The Wicked Widow

Author’s NoteMany Castles in England have secret passages, one reason being that if the owner had a mistress, he could go to her without being seen. Another was that at the time of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the Monks could hide in them and not be slaughtered by the King’s men. It was because of Henry’s desire to be free of a barren wife that he turned against the Roman Catholic Church, having been refused permission to divorce and remarry so that he could produce an heir. This was a turning point in England as far as religion was concerned and resulted in the reigning Monarch becoming the Head of the Church of England. The highwayman of the eighteenth century became a romantic figure in a great many novels. Mounted usually on a fine horse, which could carry him away quickly from the scene of the crime, his dark clothes and his rakish appearance made him the ‘Gentleman of the Road’. There were, however, other highwaymen who were forced into obtaining enough money to live, simply because they had been so badly treated after the War with France was ended. Men who had fought valiantly for their country came home to find that there were no jobs for them to do, their wives had often died or run away with another man or their cottages were inhabited by someone else. There were no pensions for them, not even for those who were wounded. These men, like Bill in my story, were rough but not cruel nor were they in the same category as the romantic highwaymen written about by Alfred Noyes, “And he rode with a jewelled twinkle. His pistol butts a-twinkle. His rapier hilt a-twinkle. Under the jewelled sky.”