JIGHWAY ROBBERY

Over a Harsh Road Have Come Many of the Every-Day Details of Current
Legal Procedure—Here Are Some Interesting Sidelights on 17th Century Crimes

and Criminals Which Point to the Passage of Time.

HE FOLLOWING EXTRACT from the
ary of John Evelyn in 1652 throws an in-
resting light on the methods of criminal
westigation and the administration of
istice of those times:—

“The weather being hot, and having sent
yy man on before, I rode negligently under
‘vour of the shade, until within three miles
f Bromley, at a place call’d the Procession
Jake, two cut-throates started out, and
riking with long staves at the horse and
iking hold of the reines threw me downe,
yok my sword, and haled me into a deepe
ricket some quarter of a mile from the
ighway, where they might securely rob
1e, as they soone did. What they got of
joney was not considerable, but they took
wo rings, the one an emerald with dia-
nonds, the other an onyx, and a pair of
uckles set with rubies and diamonds, which
vere of value, and after all bound my hands
ehind me, and my feete, having before
ull’d off my bootes; they then set me up
gainst an oake, with most bloody threats
o cutt my throat if I offer’d to cry out or
nake any noise, for they should be within
earing, I not being the person they looked
or. I told them if they had not basely
urpriz’d me they should not have had so
asy a prize, and that it would teach me

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never to ride neere an hedge, since had I
ben in the mid-way they durst not have
adventur'd on me; at which they cock’d
their pistols, and told me they had long guns
too, and were 14 companions. I begg’d for
my onyx, and told them it being engraven
with my armes would betray them, but
nothing prevail’d. My horse’s bridle they
slipt, and search’d the saddle, which they
pull’d off, but let the horse graze, and then
turning againe bridl’d him and tied him to
a tree, yet so he might graze, and thus left
me bound. My horse was perhaps not taken
because he was mark’d and cropt on both
ears and well known on that roade. Left in
this manner grievously was I tormented
with flies, ants, and the sunn, nor was my
anxiety little how I should get loose in that
solitary place, where I could neither heare

-or see any creature but my poore horse and

a few sheepe stragling in the copse. After
neere 2 houres attempting I got my hands
to turn palm to palm, having been tied back
to back, and then it was long before I could
slip the cord over my wrists to my thumb,
which at last I did, and then soone un-
wound my feete and saddling my horse and
roaming while about I at last perceiv’d dust
to rise and soone after heard the rattling of
a cart, towards which I made, and by the
help of two country men I got back onto
the high way. I rode to Coll. Blount’s, a
greate justiciarie of the times, who sent out
hue and cry immediately. The next morn:
ing, sore as my wrists and armes were, I
went to London and got 500 tickets printed
and dispers’d by an officer of Goldsmiths
Hall, and within 2 daies had tidings of all I
had lost except my sword which had a silver
hilt, and some trifles. The rogues had
pown’d one of my rings for a trifle to a

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—

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goldsmith’s servant before the tickets had
come to the shop, by which means they
scap’d; the other ring was bought by a
victualler, who brought it to a goldsmith,
but he having seen the ticket seiz’d the man.
I afterwards discharg’d him on his protesta-
tion of innocence. Thus did God deliver me
from these villians, and not onely so, but
restor’d what they tooke, as twice before he
had graciously don, both at sea and land;
I meane when I had been rob’d by pyrates,
and was in danger of a considerable loss at
Amsterdam; for which, and many, many
signal preservations, I am extremely oblig’d
to give thanks to God my Saviour . . . ”
“One of the men who robb’d me was
taken; I was accordingly summon’d to
appeare against him, and on the 12th was
in Westminster Hall, but not being bound
over nor willing to hang the fellow I did
not appeare, coming onely to save a friend’s
baile, but the bill being found he was turn’d
over to the Old Bailey. In the meane time
I received a petition from the prisoner,
whose father I understood was an honest
old farmer in Kent. He was charg’d with
other crimes, and condemn’d but repriev'd.
I heard afterwards that had it not been for
his companion, a younger man, he would
probably have kill’d me. He was afterwards

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