Not the least extraordinary part of this affair was the subsequent treatment of Col. Blood. Whether it was that Blood had frightened Charles II, by his audacious threats of being revenged by his numerous associates, in case of his death on the scaffold, or else captivated him by his brilliant audacity and flattery combined, it is certain that Blood, instead of being punished as he should have been, was rewarded with place, power, and influence, at court. Instead of being sent to the gallows, he was taken into especial favor, and all applications through him to the King, for favors, were successful.
It is said that Blood had told the King that he had been engaged to kill his Majesty, from among the reeds by the Thames' side, above where Battersea Bridge now spans the river, but was deterred from the crime by the air of Majesty which shone in the King's countenance.
What more delicate flattery could be administered to a King than this?
Blood died peaceably in his bed in the year 1680.
It was not to be expected that the notorious favoritism of the King toward Blood should escape satirical comment, and the Earl of Rochester, a shameless scoundrel himself, wrote, on the attempt to steal the Crown:
"Blood, that wears treason in his face,
Villian complete in parson's gown,
How much he is at Court in grace
For stealing Ormond and the Crown!
Since loyalty does no man good
Let's steal the King, and outdo Blood."
Edwards and his son were awarded £300 by a not over generous Parliament, but the delay in payment of the sum was such that Mr. Edwards was compelled to sell his claim for £120 to a Jew. In this case virtue had its own reward, but no other.
BIRTH-PLACE OF WILLIAM PENN.
On the neighboring Tower Hill, which is now covered by fine mansions, and where the shaft has just been sunk, giving admission to the Thames Subway under the River, in the old days of violence and blood, many a noble head was brought to be hewed off by the executioner's shining axe. Lady Raleigh lived here on Tower Hill after she had been forbidden to visit her husband in the Tower. William Penn was born in a little old house in a little old dusty court on Tower Hill, and it was here that he first imbibed his horror of bloodshed and capital punishment. At the "Bull," a public house on Tower Hill, on April 14, 1685, died Otway the poet, of starvation, and around the corner in a cutler's shop, which is numbered with the things that were, Felton bought a large jack-knife for ten-pence, with which he assassinated the magnificent Duke of Buckingham. At No. 48 Great Tower street, is situated the Tavern called the "Czar's Head," built on the site of an old pot-house, in which the Emperor Peter the Great, and some low companions, used to meet to drink fiery potations of brandy and smoke clay pipes.
In the very same spot, where the scaffold was formerly erected, and where the gouts of blood fell dripping from the severed necks of victims of the axe, marine stores are now sold, and sea-biscuits, pea-jackets, hour-glasses, and quadrants are offered for sale.