Volume II
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TIM BUCKLEY Highwayman, who fell after a hot Battle, and was hanged in 1701 as ever lived in this kingdom. He was born of very honest parents at Stamford, in Lincolnshire, where he served three years to a shoemaker; but then, running away from his master, he came up to London, and soon became acquainted with ill company, whose vices he followed to support him in a most scandalous and infamous course of life. Having spent a great deal of his ill-gotten money at a blind ale-house in Wapping, he once asked the victualler to lend him ten shillings, which favour he denied him; and Tim so highly resented his ingratitude that he left frequenting his house. Not long after, Tim and some of his thieving companions, breaking in by night, bound the victualler, his wife and maid, both hand and foot, and robbed the house, taking thence forty pounds laid by for the brewer, three silver tankards, a silver watch and eight gold rings. Another time, on Tim taking a walk towards Hyde Park Corner, the air of which place is generally very un- wholesome for a thief to take, it was his fortune to meet with that famous merry-andrew and mountebank, Dr Cately. He commanded that illiterately learned gentleman to stand and deliver. Our doctor, preferring his own wel- fare before what he had about him, humbly presented Tim with six guineas and a very good watch, that he might keep time in spending the gold. An informing constable, who was a baker in St Giles- in-the-Fields parish, once took up Tim, sending him as a soldier into Flanders. He had not been long there before he deserted and came to London again; and one day meeting this baker's wife coming alone from Hampstead he forced her into a private place, and presenting a pistol to her breast swore he would shoot her dead on the spot if she refused his request, he being bent upon it to be revenged on her husband, who had impressed him a little while ago. The baker's wife being no Lucretia, to value her chastity at the loss of her life, was forced to submit, and Tim then com- manded her to deliver her money and such other things of worth as she had about her. So taking from her a couple of gold rings and eleven shillings he sent her home to tell her husband of this adventure. Afterwards, Tim Buckley, stealing a very good horse in Buckinghamshire, turned highwayman, and riding up to London met on the road a certain pawnbroker living in Drury Lane. Tim having been the loser in pawning some things to him, which were lost for want of redeeming, was resolved to have his pennyworth out of him now, so commanded him to stand and deliver. The pawnbroker, being very loath to go to the devil before his time, ran- somed himself for twenty-eight guineas, a gold watch, a silver tobacco-box and a couple of gold rings. Another time, Tim Buckley, meeting a stock-jobber on the road who had formerly prosecuted him for felony, upon conviction whereof he was burned in the hand, was re- solved to be revenged on him, by robbing him of forty-eight guineas. Not long after, this same stock-jobber, accidentally meeting Tim Buckley in London, caused him to be apprehended, and committed to Newgate, and convicting him of this robbery, he received sentence of death. But obtaining a reprieve, and afterwards pleading for a free pardon, as soon as he was at liberty, resolving to be further revenged on this adversary who had twice sat very close on his skirts, he went to Hackney, where this stock-jobber had a country house within a mile of that village, and one night set fire to it; but a timely discovery thereof preventing it from doing much damage, it was quickly quenched. However, Tim made his escape, and flying into Leicestershire he broke open a house at a place called Ashby-de-la-Zouch, and from thence took above eighty pounds. He then went to a fair at Derby, where he bought a good horse, and went on the highway again. Being thus mounted again to rob on the road, within two miles of Nottingham he attempted to stop a coach in which were three gentlemen, besides a couple of footmen riding a little behind; but they being resolved not to be robbed of what they had by one villain, one of them fired a blunderbuss out of the coach, which killed Tim's horse, and then, all the gentlemen alighting, and the footmen having by this time also come up to their assistance, a bloody and obstinate engagement began between them, wherein Tim killed one of the gentlemen and a footman ; but being overpowered nevertheless, after he had discharged eight pistols, and also grown faint through the loss of much blood (for he had received eleven wounds in his arms, thighs and legs), he was seized and committed to jail in Nottingham, where he was executed, in 1701, aged twenty-nine years, and afterwards hanged in chains at the place where he perpetrated the two murders aforesaid. |