John Nevison the north. In the mid-1670s his activities were under investigation and he was associated with men named Edmund Bracy, Thomas Wilbore, Thomas Tankerd, John Bromett, and William (or Robert) Everson and John Brace or Bracy, which may have been his alias. The robbers used safe houses at Tuxford and Wentbridge and divided their spoils at the Talbot Inn at Newark. Nevison developed a reputation as a gentleman highwayman, never using violence against his victims, always polite, and only robbing the rich. The famous ride from Kent to York took place in 1676, after Nevison had robbed a traveller at Gad's
Dick Turpin trusty colleagues Claude Duval, Tom King, and Jack Rann. These narratives, which transformed Turpin from a pockmarked thug and murderer into "a gentleman of the road [and] a protector of the weak", followed a popular cultural tradition of romanticising English criminals. This practice is reflected in the ballads written about Turpin, the earliest of which, "Dick Turpin", would appear to have been published in 1737. Later ballads presented Turpin as an 18th-century Robin Hood figure: "Turpin was caught and his trial was passed, and for a game cock he died at last. Five hundred pounds he gave so free, all