Dick Turpin (TV series) not hand over 20 guineas. Meanwhile, the real Dick Turpin, while disguised as a doctor, is accosted by a highwayman who claims to be Dick Turpin himself. The real Dick Turpin humorously, as it turns out, says "I thought you were dead." He then outwits the fake and reveals himself to be the real Turpin. The fake turns out to be Nick Smith, trying to get the money to pay Spiker. Dick lends him and Mary, an old acquaintance of Dick's, the money. However, a mix-up occurs when Turpin steals the money back from Sir John and Nick has to
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