Some had channels by which they could dispose of bills of exchange. Most of the highwaymen held up travellers and took their money. What favoured them most was the lack of governance and absence of a police force: parish constables were almost wholly ineffective and commonplace detection and arrest were very difficult. Some of them are known to have been disbanded soldiers and even officers of the English Civil War and French wars. The great age of highwaymen was the period from the Restoration in 1660 to the death of Queen Anne in 1714. In Australia, they were known as bushrangers. In the 19th-century American West, highwaymen were sometimes known as road agents. Euphemisms such as "knights of the road" and "gentlemen of the road" were sometimes used by people interested in romanticizing (with a Robin Hood–esque slant) what was often an especially violent form of stealing. The first attestation of the word highwayman is from 1617. Highwaywomen, such as Katherine Ferrers, were said to also exist, often dressing as men, especially in fiction. Such criminals operated until the mid- or late 19th century. This type of thief usually travelled and robbed by horse as compared to a footpad who travelled and robbed on foot mounted highwaymen were widely considered to be socially superior to footpads. English highwayman James Hind depicted in an engraving now in the National Portrait Gallery.Ī highwayman was a robber who stole from travellers. Asalto al coche (Attack on a Coach), by Francisco de Goya.
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