Dick Turpin and Highwayman Heroes

On this day in 1739 Dick Turpin, one of the most famous highwaymen in England, was hanged at York for stealing a horse. The historical Dick Turpin was, of course, very different from the romanticised image of the highwayman that sometimes appears in historical fiction. Turpin was a thief and a murderer. In his own times he was not the most famous of highwaymen and after his death he was forgotten for a hundred years.

It’s interesting how outlaws can become heroes, both in historical fiction and in the heritage industry. Some of my favourite fictional heroes are pirates or smugglers or highwaymen. In Georgette Heyer’s books I have a particular fondness for Nick Beauvallet, the pirate hero of Beauvallet, and for Ludovic Lavenham in The Talisman Ring. Jane Aiken Hodge's book Watch the Wall, My Darling was one of the first historical romances I read and I loved the free trading hero. My very first book had a highwayman as hero. It was never published but I have retained a fondness for highwaymen and have written pirates and smugglers as well.

So how and why did outlaws, from Robin Hood to Dick Turpin, become heroes? Why is the highwayman sometimes a romantic and glamorous figure? He is usually portrayed as a dashing miscreant or likeable rogue.  He is a hero in the public imagination whereas in reality, he (or she) is a criminal. There is a suggestion that the outlaw personifies some of the aspirations that lie deep in many of us to be a devil-may-care individualist and go our own way. In addition, it takes courage and confidence to hold up carriages; it requires strength of personality as well as force of arms, superb horsemanship, stamina and patience. The highwayman of myth embodies gallantry and courtesy, and faces death with a swagger. Horses were expensive and were therefore usually ridden by a “gentleman” unless, of course, the highwayman was also a horse thief.

Highway robbery flourished at a time when the hold of government and of law and order was incomplete or when forces of government were unpopular or illegitimate. There is usually the implication that the outlaw is a wronged character, either personally or by powerful and corrupt government forces.

It was the Victorian novelist W Harrison Ainsworth who started Dick Turpin’s cult of celebrity when he

made him a character in his first novel, Rookwood. Ainsworth invented Turpin’s famous horse, Black Bess, and attributed to him the famous ride from London to York, which was actually made by a completely different highwayman. Turpin’s fame and hold on the popular imagination grew from there. I vividly remember the 1970s TV series Dick Turpin which was one of the many costume dramas I loved as a child. It did a great deal to instill a romantic love of history in me!

Do you enjoy books with outlaw heroes, whether they are highwaymen, pirates or free traders? Do you have any favourites? And why do you think they are popular?

Do You Worry About Your Heroes?

Do you worry about your hero – the one you are writing now or perhaps the one you are currently reading about? Do you fret about what is going to happen to him when you close the book? There are all kinds of things to worry about with historical hindsight –if he is a soldier or a sailor you know what battles lie ahead. You know about cholera outbreaks and the Indian Mutiny, riots and stock market crashes.

Or do you worry about more superficial things? What will your hero look like in ten, twenty, fifty years? I get depressed just thinking about Victorian fashions in trousers and ghastly leg of mutton side whiskers. And then there’s the physical side of things – will that chiselled jaw sag, the thick hair develop a bald patch, that flat stomach become a comfortable paunch?

The beautiful young man in the picture is twenty two years old and the year is 1826. I bought the print on the strength of a glimpse amongst a pile of others in the picture on an auction room’s website. He is a follower of Byron, quite obviously – the Turkish weapons and pipe and the slippers by the fireplace signal that. The litter of correspondence on the mantelpiece show that he has pretensions to be a man of letters, the elegant Biedermeier sofa and the studied elegance of his clothes demonstrate that he is a follower of fashion.

But who is this intellectual exquisite? When I got him out of the frame and bleached out the foxing I found the title at the bottom: The Author of Vivian Grey. It is Benjamin Disraeli, future Prime Minister, confident of Queen Victoria – “We authors ma’am…”

Now have a look for Disraeli on the web. The picture at the top of the Wickipedia entry will do. Oh dear. Now I worry about my heroes even more.

Louise Allen

The Big Mills & Boon Centenary Debate!

The Mills and Boon Centenary debate took place at the Oxford Literary Festival last week and one hundred and fifty romance readers, authors and supporters came along to enjoy a wide-ranging discussion on whether heroes and heroines had changed with the times. Favourite heroes and heroines mentioned included Anne Elliot from Persuasion and Georgette Heyer’s rakes, beaux and spirited heroines. It was generally agreed that heroes and heroines of such quality had stood the test of time and were as relevant now as they were a hundred or even two hundred years ago. The panel and audience also discussed whether Regency heroines would have been as obsessed with their weight and appearance as the Bridget Jones generation!

Other topics covered included an impromptu show of hands from the audience as to whether readers thought there were too many love scenes in books these days and whether people skipped these in order to move on with the plot! A brave few maintained that for them the love scenes were an integral part of the story and something they would never skip. There was also a lively debate on whether men could write romance from a female point of view. The evening was rounded off with a complementary glass of champagne from sponsors Mills & Boon as the authors signed copies of their books and readers were given a goody bag to take away. All in all a most entertaining event and thank you to all who came along to support it. I hope that a good time was had by all!

Nicola