be resolved by us, at this interval of time; but, according to his own showing, he was not only an adept, but deep in the counsels of the high-toby gloaks and a past-master in all their devices. These, with the hope of a pardon, he proceeds to betray, at much length, in his "recantation," which he describes as "A discouerie of the Highway Law. With Vehement dissuasions to all (in that kind) offenders. As also Many cautelous Admonitions and full Instructions, how to know, shun, and apprehend a Theefe. Most Necessarie for all honest Trauellers to per'use, obserue, and Practise." This travellers' handy handbook was "Approued by the King's most Excellent Maiestie, and published by his expresse Command," by one Robert Meighen.

The Recantation sets out with an extraordinary number of rhymed dedications addressed to the King, the Queen, the Ladies of the Court, "the Right Honourable the Lords of His Maiestie's most Honourable Priuie Counsaile and Counsail of Warre," the Judges of the King's Bench, and others; ending with an appeal to the "Right Worshipful, his euer dear and well-approued good Uncle, Sir William Clavell, Knight Banneret," whom he requests:

But Sir William did even better than that. To be on the safer side, he disinherited him at once, without waiting for his nephew to prove the sincerity of his professions, and bequeathed his estates to a distant relative.

In the meanwhile, however, John Clavel did at any rate manage to produce a popular book. Three editions of it are known; but whether the book was purchased as a curiosity, or as a practical guide to safe travelling upon the highways, there is nothing to show. The heads of his counsel are interesting:

"Acknowledgement and Confession.

"Absolute Defiance of those that follow my late course of life, living vpon the spoile.

"The highway law.

"How soon they spend what unlawfully they get.

"Instruction for the honest traueller: What he is to take heed vnto, before he take his journey.

"How to carry himself in his inn.

"The danger of trauelling on the Sabbath Day.

"How as he rides he shall know a thief from an honest man.

"An instance how dangerous it is to grow familiar with any stranger upon the way.

"When to ride.

"Where to ride.

"How to ride.

"What is best to be done if he is beset.

"If by chance he is surprised, how to behave himself.

"Being robbed, how to follow, which way to set forth the Hue and Cry, how to coast, and where to find the thieves," etc., etc.

He appears to have largely favoured the Dover Road, in his professional exploits:

He then proceeds to tell in verse how the inns are often kept by landlords in league with highwaymen, who not infrequently spend thrice as much as honest travellers, or whose servants are either placed there by the knights of the road, or are bribed by them to investigate the contents of travellers' saddle-bags and valises.

Having done this, the hints he next gives to innkeepers, on how to distinguish between highwaymen and decent travellers, seem rather superfluous. As to the stigmata of the highwaymen themselves, besides those

there are the following simpler devices:

Obviously, the better course for the highway robber who loved his profession, and not only meant to rob successfully, but to live long in the enjoyment of his gains, was to carefully dress the part. To muffle themselves up in cloaks, like conspirators, would be to send even the least prudent traveller off in hurried flight. Such methods were mere danger-signals, and no security against subsequent recognition. But with an artificial nose, or a bushy beard, and little transforming touches of that sort, a careful road-agent might reckon on a long and lucrative practice; always supposing he kept his own counsel and held aloof from bad company. This, however, judging from the careers of most of their kind, seems to have been asking too much.

But to return to the strange fortunes of John Clavel. His piteous appeal from prison (or perhaps rather the family influence brought to bear) at length procured him release. He promised in his book, if set at liberty, to fight for his King:

But there is nothing to show how he occupied himself when once again he was restored to society; there is, however, a curious little notice added to the third edition of the Recantation, by the publisher, by which it would seem gossip had been doing an injustice to our sinner repentant. Thus it reads:

"The late and general false report of his relapse and untoward death, made me most willing again to publish this work of his, to let you know he not only lives, but hath also made good all these his promises and strict resolutions: insomuch that it has become very disputable amongst wise men, whether they should most admire his former ill-ways, or his now most singular reformation, whereat no man outjoys his friend and yours.—Richard Meighen."

This brand plucked from the burning appears to have died in 1642.