Islington in the 17th century was a rural area made up almost entirely of fields and cow sheds.

The northern approaches to London, especially Holloway, between Islington and Highgate, were the haunt of the famous highwayman, Claude Duval. Duval was a Frenchman who came to England as a valet shortly after the Restoration, then took to the road, leading a gang of robbers.

Duval became a romantic figure due to a story circulated about him, that he had stopped a woman's coach in which there was a booty of four hundred pounds but only took one hundred, allowing "the fair owner to ransom the rest by dancing a coranto with him on the Heath".

He was captured in 1669, at Mother Maberley's tavern in Chandos Street, "The-Hole-In-The-Wall", and was brought to trial. His hanging at Tyburn was the scene of much loud lamentation from the crowd in attendance. His body was cut down and taken to the Tangier Tavern in St. Giles for a lying-in-state before a grand funeral at St. Paul's. He is said to have been buried beneath the central aisle, with the following epitaph:

Here lies Duval, Reader, if male thou art
Look to thy purse, if female, to thy heart.

He was twenty-seven at the time of his death.

Nell Gwyn's elder sister, Rose, was married to the highwayman John Cassells. When he was arrested for burglary, Nell used her influence with the king to save him from the hangman, but he died soon after from a fever contracted in prison.

When travelling through rural areas on horseback or by coach you were in danger of being robbed by highwaymen. Travelling on foot presented another danger, that of being apprehended by the local watch as a "wandering rogue".

History of the Life of Thomas Ellwood by His Own Hand:

"Before I had walked to the middle of the town, I was stopped and taken up by the Watch. I asked the Watchman what authority he had to stop me, travelling peaceably on the highway. He told me he would show me his authority; and in order thereunto, had me into an house hard-by, where dwelt a Scrivener who name was Pepys. To him he gave the Order which he had received from the Constables, which directed him to take up all Rogues, Vagabonds, and sturdy Beggars. I asked him, for which of these he had stopped me; but he could not answer me..."

Life in the Reign of Charles II by David Ogg:

"The sentence on these intruders was a simple one: they were stripped to the waist and 'whipped 'til their backs be bloody'."