Tom Cox (highwayman) hangman out of the cart carrying him to the gallows. Samuel Smith recorded that: He was listed in James Caulfield's "Blackguardiana: or, a dictionary of rogues, bawds, pimps, whores, pickpockets, shoplifters, &c." (1793) and features in a song sung by a character in the novel "Rookwood" (1834) by W. Harrison Ainsworth as follows: Tom Cox (highwayman) Thomas Cox (c. 1665 – 12 September 1690), known as "The Handsome Highwayman", was an English highwayman, sentenced to death and hanged at Tyburn. He had a reputation for a spirited nature and it is reported that when asked if he wished to say
Highwayman Falstaff, the most famous highwayman in English drama is Captain Macheath, hero of John Gay's 18th-century ballad opera "The Beggar's Opera". The legend of Dick Turpin owes an enormous amount to "Rookwood" (1834), in which a heavily fictionalised Turpin is one of the main characters. Alfred Noyes's narrative poem "The Highwayman" has been immensely popular ever since its publication in 1906. From the early 18th century, collections of short stories of highwaymen and other notorious criminals became very popular. The earliest of these is Captain Alexander Smith's "Complete History of the Lives and Robberies of the Most Notorious Highwaymen" (1714).