Career
He was known as the "Gentleman Highwayman" as a result of his courteous behaviour during his robberies. He famously robbed Horace Walpole, and was eventually hanged at Tyburn. The film Plunkett & Macleane was based loosely on his exploits.
Such accounts were fictionalised in books written soon after the trial and later versions are based on these books rather than on the facts of the charges as stated by the Darby Mercury, written four weeks before Maclaine"s execution.
MacLaine"s trial at the Old Bailey became a fashionable society occasion, and he reputedly received nearly 3,000 guests while imprisoned at Newgate. He was convicted and hanged at Tyburn on 3 October 1750.
After Maclaine was hanged, he earned a mention in the poem The Modern Fine Lady by Soame Jenyns: as an aside after the line "She weeps if but a handsome thief is hung" the following note was added: "Some of the brightest eyes were at this time in tears for one McLean, condemned for robbery on the highway." These lines quietly and eloquently speak of an England subdued by its justice system. Maclean paid with his life.
Plunkett escaped with his money and his life.
MacLaine is thought to be the original model for Macheath the Knife, antihero of John Gay"s The Beggar"s Opera. (However, as that was written in 1728, when MacLaine was only 4, this cannot be sustained: the preferred claimant for this distinction is Jack Sheppard) A modern, although fictionalised, portrayal of his life appears in the 1999 film Plunkett & Macleane, where he was played by Jonny Lee Miller. His skeleton appears in the final plate of William Hogarth"s The Four Stages of Cruelty.
