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HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

chap, and that his manners and appearance should be such ss

- : — suited the master of a line horse. He therefore held an

aristoeratical position in the community of thieves, appearedat fashionable coffee-houses and gaming-houses, and bettedwith men of quality on the race ground.* Sometimes, indeed,lie was a man of good family and education. A romanticinterest therefore attached, and perhaps still attaches, to thenames of freebooters of this class. The vulgar eagerly drankin tales of their ferocity and audacity, of their occasional actsof generosity ami good nature, of their amours, of theirmiraculous escapes, of their desperate struggles, and of theirmanly bearing at the bar and in the cart. Thus it was relatedof William Nevison, the great robber of Yorkshire, that helevied a quarterly tribute on all the northern drovers, and, inreturn, not only spared them himself, but protected themagainst all other thieves; that he demanded purses in the mostcourteous manner; that he gave largely to the poor what hehad taken from the rich ; that his life was once spared by theroyal clemency, but that he again tempted his fate, and atlength died, in 1(585, on the gallows of York.” It was relatedhow Claude Duval, the French page of the Duke of Richmond,took to the road, became captain of a formidable gang, andhad the honour to be named first in a royal proclamationagainst notorious offenders; how at the head of his troop hestopped a lady’s coach, in which there was a booty of fourhundred pounds; how he took only one hundred, and sufferedthe fair owner to ransom the rest by dancing a coranto with

• Jimtaefl. Pray Sir, han't I seen your face at Will’s co(Tee-house?

Gibbet. Yes, Sir, and at While’s too. — Beaux’ Stratagem.

Gent’s History of York. Another marauder of the same description,named Biss, was hanged at Salisbury in lti!)5. In a ballad which is inthe Pepysian Library, he is represented as defending himself thus beforethe Judge:

“What say you now, my honoured Lord,

What harm was there in this?

Rich, wealthy misers were abhorredBy brave, freehearted Biss."