Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 03.pdf/352

 Rh

XXIV. THOMAS DUN THE ROBBER. FEW people are aware that that quiet, harmless, and industrious old markettown of Dunstable owes its foundation and name to the misdeeds of a notorious thief and robber; yet so, in all probability, it was. At the accession of King Henry I., not many years after the Conquest, England was beset, from north to south, by innumerable bands of highwaymen, bandits, rogues, and plun derers of all sorts. This, no doubt, arose from the general devastation and disorgani zation caused by the Norman invasion. The people had almost everywhere been driven from their homes and their posses sions, to satisfy the rapacious demands of the followers, high and low, of the first Wil liam. The new king himself set the exam ple; and his successor, William Rufus, who laid waste whole territories that he might hunt therein at his ease, gave fresh zest to this wholesale system of spoliation. The consequence was, that those Saxon subjects who lost all, sought aid from those disbanded Normans who could get nothing, and lived in thousands by a general retaliation of robbery and murder upon their aggressors. When Henry Beauclerc ascended the English throne, he found his kingdom a mere arena for plunderers and cut-throats to carry on a gainful and dreadful trade; but he was not the man to bear this. His vigorous policy at once grappled with the evil, and put it completely down. He stopped all spoliation, whether by Norman or by Saxon. His ad ministration of justice was rapid and relent less. On one occasion his justiciary, Ralph Basset, held a court at Huncote, in Leices tershire, and no less than forty-four robbers perished on the scaffold before the judge left the place. The murder and rapine which prevailed in every province at the accession of Henry I. became so rare, before his death, 42

that the Saxon chronicler of the time relates that whosoever bore his burden of gold and silver, no man durst say to him aught but good. Among the robbers who were the terror of the nation when this king began his reign, Thomas Dun was the most known and dreaded. He was a Saxon, and was born in Bedfordshire. From his earliest youth he had associated with marauders and thieves, and in course of time, placing himself at the he^d of a numerous gang, he ravaged his native county and the adjacent country to a fearful extent. The king came to the rescue, and finding that the neighborhood from St. Albans to Towcester, through which passed a much-frequented road to the north, was infested by Thomas Dun and his followers, ordered the woods to be cut down and grubbed up; and having built a royal mansion for his own residence, called it Kingsburgh, and encouraged some of his subjects to settle near him, by granting them lands at a small rent, a market, and various liberties and privileges. Long after Dun and his gang were destroyed and forgotten, the success of the king's plan continued. Dunstable for centuries was the sojourn of royalty; monasteries and churches which there arose gave a sacred character to the place; and the great approach to London presented an aspect of double security from the power and the piety of those who dwelt in and about it. But, to return to Thomas Dun. Many are the stories that are handed down of his villany and daring. The fol lowing anecdotes are samples of them. Among Dun's gang were many artists, who enabled him to pick locks, wrench bolts, and use deaf files with great effect. One day, having heard that some lawyers were to dine at a certain inn in Bedford, about an hour