Colonel Thomas Blood, Crown-stealer, 1618-1680

by Wilbur Cortez Abbott

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:

"My lord, I know well that you are at the bottom of this late attempt of Blood's upon my father; and therefore I give you fair warning if my father comes to a violent end by sword or pistol, or if he dies by the hand of a ruffian, or by the more secret way of poison, I shall not be at a loss to know the first author of it; I shall consider you as the assassin; I shall treat you as such; and wherever I meet you I shall pistol you, though you stood behind the king's chair; and I tell it you in his Majesty's presence that you may be sure I shall keep my word."

These were brave words, and had they come from other lips than those of the Restoration Bayard, might have been regarded as mere bravado. But he had proved his courage on too many occasions to count this lightly. Scarce five years before, while visiting Sir Thomas Clifford, in the country, he had heard the guns of the fleet off Harwich, in the fierce battle of Lowestoft. With no commission and with no connection with either the navy or the government, he had mounted a horse, and, accompanied by his host, had ridden to the shore and put off in an open boat to the English fleet to take his part in one of the hardest day's fighting the English fleet ever saw. The word of such a man, conspicuous for his honesty as for his courage, was not to be lightly set aside. And whether this threat was the cause or not, or whether Buckingham was really not responsible for an assault which might have been attributed to Blood's desire for revenge on the man who had confiscated his estates and hanged his brother-in-law, the old Duke was not further molested.

But, apart from these matters, there is another, and one may be permitted to think, a more serious reason for Blood's escape. It lies in the political situation of the time. This was, in many ways, peculiar. Some four years before the events we have narrated in connection with the theft of the crown the administration of Clarendon had fallen and had been succeeded by that of a group called the Cabal, whose chief bond of union lay in the fact that they were none of them Anglicans and they were all opposed to Clarendon. They, with the aid of the king, who, largely through tenderness to the Catholics, had never favoured the persecuting policy, had relaxed the execution of the Clarendonian measures, and had thus far succeeded in preventing the re-enactment of the Conventicle Act which had expired some years before. The Anglicans in Parliament had been no less insistent that the old policy be maintained and that the Act be renewed. The king, now supported by his ministers, was no less eager to renew the attempt which had failed under Clarendon, and revive the dispensing power, whereby the toleration of Catholic and Protestant Nonconformist alike would rest in his own hands. This situation was complicated by the fact that king and ministers alike were bent on another war with Holland. It seemed highly desirable to them to pacify the still discontented Nonconformists before entering on such a struggle, particularly since the government had little money and must rely on the city, which was strongly Nonconformist in its sentiments. It seemed no less necessary to destroy, if possible, that group of extremists whose conspiracies were doubly dangerous in the face of a war. To gain information of the feelings of the dissenting bodies, and discover what terms would be most acceptable to them, to track down and bring in the fierce and desperate men from whom trouble might be anticipated, to discover if possible the connection that existed between the sects and those in high places, these were objects of the highest importance. They needed such a man as Blood. And it seemed worth while to Charles to tame this fierce bird of prey to his service to achieve such ends as he contemplated. Some such thought evidently occurred to the king during the examination. "What," he is said to have asked bluntly at its close, "What if I should give you your life?" Blood's reply is almost epic, "I would endeavor to deserve it."

This, at any rate, became his immediate business. Almost at once he was taken in hand by the government, and it was soon reported that he was making discoveries. The arrest of three of Cromwell's captains is noted among the first fruits of his information. And close upon the heels of his pardon came the arrest and conviction of some twenty-four or twenty-five irreconcilables[9]. This may or may not show the hand of the new government agent, but the circumstantial evidence is strong. It is certain, however, that throughout the winter of 1671-2 Secretary Williamson was in close consultation with Blood over the situation and the demands of Dissenters, and he filled many pages of good paper with cryptic abbreviations of these long and important interviews, in which are to be found many curious secrets of conventicles and conspiracies, of back-stairs politics and the underground connections of men high in the councils of the nation. From Blood, from the Presbyterian ministers, through one or two of their number, and from sources to which these communications led, the court and ministry gradually obtained the information from which a great and far-reaching policy was framed. This took form in the beginning of the following year in the famous Declaration of Indulgence. This, taking the control of the Nonconformist situation from Parliament, placed it in the hands of the king. Licenses were to be issued to ministers to preach, to meeting-houses, and to other places for worship which was not according to the forms or under the direction of the Anglican church. The policy, owing to the bitter opposition of Parliament, lasted but a few months, but it marked an era in English history. The rioting which had accompanied the revival of the Conventicle Act, and which had encouraged the government to try the licensing system, disappeared. For a few months entire religious toleration prevailed, and, though Parliament forced the king to withdraw his Declaration, the old persecution was never revived. In this work Blood's share was not small. He not merely furnished information, he became one of the recognized channels through whom licenses were obtained, and in the few months while they were being issued he drove a thriving trade. And with one other activity which preceded the Dutch war he was doubtless closely connected. This was the issuing of pardons to many of those old Cromwellians who had sought refuge in Holland a dozen years before. No small number of these, taking advantage of the government's new lenience, came back from exile with their families and goods, and took up their residence again in England. Thus Colonels Burton and Kelsey, Berry and Desborough, Blood's brother-in-law Captain Lockyer, Nicholas, Sweetman and many others found pardons and were received again into England. "Through his means," wrote Mrs. Goffe to her husband, "as is reputed, Desborough and Maggarborn [Major Bourne?] and Lewson of Yarmouth is come out of Holland and Kelsi and have their pardon and liberty to live quietly, no oath being imposed on them." "The people of God have much liberty and meetings are very free and they sing psalms in many places and the King is very favourable to many of the fanatics and to some of them he was highly displeased with." It might have been that the regicides in New England could have returned but the cautious Mrs. Goffe warned her husband not to rely on the favourable appearance of affairs. "It is reported," she wrote, "that Whalley and Goffe and Ludlow is sent for but I think they have more wit than to trust them."

In the third great measure of the period, the Stop of the Exchequer, Blood naturally had no part, but when the war actually broke out, he found a new field of usefulness in obtaining information from Holland, in ferreting out the tracts which the Dutch smuggled into England, in watching for the signs of conspiracy at home. Thus he lived and flourished. His residence was in Bowling Alley, now Bowling Street, leading from Dean's Yard to Tufton Street, Westminster, convenient to Whitehall. His favorite resort is said to have been White's Coffee House, near the Royal Exchange[10]. His sinister face and ungraceful form became only too familiar about the court. His bearing was resented by many as insolent. He was both hated and feared as he moved through the atmosphere of intrigue by which the court was surrounded, getting and revealing to the king information of the conspirators, of the Dutch, and the other enemies of royalty. His was not a pleasant trade and there were undoubtedly many who, for good reasons of their own, wished him out of the way. There were many who contrasted his reward with the neglect of the unfortunate Edwards, and who railed at Blood and the king alike. Rochester allowed himself the usual liberty of rhymed epigram:

Blood that wears treason in his face

Villain complete in parson's gown