The two aristocrats introduced to Will Plunkett (Robert Carlyle) and Captain James Macleane (Jonny Lee Miller) by Lord Rochester (Alan Cumming) are called Dixon (Ben Miller) and Winterburn (Alexander Armstrong). These are the names of two players - Lee Dixon and Nigel Winterburn - for the English football team Arsenal during the late 1980s/early 1990s, and part of Arsenal's famous "back four".
James Macleane (1711-1750) was the son of a Scottish parson, and became known as "Gentleman Highwayman" in partnership with his good friend Will Plunkett (also a Scotsman). Plunkett really was an apothecary, although it was Macleane's wife who had died. Macleane was an inveterate dandy, and this caused him to make the fatal mistake of wearing a set of stolen waistcoats into the shop of the tailor who made them, leading to his arrest and subsequent hanging in November 1750.
Craig Armstrong's music for the hanging and escape scene was widely popular in trailers in 1999 and 2000. It was heard in trailers for such films as Romeo Must Die (2000), The Patriot (2000), and Quills (2000).
The French title for this film is "Guns 1748".