Britain's Outlaws: Highwaymen, Pirates and Rogues S01E03 - Knights of the Road: The Highwayman's Story

Few figures in British history have captured the popular imagination as much as the outlaw. From gentleman highwaymen, via swashbuckling pirates to elusive urban thieves and rogues, the brazen escapades and the flamboyance of the outlaw made them the antihero of their time - feared by the rich, admired by the poor and celebrated by writers and artists.

In this three-part series, historian Dr Sam Willis travels the open roads, the high seas and urban alleyways to explore Britain's 17th- and 18th-century underworld of highwaymen, pirates and rogues, bringing the great age of the British outlaw vividly to life.

Sam shows that, far from being 'outsiders', outlaws were very much a product of their time, shaped by powerful national events. In each episode, he focuses not just on a particular type of outlaw, but a particular era - the series as a whole offers a chronological portrait of the changing face of crime in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Sam begins with the arrival of a new breed of gentleman criminal out of the ashes of the English Civil War - the highwayman. Heavily romanticised in literature, these glamorous gangsters became a social menace on the roads and a political thorn in the side of the creaking British state - threatening to steal our wallets and our hearts. But underneath the dashing image of stylish robbers on horseback lay a far darker reality.

(with soft subtitles)

First broadcast: 23 November 2015
Duration: 1 hour



Media info:-

General
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : Base Media
Codec ID : isom (isom/iso2/avc1/mp41)
File size : 1 009 MiB
Duration : 59mn 19s
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 2 378 Kbps
Writing application : Lavf57.25.100

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : [email protected]/* */
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 2 frames
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 59mn 19s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 2 279 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 3 500 Kbps
Width : 1 280 pixels
Height : 720 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 25.000 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.099
Stream size : 967 MiB (96%)

Audio
ID : 2
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile : LC
Codec ID : 40
Duration : 59mn 18s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 93.5 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Frame rate : 46.875 fps (1024 spf)
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 39.7 MiB (4%)