 Defoe was living a quiet life of domestic bliss with Tomazine and her son Sean in the hamlet of Tyburn, when the cottage was surrounded and attacked by reeks.Their leader was a New Pretender, a hanged highwayman called Tom Cox, who invited Defoe out to parley.Cox told him that the hanged criminal dead of Tyburn have risen to make war on the rich, and wanted Defoe to lead them.