John Austin (highwayman) of London by cart to the gallows. The 2½ mile journey along Tyburn Road would have taken up to three hours. Standing shackled in the cart, he would have been accompanied by two guards and a chaplain. They would traditionally stop on the way at St Sepulchre-without-Newgate and two public houses where drinks would be served. On arrival at Tyburn, Austin's cart would have been positioned under a beam and a noose attached around his head. He would then be permitted to address the crowd, his last words were: However, for Austin the noose slipped up the back of his
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).