Highway-men early made their appearance on this road, and from very remote times the great Forest of Epping was dreaded by travellers on their account. But it was not until Newmarket’s fame as a racing and gambling centre arose, in the time of James I., that these long miles became so especially notorious. One of the very worst periods would seem to have been that of Charles II., under whose ardent patronage of the Turf the Court was frequently, and for long periods, in residence at Newmarket. Not the Forest alone, but the road in general, together with the several routes to this metropolis of racing, were thus infested.

This scandalous condition of affairs attracted attention so early as 1617, when travellers went in fear, not only of the professional Highway-men, but of the gentlemanly amateurs as well, who, either for pure love of a roystering life, or from being ruined by losses on the turf or at the gaming-tables, lurked by the roadside, and, with terrible menaces, robbed all classes of wayfarers.

A satirist of that period, one William Fennor, in the course of a pamphlet he published in 1617, called the “Competers’ Common-Wealth,” tells us much about those reckless blades. A “competer” was, of course, one who gambled on the turf or at the tables. Fennor, describing how ill-luck, sharpers, and money-lenders between them plucked the gamesters clean, so that there was nothing for them but to retrieve their fortunes on the road, says that Newmarket Heath, in especial, swarmed with such Highway-men, who stooped to the meanness of robbing even the rustics of their pence, and were such keen gleaners of small change that scarce any money was left in the neighbourhood. “Poor Countrie people,” he says, “cannot passe quietly to the Cottages, but some Gentlemen will borrow all the money they have.” Fennor was a man of a grimly humorous nature, and observed that these doings caused Tyburn Tree and Wapping Gibbets to have “many hangers-on.” A good many, however, escaped; for they had a very ingenious plan, when they had brought off successful robberies, and the hue-and-cry grew too hot, of posting to London, where they arranged to be arrested and thrown into prison for a small debt. By lying in such seclusion until the matter cooled, they generally escaped, “for,” concludes Fennor, “who would look in such a place for such offenders?”

But such paltry robberies were altogether thrown into the shade by that of 1622, when a company of India and Muscovy merchants, going to Newmarket to pay their respects to James I., were robbed of their papers and a bag containing £200.

To quote all the accounts of such affairs would be to occupy many pages, but some remarkable instances may be given. A London paper of March, 1680, tells how “A Gentleman with some of his family being in the coach with six horses going to Newmarket, was set upon by some Highway-men, and robbed of all his Money, Watch, Rings, Stone Buttons, and a pair of Lac’d Sleeves. And about four hours after, two Coaches coming from Cambridge, the persons in them were robb’d of several hundred pounds; there were but five Highway-men, two of them setting upon one coach, and three on the other; but at their departure they were so noble as to give the two coachmen two Half-crowns, to drink their healths. The coaches were within a mile of Newmarket when they were robb’d, at a place called the Devil’s Ditch.”

A parlous place, this Devil’s Ditch. It was the scene of a pitched battle between the Highway-men and the exasperated country folk in 1682. According to the Domestic Intelligence of August 24th, in that year, five Highway-men robbed a coach on the Heath, and secured £59 and a very considerable booty in the way of gold lace, silks, and linen. Before they could make off with the plunder, the rustics had been roused, and were stationed in a body in the cleft of that bank, impracticable for horsemen, through which the road runs. The Highway-men were thus shut in by this stoppage of the only exit from the Heath. Had they retreated, they would have been captured in Newmarket town, and so they were forced to make a desperate dash for liberty. “Knowing themselves Dead Men by the Law, if they were taken, they charged through the Countrymen, and by Firing upon them Wounded four, one of which we since understand is Dead of his Wounds.” So these Knights of Industry got clear away, and the liberal art of robbery upon the highway continued to flourish; for, three weeks later, two gentlemen were duly reported to have been robbed of seven guineas and their watches while riding over the Heath.

The professors of this art were so romantic in the eyes of youth that many a stable-boy or ostler “borrowed” a horse and took the road in admiring imitation. Daniel Wilkinson, advertised for in the London Gazette during March, 1683, was probably one of these. The advertisement describes him as “a little short Man, about 26 years old, with short light brown Hair, a hairy Mould near his Chin, in a grey Hat, and Leather Breeches,” and goes on to state that he “Hired, on the 4th Instant, at Newmarket, a bald Gelding, Wall-Eyed, above 14 hands high, eight or nine Years old, of a Chesnut colour, a short Mane and short Tail, and some white about his Feet, with a Hog-skin Saddle, and a white Cotton Saddle-Cloth, to ride to Cambridge, but has not been since heard of. Whosoever gives notice of the Horse or Man at the Green Dragon in Bishop-Gate-street, or to Thomas Gambeling, at Newmarket, shall have 20s/-. and their Charges.”

I do not think the advertiser ever heard of Daniel Wilkinson or of his wall-eyed horse again; although it does not seem to have been a very desirable animal.

Horses of good points were duly noticed by the Highway-men of the Heath, and many an one was taken by force from the groom exercising them. An instance of this is found in an offer of a reward, appearing in the London Gazette, of March 15th, 1686, when a “Black Mare, 15 hands high, about 4 Years old, having all her paces,” was “taken away from a Gentleman’s Man upon Newmarket Heath, by several Highway-men.” Three guineas and expenses were offered as a reward, but we may readily suppose that no one ever qualified for it.

The dangers of the road became even more acute twelve years later, in the reign of William III., when the wars in which England had been engaged were brought for the while to a conclusion; and disbanded soldiers lacking civil employment, and probably not wanting any while “the Road,” as an institution, remained possible, made every highway as dangerous to travellers as an expedition into an enemy’s country would have been. Epping Forest formed a most convenient centre for such as these; for it was densely wooded, contained caves and natural harbourages for desperadoes, and commanded several roads. Here a fraternity of freebooters, to the number of thirty, sworn to stand by one another to the last extremity, found a home in the leafy coverts in the neighbourhood of High Beech and Waltham Cross. Never, since the romantic days of Robin Hood and Little John, in their refuge under the greenwood trees of Sherwood Forest, had England known the like. These brethren built huts and storehouses, and came forth when they thought fit, to plunder and to slay. The King, journeying to Newmarket with distinguished company, was safe only because well escorted; and others, not so strongly guarded, were attacked, with loss of life, soon after he had passed.

An armed force, cautiously advancing into these wilds, did at last succeed in destroying the houses of this gang of land buccaneers, but they soon assembled again, and were strong enough, or impudent enough, to send a written and signed challenge to the Government, to come and dislodge them; which the Government accordingly did, in its own good time, in 1692, when, by the heroic method of posting detachments of Dragoons at a distance of ten miles from London on all the great roads, and by forming a chain of patrols, the Highway-men were in some instances brought to battle, killed or captured, or driven out of the business for a time, until such unusually severe measures were withdrawn and the Gentlemen of the Road were again suffered to pursue their avocation in peace.

They flourished for many a long year after, and the newspapers continually teemed with accounts of coach and other robberies. On the morning of December 28th, 1729, the “Norwich and St. Edmund’s Bury coaches” were stripped by two Highway-men half a mile on the London side of Bishop’s Stortford, and they afterwards not only robbed three gentlemen on horseback, but made away with the bridles and drove the horses off. Fortunate, indeed, for the dismounted trio that the town was so near! Again, we read, under date of April 25th, 1730: “The Earl of Godolphin’s gentleman was robb’d last week in the Bury coach of £50 and a gold watch”; while the detailed account of another robbery, in 1731, affords some amusement: “About three o’clock in the afternoon of November 21st, the Norwich, Bury, and Cambridge stage-coaches were robbed by two Highway-men near the three-mile stump in Epping Forest. The passengers were robbed to the extent of £30. In the Norwich coach was a Clergyman and two Tradesmen who had been at Sir Robert Walpole’s house in Norfolk, to assist in the entertainment of the Duke of Lorraine, and a lad who was coming to town, to be put apprentice. The Clergyman saved his portmanteau, with a great deal of gold in it, by persuading the robbers that it contained nothing but a few sermons, but they took away the boy’s portmanteau, with all his clothes. While the coaches were under examination, two horsemen appeared near the wood, upon which the Highway-men rode up and dismounting them, forced them into the wood, and there bound them with their own belts and gaiters, and then rode off.”