Travel in Tudor England was often not for the faint of heart. I’m working on an episode right now about the ways people traveled (and they did indeed travel much more than we might imagine), and the hazards associated with travel. One of the major ones was robbery on the road. Bandits and highwaymen were common, especially in certain areas where known wealthy travelers would pass through.
One of these highwaymen was Gamaliel Ratsey, and he is famous not just for the amount that he stole from travelers, but also for the way in which he did it.
Even though he was born into a fairly well to do family in Lincolnshire, he was always getting into trouble. He joined the army and went to Ireland where there was a rebellion going on (for more on that see this previous episode on England’s relationship with Ireland)
His first robbery when he came back to England was when he lightened the cash drawer of a landlady at an inn in Spalding of £40 and then, when he was arrested, he escaped from prison and stole a horse on the road. Later, he entered into a partnership with two thieves in Northamptonshire.
Ratsey’s exploits on the highway, which became notorious, were equally characterized by daring and a very odd sense of humor. On one occasion he robbed two wool merchants and knighted them by the roadside as Sir Walter Woolsack and Sir Samuel Sheepskin. On one occasion Ratsey and his friends successfully robbed a large company of nine travellers. Before he relieved a Cambridge scholar of his property, he extorted a learned oration from him. To the poor he showed a generosity which accorded with the best traditions of his profession. Almost like Robin Hood.
But within two years his partners betrayed him to the officers of the law, and he was hanged at Bedford on 26 March 1605.
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Heather Teysko is the creator, writer, and producer of The Renaissance English History Podcast, one of the longest running indie history podcasts, going since 2009. She's been writing about history online for over 25 years, since her first site on Colonial American history became number one in history on Yahoo in 1998. She writes books, created the original Tudor Planner (a yearly diary filled with Tudor history) and in 2019 created the world's first Tudorcon (you can "attend" online this year!). She has been passionate about Tudor England since she first read Alison Weir's The Six Wives of Henry VIII 20 years ago, and subsequently moved to London after college to spend her time immersed in Tudor history.