He said he had not worn that sword for thirteen years before and had made his will and left his wife and thirteen children behind him and was going to Dublin where . . . he and many more men were resolved to adventure their lives and they . . . doubted not to secure the English interest.
They were assured of the castle[s] of Dublin and Limerick, Waterford and Clonmell.
Jones, doubtless open-mouthed at this revelation, could only stammer out that this ‘seemed a very high undertaking’ and required ‘many weighty considerations for effecting it, particularly a good army and money to maintain it’. Jephson assured him there was no problem there.
We want not an army, for there are 15,000 Scots excommunicated in the north by the Bishop of Down and the rest of the bishops, which were ready within two days and they doubted not that our army would join with them.
And they had a bank of money in Dublin sufficient to pay off all the arrears of money both in Oliver’s [Cromwell] time and since the king came in.
Naturally, Jones asked him where all this cash had come from.
He did not know from whence the bank of money should come, if not from Holland and that he [saw] three or four firkins [casks containing cash] carried into Mr Boyd’s house and he himself could carry out of the bank £500 tomorrow.
Jephson threw all caution aside and revealed more details of the plot to an incredulous Jones.
There were 1,000 horse [cavalry] in Dublin . . . which Sir Henry Ingoldesby was to appear with as soon as the castle was taken and a flag put up.
They intended to offer no violence to any [who] . . . opposed them. That the lord lieutenant was to be seized . . . but to be civilly treated. That several other persons were to be secured and Jephson was to seize the Earl of Clancarty56 and Col. Fitzpatrick. Every party had particular orders to surprise all of the guards in the city.
Six ministers in Dublin who went about in periwigs but laid them by when they were in prayer . . . were to be in the street to see that no plunder or disorder should be committed.
This was to be a godly rebellion then. Thousands of copies of a declaration had been printed ready for distribution after Dublin Castle and the city had been taken. These would set out the manifesto for the uprising: securing the ‘English interest’ in the three kingdoms (which had been ruined by ‘the countenance given to popery’); restoration of all the estates in Ireland possessed by the English on 7 May 1659 and re-establishment of the church along the nonconformist principles of the Solemn League and Covenant. There was no suggestion of a return to a republic.
Jephson, carried away by his own enthusiasm, even rashly disclosed the rebels’ passwords: ‘For the king and English interest’.
What of that offer to Sir Theophilius Jones? Jephson promised him that after capturing Dublin, he would become the commander of the rebels’ ‘20,000-strong army’. There was no risk, he added:
[He] should run no hazard in it but might sit still and not appear until the whole work was done.
There were two amongst the conspirators who did not trust Jones, the colonel told him, believing him to be ‘too great a creature of the Duke’s [Ormond] . . . but these [views did] not prevail’, all the rest being for the good knight.57
After Jephson rode back to Dublin, cock-a-hoop that the rebels had a commander-in-chief in waiting, Jones began to worry that there were elements of self-delusion in those wild claims of support. He wrote down a detailed account of this seditious conversation and, in fulfilment of the beliefs of the doubting Thomases amongst the conspirators, early the following morning revealed everything to Ormond.
That night, 20 May, three nonconformist ministers met in Dublin to seek God’s blessing on the enterprise.
Blood was staying at the Bottle Inn near the city’s St Patrick’s Gate. Together with his brother-in-law, William Leckie, he and two other plotters, Lieutenant Richard Thompson (deputy provost-marshall for Leinster) and James Tanner (a Dubliner who was formerly a clerk to Henry Cromwell’s secretary) met at the White Hart, further along Patrick Street, to finalise the arrangements for the coup. After their meal ended, they were joined by Jephson, two men from his Trim constituency called Ford and Lawrence, and a Captain Browne.
The remaining conspirator who attended this cosy gathering was the informer Philip Alden.
Over the preceding days there had been much acrimonious debate about whether to kill Ormond or merely to take him hostage. Some maintained that the lord lieutenant had been ‘a great patron to the English and the Protestant religion’ and therefore should be spared. The more ruthless among them countered that Ormond was unwaveringly loyal to the king and ‘his interest in the kingdom and the army’ was so strong that, if spared assassination, ‘[at] one time or another he would prevail against them’. Their arguments prevailed and the plotters finally agreed to kill him after the castle had been stormed.58
Lawrence urged them to strike now, even though they only had ten cavalrymen at their disposal instead of the 120 planned – or the 1,000 horse that Jephson had earlier boasted of.59 Later, Alden reported:
It was resolved by the confederates not to stay [delay] longer (having greater numbers with their arms, garrisons and towns as they gave out and believed) to second them in that country, in Scotland and England, but the next morning to surprise the castle of Dublin and afterwards to march northwards to join the Scots.
The plan was simple. Six men, including a Dublin shoemaker called Jenkins, would enter the castle about six o’clock the following morning by its Great Gate, disguised as petitioners, exercising their ancient right to seek redress from the lord lieutenant for legal wrongs done them. They would walk to the back gate leading from Ship Street (or Sheep Street as it was known then) and await the arrival of a delivery of bread. The baker would drop his basket of loaves and, in the confusion, the sentinels at the gate would be overpowered.
Blood and about one hundred former parliamentary officers and soldiers would then sweep into the castle, capture it and seize Ormond. He apparently had no intention of killing the viceroy. Lord Dungannon’s troop of soldiers would be lured away by men commanded by one Crawford. William Warren, brother of Colonel Abel Warren, would recruit some of the cavalry at Trim, lately under Sir Thomas Armstrong’s command.60 Once the castle and its arsenal of weapons had been secured – indicated by a flag being hoisted on its highest tower – rebel cavalry would patrol the city streets, dispersing any bands of loyal soldiers they encountered. The nonconformist ministers would use their godly influence to prevent any looting in Dublin. Then the insurgents, reinforced by others rallying to the Protestant flag, would head north to Ulster to join up with a hastily recruited army of Scots settlers, and so sweep on to a glorious victory over the Irish government and the papists.
But more prudent counsels soon prevailed among the conspirators.
Even the most optimistic recognised as the evening wore on that they had too few troops with which to hold the city, let alone guard its gates. Their doubts were intensified by a row with the two landladies who were putting up some of Blood’s assault party for the night. Worried about their possible incrimination in such dark matters discussed on their premises, these doughty proprietors ‘kept up such a clamouring and threatened to discover them’ to the government unless the would-be rebels quit their house immediately. Fearing the next day’s attack had been compromised, caution overcame confidence and it was decided around nine o’clock that Wednesday night that it would be prudent to delay the coup d’état until the following week when another 500 cavalry were expected to arrive in Dublin as reinforcements.61
Alden alerted Colonel Vernon to the change in plans by eleven o’clock.62 After the information was confirmed, the lord lieutenant was awakened at four the following morning in his opulent quarters in Dublin Castle.
Ormond decided to take no more chances. He pounced on the plotters immediately.
2
Escape and Evasion
There is one Blood that was very notorious
in this late wicked plot and is fled . . . who has a small house and £100 a year of land Dunboyne . . . now forfeited to his majesty. I have begged this of the king; the duke and duchess of York and the earl of Bath will speak for me.
Sir Gilbert Talbot to Joseph Williamson, 13 June 16631
Twenty-four would-be rebels were detained during the early morning raids ordered by the lord lieutenant. As troops continued to kick down the doors of tenements and taverns in Dublin in their frantic hunt for conspirators, those already held were marched, manacled and under heavy guard, into Dublin Castle for interrogation – ironically, the very fortress they had planned to seize. Among these grim-faced men under close arrest was Philip Alden, the government’s slippery prize informer. Was his detention the action of an over-enthusiastic officer, who arrested everyone in sight? Or was it a clever ploy by his spymaster Ned Vernon to preserve the agent’s cover amongst the conspirators?
Six of the plotters now locked up in the castle’s south-west Bermingham Tower2 were former army officers: the voluble and indiscreet Irish MP Alexander Jephson and his brother colonels Edward Warren and Thomas Scott, who had both served under Henry Cromwell; captains John Chambers, Theophilus Sandford and Lieutenant Richard Thompson. Six prisoners had been cavalry troopers in the parliamentary army: Thomas Ball of Dublin; Robert Davies, John Biddell, John Smullen, John Griffin and William Bradford. Two were nonconformist ministers – Blood’s brother-in-law William Leckie and Edward Baines, once a pastor at St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, and another chaplain to Henry Cromwell.3 The remainder were smaller fry, including John Foulke, the son of a former governor of Drogheda, the innkeeper Andrew Sturges and James Tanner, who very soon was to sing his heart out in a desperate attempt to save his own neck.
Amongst the evidence seized that morning were copies of the rebels’ public declaration of their objectives – one copy set out in Blood’s bold, straggly handwriting. It described forcefully the plight of those Protestants dispossessed of their lands:
Having long expected the securing . . . of our lives, liberties and estates as a reasonable recompense [for] that industry and diligence exercised by the Protestants of this kingdom in restoring his majesty to the exercise of his royal authority, instead, we find ourselves, our wives and children, without mercy, delivered as a prey unto these barbarous and bloody murderers, whose inhumane cruelty is [registered] in the blood of 150,000 poor Protestants4 [since] the beginning of the war in this kingdom.
The king, claimed this manifesto, had ‘suffered himself to be seduced by evil councillors’ and the result was that ‘the bloody Papists’ were ‘the first that tasted of his royal clemency in settling them in their justly forfeited estates’. Moreover, Ormond had [admitted] ‘keeping a correspondence with several of the said murderers during their hostility, as appears by his certificates on their behalf to the Court of Claims.
We may undoubtedly conclude . . . that evil is determined upon us and before it [can] be executed . . . to stand upon our just and necessary defence and to use all our endeavours for our self-preservation . . .
And to the end [that] no well-minded Protestants in the three kingdoms may be afraid to stand by us in this our just quarrel, we declare we will stand for that liberty of conscience proper to everyone as a Christian for establishing the Protestant religion in purity, according to the Solemn League and Covenant5 [and we call] for the restoring of each person to his lands as they held them in the year 1659 and discharging of the army’s [pay] arrears.
The declaration ended with the defiant: ‘In all which, we doubt not the Lord of Hosts, the mighty God of Jacob, will strengthen our weak hands.’6 Copies of the rebels’ statement, which had been ‘fixed in several parts’ of the Irish capital, were torn down and on one sheet someone had scribbled a brief narrative of the plot and the names of the principal conspirators – some arrested, others who had made their escape. Among the latter was Blood, described as ‘Captain Blood’ – apparently now having reverted to his more senior rank in the Royalist army.7
The lord lieutenant reported to Bennet on 23 May on his efforts to destroy the insurrection:
I made full preparations and was so ready that if the attack on Dublin Castle had been made, as was intended, on the 21st of this month, the conspirators would, I think, have been taken in their own snare.
But thinking they were discovered, these conspirators who, up to nine o’clock on Wednesday night, were ready to carry out their design, feared to do so on the following morning.
It then became necessary to seize the conspirators and we arrested some and shall arrest more.8
In the days and nights that followed, Ormond conducted many interrogations of the detainees in person, assisted by his ‘trusty secretary’ Sir Paul Davies, sometimes calling in his advisers to suggest specific questions.9 As a result of what he heard, he was quietly confident that his prisoners would be ‘inclined, I think, to save themselves at the expense of accusing others’ and despite ‘the nicety of our laws’ – the requirement for convincing proof presented before a judge and jury – ‘we shall be able to make examples of some of these conspirators’.10
This skilful and none-too-gentle questioning revealed the scale of the plot and Vernon warned Sir Joseph Williamson in London that ‘many persons of note are implicated in it’.11 The veteran Scottish soldier Sir Arthur Forbes at Newton, Co. Meath, reported widespread talk of an imminent rebellion: ‘There is just ground to suspect some sudden design against the State. The people generally hereabouts, seem to apprehend present trouble.’12
As part of the fallout from the abortive coup, the vultures were beginning to gather around the estates and possessions of those accused of involvement – now potentially forfeit to the crown and thus obtainable by those happy fortunates who enjoyed royal favour.
First out of the traps was Francis Aungier, Third Baron Aungier, the English MP for Arundel, Sussex, and governor of Westmeath and Longford.13 In a helpful postscript to his letter to Bennet on 23 May, he acknowledged having seen a list of imprisoned suspects, which included the name of Major Alexander Staples. ‘He has a good estate [worth] £500 a year in Tyrone, which will be worth getting. Act quickly, or you will be too late’, Aungier warned the secretary of state in Whitehall.14
Winston Churchill,’15 one of the despised commissioners in the Court of Claims, had recognised the same golden opportunity. The next day, he too wrote to Bennet, seemingly affecting no great desire to ‘gain by these forfeits’. Then, shamelessly, he moved on to reasons why he should be so rewarded.
But owing to the duty which I here discharge I was more exposed, even than my brothers [fellow commissioners] to danger in the event of this design being successful, I think I may not unreasonably put in for a small proportion among the rest.
Among the twenty or more who are about to be proclaimed traitors . . . there is one Major Abel Warren that has a newly acquired estate of about £400 or £500 a year – most of it such as cannot be taken from him without any previous reprisal.
If the king will grant it, I think I shall be able to reserve it out of the jaws of the Act of Settlement . . .
I need not tell you how ‘dry’ our employment is here; clogged with clamour without any certainty of profit. I am only anxious to serve the king.16
Any hopes of immediate profit from the downfall of the conspirators, however, were dashed by the lord lieutenant’s suggestion that Charles II should delay ‘engagements for the estates of those found guilty’ which should be used for ‘the king’s service and [for] the rewarding of those who discovered the plot’.17
This did not deter Sir Gilbert Talbot’s naked avarice. A few weeks later, he asked Williamson blatantly:
I ask your honour’s pardon for this trouble [but] his majesty promised me on my parting [that] if I could find out any small grant, I should have it.
There is one Blood, that was very notorious in this last wicked plot and is fled, who has a small house and £100 a year of land in the barony of D
unboyne . . . of his ancient ancestry but now forfeited to his majesty.
I begged this of the king; the duke and duchess of York and the Earl of Bath will speak for me.
He concluded confidently: ‘I doubt not your honour’s favour’.18
Ormond moved quickly to prorogue the Irish Parliament until 20 July to prevent MPs fomenting any opposition to his measures to secure the kingdom. Furthermore, he published a proclamation to demonstrate that he still retained a firm grip on law and order in Ireland. This described how ‘certain wicked persons of fanatic and disloyal principles disaffected to his majesty’s just and gracious government’ had conspired to raise ‘disturbances in Ireland and
especially to attack his majesty’s castle of Dublin and seize the person of us, the lord lieutenant, in order to their carrying on their mischievous contrivances or renewing bloody confusions throughout this kingdom from which evils this realm and all his majesty’s subjects . . . [which] have been but newly released [by the restoration of the monarchy] . . . We look upon these odious conspiracies as the mischievous contrivances of some fanatic and disloyal persons of desperate fortunes as well as of desperate and destructive principles who endeavour to amend their own condition by the ruin of others . . .
We think it well to make it known for the quieting of all honest men that we direct . . . the presidents of provinces, mayors of corporations and sheriffs and justices of the peace to arrest and imprison all such persons as they shall within their several areas find to have a hand in this conspiracy.19
Ormond had taken an enormous risk in deploying troops, with their uncertain loyalties, to crush the would-be rebellion. Vernon acknowledged frankly that those soldiers ordered to round up the conspirators were ‘not without corruption’, but only trusted officers ‘who had always served his majesty were acquainted with [the plot] and no other’.20
The Audacious Crimes of Colonel Blood Page 4