Half-hours with the Highwaymen - Vol 2

Half-hours with the Highwaymen - Vol 2 - Picturesque Biographies and Traditions of the "Knights of the Road"

When Harrison Ainsworth wrote Rookwood, that fantastic romance of highway robbery and the impossible exploits of the Rookwood family, he did a singular injustice to a most distinguished seventeenth-century highwayman, John Nevison by name, and transferred the glory of his wonderful ride to York to Dick Turpin, who never owned a "Black Bess," and who never did anything of the kind. Turpin, by virtue of Ainsworth's glowing pages, has become a popular hero and stands full in the limelight, while the real gallant figure is only dimly seen in the cold shade of neglect. John or "William" Nevison, by some accounts, was born at Pontefract, in 1639, of "honest and reasonably-estated parents." Sometimes we find him styled Nevison, at other times he is "alias Clerk" in the proclamations issued, offering rewards for his arrest. Occasionally, in the chap-books, we find John Nevison and William Nevison treated as two separate and distinct persons, no [Pg 2] doubt because the recorded adventures of this truly eminent man were so widely distributed over the country, that it was difficult to believe them the doings of one person. But there seems to be no reasonable doubt that one and the same man was the hero of all these doings, as also of the famous Ride to York. Of course it is now by far too late to snatch from Turpin the false glory bestowed upon him. A hundred romances, a century of popular plays, have for ever in the popular mind identified him with the Ride to York, and with all manner of achievements and graces that were never his. Lies are brazen and immortal; truth is modest; and the Great Turpin Myth is too fully established to be thoroughly scotched. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 53112
Author: Harper, Charles G. (Charles George)
Release Date: Oct 11, 2016
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Illustrator: Hardy, Paul, 1862-1942