CHAP. II. KAIll.Y MoDKs (>! CONVEYANCE. 175 



ml >l>crs and vagabonds who lived by plunder. Turpin 

 and I>radslia\v beset the Great North Road; Duval, 

 Madiraili, .Maclean, and hundreds more notorious high- 

 waymen infested Hounslow Heath, Finchley Common, 

 Shooter's Hill, and all the approaches to the metro- 

 polis. A sight common to be seen then, was a gibbet 

 erected by the roadside, with the skeleton of some former 

 malefactor hanging from it in chains ; and " Hang- 

 ma u's-lanes" were very numerous in the neighbourhood 

 of London. 1 It was considered most unsafe to travel 

 a fter dark, and when the first "night coach" was started, 

 the risk was thought too great, and it was not patronised. 

 Travellers armed themselves on setting out on a journey 

 as if they were going to battle, and a blunderbuss was 

 considered as indispensable for a coachman as a whip. 

 Dorsetshire and Hampshire, like most other counties, were 

 beset with gangs of highwaymen ; and when the Grand 

 Duke Cosmo set out from Dorchester to travel to London 

 in 1669, he was "convoyed by a great many horse- 

 soldiers belonging to the militia of the county, to secure 

 him from robbers." 2 Thoresby, in his Diary, frequently 

 alludes with awe to his having passed safely " the great 

 common where Sir Ralph Wharton slew the highway- 

 man," and he also makes special mention of Stonegate 

 Hole, " a notorious robbing place " near Grantham. 

 Like every other traveller, the pious man carried loaded 

 pistols in his bags, and on one occasion he was thrown 



1 Lord Campbell mentions the re- 

 markable circumstance that Popham, 



afterwards Lord Chief Justice in the 

 rei-n of Kliy.alieth, took to the road 



extraordinary is, that Popham is sup- 

 posed to have continued in his course 

 as a highwayman even after he was 

 railed to the Bar. This seems to have 



in early life, and robbed travellers on j been quite notorious, for when he was 



(lad's Hill. Highway robbery could 

 not, however, have been considered a 

 very ignominious pursuit at that lime, 

 as during Popham's youth a statute 

 was made by which, on a first convic- 



made Serjeant the wags reported that. 

 he served up some wine destined for 

 an Alderman of London, which he 

 had intercepted on its way from 

 Southampton. Aubrey, iii., 492. 



tion for robbery, a peer of the realm i Campbell's ' Chief Justices,' i., 210. 



or lord of parliament was entitled to j 2 ' Travels of Cosmo the Third, 



have benefit of clergy, " though he ! Grand Duke of Tuscany,' p. 147. 



cannot read !" What is still more ; 



