after it appeared from his examination who and what he was. This was
doubtless done more for his own safety than for any other reason, but
even this was not effectual. Not many weeks later he was found dead in
his cell. Some time after another informer, similarly confined there,
wrote Arlington a terrified letter begging protection or release,
"that he might not, like Leving, be poisoned in his cell." Thus, it
appears, his enemies found him out even there. And that you may not
think too hardly of the poor spy, it may be added that on his dead
body was found a letter, apparently one he was engaged on when he
died, completely exonerating certain men then in hiding for the great
conspiracy. It would, perhaps, be uncharitable to hint that this was
part of an even more subtle plot beneath the other two, and that his
murderers sought to shield their friends outside by this device. York
gaol, in any event, was no place to keep men disaffected toward the
government. From the Lord-lieutenant down the place was thick with
discontent and conspiracy. Indeed no great while before the Council
had arrested the Lord-lieutenant himself, no less a person than one of
their own number, the great Duke of Buckingham, on the charge of
corresponding with the sectaries, and had confined him for some time
in the Tower.
But what, meanwhile, had happened to Mason and his friends? On August
8th they were proclaimed outlaws by name and a hundred pounds reward
was offered for Lockyer, Butler, Mason and Blood. But they had
disappeared, as usual. Blood, it was said, had been mortally wounded,
and was finally reported dead. That part of the story, at least, was
greatly exaggerated, and was, no doubt, spread by Blood himself. He
seems, in fact, to have retired to one of his hiding places and there
recovered from his injuries, which were severe. The rest dispersed,
and Mason, we know, found his way to London where three years later he
appears in the guise of an innkeeper, still plotting for the
inevitable rising. To us this seems strange. Our minds conjure up a
well-ordered city, properly policed and thoroughly known. But apart
from the fallacy of such a view even now, the London of Charles II was
a far different place from the city of to-day in more ways than its
size and the advances wrought by civilization. The City itself was
then distant from the Court. The long thoroughfare connecting them,
now the busy Strand, was then what its name implies still, the way
along the river, and was the seat of only a few great palaces, like
the Savoy, and the rising pile of Buckingham. Beside what is now
Trafalgar Square stood then, as now, St. Martin's in the Fields. But
the fields have long since fled from Piccadilly and Whitehall. Beyond
and around in every direction outside the purlieus of the Court and
the liberties of the City, stretched great collections of houses and
hovels, affording rich hiding places for men outside the law. The inns
abounding everywhere offered like facilities. Beneath the very walls
of St. Stephen's where Parliament devised measures to suppress
conventicles, those conventicles flourished. Among their numbers,
among the small and secluded country houses round about, among the
rough watermen and sailors along the river, in wide stretching
districts where the King's writ ran with difficulty or not at all, and
a man's life was safe only as his strength or skill made it so, or, it
was whispered, even among some of the great houses like that of the
Duke of Buckingham, men flying from justice might find safety enough.
Later Mason seems to have been joined in London by Blood and the old
practices were renewed. But the Major, for Blood had now by some
subterranean means arrived at that title, was apparently not wholly
content with this. He retired, it would appear, to the little village
of Romford, in Surrey, and there, under the name of Allen or Ayloffe,
set up--amazing choice among all the things he might have chosen--as a
physician. His son-in-law was apprenticed to an apothecary, and thus,
with every appearance of quiet and sobriety, the outlaw began life
again. But it was not for long, at any rate. Most likely, indeed, this
whole business, if it ever existed at all, was a sham. For on May
28th, 1670, we find Secretary Trevor, who had succeeded Arlington in
office, ordering the Provost Marshal to search out and take in custody
Henry Danvers and William Allen, alias Blood. In December of that same
year came the assault on Ormond, with which our story began, and
Blood, under his alias, was for the third time proclaimed an outlaw,
and for the third time had a price set on his head. Surely, you will
say, this is enough of that impudent scoundrel who so long disturbed
the slumber of His Majesty's secretaries, and flouted the activities
of their agents. And, in spite of the stir raised by the attempt on
Ormond, if Blood had disappeared after that for the last time, he
would not have lived again in the pages of history. For that he is
indebted to the great exploit which at once ended his career of crime
and raised him above the ordinary herd of outlaws and criminals.
At the time of which we write the Tower of London served even more
numerous and important purposes than it does to-day. It was then, as
now, a depository of arms and ammunition, and the quarters of a
considerable body of troops, which served to overawe possible
disturbance in the city. But in 1670 it was also the principal prison
for political offenders, and it was the place where the state regalia,
the crown, the orb, and the scepter, were kept. Then, as now, the
various functions of the great fortress were quite distinct. The
visitor of to-day passes through a wide courtyard to the main edifice,
the White Tower of William the Conqueror, whose chambers are filled
with curious weapons and armour. He may climb the stone stairs to see
the grim apartments once reserved for men reckoned dangerous to the
state, and gaze with what awe he can muster upon the imitation crown
jewels set out for the delectation of the tourists. Everywhere he
finds in evidence the guardians of these treasures, the unobtrusive
attendant, the picturesque beefeater, the omnipresent policeman, and
if he looks down from the high windows he may see far below him the
red tunics or white undercoats of the soldiers on parade or at work.
In some measure this was true in 1670, and it is to this spot we must
now turn our attention. We have already seen some of the characters in
this story taken to or from the custody of the lieutenant of the
Tower, and our steps in trace of our hero or villain, as you choose to
call him, have often led perilously near its grim portals. At last
they are to go inside.
Among the various functionaries in and about the Tower in the year
1670 was one Edwards, the Keeper of the Regalia, an old soldier who
lived with his wife and daughter within the walls, his son being away
at the wars on the Continent. Some time after the attack on the Duke
of Ormond there appeared one day, among the visitors who flocked to
see the sights of the stronghold, a little party of strangers from the
country, a clergyman, his wife and his nephew. They visited the usual
places of interest, and presently under Edwards' guidance, were taken
to see the regalia. They were pleasant folk and much interested in
what they saw. But unfortunately while looking at the royal
paraphernalia the lady fell ill with some sort of a chill or
convulsion. Her husband and nephew and Edwards were greatly alarmed.
They carried her to Edwards' apartments where his wife and daughter
took her in charge, and administered cordials and restoratives until
she recovered. The clergyman was deeply grateful. He rewarded Edwards
generously for his attention and they were all profuse in
acknowledging the kindness of the Keeper's family. Nor did the matter
end here. From this little incident there sprang up an acquaintance
which rapidly ripened into friendship between the two families. The
clergyman and his nephew came in from time to time on visits. The
nephew was young and dashing, the daughter was pretty and pleasing[5].
They were obviously attracted to each other, and their elders looked
on the dawning romance with favor. So rapidly did the matter progress
that the clergyman presently proposed a marriage between the young
couple. Edwards was not unwilling and on the 9th of May, 1671, the
clergyman, his nephew, and a friend, with two companions rode up about
seven in the morning to make the final arrangements. Mrs. Edwards,
however, was not prepared to meet guests at so early an hour and some
delay occurred. To fill in the time the clergyman suggested that
Edwards might show the regalia to his friend who had never seen it. So
the four mounted the steps to the room where the treasures were kept.
Edwards went on before to take the regalia out for exhibition. But as
he stooped over the chest to get them he was seized suddenly from
behind, a cloak was thrown over his head, he was bound and gagged,
knocked on the head with a mallet, and all these measures having
failed to prevent his giving an alarm, he was finally stabbed. One of
the men with him seized the crown and bent it so that it went under
his cloak. The other put the orb in the pocket of his baggy breeches,
and began to file the scepter in two that it might be more easily
carried. But as they were thus busied, by a coincidence, surely the
strangest out of a play, at this precise instant Edwards' son, Talbot,
returned from the wars, bringing a companion with him. They accosted
the third man who had remained as a sentinel at the foot of the
stairs. He gave the alarm, the two men ran down the stairs and all
three hurried off toward the Tower Gate. But there fortune deserted
them. Edwards roused from his stupor, tore out the gag and shouted
"Treason and Murder!" The daughter hurried to his side and thence to
Tower Hill crying, "Treason! the crown is stolen!" Young Edwards and
his companion, Captain Beckman, took up the alarm and hurried to the
Keeper's side. Gaining from him some idea of the situation they rushed
down and saw the thieves just going out the gate. Edwards drew his
pistols and shouted to the sentinels. But the warders were apparently
terrified and young Edwards, Beckman, and others who joined the
pursuit closed in on the outlaws. They in turn aided the confusion by
also crying "Stop Thief" so that some were deceived into believing the
parson a party to the pursuit. Beckman seems to have caught him and
wrestled with him for the crown, while a servant seized one of the
other men. Beckman and Blood had a most "robustious struggle." Blood
had fired one pistol at Beckman, and when they grappled drew a second
and fired again, but missed both times. The accomplices waiting
outside, mounted and rode off in different directions. But the pursuit
was too close. Two of the three principals having been taken almost at
the gate, the third might have got away but was thrown from his horse
by running into a projecting cart pole, and captured at no great
distance. The other accomplices, two apparently, seem to have escaped.
The prisoners were brought back to the Tower at once and identified.
To the astonishment of their captors the clergyman was found to be our
old friend Blood, the so-called nephew was his son[6], the third man
an Anabaptist silk dyer, named Parret. Warrants were immediately made
out to the governor of the Tower, Sir John Robinson, for their
imprisonment; Blood's on the ground of outlawry for treason and other
great and heinous crimes in England; young Blood's and Parret's for
dangerous crimes and practices.
[5] The Somers Tracts account says that it was Edwards' son
and a pretended daughter of Blood, but this is almost
certainly incorrect.
[6] Though there is some confusion here. The cobbler who
seized him exclaimed, "This is Tom Hunt who was in the
bloody business against the Duke of Ormond," and Edwards'
account to Talbot (_ Biog. Britt._ II, 366) speaks of him as
Blood's son-in-law. But his pardon was certainly made out to
Thomas Blood, Jr., and there is no mention of the name Hunt.
The explanation probably is that he was Thomas Hunt, Blood's
son-in-law, but was called Blood by his father-in-law, and,
like many men in that time, used either of the two names
indifferently. It appears from Talbot's account that the
cobbler and a constable who came up took Hunt to a nearby
Justice of the Peace, one Smith, who was about to release
him when news came of the attempt on the crown, and Hunt was
then taken back to the Tower.
Thus fell the mighty Blood in this unique attempt at crime. The
sensation caused by his extraordinary undertaking was naturally
tremendous. Newsletters and correspondence of the time are all filled
with the details of the exploit, for the moment the gravest affairs of
state sunk into insignificance before the interest in this most
audacious venture. An infinite number of guesses were hazarded at the
motive for the theft, for it was felt that mere robbery would not
account for it. It was even suspected that it was a prelude to the
assassination of the king and the proclamation of a usurper who
hoped to strengthen himself by the possession of the regalia. This
view was reenforced by the fact that the Chancellor's house was
entered at about the same time and nothing taken but the Great Seal.
The darkest suspicions were afloat, and the relief at the capture of
the noted outlaw and the failure of his attempt on the crown was
intensified by the sense of having escaped from some vague and
terrible danger which would have menaced the state had he succeeded.
Broadsides and squibs of all sorts were inspired by the exploit.
Among others the irrepressible Presbyterian satirist, Andrew Marvell,
characteristically improved the occasion to make it the subject of a
satire on the Church, as follows:
_ON BLOOD'S STEALING THE CROWN._
_When daring Blood his rent to have regained
Upon the English diadem restrained
He chose the cassock, surcingle and gown,
The fittest mask for one that robs the crown:
But his lay pity underneath prevailed.
And whilst he saved the keeper's life he failed;
With the priest's vestment had he but put on
The prelate's cruelty, the crown had gone._
The proceedings in Blood's case, therefore, excited extraordinary
interest, which was not lessened by the unusual circumstances
surrounding it. The prisoners were first brought before Sir Gilbert
Talbot, the provost-marshal[7]. But Blood refused absolutely to answer
any leading questions put him by that official as to his motives,
accomplices, and the ultimate purpose of his exploit. This naturally
deepened the interest in the matter, and increased the suspicion that
there was more in it than appeared on the surface, the more so as the
outlaw declared he would speak only with the king himself. To the
further astonishment of the world this bold request was granted. Three
days after his arrest, on May 12, he was taken by the king's express
order to Whitehall and there examined by Charles, the Duke of York,
and a select few of the royal family and household. The proceeding was
not quite as unusual as it seemed, for in the earlier years of the
Restoration it had been fairly common and the king had proved a master
in the art of examination. But it had been given up of late and its
revival seemed to indicate a matter of unusual gravity. "The man need
not despair," said Ormond to Southwell when he heard that the king was
to give Blood a hearing, "for surely no king would wish to see a
malefactor but with intention to pardon him." But this opinion was not
general and his conviction was never doubted by the world at large. A
few days after his examination Secretary Williamson's Dublin
correspondent wrote him that there was little news in Ireland save the
talk of Blood's attempt on the crown, and he voiced the prevailing
sentiment when he "hoped that Blood would receive the reward of his
many wicked attempts." The coffee houses talked of nothing else and
all London prepared to gratify itself with the spectacle of the
execution of the most daring criminal of the time[8].
[7] He seems also to have been examined by Dr. Chamberlain
and Sir William Waller.
[8] It was hinted that Buckingham had set Blood on to steal
the crown in pursuance of some of his mad schemes for
ascending the throne. And it is also charged that the King
himself had employed the outlaw to get the jewels, pawn or
sell them abroad and divide the proceeds. Beside such
suggestions as these even Blood's letter sinks into the
commonplace. At all events, as in the Ormond affair, it was
and is generally believed that there were other influences
at work behind his exploit.
But in this, at any rate for the present, they were to be
disappointed. Blood was remanded to the Tower, and there held for some
time while certain other steps were taken to probe the case deeper.
Two months later Sir John Robinson wrote to Secretary Williamson that
Lord Arlington had dined with him the Saturday before, and had given
into his hands certain warrants, not as every one supposed for Blood's
execution, but for his release and that of his son. Two weeks later a
grant of pardon was issued to him for "all the treasons, murders,
felonies, etc., committed by him alone or with others from the day of
His Majesty's accession, May 29, 1660, to the present," and this was
followed by a similar grant to his son. Later, to complete this
incredible story, his estates were restored to him, he was given a
place at Court, and a pension of five hundred pounds a year in Irish
lands. Not long afterward the indefatigable diner-out, John Evelyn,
notes in his diary that, dining with the Lord Treasurer, Arlington, a
few days before, he had met there, among the guests, Colonel Thomas
Blood. It is no wonder that a Londoner wrote in early August of that
same year: "On Thursday last in the courtyard at Whitehall, I saw
walking, in a new suit and periwig, Mr. Blood exceeding pleasant and
jocose--a tall rough-boned man, with small legs, a pock-frecken face
with little hollow blue eyes." And in September Blood had acquired
enough credit, apparently, not only to get a new grant of pardon
confirmed for himself and his son, but others for certain of his
former companions as well.
What is the explanation of this extraordinary circumstance? It is a
question no one has yet answered satisfactorily, and it has remained
one of the many unsolved mysteries of the period, along with the
murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey and the Popish Plot. If we knew
fully we could clear up many dark ways of Restoration politics. We
have certain second-hand accounts of what took place in that memorable
interview between the vagabond king and the Irish outlaw, from which
we may get some light on the matter. The latter "as gallant and hardy
a villain as ever herded with the sneaking sect of Anabaptists," in
the words of a contemporary, we are told, "answered so frankly and
undauntedly that every one stood amazed." Snatches of Blood's comments
on his most recent exploit have floated down to us. "It was, at all
events, a stroke for a crown," had been his remark to Beckman when he
was captured, a cool witticism which must have pleased the wittiest of
monarchs when it was repeated to him. "Who are your associates?" he is
said to have been asked, to which he replied that he "would never
betray a friend's life nor deny guilt in defense of his own." Blood
explained to the king, it is said, that he thought the crown was worth
a hundred thousand pounds, when, in fact the whole regalia, had he
known it, only cost six thousand. He told the story of his life and
adventures with much freedom, and it must have been a good story to
hear. He confessed to the attempt on Dublin Castle, to the rescue of
Mason and the kidnapping of Ormond. There was found on his person a
"little book in which he had set down sixty signal deliverances from
eminent dangers." And one may remark, in passing, that it is a pity
that it, instead of the dagger with which Edwards was stabbed, is not
preserved in a London museum. Perhaps it may turn up some day, and
allow us the whole story as he told it to Charles. Several about the
monarch contributed their information of Blood. Prince Rupert, in
particular, recalled him as "a very stout, bold fellow in the royal
service," twenty years before. But the thing to which rumor credited
his escape and which was reported to have made his fortune, was a
story in connection with the king himself. A plot had been laid by
Blood and his accomplices, according to his account, to kill the king
while he was bathing in the river at Battersea. But as they hid in the
reeds, said the outlaw turned courtier, with their victim before them,
the majesty of royalty was too great--he could not fire the shot. But,
he continued, there was a band to which he belonged, three hundred
strong, pledged to avenge his death on the king, in case of his
conviction.
Doubtless truth lurks amid all this. It may all be true. Even so there
is hardly material here for pardon, much less for reward. Other
reasons not known at that time, must be assigned for such royal
clemency. One, perhaps, lies in this letter written six days after the
examination:
"May 19, 1671. Tower. Col. Blood to the King.
May it please your Majesty these may tell and inform you that it
was Sir Thomas Osborne and Sir Thomas Littleton, both your
treasurers for your Navy, that set me to steal your crown, but he
that feed me with money was James Littleton, Esq. 'Tis he that
pays under your treasurer at the Pay Office. He is a very bold
villainous fellow, a very rogue, for I and my companions have had
many a hundred pounds of him of your Majesty's money to encourage
us upon this attempt. I pray no words of this confession, but know
your friends. Not else but am your Majesty's prisoner and if life
spared your dutiful subject whose name is Blood, which I hope is
not that your Majesty seeks after."
Surely of the two qualities then so necessary in the court, wit and
effrontery, a plentiful supply was not lacking to a man who could
write such a letter in such a situation. And his daring, his
effrontery and his adventures undoubtedly made a great impression on
the king.
Another reason for the treatment Blood received was, strangely enough,
his powerful influence at court. It will be remembered, in connection
with the rescue of Mason, that the great Duke of Buckingham,
Lord-lieutenant of Yorkshire, and one of the men highest in favour at
court and in the country at large, had been arrested on a charge of
conspiring with the fanatics against the throne. He had been released,
and was now not only again in the royal favour, but was one of the
leading men in the ministry of the day, the so-called Cabal. It was he
who secured the interview with the king for Blood, and he doubtless
lent his influence for mercy. And there was, perhaps, a deeper reason
for this. Buckingham was the bitter enemy of Ormond. The king,
whatever his inclination, could not, in decency, pardon Blood, after
his confessing to the attack on Ormond, without at least some pretense
of consulting the man who had been so maltreated. He sent, therefore,
to Ormond to ask him to forgive Blood. Lord Arlington carried the
message with those private reasons for the request, which still
puzzles us. Blood, meanwhile, under direction, wrote a letter to
Ormond, expressing his regret in unmeasured terms. The old Duke's
reply was at once a lesson in dignity and loyalty. "If the king could
forgive an attempt on his crown," he said proudly to Arlington, "I
myself may easily forgive an attempt on my life, and since it is his
Majesty's pleasure, that is reason sufficient for me, and your
lordship may well spare the rest of the explanations." But Ormond's
son, and his biographer, took refuge in no such dignity. The latter
declares roundly that Buckingham instigated the attempt on his master.
And not long after the affair, the former, the gallant young Earl of
Ossory, coming into the royal presence and seeing the Duke of
Buckingham standing by the king, his colour rose, and he spoke to this
effect: