The Royal Mail: Its Curiosities and Romance

In the coaching days very frequent robberies of the mails took place, though they were protected by armed guards, and some of these robberies have been described in the chapter relating to mail-coaches. The passengers who travelled in the mail-coaches, with the knowledge of these molestations going on around them, must have been kept in a constant state of alarm; and the circumstance could not fail materially to discourage travelling in days when the facilities for exchanging visits were few compared with what we now enjoy. The state of things already described as regards the mail-coaches, extended also to the horse-posts, the riders being attacked probably more freely than the coaches; for while the plunder to be had would be less, the postboys were not in a position to make so great a show of defence. Nor did the severity of the laws restrain evil-doers, either in England or Scotland, where sentences of execution were from time to time carried out upon the delinquents. On the 7th of July 1685, the post-rider who was proceeding through the extreme north of England, on his way from London to the Scottish metropolis, was known to have been twice stopped, and to have been robbed of his mail, the scene of the occurrence being near Alnwick, in Northumberland. In connection with this event, of which an account has been handed down by Lauder of Fountainhall, a curious and romantic anecdote has been told by Wilson in his 'Tales of the Borders,' and by Chambers as one of his Scottish traditional stories.