Which criminal who was executed was made into a romantic hero in the novel Rookwood
Rookwood (novel) Turpin in the novel "Rookwood" was based on a real historical person, a highway robber who used pseudonyms to keep the company of gentlemen, and became the legendary type of the English highwayman. An important section of the novel is a dramatic re-telling of Dick Turpin's famous Ride to York. One story involved Turpin and Thom King, a man Turpin attempted to rob and instead befriended him. However, Turpin ended up killing King when trying to kill a constable who was after them. He was eventually arrested for stealing horses, and was executed in 1739. The initial response from the
Rookwood (novel) of "Rookwood" and many more added in later editions. Of the other songs, some were sung by gypsies about love, some were hymns, and some were used to further the gothic setting. The name Rookwood alludes to the old Recusant (Roman Catholic) family of that name, most famous of whom was Ambrose Rookwood, executed in 1606 for his part in the Gunpowder Plot (the conspiracy which forms the theme of Ainsworth's 1841 novel "Guy Fawkes"). Ainsworth, perhaps consciously, paid a double homage to this family, in that his later historical romance "The Spendthrift" concerns an eighteenth-century heir of the Gage