The Audacious Crimes of Colonel Blood

by Robert Hutchinson

  Leving’s new career of holding up and robbing coaches and horsemen at pistol point proved less than successful. His victims may have stood but rarely did they deliver. He was soon apprehended by the local constables and on 18 May 1667 found himself in a dirty, rat-infested cell in York Castle.4 Freer managed to evade capture and went to ground in Leeds.5 A crumpled piece of paper, bearing a ‘warrant for passing on the king’s affairs’ – his ‘get-out-of-jail card’ – was discovered in the pocket of Leving’s coat and revealed his true identity and occupation to the startled authorities.6

  Unfortunately it did not work. Arlington had other plans for his hapless spy.

  Leving was taken to London and thrown into the city’s Newgate prison. From there he wrote a plaintive letter to Arlington on 11 July, explaining how he had unwittingly fallen into a life of crime. It was a familiar story of an innocent abroad, easily influenced by hard-drinking criminals who made glib promises of easy earnings:

  Being without hopes of employment, I went to visit some friends in Leicestershire . . . [but] fell into ill company and offended, but did not hurt any man’s person and thus got into prison.

  Always anxious to demonstrate his worth to Arlington, Leving added that while locked up in York Castle he had not been idle. The spy had met ‘a person of good descent and estate who is willing to lay aside his business and be the king’s agent, not from fear or necessity but conscience’. Leving boasted: ‘He can discover any treachery and either foreign or domestic conspiracy.’7

  Two days later, he wrote a panic-stricken note to Williamson, having heard he was to be removed from Newgate to appear as a prosecution witness in the imminent trial in York of Captain Roger Jones (‘Mene Tekel’), John Atkinson and Robert Joplin, all of them insurgents from the failed northern rebellion in England of 1663. A public appearance in court was not a prospect to be savoured for an informant whose faceless anonymity was his sole protection against bloody retribution in the dark, friendless world he inhabited.

  Predictably, answer came there none to his pleas. On 20 July a warrant was issued to the keeper of Newgate authorising him to arrange for Leving to be returned to York under protective custody for his testimony at the assizes. The same day, Sir John Robinson, lieutenant of the Tower of London, was also instructed to organise ‘the safe conveyance’ of Captain John Mason to face trial for treason – and almost certain condemnation as a traitor – at the same circuit court.8 Mason had been a major thorn in the government’s side for years, having been a key player in the northern rebellion and numerous conspiracies ever since. Now informer and arch-rebel were to become unlikely and uncomfortable travelling companions on the Great North Road.

  Both prisoners were to cover the 210 miles (339 km) to York on horseback, guarded by seven cavalry troopers under the command of Corporal William Darcy, the escort drawn from the Duke of York’s Horse Guards regiment.9 Leving had probably been ordered to report on his fellow prisoner’s conversation during the six-day journey and try to draw out incriminating evidence which could later be used against him. He must also have been worried that, with such a high-profile rebel as John Mason, the small military cavalcade would be liable to attack on some lonely road en route to the north of England.

  Leving had every reason to be uneasy about his unwanted ride to York.

  At about seven o’clock on the evening of Thursday, 25 July 1667, the party was ambushed in a narrow lane between the small villages of Darrington and Wentbridge, south-east of Pontefract, West Yorkshire, just twenty-five miles (40 km) from York.10

  This rescue mission was led by Thomas Blood.

  Almost inevitably, because of the harum-scarum way the adventurer undertook his daring escapades, strong elements of what we would recognise as tragi-comedy permeated every aspect of the enterprise. The prisoner who had to be goaded into making his escape to freedom. The death of a nervous barber from York, Mr Scott, who had only joined the military escort for protection on the last stretch of this perilous road, because it was a notorious haunt of highwaymen. Blood being unhorsed three times because he had forgotten to tighten the girth of his horse’s saddle. So the list goes on. Overall, the exploit came to resemble more the madcap adventures of the Keystone Cops than Errol Flynn’s recklessly brave displays of derring-do.

  The reported size of Blood’s rescue party varied: a London newsletter, published five days afterwards, said the troopers were attacked by ‘thirteen stout horsemen’11 but Corporal Darcy, in his official dispatch, estimated the number of assailants as ‘half a score’ – or ten.12 Certainly, Blood was accompanied by a couple of old comrades-in-arms, the Fifth Monarchist Captain John Lockyer (who had been involved in an anti-government conspiracy in Nottingham in 1663),13 Timothy Butler, who acted as quartermaster and armourer in this and other conspiracies, together with ‘several others’.

  Blood must have received a very timely tip-off that Mason – for whom he held ‘a particular affection and friendship’ – was being taken north. He was also provided with accurate intelligence about the strength and armament of Corporal Darcy’s section and their likely route. Escort and prisoners departed London, most likely on the morning of 20 July, and Blood and three associates followed that night ‘without [top] boots, upon small horses and [with] their pistols [hidden] in their trousers to prevent suspicion’. But it was ‘a good way’ north of Newark, Nottinghamshire, before the pursuers picked up the escort’s trail.

  Richard Halliwell, Blood’s contemporary biographer, takes up the story:

  At one place, they set a sentinel to watch [Mason] coming by. But whether it was out of fear, or that the person was tired with [such] a tedious expectation, the sentinel brought them no tidings, either of the prisoner or his guard.

  Mr Blood and his companions began to think their friend so far before them upon the road that it would be in vain to follow him.

  This was the fifth day out from London. The next twenty-four hours would see Mason securely behind bars in York, well beyond the reach of his rescuers. Despite despairing of their chances of success, Blood relentlessly urged his party on. That evening, they stopped at an inn at Darrington14 in Yorkshire where they decided to spend the night before returning to London, having failed abjectly in their mission. Then, unexpectedly, they had a stroke of luck.

  They had not sat long in a room next the street, condoling among themselves [on] the ill success of a tedious journey and the misfortune of their friend, before the convoy came thundering up to the door of the same inn with their prisoners.

  Mason, they later discovered, had unwittingly recommended this same Darrington inn ‘as being best known to him’ to give ‘his guardians the refreshment of a dozen of drink’ after a long and dusty day in the saddle.

  There Mr Blood had a full view of his friend and the persons he had to deal with.

  He [ordered] a small supper, [to be eaten] at the fire, so that he had but very little time for consultations [with his comrades].

  Captain Mason’s [escort] did not intend to alight [stop] so that [Blood] only gave general directions to his associates to follow his example in whatever they saw him do.

  In haste, the hopeful rescuers threw money down on a table as payment for their food and drink and told ‘the woman of the house that since they had met with such good company they were resolved to go forward’ rather than return to London. ‘Captain Mason went off first upon a sorry beast and with him the commander of the party and four more’ – leaving three troopers to quietly finish their ale in the inn parlour.

  Blood and his nervous, edgy associates, anxiously awaiting the soldiers’ departure, must have found it unbearable to suffer this delay before finally going into action. One trooper at last emptied his pint-pot, mounted his cavalry charger and rode off, followed a little later by his remaining two comrades.

  Outside in the inn yard, Blood and a companion were horsed and waiting impatiently for these last two laggards to leave. He had realised that if he could neutralise these troopers as
quickly as possible, he would improve vastly the chances of successfully snatching Mason from a weakened escort. But how far ahead were the advance party?

  [They] soon overtook them. These four rode a little time together. Mr Blood on the right hand of the two soldiers and his friend on the left.

  Upon a sudden, Blood laid hold of the reins of the horse next to him, while his friend, in observation of his directions, did the same on the other hand. Having . . . by surprise dismounted the soldiers [they] pulled the bridles and sent the horses to pick their grass where they pleased.

  These two being made sure of, Mr Blood pursued his game, intending to reach the single trooper.

  But he being got to the rest of his fellows, now reduced to six and a barber of York . . . Mr Blood [rode] up, heads the whole party and stops them.

  Darcy and his troopers were surprised by his sudden appearance and apparently believed this grubby horseman to be either drunk or mad. Naïvely, any notion of a trap did not enter their heads. Accordingly, with the disdain of soldiers towards a mere civilian standing in the way of their duty, they tried to hustle Blood off the road, striking his horse with their switches, ‘exercised with more contempt than fury’. Then, in the nick of time, he was joined by his fellow assailant.

  ‘Rough blows’ were exchanged as precursors to a fierce mêlée, as the remainder of Blood’s attackers rode up. Both sides traded pistol shots and continually wheeled their horses in their attempts to strike a telling, fatal blow with their swords.

  Amid the confusion of yells, curses and flat, reverberating gunshots, Mr Scott, the unfortunate barber of York – despite shouted ‘warnings that were oft given him’ not to meddle in a business that did not concern him – joined in the clash of arms enthusiastically. He ‘laid about him [with his sword] with more zeal than discretion’15 but was soon lying lifeless on the ground, the first casualty of the fight. Whether he died by blade or bullet is not known. Given his luck on this fateful day, he was probably killed by a stray shot or a ricochet.

  Mason, mounted on his ‘thirty shilling steed’, had meanwhile blithely ridden on ahead and, glancing back with surprising sangfroid, wondered what on earth was going on behind him.

  He conjectured it at first to have been some intrigue against him, as if the troopers had a design to tempt him to escape which might afterwards prove more to his prejudice.

  He came back, at which time Mr Blood cried out to him: ‘Horse, horse, quickly’ – an alarm so amazing at first that he could not believe it to be his friend’s voice when he heard it.

  Incongruously, Mason had decided to dismount as the fighting raged about him. But at last, Blood’s desperate shouts galvanised him into action. Catching the reins of a stray horse that had lost its rider, he jumped into the saddle and galloped off.

  As the skirmish continued, Blood managed to fall off his mount three times, ‘occasioned by his forgetfulness’ in not tightening a new girth to his saddle, which the ostler had loosened at the inn after his arrival. Tired of crashing painfully to the ground and not a little discomfited, perhaps, by his own stupidity in the face of danger, he unwisely decided to fight it out on foot, despite the huge disadvantage he created for himself in combating mounted adversaries who knew very well how to handle their weapons. He had already suffered four flesh wounds from close-quarter pistol shots:

  Two soldiers singled him out and drove him into a courtyard, where he [defiantly] made a stand, his sword in one hand and his pistol in the other.

  One of the soldiers, taking that advantage of his open body, shot him near the shoulder-blade of his pistol arm at which time he had four other bullets in his body that he had received before.

  The soldier . . . flung his discharged pistol at him, with [such] a good aim and violence that he hit him a stunning blow just under the forehead, upon the upper part of the nose between the eyes, which for the present amazed [stunned] him that he gave himself over for a dead man.

  Yet resolving, like a true Cock of the Game,16 to give one sparring blow before he expired – such is the strange provocation and success of despair – with one vigorous strike of his sword, he brought his adversary with a vengeance from his horse and laid in a far worse condition than himself at his horse’s feet.

  Blood, brimful ‘of anger and revenge’, was about to run the fallen trooper through with his blood-stained sword when Mason (who astonishingly still had not fled the scene), shouted to ‘hold and spare the life of one that had been the most civil person to him on the road’. Blood reluctantly drew back his sword, lowered it and grudgingly spared him. For him, this was no time for chivalry, or compassion for a helpless enemy, but as far as his friend was concerned, common courtesy always should be rewarded – even in the heat of battle.

  Mason then joined Blood in ‘mastering’ the other trooper and ‘the victory, after a sharp fight that lasted about two hours’ was complete.

  Two soldiers were reported dead (incorrectly as it transpired), as was the ill-starred York barber. Three troopers had been unhorsed and the rest wounded.

  Though the encounter happened in a village, where a great number of people were spectators of the combat, yet none would venture the rescue of either party, as not knowing which was in the wrong or which in the right.

  [They] were therefore wary of being arbitrators in such a desperate contest where they saw the reward of assistance to be nothing but . . . death.17

  Let history not condemn them for their timorous inaction. Discretion is, after all, the better part of valour and they at least lived to tell the tale to their grandchildren.

  Leving, like the terrified villagers, had escaped involvement in the brutal skirmish. As the bullets began to fly, he mounted a stray horse and galloped off to hide in a convenient house a short distance away.

  After Blood and his accomplices had departed triumphantly with the rescued Mason, he emerged from his bolthole to meekly surrender himself to a wounded and panting Corporal Darcy. The spy that night reported to Arlington that he had gone back to Darrington only to summon assistance for the soldiers when the fighting began, ‘but the people, being sore afraid . . . ran into their houses and not one appeared’.

  The leaders of the assailants were only too familiar to Leving. He named them as ‘Major Blood, Lockyer and Butler’.

  A magistrate and prominent member of the local gentry named Stringer had arrived breathlessly to take charge at the scene after galloping from his home a few miles away at Sharlston. He summoned a local surgeon to treat the wounded troopers and Leving gave him and his fellow justices ‘directions as to the country known by Captain Mason [and] [they] have sent the hue and cry18 after them’. Leving suggested to Arlington that anyone who could recognise Mason and Blood in a crowd should be stationed in the northern outskirts of London, as they were probably heading for the capital.19

  The post from York was delayed ‘so as to give Lord Arlington full information’ and two days later, Mascall, Williamson’s man in the city, provided further details of the attack. He claimed Blood and his men were equipped with helmets, gauntlets and body armour; if so, they must have picked up these breast- and back-plates and ‘head pieces’ from a cache known to them somewhere along the road from London.

  At the first action, they fired upon the soldiers’ backs without saying a word or making any show of force . . .

  It appeared they [were] resolved to kill Leving, who is come in, along with the gentlemen who were able to travel, three or four of whom are believed to be mortally wounded.

  Scott, a citizen of York, being in the soldiers’ company, was slain outright.

  The rogues had taken such care that they secured all the passes [entrances] to the field by several footmen and their accomplices.20

  Four days after the attack, Darcy, still recovering from his wounds whilst lodging at the Black Swan, in York’s Coney Street, sent his two-page official report to the office of Sir Charles Wheeler, an officer in Prince Rupert’s Horse, in Old Palace Yard, Westminster.2
1 Any letter describing the failure of a mission is a difficult one to write for a young, aspiring soldier and, in selecting his words, he was properly aware of the importance of the value of military horses:

  As I am bound, I thought fit to give you an account of our late sad misfortune upon Thursday last in the evening about six or seven of the clock at Darrington, a small village in Yorkshire.

  We were set upon in a narrow lane in the rear by half a score, as near as [I] can judge, well-armed men who, after they had fired some pistols [at] us, said: ‘Deliver, or you are all dead men’.

  Whereupon I presently faced about and we fought with them [for] half an hour till we were so disabled we could engage them no longer; Procter being shot through the body, Knifton through the arm, Lobley through the thigh, Hewet into the back and I wounded in the hand and head. My horse [was] shot in the leg.

  Lobley, Proctor and Jackson’s horses were carried away.

  I shot one and got another of their horses. One had mounted Singleton’s horse, but Lobley dismounted him and recovered it again.

  Only now did Darcy acknowledge the loss of his prisoner:

  They rescued Mason and we sent the hue and cry after them.

  Three of them are known by Leving, the prisoner who is sent to York Castle, and he has discovered them to Justice Stringer to be Lockyer, Butler and Blood.

  A gentleman of York, being behind, was slain.

  I was forced to have the assistance of the country, none being left with me but Singleton and Jackson. The other[s] were left behind, but alive. I took all possible care of them. They will want money, as it will be three months before they are able to stir.22

  The hunt was now on for Mason and Blood and his accomplices for a crime generally regarded among the gentry as ‘a most insolent act against the king and the government’.23 Predictably, the renegade Cromwellian Edmund Ludlow, safe in comfortable exile in Switzerland, saw Mason’s rescue as ‘agreeable work for the Lord’.24

  After the fight at Darrington ended, the fugitives had wisely separated and sought safe houses in which to hide, which they reached within a few days.