The Audacious Crimes of Colonel Blood

by Robert Hutchinson

  They told the physician that Lauderdale had lost the trust of the Scottish nonconformists and his only status in Scotland ‘was by the king’s favour’ – his job title as secretary of state. He had ‘disgusted all the nobility’ and ‘generally all the body of the people’. There was a ‘great fermentation’ in the kingdom which would ‘if not prevented break out’.22

  Blood became convinced that Baber was trying to discredit him with Arlington and he probably incited Lauderdale’s bile against the despondent Scottish informants.23 He still faced opprobrium among the dissenter community; one member warned, ‘Have a care of Blood, he is a rogue’, Williamson noted.24

  The colonel needed to rebuild his fences with his paymasters and demonstrate his continuing usefulness. Williamson had earlier acknowledged that he ‘had great converse of old officers’, and Blood had enjoyed some success in convincing those former parliamentary army men who had a history of conspiracy and rebellion to come in from the cold, using his own treatment at the hands of the king as an example of the royal clemency that could be expected.

  Now he wrote to Arlington, reminding him of his efforts to convince the nonconformist radicals exiled in the Netherlands to return home under promise of pardon to prevent them being utilised as fifth columnists by the Dutch in the event of war. One of them was Jonathan Jennings, who had been committed to Aylesbury prison in 1666 but had escaped overseas. Blood pointed out that Jennings ‘having met with a stop at present in having his pardon perfected and proving a hearty friend to the king’s service, I ask that some intimation be given to the jailer of the King’s Bench that he has a warrant for his pardon and is suing it out, that he may not bear hard on him’.25 He added: ‘I had some other things to intimate by word of mouth to your lordship, but reserve them till I have an opportunity’ of meeting.26

  Blood’s first triumph in this specific task was in September 1671 and involved Major John Gladman, said by Williamson to be ‘hearty to Blood’s way’.27 Gladman agreed to seek a private audience with Charles to swear the oath of allegiance in return for a royal pardon. Captain John Lockyer (one of Blood’s accomplices in the rescue of the ‘general Baptist’ Captain John Mason in 1667) also accepted a pardon through his intervention, although ‘Mene Tekel’, alias Captain Roger Jones, stoudy refused to wait on the king for his act of clemency.28 In November 1672 Blood reported to Arlington on the audience of another radical, Major William Low, with the king:

  according to your direction I brought the gentleman to the king . . . [who] was satisfied in him and bade me take care about his pardon in order to which I request your order for a warrant.

  Hardly anyone that has been pardoned will turn to a better account, for he is a man of parts and esteem in that [militant] party in Ireland and is so passionately taken with the king’s condescending grace that I am persuaded nothing shall stir there to his majesty’s prejudice that he can hinder.

  With an eye to the recruitment of a potential new agent in Dublin, Blood added: ‘He shall wait on you, if you think it necessary.’29

  He was less successful with Mason himself, now a keeper of a London coffee house and still an inveterate plotter, or with the Fifth Monarchist William Smith, who had guarded Blood’s horses during the raid on the Crown Jewels. Both stuck to their radical guns and would have nothing to do with the government amnesty.

  In April 1675, Blood petitioned Williamson on behalf of Captain Humphrey Spurway, of Tiverton, Devon, who was involved in the conspiracy led by Thomas Tonge (another parliamentary officer who, after the Restoration, was forced into the twin evils of selling tobacco and distilling spirits).

  Spurway had planned to kill Charles while he was on his way to visit his mother at Greenwich and to seize the Dukes of York, Albermarle and Sir Richard Browne, now lord mayor of London. The conspiracy came to nothing and he fled out of the country. Financed by a small group of London merchants, he had travelled on to an overseas plantation. Now Blood wanted to win him a pardon. He was one of those ‘absconded persons I took charge of to reduce or disperse who chose to remove to a remote plantation being persuaded that he might be incapable of endeavouring to promote sedition or disturbances to the government’.

  His crimes were the same [as] the common drove of those his majesty pardoned at my coming out of the Tower and no other.

  His is employed by [James] Nelthorpe30 and other merchants in a remote plantation where he resolves to settle and never to return but become a loyal subject, if he may be delivered from his fears by a pardon.

  I suppose his merchants will engage [vouch] for him, if there be any occasion.31

  Spurway’s pardon was granted two days later.32

  With some of these dangerous radicals now neutralised, Charles II tried implementing a new, diametrically opposed, policy to quell the disquiet and dissatisfaction among the sombre godly ranks of his nonconformist subjects. Where coercion and oppression had failed, decriminalisation might work more effectively Deploying his royal prerogative, the king signed the Declaration of Indulgence at the Palace of Whitehall on 15 March 1672, suspending the penal laws banning unlawful religious meeting:

  Our care and endeavours for the preservation of the rights and interests of the [Anglican] Church have been sufficiently manifested . . . by the whole course of our government since our happy restoration, and by the many and frequent ways of coercion that we have used for reducing all erring or dissenting persons . . .

  But it being evident by the sad experience of twelve years that there is very little fruit of all those forcible courses, we think ourself obliged to make use of that supreme power in ecclesiastical matters . . .

  And that there may be no pretence for any of our subjects to continue their illegal meetings and conventicles, we do declare that we shall from time to time allow a sufficient number of places, as they shall be desired, in all parts of this our kingdom, for the use of such as do not conform to the Church of England, to meet and assemble in order to their public worship and devotion, which places shall be open and free to all persons.

  But to prevent such disorders and inconvenience as may happen by this our indulgence, if not duly regulated, and that they may be the better protected by the civil magistrate, our express will and pleasure is that none of our subjects do presume to meet in any place until such place be allowed, and the teacher of that congregation be approved by us.

  The timing was tight: twelve days later, England, in alliance with Louis XIV of France, declared war on the Dutch United Provinces. Arlington sent a copy of the king’s new religious policy to Sir Bernard Gascoign, the English ambassador in Vienna: ‘I add also a late Declaration his Majesty has made in favour of the nonconformists, that we might keep all quiet at home whilst we are busiest abroad.’33 Unwilling to face the likely wrath of Parliament, Charles prorogued the session set for 1 April to October and then to February 1673.34

  The longed-for official toleration of nonconformist worship had at last arrived. The framework of a means to operate this new policy seems to have originated with the assertive Dr Butler, who forwarded a scheme to Williamson that envisaged a system of distributing government licences for private and public devotions. Allowing their worship to emerge from the dark shadows of secrecy and illegality would make the nonconformists respond to this ‘little kindly treatment’ by becoming more loyal to the Stuart crown. ‘A little love’, he told the secretary of state, ‘obliges more than great severity’ and by this means ‘all will have a dependency on his majesty’ Butler was fully confident that the threat of religious extremists would be neutralised: ‘I think it would be beyond the power of the devil or bad men to give [the king] any disturbance in his kingdoms.’35

  There were three kinds of licences that congregations had to apply for. One permitted the use of a building as a meeting house, the second covered preachers at such assemblies and the third those itinerant ministers who travelled from town to town devoutly spreading the Word of God.

  While some nonconformist ministers we
re wary about the impact of the Declaration, most of their flocks were jubilant at their new-found freedom to worship. One humble and loyal address to the king declared: ‘We cannot but look on your majesty as the breath of our nostrils, as a repairer of our breaches and a restorer of paths to dwell in.’ Another professed that by this ‘unparalleled act of grace, you have made our hearts to leap and our souls to sing for joy of heart and have laid such a sense of your royal condescension and indulgence upon us if we cannot but now always, and in all places, acknowledge and celebrate the most worthy deeds done to us your poor subjects and as men raised out of the grave from every corner of the land, stand and call your majesty blessed.’36 One of those soon to receive a licence to preach was Jonathan Jennings, having returned to England under pardon.37

  Another man to bless the name of the king was Thomas Blood.

  He had more venal reasons to praise, laud and magnify the name of Charles Rex. The implementation of the Declaration of Indulgence, if properly arranged, might be a source of profit for someone who understood and could manipulate the intricate workings of government. With numerous contacts within the nonconformist communities, he could represent himself as a kind of broker or agent on behalf of individuals and congregations seeking licences to legitimise their regular church services. If Blood had any compunction about taking money from those pursuing the basic right of religious freedom, he did little to show it.

  Within weeks, scores of applications for licences for worship were received in Whitehall from across England. Many were forwarded on by Blood, such as on 18 April:

  Request by Mr Blood on behalf of the Anabaptists at Cranbrook, Kent, for licences for the houses of Thomas Beaty and Alexander Vines and for Richard Gun as their minister and also on behalf of the Anabaptist meeting in Coleman Street [London] for John Martin’s house in White’s Alley.38

  There was another block application a few days later:

  Request by Thomas Blood for licences for Mr Kitly, Essex, person and house; for the house of Mr Willis in Essex, his person being licensed [already]; for the houses of George Locksmith and William Mascall, both at Romford Essex; for Mr Gilson, Brentwood, Essex . . . for John Mascall’s house in Monis [sic] Essex, for Henry Lever of Newcastle; for Thomas Crampton of Toxteth Park . . . for a meeting house at Kingsland, Middlesex; for Richard Gilpin and Mr Pingell of Newcastle, all Presbyterians and for Mr Durant of Newcastle, and for James Simonds, at a house at Lamberhurst, Kent, both Congregational.39

  Blood must have become acquainted with William Mascall, a surgeon of Romford, when he briefly (and fraudulently) practised medicine there in 1667. On 14 May he wrote to Mascall, enclosing the desired licences. As barefaced as ever, the colonel told him: ‘There is no charge for them, only it is agreed that five shillings for the personal licences be gotten.’ The machinery of government should be well oiled to make its wheels turn faster: ‘The doorkeepers and under-clerks should afterwards be remembered by a token of love’, Blood insisted. Doubtless those bribes would be rendered via the old renegade himself and one must wonder whether the money ever reached the officials. Confidently, he added: ‘If you need any other places to be licensed, you can have them.’40

  Although the licences were initially free, the flood of applications severely tested the capacity of the Whitehall bureaucracy to handle the volume of paperwork. Dr Butler, who had originally insisted that the permits should be ‘large and free’, later changed his mind and advised Williamson that he was a fool to give himself trouble for no return.41 Thereafter, a small fee was charged for licences for preachers, but none at all for places of worship.

  After this new arrangement was imposed, Thomas Gilson of Weald, Essex, complained bitterly that Blood had only sent down ‘licences for our houses which signify nothing without a parson . . . We should have taken it better if he had sent the personal licences and left it to our courtesy what we would gratify the clerks and doorkeepers with, rather than have a sum imposed contrary to the king’s express command that nothing should be required.’ Petulantly, Gilson added: ‘Therefore, we advise him to send down presently the personal licences for us, lest we make our address some other way.’42

  Blood showed himself to be a trifle more altruistic ten days later when he wrote to Arlington urging the release of eighteen named prisoners held for ‘excommunication, nonconformity or præmunire,43 being Presbyterians, independents or Anabaptists’. Noting that a general pardon was to be offered to Quakers who were ‘imprisoned for conscience sake’, Blood sought the release, by special warrant, for those ‘of other persuasions [who] are like to remain in prison who are not Quakers . . . if imprisoned for no other crime’.44

  The Declaration of Indulgence was implemented in the teeth of loud opposition from many in the Church of England. In September 1672, William Fuller, Bishop of Lincoln, complained to Williamson that ‘all these licensed preachers grow insolent and increase strangely. The orthodox poor clergy are out of heart. Shall nothing be done against the Presbyterians, who grow and multiply faster than the other?’45

  The University of Oxford was also aghast that licences were granted to Presbyterians and Anabaptists in the city. The preacher for the former was Dr Henry Langley, an erstwhile master of Pembroke College,46 who delivered his first sermon in June and

  held forth for two hours (possibly he was to eat roast meat after and so needed not to spare his breath to cool pottage) upon the [Holy] Spirit on which subject they say he preached in the late times near two years and they say he was all the while so unintelligible that from that time to this nobody could tell whence the sound came [from] or whither [it was] going.

  The University’s scholars were invariably rude to these ‘parlour preachers’, but feelings began to run higher and its vice-chancellor, Peter Mews, had to appear in person that month to protect one preacher from the violence of the undergraduates – acknowledging that there were those ‘who would have hanged him had he fallen into their hands’.47

  Opposition and growing discontent were also endemic in Parliament, where many interpreted the suspension of penal laws covering religion as a symptom of the king’s covert preferences not only for Catholicism but also for absolutist rule over his people. With an eye on the succession to the throne, many MPs were also fixated by the notion that, by slow degrees, the way was being paved for the Catholic faith to be officially approved in England. Inexorably, the delicate flower of religious tolerance withered and died in the political hothouse of Westminster. Parliament forced Charles to withdraw the Declaration in March 1673 and replaced it with the first of the so-called ‘Test Acts’,48 which required anyone entering public office, civil or military, to deny the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation,49 take Anglican communion within three months of appointment and swear the twin oaths of Church Supremacy and Allegiance to the king. In an angry response, James, Duke of York, the king’s brother and heir presumptive, openly acknowledged his Catholic faith that year and resigned all his public appointments.

  At least some liberty remained for nonconformists to practise their religious beliefs. A list of conventicles in London in 1676 included details of a regular meeting of Presbyterians in the ‘great almry’ (the former house of the monastic almoner)50 located behind Westminster Abbey. The congregation regularly included ‘Mr Blood and his two sons’, probably Charles and William.51 Two years later they heard ‘Mr Cotton’ preach on a text taken from Psalms 144, verse 2: ‘My goodness and my fortress, my high tower and my deliverer; my shield and He in whom I trust who subdues my people under me.’ Listening in rapt attention, according to a government informer, were Sir John Hopton, ‘a Scotchman and his lady . . . Lady FitzJames and [again] Mr Blood and his two sons. He was much for the defence of the Kirk [the Scottish Presbyterian church] and they sang the Scotch psalms.’52

  Now happily rehabilitated in the eyes of his paymasters, Blood continued his spying activities, both domestic and overseas, in prosecution of the Dutch war. Some of his efforts produced valuable military i
ntelligence, albeit time-sensitive. In March 1672, Blood was in Amsterdam and spent some time on the island of Texel, monitoring the passage of Dutch warships.53 The following month he informed Arlington that a ‘person who came through the Dutch fleet last Wednesday saw sixty-three ships, men at war and fireships together, rendezvoused at the Weling [sic] but could not distinguish how many there were of each. The Zeeland squadron was not come in from last Friday. I had an account also from thence with the presumption that none of their fleet would stir till after today.’54

  Two months later the State Papers record the departure of ‘Mr Newman, Blood’s friend’, sent to Holland ‘for intelligence’ on the Dover packet boat, armed with instructions and forty guineas in his purse.55 The following February, Blood reported that seditious ‘pamphlets from Holland’ were expected the next week on the packet-boats. ‘The bulk were to be sent to the Spanish ambassador, whose goods are to be searched by persons of the Customs house. They intend to put them in some small casks in barrels of butter . . . to the ambassador.’56

  At home, he passed on a sealed letter in September 1672 that had come into his hands from an informant, promising that any reply could be sent via him ‘if you do not have a readier way’.57 In June 1673, Blood was back in Dublin, ‘as he pretended, by my lord Arlington’s leave’. Henry Ball told Williamson, now serving as a plenipotentiary at the Franco-Dutch Congress of Cologne, that Arlington was glad of Blood’s absence ‘because of his impertinence’, but the colonel faced an uncertain welcome: ‘The Presbyterian party all renounce him as one that has kept not very well his word with his majesty as to serving him.’58