Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio.
One evening, as mister Hart, a young gentleman of Enfield, traveled over Finchley Common Highwayman William Davis, who had been preying on carriages for about four or five hours already that night, rode up to his target, shouting quote, a plague on you, how slow you are to make a man?
Wait on you, come, deliver what you have. Hart, who had been entertaining his mistress, was surprised he was being robbed and began to make excuses why he had no money with him, But William, he was having none of that. He turned out Heart's pockets himself and left with more than one hundred guineas and a gold watch. He slapped hard on the back, advised him not to lie when quote an honest gentleman desired a small boon of him, and rode off to find the next target. Welcome to Criminalia.
I'm Maria Tremarky, I'm Holly Frye. William Davis led a double life. He was a successful highway robber by night and by day a respectable farmer. He kept his criminal career a secret, even from his wife and family for decades, until he was caught leaving the scene of what would be his final crime. He was born in Wrexham in North Wales in sixteen twenty seven. His family relocated while he was still young to Sodbury, Gloucestershire, and it was there where he met and married the daughter of a
wealthy innkeeper. Together the couple had a large family, eighteen children total. Maybe that's why he had to turn to a life of crime.
I have thought that.
To feed all those damn.
Kids, it's a lot of mouths.
They moved to Bagshot on the Surrey Berkshire border, where William became a successful farmer. Farming was honest work, but it was also a clever way to distract others from noticing that he had another life, that secret one as a highwayman. In fact, he's considered one of the most notorious highwaymen of the seventeenth century. This wasn't something that he dabbled in to keep life spicy. It was a real, although illegal career for.
Him, posthumously nicknamed the Golden Farmer. As a highwayman, William was primarily interested in you guessed it stealing gold coins. As a respectable farmer, he paid all his debts in gold. William didn't just steal gold, though he stole gold, absolutely, but he stole whatever valuables you had. He was a robber. He wasn't handing back jewels saying no thank you. But he never passed paper money, notes, bills, none of it.
Over and over in the stories of his life, it's recounted that William used minted gold guineas as his preferred currency, and it was all to avoid anyone identifying as a highway robber. No one was going to recognize their specific gold coins. And while people thought he was a bit eccentric, no one refused his payments.
According to the writings of editor George Daniel of Canonbury, William had been a corn chandler in Thames Street, where he sold his goods by day and robbed other farmers at night. So a corn chandler is a person who buys and sells corn and grain products, which is one hundred percent in line with what historians know about William's honest work, and some of his early highway robbery victims did include his fellow farmers on their way to and
from market. I mean, who are we kidding? They were always his targets, although he was not exclusively hitting farmers.
The Surrey village of Bagshot and its surrounding area was one of William's favorite haunts, and not just because it was close to home. The village prospered because of its location. It sat on the main route linking London to the West Country, on the Great West Road. Inns and taverns began to appear in the area to serve the demand
of stagecoach and carriage travelers. By the seventeen hundreds, which is a little bit after William was prowling the roads, there were nearly a dozen inns along the Great West Road alone. It attracted the attention of travelers and tourists, but Bagshot also attracted the attention of thieves and highway robbers began to prey on unassuming travelers passing through that area. William was one of them and worked Bagshot and as far afield as Salisbury Plaine.
William worked alone, at least at first, he became a master at getting what he wanted from his victims. He was not known to be violent, but he was certainly intimidating. One popular tale about him tells how he once robbed his own landlord of the annual rent money that they'd just collected from him. It's about eighty pounds bidding the landlord to quote, come deliver what you have in a trice.
The landlord never knew that their robber was actually a person who, under different circumstances, they'd instantly recognize, and a person that they liked and respected.
William did work with associates on and off, but when he wasn't going solo, he primarily rode alongside another highwayman, Thomas Simpson, known as Old Mob, who, as his stories would suggest, really liked to rob high profile targets. One version of William's story suggests he became the leader of what grew to be a pretty large gang where he met Old Mob. Whether this sizeable gang is fact or fiction, and its likely fiction, as there are no stories that
exist of William robbing with multiple accomplices. The relationship between William and Thomas was a real one. Simpson had quote little education and less manners, but he was a good highwayman, and the pair plundered carriages together and apart for roughly forty years. There are highway robbery stories told of Thomas, some without William side by side. But as this is a story about William, we're going to focus on his outlaw life.
We're going to take a break for a word from our sponsors, and when we're back, we have several anecdotes of William Davis, the gold loving highway robber to share.
Welcome back to Criminalia. Let's tell stories about William Davis, highway robber.
When you begin to tease a part the story of William's criminal career. One of the first anecdotes about the highwayman, the wanted farmer that you'll inevitably come across, is this career highlight. One evening, William, working solo, stormed and plundered several carriages headed towards Salisbury. He stopped every single carriage and lined them up on the side of the road. Each carriage was full to capacity, carrying groups of well
healed ladies. Every traveler in the first coach gave their gold to their robber as demanded, with the exception of one woman. That one passenger insisted that she had no money and wasn't carrying anything to give him. Fearing this delay could compromise his looting of the other coaches. William instructed her to wait while he collected valuables from all those other travelers, and then promised that he would return to her carriage and ask her again what she had
for him. Upon his return. The woman still insisted that she did not have anything at all for him, and this sent William into a fit of rage. According to the Newgate Calendar's retelling of the crime, the woman quote persisting in her former statement, enraged him to such a degree that, seizing her by the shoulder, he employed language which it would be hardly proper here to set down. Well.
What he said was printed in another publication. Get ready. Uh. What William screamed at her was quote, you canting bitch, If you dally with me at this rate, you'll certainly provoke my spirit to be damnably rude with you. You see, these good women here were so tender hearted as to be charitable to me, and you, you, whining horror, are so covetous as to lose your life for the sake of mammon. Come, come, you hollow hearted bitch. Unpin your purse strings quickly, or else I shall send you out
of the Land of the Living. I want to memorize this entire speech so I can whip it out at pertinent moments.
Yeah, it was great, you did a great reading.
Hmmm, feels good. In return for this quite uncharming outburst, the lady did finally give up a purse of guineas, a gold watch and a diamond ring. And it's said that the two parted quote as good friends as when they were first introduced to each other. I don't know what level of good friends that was, but apparently.
Go Newgate Calendar, right. Uh?
Is this an accurate account of what was said? Listen? There's no way anyone can be sure, but it's a great monologue.
So on to the next one. Squire Broughton, a barrister of the Middle Temple, was another of William's victims. The two happened by chance to meet one evening at an inn along one of William's favorite hunting roads. William, having quickly chosen Broughton as his next mark, pretended to be a farmer on his way to file a complaint concerning an offense a neighboring farmer had committed when he allowed
his cattle to break into William's land. He wondered, could Broughton recommend an expert in the field to help him out. Broughton offered to take William on as his own client, and William took at gunpoint several pounds, some large pieces of gold, and a gold watch from the barrister.
It was at Salisbury Plain where William encountered the carriage of the Duchess of Albemarle. Before he could rob her, though he first had to get through her security, There was a quote long engagement with a postilion, a coachman, and two footmen. Some accounts suggest that several shots were actually fired. Gunfire or not, everyone did walk away with their lives, and William walked away uninjured. By all accounts of this robbery, he found the Duchess to be stubborn
and defiant. She just would not part with anything. Frustrated, he unleashed. According to Charles Harper in his book Half Hours with the Highwaymen, quote a torrent of bad language. Not only was his victim obstinate and opinionated, she was also wearing face paint, and William had opinions about that. Face paint was a fashion statement at this time in
England and Europe in particular among the upper classes. And this kind of artificial beautification was worn by wealthy men and women alike, and a lot of people criticized it. Some found it to be a deceptive way of masking one's physical imperfections. People still say that some compared upper class women who had painted their faces to sex workers, and conventionally it had been associated with sex workers, courtisans, and actresses. That comparison was, of course, to underscore its immorality.
Samuel Peeps, the English author and politician known for his eyewitness accounts of major events during the time, recorded in his private diary that he'd attended a dinner party where the hostess's painted face made him quote loathe her. There was a growing popular discomfort with women's painted faces, and
William was absolutely on team discomfort. Seeing the duchess painted face, he yelled at her, quote, you bitch incarnate, You would rather read over your face in the glass every moment and blot out pale to put in red than give an honest man as I am, a small matter to support him on his lawful occasions on the road. Some interesting, you know, relationships with the truth In that statement but there is also some debate on how this robbery ended.
He may have left with three diamond rings in a gold watch, but he may also have left without anything, instead leaving the frustration of robbing the Duchess's carriage to rob another that was making its way toward him.
Not long after his encounter with the Duchess, William met Sir Thomas Day, a Justice of peace living at Bristol, who was traveling on the road between Gloucester and Wister. Day did not know William or how William made his living, and the two started up a conversation as they rode along on horseback one evening. William, though knew who Day was, and he began to set up his mark. He began by telling Day a big bowld lie of how he'd
recently been the target of a highwayman. But as luck would have it, that day, his horse was fast enough to outrun his robber. He would have lost about forty pounds if he'd been caught, said Day quote. Truly that would have been very hard. But nevertheless, as you would have been robbed between Sun and Sun, the county upon you suing, it would have been obliged to have made your loss good again. They continued riding and chatting until
William spotted a convenient place to well go highwayman. He shot Day's horse from under him, and, pointing a pistol at his victim's chest, demanded his money and his valuables thrown to the ground. Day it said, replied, quote, I thought, sir, that you had been an honest man. William replied, quote, you see your worship's mistaken, and had you any guts in your brains, you might have perceived by my face that my countenance was the very picture of mere necessity. Therefore,
deliver presently for I am in haste. William then thanked Day, who was still shocked at his bad luck, and left with his sixty pounds in gold and silver.
An elderly cattle farmer at Putney Heath was another of William's victims. William, playing a polite and gentlemanly role, wrote up to the farmer, appearing helpful. He wanted to let the farmer know that he had seen some suspicious people not far behind them, and he suspected they were highwaymen. Would he William continued conceal ten guineas for him, as they would surely be safer with him. Based on how modest the farmer appeared, no one would suspect he had
any coin on him. The farmer accepted, and in turn told William that he himself had fifty guineas bound in the lappet of his shirt. Anybody else just WinCE for a visual assist. A lappet is like a decorative flap on a garment, So think of something like a piece of laced that's worn around a collar in this instance, and it could potentially have things tucked into it. And after about a mile and a half of riding together, William said to the man, quote, I believe there's nobody
will take the pains of robbing you or me today. Therefore, I think I had as good take the trouble of robbing you myself. So instead of delivering your purse, pray, give me the lappet of your shirt. The farmer, surprised at his companion's duplicitous behavior, began begging his robber to please just let him go, but William, in response, cut off the lappet from the man's shirt and made off with all sixty guineas.
We're going to take a break for a word from our sponsors. When we return, we'll talk about William's final robbery and how he ended up on trial for murder.
Welcome back to Criminalia. Let's talk about what happened when William came out of robber retirement for one last job.
William robbed carriages for more than forty years, and his entry in the eighteen eighty five Dictionary of National Biography, a reference book that includes biographies of influential or otherwise significant people, notes that it was his quote charming manners that helped him remain successful for so long. I mean, maybe they saw something in him that we did not.
He did once retire from highway robbery work for several years, but then he came back for one more job, hoping to make a large sum of money quickly so he could purchase land adjacent to his property. Maybe it was that he had gone soft in retirement, or he'd fallen out of practice, because this time he got caught, whether he was spotted in the act or as he began to flee, he was pursued in Salisbury Court in Fleet Street.
He nearly escaped, but in that escape attempt he fatally shot a butcher who was among those trying to apprehend him. William's criminal and agricultural careers came to a hard stop. He was arrested, charged and jailed at Newgate Prison. While awaiting trial.
William was tried for the butcher's murder, not for his highway robbery crimes at the Old Bailey sessions between December eleventh and December seventeenth, sixteen ninety. His secret life of crime, well that was no longer a secret. Convicted, he was executed by hanging on December twenty second, at age sixty four, at the end of Salisbury Court where he had shot the butcher, and subsequently he was hung in chains on Bagshot Heath, where he had committed several of his crimes.
According to Bagshot historian Ken Clark quote William Davis, the Highwayman was hanged and gibbeted in front of the premises in six ninety The Golden Farmer. It allegedly changed to the Jolly Farmer in eighteen twenty three.
As we have seen a lot this season about highway robbers, fact in fiction tends to blur, and sometimes a lot. Surely some of the stories attached to William are his and surely some are not what's been questioned though, aren't the crimes he committed, but rather his execution date, of all things. Usually that record is pretty solid, but his is a few centuries old, so there are questions such as was there more than one person named William Davis,
a person whose story intertwined with our William Davis. Well, that's really quite possible. Equally possible are poorly kept records. A person identified as William Davis in old printed trials at the British Museum suggests the Golden Farmer was executed in September of s sixteen eighty five, and not as a punishment for murder, rather for quote being the principal figure in a burglary and felony committed in company with when John Holland and Agnes Waring at the house of
a minister one Lionel Gatford in lime. That sounds like a totally different William Davis.
Then in September of sixteen eighty nine it happens again when the London Gazette published that there were Quote, in custody at Newgate two persons suspected of being housebreakers and robbers, several instruments for breaking into houses having been taken with them. One calling himself William Freeman, whose right name is William Hill, commonly called the Golden Farmer, an indifferent, tall black man, well set with black hair, has a shaking in his head,
and is between fifty and sixty years of age. Again, that does not sound like our William Davis.
William's adventures, good or bad, fact or fiction appear we heard not only in the popular publications, the Newgate Calendar and the Dictionary of National Biographies, but also in broadsides, chap books. And there's even a play all telling his story, or you know, at least some version of his story. So to really settle it all out, let's meet it, the jolly Farmer. Have a drink? What do you have in your hip flask? My dear?
I love so many things about his story. It's so evocative. I actually do quite like him. I think he's interesting. I love his double life. I love that he was a legitimate farmer.
I love that we had stories to tell about him rather than just focusing on his trial, because there were records for that. Like, I really enjoyed going on his terrible adventures with him. I guess you could say.
I like getting to say his foul language. I like all of it. So I wanted to make a drink called the Golden Farmer, that is golden color, that includes items that refer to his life in agriculture, and also because he often sidled up to people, made friends with them, and then turned on them, a drink that looks like one thing and tastes very much like another. So oh yeah, okay, So what you're going to put into your shaking tin is two ounces of apple juice, three quarters of an
ounce of diluted corn syrup. So that is corn syrup that you would buy from the grocery store like you were gonna make some confection or baked thing, but you're gonna combine it with water one to one and get it diluted down so it's not so thick and it
flows more easily in your drink. Two ounces of apple juice, three quarters of an ounce of diluted corn syrup, three quarters of an ounce of lemon juice, three quarters of an ounce of egg white, or a single egg white if you're actually separating it from the yolk from a real egg rather than a pour out, and then an ounce and a half of gin, and then to all of this you are going to add the surprise ingredient, which is just a pinch of yellow curry powder.
I'm intrigued.
Actually, I really like how this one turns out. So you're gonna dry shake this, meaning without ice. You'll give it a good shake that helps that egg get nice
and frothy and aerated. Then you will add ice and give it another shake, and then you're gonna double strain it, meaning you pour it out using your hawthorn strainer, threw a mesh strainer into a pre chilled glass, and on top of that beautiful foamy top that you get from the egg white, you're gonna sprinkle just a scant amount of your yellow curry, just a little because then on presentation,
this drink looks like some yummy autumnal nutmeg situation. And then instead when you sip it, you get not that. You get like this bright, very light, not very sweet at all, drink that has a little heat at the
base of it, which is kind of fun. Like yellow curry isn't usually as hot as other curries, and it'll depend on what kind you have on hand or you purchase, but it's fair mild compared to others, but it does have a warmth to it, and so it just shifts the gears on this in a way that is really fun, and it turns out to be such an absolutely fun drink. Telling you, if you think it sounds crazy, maybe give it a try, because I'm it's quite yummy.
I think that there were a lot of people who thought that turmeric showing up in drinks was a little bit crazy at first, and then we all went crazy for them. So maybe maybe curry is a way to go here everywhere.
I did think about using turmeric here, and the thing is, as we've talked about before, turmeric very effective, especially in color change. But it's tricky and it is really hard to actually incorporate, like literally physically it gets it stays kind of grainy, it doesn't break down as well as other things, and so you can kind of get a little bit of turmeric sludge at the bottom of your glass. Yes, sometimes it's worth it, but let me tell you, I
didn't have any sludge from the curry. Beautifully sludge, no sleddge mix right in with that gin happy as a little clamp. So for the mocktail version of this, you're gonna make the exact same thing. You're just gonna use cama meal tea instead of gin. That will also add another layer of slightly yellowish tone to it. So yummy, So yeah, surprisingly yummy, almost dangerously yummy, because you really don't feel like you're drinking a cocktail.
See that's the thing, right, Yeah, those that come up you're like, these are excellent, and then you wonder how you feel the next morning, like why is this happening?
And it tastes very healthy. You get the apple note, you get the lemon note, you get that warmth from the curry, but you're not like, oh, gin drink right, and then well.
There's a lot. Yeah, I can actually see there's a lot in here that would it wouldn't make it a gin forward necessarily beverage.
Yeah, not at all, not at all. I'm gonna be making more of that one, for sure. I hope if you try it that you like it, because it really is pretty fun. It is a little more I mean, I know, we always joke that I have a very you know, childish palette in terms of wanting lots of very sweet things that taste like baked goods. But this is not that at all, So if you're a person
that likes something that is it's. The thing that's nice too, is that it's also not too tart, like you'd get the lemon flavor, but there's enough apple juice that it's not a pucker face kind of drink. It just tastes like a very light sort of like fruit and vegetable affair, although there's no real vegetable in it, but you know what I mean, corn I guess would count on the I don't know how much real corn is in corn syrup, so let's not get ahead of ourselves, but.
Some corn in there somewhere, some part of the corn has got to be in there somewhere, but it is.
It's a very it's a very easy sip that's not heavy at all, which I really liked about it.
Yeah, and even though you were saying it looks a tumnel, an easy, nice sip as we get into summer weather, it's definitely appealing.
Listen, I want eggs everything. I want eggs, themIn all my drinks you have.
You have turned me around to the egg white because I used to just kind of I wasn't so sure, but now I have to bring it on. I think it makes it a lovely beverage.
That's how it works. The first time I had egg white and a drink, I was like, I don't think I like that. And one of my friends was like, I'm going to order this drink and you try it and we can split it in that way. If you don't like it, it's not on you. And that man was so kind because I guzzled that whole drink without You're like, you want some of that? Yeah? I was like, I think I have to buy the next round.
Yeah, yeah, I mean it's not because I think if you haven't had it or you're uncomfortable with it, you there's no egginess about it, which was what I was like. I was gonna smell like egg whites? Is it going to have any sort of flavor about it? And I don't pick up any of that, which makes it very easy for me to drink.
Them now, right. I think if you've never had a drink with an egg white incorporated, the presumption is it the mouth feel is going to be like slimy somehow like egg whites. Yeah right, And that's not what happens at all, because it gets fluffy and delicious. Think more of meringue and less of a raw egg.
Don't don't fear it. I did, and now I don't like.
Don't hear the egite. Yeah, So, if you tried this, I hope you love it. Odds are good. I'll be drinking one at the same time as you, because I'm going to be making them a lot. If you do try it, Like I said, you can always give us a shout on the socials with the hashtag Criminali and let us know how you liked it. We are so grateful that you spent this time with us today. We will be back here again next week. We got more highway robbery to talk about and more drinks to go
along with it. Criminalia is a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.