Blood and Parrett were now overpowered and captured, whilst Hunt, who was Blood’s son-in-law, though he got to horse, in galloping off hit his head against a pole sticking out from a laden wagon, and being dismounted was also captured. The three were immediately placed in the securest dungeons in the Tower, and word was sent to Sir Gilbert Talbot, the Keeper of the Jewel House, who at once informed the King. Those looking for a lurid and sanguinary end to this story will be disappointed. Considering the time and the penalties which were exacted on such comparatively venal offences as the stealing of sheep, one is naturally prepared to hear that Colonel Blood and his accomplices were at the shortest notice drawn on hurdles to Tyburn and there hanged, drawn, and quartered. But Fate plays curious tricks with the lives of men. The Merry Monarch, instead of being in the least annoyed with this audacious attempt which so nearly lost him his regal emblems, roared with laughter and ordered that the chief culprit should be sent for judgment to the highest court in the realm, the King himself.

What the King said to Blood, or what Blood said to the King, as variously chronicled, may be passed over, but the net result was that Blood instead of being executed was given a post amongst the bodyguard of His Majesty, and also granted a salary of £500 a year for life. As money was then five times the value it was in 1914 and ten times the value it is in 1920, we may estimate this as a very handsome income. Several reasons have been given for Charles II’s liberality, and each may be accepted with equal caution. The wits and scandal-mongers of the time declared that the explanation of the King’s leniency was due to one of two causes. The first was that being as usual short of cash, His Majesty conceived the novel expedient of stealing his own Crown, and in a roundabout way put up Blood to execute the project. The second was more sporting than venal, and averred that the King in one of his genial after-dinner moments had declared that no one would, after the horrors of the past, deprive him of his Crown, and had backed his opinion by a bet. This, so the story went, having come to Blood’s ears, he determined to take up the bet literally and steal the actual emblems of royalty. These, though interesting explanations, may in the absence of proof be relegated to unconfirmed gossip. However, the most charitable version is little less astonishing. We are invited to believe that the King believed Blood’s fairy tale, which was that he had laid out in the reeds close to the place where the King was wont to bathe intending to shoot him, when he had assumed the primitive garb of his ancestor Adam, but that when the moment came to pull the trigger, this hardened old soldier was so overcome with the glory of the King’s royal body in statu natura that his finger absolutely refused to work.

Charles II, though jovial, was by no means an idiot; indeed he was one of the astutest monarchs who has sat on the throne of England. We may therefore perhaps brush aside all these interesting stories and arrive at the plain conclusion that the King, knowing from recent experience how precarious in those days was the life of a King, decided that his best policy was to take into his service a quondam and potential enemy, thereby turning a spear that threatened him into a defensive javelin. That shrewd lesson in statescraft has been followed, perhaps unwittingly, by the British Empire in its expansion. Times out of number in Asia, Africa, and America, the foes of one day have been on the next enrolled under the standards of the King of England, and alongside men of his own blood have fought the battles of the Empire.

Blood, contrary to the report that he was a mere burglar, the son of a blacksmith, and so forth, was in fact a man of good family residing at Sarney, Co. Meath, and was himself at the early age of twenty-two made a Justice of the Peace, itself a proof of his social standing. His grandfather was Edmund Blood of Kilnaboy Castle, Co. Clare, who was at one time M.P. for Ennis.

Perhaps the best estimate of Colonel Blood is that he was a hot-headed and fearless Irishman, who found it difficult to live quietly, and must ever work off his boundless energy on some new and often desperate enterprise. He was the Charles O’Malley of an earlier century, and demonstrated his Irish exuberance with rapier and pistol rather than in the hunting field.

Note.—The account of Colonel Blood’s attempt on the Crown is taken from an ancient MS., written in 1680 at the dictation of Sir Gilbert Talbot, the Keeper of the Jewel House at the time, which is now in possession of Mrs. Lowndes, of Chesham, Bucks. A copy of the same document is also owned by General Sir Bindon Blood, G.C.B., together with other interesting records of Colonel Blood, which he has kindly placed at the writer’s disposal.

CHAPTER XII
THE ORDERS OF CHIVALRY

The Order of the Garter—Its date and origin—Gentlemen of the Blood—The three Reproaches—St. George’s Chapel—The Garter of blue and gold—The Robes and Star—The Order of the Thistle—Its ancient origin—The Mantle and Riband—An expensive Order—The Order of St. Patrick—“Quis separabit”—The Mantle, Collar, and Star—The Order of Merit—Its origin—Very select—Confers no precedence—The Order of the Bath—The Most Honorable Order—Its great age and origin—To every knight a bath—Originally one, now three grades—Civil Knights—The Star of India—Cause of its creation—The three grades—The insignia—St. Michael and St. George—Curious origin of the Order—Its growth and expansion—“Auspicium Melioris”—The Badge—Order of the Indian Empire—Date and reason for its institution—The Mantle, Collar, Star, and Badge—The Royal Victorian Order—Five grades and grand chain—The Order of the British Empire—Had its origin in the Great War—Open to Ladies as well as Gentlemen—Five grades—The Badge and ribbon—The Crown of India—The Ladies’ Order—Very select indeed—The Badge of diamonds, pearls, and turquoises—The Victoria Cross—“For Valour”—Costs threepence—The most highly prized decoration—Its precedence—The Distinguished Service Order—Its chequered career—The good effect of the Great War—The Military Cross and Distinguished Service Cross—A product of the Great War—The D.F.C. and A.F.C.—The D.C.M. and C.G.M.—The M.M. and D.S.M.—The increase of Orders and decorations during the past century.

TOGETHER with the King’s Treasure in the Jewel House are kept the insignia of the Orders of Chivalry as well as decorations for bravery in battle.