Colonel Blood.
(From a Contemporary Engraving.)
There is a blank in the list of commitments to the Tower between the years 1668 and 1678. They are supposed to have been lost, but we know that the year after Pepys’ friend Sir John Robinson had ceased to command in the Tower, the gossiping diarist himself was a prisoner within the walls, having been in some way concerned in the so-called Popish Plot of 1679. It is greatly to be deplored that no account of Samuel’s experiences in the Tower have come down to us, for his diary ends ten years before this date: Pepys was in the Tower from the month of May 1679 until the following February. His expenses, however, have been recorded:—“For safe keeping of Sir Anthony Deane and Mr Pepys, from and for the 22nd day of May 1679 unto and for the 24th of June 1679, being four weeks and six dayes, at £3 per week, ancient allowance, and 13s. 4d. per weeke, present demands, according to the retrenchments, £6, 9s. 6d.” (Bayley’s “Tower of London.”)
Among other prisoners in the Tower in this reign was Nathaniel Desborow, or Disbrew, as his name is sometimes written. Desborow was Cromwell’s brother-in-law, “clumsy and ungainly in his person,” and, a born plotter, he hated all who were placed above him. He had been made Chancellor of Ireland by his nephew Richard Cromwell, but nevertheless he helped to pull down the Protector’s son and successor from his short-lived position. There were many others besides, imprisoned for political and non-political offences, and of the latter was Stephen Thomson, who was imprisoned for “stealing and conveying beyond the seas the sole daughter and heiress of Sir Edmund Alleyn, deceased, she being an infant.”
The most sensational event that occurred in the Tower during the reign of Charles II. was the attempt made by a ruffian who called himself “Colonel” Blood to steal the Crown and Regalia. Blood, half sailor, half highwayman, and a complete scoundrel, was about fifty years old when, in the month of May 1671, he made what was literally a dash for the Crown. Blood appears to have served under Cromwell, and consequently styled himself “Colonel”; after the war he became a spy of the Government, and a short time before his performance at the Tower he had almost succeeded in having the old Duke of Ormond hanged on the gallows at Tyburn.
At this time Sir Gilbert Talbot held the appointment of “Master of the Jewel House.” The allowance for this charge had been reduced, and, as a kind of compensation, the Master had permission to allow the public to inspect the Regalia, then kept in the Martin Tower, or Jewel Tower, as it was then called, a fee being charged which became the Master’s perquisite. Three weeks before Blood made his attempt, he had called at the Martin Tower disguised as a clergyman, “with a long cloak, cassock, and canonical girdle.” He was accompanied by a woman whom he represented as his wife. The lady requested permission to see the Regalia, but soon after being admitted to the Tower complained of “a qualm upon her stomach,” and old Talbot Edwards, who had been an old servant of Sir Gilbert’s, and had been placed by him in charge of the Regalia, called to his wife to look after the soi-disant Mrs Blood. That lady having been given something to remove her “qualms” was, together with her husband, most profuse in the expression of her gratitude to the old keeper and his wife, and promised to return upon an early occasion.
The next time Blood came to the Tower he was alone, bringing some gloves for Edwards’s wife as a token of gratitude for the kindness shown to “Mrs Blood.” On this occasion he informed Edwards that he had a young nephew who was well off, and in search of a wife, and suggested that a match might be arranged between him and their daughter. Blood was invited to bring his nephew to make the acquaintance of the young lady, and it was arranged that the old couple should give a dinner at which the meeting should take place. At the dinner Blood took it upon himself, being still in his clerical disguise, to say grace, which he did with great unction, concluding with a long-winded oration, and a prayer for the Royal family. After the meal he visited the rooms in the Tower, and seeing a fine pair of pistols hanging on the wall, asked if he might buy them to give to a friend. He then said that he would return with a couple of friends who were about to leave London, and who were anxious to see the Regalia before leaving, it being decided that he should bring them the next morning. That day was the 9th of May, and at seven in the morning old Talbot Edwards was ready to receive his reverend friend and his companions, who soon put in an appearance. Blood and his confederates had arms concealed about them, each carrying daggers, pocket pistols, and rapier blades in their canes.
They were taken up the stairs into the room where the Regalia was kept, but immediately they had entered, the ruffians threw a cloak over Edwards’s head and gagged him with a wooden plug, which had a small hole in it so that the person gagged could breathe; this they fastened with a piece of waxed leather which encircled his neck, and placed an iron hook on his nose so as to prevent him from crying out. They swore they would murder him if he attempted to give an alarm—which the poor old fellow could scarcely have done under the circumstances. But the plucky old keeper struggled hard, whereupon they beat him upon the head with a wooden mallet, and stabbed him until he fainted. The villains, thinking they had killed him, then turned their attention to rifling the treasures in the room. One of them, Parrot, put the orb in his breeches pocket, Blood placed the Crown under his cloak, and the third began to file the sceptre in two pieces, it being too long to carry away without being seen. At this moment steps were heard; Edwards’s young son having just returned from Flanders in the very nick of time. The thieves dashed down the stairs past the young man who was coming up, carrying with them the orb and crown, the sceptre being left behind in the hurry of their flight. The pursuit was immediate; young Edwards had brought with him his brother-in-law, a Captain Beckman, and the latter hearing cries of “Treason! Murder!” from the terrified women in the Tower, and the cry “The Crown is stolen!” rushed after Blood and the two other men. These had meanwhile crossed the drawbridge between the Main Guard at the White Tower and the Wharf; at the bridge a warder had tried to stop them, but Blood fired his pistol, and the man, although not wounded, fell to the ground, and they dashed past him. At St Katharine’s Gate, near which horses were in waiting for the thieves, Beckman overtook them; Blood again discharged his pistol but missed his pursuer, who ducking his head, promptly seized the sham clergyman, from under whose cloak the Crown fell to the ground, rolling in the gutter. Then followed what the London Gazette of the day called a “robustious struggle,” Blood ultimately being secured, remarking that “It was a gallant attempt, for it was for a Crown!”
When the Crown fell to the ground, some of the gems came loose from their settings, and a large ruby, which had belonged to the sceptre, was found in Parrot’s pocket. Little harm, however, was done, except to the poor old keeper, who was nearly eighty years of age and had been terribly injured; he was soon past all suffering, and was buried in the Chapel of St Peter’s, where his gravestone can still be seen.
After his capture Blood occupied a prison in the White Tower for a short time, but the King soon sent for him. And although it is not, and cannot be known, whether Charles was an accessory or not in the attempted theft, or whether Blood knew too much of the King’s affairs, yet, whatever the reason, Blood was not only pardoned but rewarded, the King giving him a pension of £500 a year, and bestowing upon him landed estates in Ireland, the “Colonel” becoming one of the most assiduous of the Whitehall courtiers. Whether Charles also rewarded Blood’s accomplices is not recorded, but none of them were ever punished for the attempted robbery. John Evelyn recounts meeting Blood at court on the 10th of May 1671. “How he came to be pardoned,” he writes, “and ever received into favour, not only after this but several other exploits almost as daring, both in Ireland and here, I never could come to understand. This man had not only a daring, but a villainous unmerciful look, a false countenance, but very well-spoken, and dangerously insinuating.”