Rogues of the Road

‘The tradition of stand and deliver is older than we might have thought …’ For centuries, the roads of Oxfordshire were the haunt of highwaymen and footpads. From Elizabethan villains to famous names such as Dick Turpin, Captain Hind and Claude Duval, traces of their stories survive in historical documents and even their own testimonies. But who were these elusive rogues of the road? Who held up a duchess from the household of King Charles I? How did a ghost pull off his largest crime? And which band of brothers made robbing the highways their family business? Take a journey from Oxford to Banbury, through the wilds of Wychwood Forest, to Henley-on-Thames, Abingdon and Wantage, into Witney’s inns, and even through the doors of Britain’s oldest university. Four hundred years after the term highwayman was first coined, meet Oxfordshire’s rogues of the road