Highwayman

What favoured them most was the lack of governance and absence of a police force: parish constables were almost entirely ineffective, while detection and arrest were very difficult.

[4] They often attacked coaches for their lack of protection, including public stagecoaches; the postboys who carried the mail were also frequently held up.

was in use from the 17th century to the 19th century: A fellow of a good Name, but poor Condition, and worse Quality, was Convicted for laying an Embargo on a man whom he met on the Road, by bidding him Stand and Deliver, but to little purpose; for the Traveller had no more Money than a Capuchin, but told him, all the treasure he had was a pound of Tobacco, which he civilly surrendered.The phrase "Your money or your life!"

The historian Roy Porter described the use of direct, physical action as a hallmark of public and political life: "From the rough-house of the crowd to the dragoons' musket volley, violence was as English as plum pudding.

In the 17th to the early 19th centuries in Ireland, acts of robbery were often part of a tradition of Irish resistance to the English and British authorities and the Protestant Ascendancy.

From the mid-17th century onwards, highwaymen who harassed the English authorities were known as 'tories' (from Irish tóraidhe, raider; tóraí in modern spelling).

[13] To the south of London, highwaymen sought to attack wealthy travellers on the roads leading to and from the Channel ports and aristocratic arenas like Epsom, which became a fashionable spa town in 1620, and Banstead Downs where horse races and sporting events became popular with the elite from 1625.

[16] During the 18th century, French rural roads were generally safer from highwaymen than those of England, an advantage credited by the historian Alexis de Tocqueville to the existence of a uniformed and disciplined mounted constabulary known as the Maréchaussée.

[18] The decline in highwayman activity also occurred during the period in which repeating handguns, notably the pepper-box and the percussion revolver, became increasingly available and affordable to the average citizen.

[21] The dramatic population increase which began with the Industrial Revolution also meant, quite simply, that there were more eyes around, and the concept of remote place became a thing of the past in England.

Until the 1830s, they were mainly simply regarded as criminals but an increasing public appetite for betyar songs, ballads and stories gradually gave a romantic image to these armed and usually mounted robbers.

They developed their own military organisation, separate from the ranks established in the country – they chose their own commanders, captains, lieutenants and corporals.

Their rights were later taken away by the Austrians after the defeat of the Rákóczi's War of Independence, fearing their military power, they forced them into serfdom, so this was the end of the Hajduk golden age.

These included the Thuggees, a quasi-religious group that robbed travellers on Indian roads until the cult was systematically eradicated in the mid-1800s by British colonial administrators.

In medieval Wallachia, Moldavia, Transylvania and Ukraine, the Haiduks (Romanian – Haiduci, Ukrainian – Гайдуки, Haiduky) were bandits and deserters who lived in forests and robbed local Boyars or other travelers along roads.

A number of traditional folk songs about highwaymen exist, both positive and negative, such as "Young Morgan", "Whiskey in the Jar", and "The Wild Colonial Boy".

[28] In the later 19th century, highwaymen such as Dick Turpin were the heroes of a number of penny dreadfuls, stories for boys published in serial form.

In the 20th century the handsome highwayman became a stock character in historical love romances, including books by Baroness Orczy and Georgette Heyer.

Sir Walter Scott's romance The Heart of Midlothian (1818) recounts the heroine waylaid by highwaymen while travelling from Scotland to London.

The hit single version recorded in 1973 by Irish rock band Thin Lizzy renders this last line "I said 'Stand-oh and deliver, or the devil he may take ya'."

The contemporary folk song "On the Road to Fairfax County" by David Massengill, recorded by The Roches and by Joan Baez, recounts a romantic encounter between a highwayman and his female victim.

The Canadian singer Loreena McKennit adapted the narrative poem, "The Highwayman" written by Alfred Noyes, as a song by the same title in her 1997 album The Book of Secrets.

[32] In a linking sketch in an episode of Not the Nine O'Clock News a highwayman holds up a stagecoach with pistols – in order to wash the coach in exchange for small monies in the manner of a modern-day unsolicited car window washer in traffic.

In the British children's television series Dick Turpin, starring Richard O'Sullivan, the highwayman was depicted as an 18th-century Robin Hood figure.

The highwayman known as Juraj Jánošík (1688–1713) became a hero of many folk legends in the Slovak, Czech, and Polish cultures by the 19th century[33] and hundreds of literary works about him have since been published.

Curro Jiménez, a Spanish TV series which aired from 1976 to 1979, starred a group of 19th-century highwaymen or bandoleros in the mountains of Ronda in the south of Spain.

The lives of numerous Indian highwaymen including Arattupuzha Velayudha Panicker, Ithikkara Pakki, Jambulingam Nadar, Kayamkulam Kochunni and Papadu have been adapted for cinema and television multiple times.

In Fable II, Highwaymen appear as an elite type of enemy which works alongside bandits and makes use of speed and agility over brute strength.

In Bushido Blade 2 there is a playable character named Highwayman who is dressed in Victorian clothing and represents the hero archetype.