The View from the 1850s...

... though the daily reality of highwaymen was within living memory:

the past was already turning rosy.

"As to the profession of robber in those days exercised on the roads of England, it was a liberal profession, which required more accomplishments than either the bar or the pulpit... - strength, health, agility and exquisite horsemanship, intrepidity of the first order, presence of mind, courtesy, and a general ambidexterity of powers for facing all accidents...

The mounted robber on the highways of England, in an age when all gentlemen travelled with firearms, lived in an element of danger and adventurous gallantry; which, even from those who could least allow him any portion of their esteem, extorted sometimes a good deal of their unwilling admiration."

Thomas de Quincey

"At Manchester Grammar School"

Collected Writings