The Audacious Crimes of Colonel Blood

by Robert Hutchinson

  Blood, Mary née Holcroft (1633–c.1672). Elder daughter of Lieutenant Colonel John Holcroft and his wife Margaret. Married Thomas Blood at Newchurch, Lancashire, 21 June 1650 and the couple had seven children. In 1667, lived with her eldest son Thomas Blood in an apothecary’s shop at Shoreditch, north of London, under the alias of Weston. In 1670, stayed at the home of schoolteacher Jonathan Davies in Mortlake, Surrey, with one of her daughters but prudently disappeared the day after the assault on Ormond. In 1671, said to be ill in Lancashire.

  Blood, Mary. Eldest daughter of Thomas Blood and Mary his wife. Married —Corbett. Received a £50 bequest in her brother Holcroft’s will in 1707. No further details known.

  Blood, Neptune (1595–1692). Eldest son of Edmund Blood and his first wife Margaret. Born during passage across St George’s Channel to Ireland. Ordained minister in March 1623 and appointed dean of Kilfenora in 1663. Served with Charles I at Oxford during the first Civil War. Uncle of Thomas Blood junior. Married three times and was succeeded as dean by another Neptune Blood, his fourth son by his third wife.

  Blood, Thomas senior (1598–1645). Third son of Edmund Blood (died c.1645) of Makeney, Derbyshire and Kilnaboy, Co. Clare, Ireland and his first wife Margaret. Born in Kilnaboy, and became an ironmaster in Sarney, Dunboyne, Co. Meath. Details of wife unknown. Two sons and at least one daughter. Died at Sarney, 1645.

  Blood, Colonel Thomas junior (1618–80), aliases include Allen, Ayliff and Morton. Born at Sarney, Dunboyne, Co. Meath, probably elder son of Thomas Blood senior. Appointed JP in 1640 and fought against the rebels in the Irish Confederation insurrection after 1642. Fought for the Royalist side in the Civil War, probably at the sieges of Sherborne Castle, Dorset in 1645 and Pontefract Castle, Yorkshire three years later. By 1650, had changed sides, fighting for parliamentary forces in Ireland. Married Mary Holcroft, eldest daughter of Lieutenant Colonel John Holcroft of Lancashire, 21 June 1650, and had five sons – Thomas, William, Holcroft, Edmund and Charles – and two daughters, Mary and Elizabeth. Lost possession or share in 1,426 acres granted in Ireland under the 1652 Act of Settlement and, thus embittered, embarked on a long career of rebellion and violent intrigue against the government in Ireland, Scotland and England to further the Presbyterian cause. After attempting to assassinate the Duke of Ormond in December 1670 and to steal the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London the following year, he was pardoned and granted a pension from Irish lands. He became a government spy in England and Holland (1672) and was employed privately by some in the royal court to further their ambitions. Caught up in various popish plots after 1679 and may have provided bribes to suborn witnesses against George Villiers, Second Duke of Buckingham, who sued him and his accomplices for defamation, claiming £10,000 in damages. Tried on charges of blasphemy, confederacy and subornation; fined and imprisoned. Caught a fever and was freed in July 1680. He died at his home overlooking Bowling Alley, Westminster, but as some thought reports of his death were just another of Blood’s tricks, his body was exhumed and identified by the inordinate size of one of his thumbs.

  Blood, Thomas III alias ‘Thomas Hunt’ (1651–c.1675). Eldest son of Thomas Blood junior and Mary his wife. Born in Newchurch, Lancashire. In 1667, lived with his mother in an apothecary’s shop in Shoreditch under the name ‘Weston’ and later that year was apprenticed to a Scots apothecary, Samuel Holmes, a former parliamentary army surgeon, in Southwark. He quit after six months’ training and joined his father in Romford, Essex, assisting him in his charlatan medical practice before striking out alone, firstly as a grocer and latterly as a mercer. Heavily in debt, he became a highwayman in Surrey, under the alias ‘Thomas Hunt’. Fined £67 and jailed in the Marshalsea prison, Southwark on 4 July 1670 at Surrey assizes, Guilford, for assaulting, with intent to rob, John Constable the previous May. Freed after his father found two sureties. Took part in the assault on the Duke of Ormond and the attempt to steal the Crown Jewels; subsequently pardoned. Married a Miss Delafaye or Delahaye and possibly had two children, of whom the eldest, Edmund, was brought up by his mother and uncle, Holcroft Blood, and later was living in Albany, capital of New York State, in 1734 as a captain in the British army.

  Blood, William. Second son of Thomas Blood and Mary his wife. Steward on board the frigate Jersey. Died in the frigate Mary in 1688, off the coast of today’s Republic of Guinea in West Africa. Left goods and chattels worth only £15.

  Holcroft, Lieutenant Colonel John (died 1656). Member of a knightly family in Lancashire who profited from the spoils of the Reformation. MP for Liverpool, 1640; mayor of the city 1644 and MP for Wigan 1646. Excluded from Parliament in Pride’s Purge in December 1648. Involved in one of the first skirmishes of the Civil War in Manchester in July 1642 and defended Lancaster for Parliament in March 1643. Married Margaret, daughter and co-heiress of John Hunt of Manchester. By her he had two sons and three daughters, one of whom died an infant. The eldest daughter Mary married Thomas Blood junior. After his death, there were a number of expensive legal actions over the ownership of properties he had acquired and the settlement of his estate.

  BLOOD’S FELLOW CONSPIRATORS

  Atkinson, John. Former parliamentary army officer. After the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, became a stocking-weaver or ‘stockinger’. Following the collapse of the 1663 northern rebellion, he fled to Durham dressed as a labourer. In 1664, he went to London under the alias ‘Dr Peter Johnson’ and lived at Worcester Court on Garlick Hill in the east of the city. Described by the government spy William Leving as a ‘little man [with] sad brown hair . . . thin . . . about forty years old’. He was arrested in London in September 1664 but released. He planned to escape to the Low Countries in early 1665 but was arrested and sent for trial at York assizes. His fate is unknown, but presumably he was convicted and paid the penalty for treason.

  Butler, Timothy. One of the conspirators in the numerous plots against the government in London in the 1660s, acting as quartermaster and ‘entrusted in the buying of arms’. One of Blood’s accomplices in the release of Captain John Mason on 25 July 1667.

  Carr, Colonel Gilbert ‘Gibby’. Involved in a conspiracy to rescue Archibald Campbell, First Marquis of Argyll from the Tower of London. Leading plotter in the botched attempt to capture Dublin Castle in 1663 and possibly fled to Scotland after its discovery. Produced an alibi that he was in Rotterdam, in the Dutch United Provinces, at the time of the conspiracy. Involved again with Blood in plans to seize the city of Limerick in February 1666.

  Chambers, Robert. Presbyterian minister who had published a treasonous pamphlet in 1660. Conspirator in the Dublin Castle plot, but evaded arrest and remained in hiding in Ireland until 1669 when his wife secured a pardon on his promise of future good behaviour, backed by a financial security.

  Charnock, Stephen (1628–80). Born in parish of St Katherine Cree, London. Studied at Emmanuel College, Cambridge and fellow at New College Oxford. Minister of St Werburgh’s church, Dublin 1656–60 and former chaplain to Henry Cromwell, parliamentary lord deputy in Ireland. Involved in Dublin Castle plot of 1663 and fled to London afterwards, via Chester, hiding at the home of the stationer Robert Littlebury, at the sign of the Unicorn in Little Britain. Lost his library in Great Fire of London, September 1666. Charnock began a Presbyterian co-pastorship at Crosby Hall in Bishopsgate, London in 1675; this was his last ministry before his death in 1680. He was buried in St Michael Cornhill, London.

  Halliwell, Captain Richard. Fifth Monarchist tobacco-cutter of Frying Pan Alley, Bishopsgate, London. Former parliamentary officer who served in Flanders and Virginia. Involved in the attack on Ormond – when he was described as a ‘middle-sized man, plump faced, with [smallpox] pock holes, of a demure countenance, having a short brown periwig and sad coloured clothes, about forty years of age’ – as well as the botched robbery of the Crown Jewels, when he acted as lookout. Escaped arrest. Probably the compiler ‘R.H.’ who wrote the contemporary biography of Thomas Blood, ‘Remarks on the Life and Death of the Fam’d
Mr Blood’, published in London in 1680. Later took part in other conspiracies against the government of Charles II.

  Leckie or Lackey, William. Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, Presbyterian minister in Co. Meath and schoolmaster, Blood’s Scottish brother-in-law and one of the main conspirators in the Dublin Castle plot. Feigned madness at his trial, escaped from the city’s Newgate prison on 14 November 1663, wearing his wife’s clothes, but swiftly recaptured and executed in Dublin on 12 December.

  Lee, Major. One-handed former parliamentary officer who was a member of the rebel council in London that fomented a number of conspiracies against the government in the 1660s.

  Lockyer, John alias Rogers. Fifth Monarchist. Member of London council of religious extremists formed in March 1663 by John Atkinson. Accompanied Blood in visit to Edmund Ludlow in Lausanne, Switzerland in March 1666. One of Blood’s accomplices in the rescue of Captain John Mason at Darrington, Yorkshire on 25 July 1667. Later pardoned.

  Jephson, Colonel Alexander. MP for Trim, Co. Meath, in Irish House of Commons. One of the conspirators in the Dublin Castle plot of 1663. Executed for treason in Dublin, 15 July 1663.

  Jones, Roger. Parliamentary army captain, alias Mene Tekel from his authorship of the radical underground pamphlet Mene Tekel, or the Downfall of Tyranny, printed in 1663. One of the conspirators in the abortive northern rising of that year, also led the uprising in Co. Durham. After a lengthy period on the run, captured and sent for trial at York assizes, but escaped justice and later took part in other conspiracies against the government, such as the plot to assassinate Charles II at the House of Lords in 1671. Fate unknown.

  Mason, John. Captain in parliamentary army. ‘General Baptist’. One of the plotters for the Northern rising in 1663. Arrested in Newark upon Trent, Nottinghamshire on 15 November 1663. Escaped from Clifford’s Tower, York in early July 1664 with fellow conspirators Robert Davies and Colonel Thomas Wogan, but recaptured in 1667. Freed on 5 July 1667 at Darrington, near Doncaster when his military escort, taking him to trial and probable execution at York assizes, was ambushed by Blood and his accomplices. Later became a coffee house owner and tavern-keeper, still involved in anti-government conspiracies, including a plot to attack the Palace of Whitehall in 1670. Refused a pardon in the government amnesty of the early 1670s.

  McCormack, Andrew. Scots Presbyterian minister and a leading figure in the Dublin Castle plot. Fled to Scotland and fought in the Pentlands uprising of 1666, being among the fifty killed in the rout after the Battle of Rullion Green in Lothian on 28 November 1666.

  Moore, Colonel William. Apparently the son of Sir William Moore of Scotland. In 1648, his regiment of infantry, which had been serving in Ulster for two years, joined Michael Jones’s parliamentary forces to fight the Irish Confederates. Six years later Moore was involved in the transportation of the Irish to the West Indies. When his regiment was based in the Caribbean in 1657, only the threat of a court martial kept him from deserting. Left army after being garrisoned at Galway and Athlone. Involved in the Dublin Castle plot and sent to Ireland by the nonconformist council meeting secretly in London in 1665. In 1668 lived in Gray’s Inn Lane, London, and may have been involved in both the assault on Ormond and the attempt on the Crown Jewels.

  Perrot, Robert. Fifth Monarchist. Lieutenant in Harrison’s regiment of horse in the New Model Army. Silk-dyer of Thames Street, London. Took part in the attempted theft of the Crown Jewels and regalia from the Tower of London on 9 May 1671. Sailed with Duke of Monmouth and fought as a major in the rebels’ Yellow Regiment (commanded by former Guards officer Colonel Edward Matthews) at the Battle of Sedgemoor. He was wounded, captured a few weeks later hiding in the Brendon Hills in Somerset and executed at Taunton.

  Smith, William. Fifth Monarchist. May have assisted in arranging rescue of Captain John Mason in July 1667 and been accomplice in attack on Ormond in 1670. Guardian of getaway horses in attempt to steal Crown Jewels and escaped. Refused an offer of pardon. Interrogated by Blood after his arrest in 1678.

  Staples, Major Alexander. Born Londonderry, MP for Strabane. Although involved, said to have warned of the plot to seize Dublin Castle and was eventually pardoned, despite Charles II’s misgivings about granting him mercy.

  Tanner, James. Born Dublin, formerly a clerk to the secretary of Henry Cromwell, Parliament’s lord deputy of Ireland. Involved in Dublin Castle plot of May 1663 but turned king’s evidence.

  Thompson, Lieutenant Richard. Deputy provost-marshal for Leinster. Involved in Dublin Castle plot. Confessed and sentence commuted to simple hanging, rather than hanging drawing and quartering. Executed Dublin 15 July 1663, blaming Blood for drawing him into the plot.

  Warren, Colonel Edward. Former parliamentary army officer, involved in Dublin Castle plot of May 1663. Executed Dublin, 15 July 1663.

  GOVERNMENT SPIES AND INFORMERS

  Alden, Philip. Shady lawyer, dealer in forfeited Irish estates and agent of former parliamentary general Edmund Ludlow. Became government agent under the control of Colonel Edward Vernon. Exposed the Dublin plot of 1663; arrested with the conspirators to preserve his cover but escaped from the prison inside the castle. Moved to England where he spied on the radicals before they began to suspect his allegiance in 1666. Retired to Ireland, granted a pardon and a £100 a year pension, only fitfully paid by the Treasury.

  Betson, John. Associate of William Leving who complained about the levels of his remuneration while on the trail of Captain John Mason.

  Freer or Fryer, William. Associate of William Leving and accompanied him to Ireland in 1666. To earn money, resorted to highway robbery in Leicestershire and Yorkshire.

  Grice, Captain John. Spied for Sir Arthur Heselrige, parliamentary governor of Newcastle during Civil War when serving as a cavalry cornet. Then spied for Williamson in England and Ireland amongst the radical Presbyterian and Fifth Monarchist communities. Died, in mysterious circumstances, in 1667.

  Harrison, John. Tobacconist. Provided information about a conspiracy to assassinate Charles II and the Duke of York ‘as they go abroad by water’ (?on the Thames). Blood passed on the intelligence and promised him £50 reward but he was left empty-handed.

  Leving, William alias Leonard Williams. Born in Durham. Junior officer in Sir Arthur Heselrige’s cavalry regiment during the Civil War but dismissed for his support for Colonel John Lambert’s attempts to resist parliamentary control of the army. Leving was imprisoned in York Castle after taking part in the abortive Durham rebellion of 1663 and became a government spy in England and for a short period in Ireland. Involved in investigation into Buckingham’s alleged treasonable activities in 1667. Resorted to highway robbery in Leicestershire and Yorkshire in May 1665 and early 1667. Lost most of his family in London in the Great Plague of 1665–6. Found dead in York Castle in early August 1667, having been poisoned, possibly by agents of Buckingham. Buried in York.

  North, Henry. Spy for Duke of Buckingham and associate of William Leving with William Freer. Informed against Leving to Blood’s gang in London. Arrested during investigation into Buckingham’s alleged treasonable activities in 1667. Executed in 1677 for highway robbery near Sleaford, Lincolnshire. Tried to expose a conspiracy probably concerning his old master Buckingham but was executed before he was able to disclose the full details.

  Wilkinson, Richard. Revealed plot to assassinate Charles II in House of Lords in 1670. Instead of his expected pardon and reward, he was thrown into prison at Appleby, Westmorland. His brother was involved in the 1663 northern uprising in England.

  FREELANCE SPIES

  Beckman or Börkman, Captain Martin. Swedish military engineer and hydrographer employed by the English crown in the Civil War from 1645. He was injured in an explosion while preparing fireworks to mark Charles II’s coronation in April 1661, receiving £100 compensation. In June 1661, Beckman accompanied the Earl of Sandwich’s expedition to Tangier on the north African coast and became chief military engineer to the English garrison. In October 1663 he off
ered to spy for Philip IV of Spain and then tried to pass on intelligence about Spanish plans to the English consul in Cadiz. Imprisoned in the Tower of London for six months from late 1663. On release, he joined the Swedish army but returned to England in 1667 and was appointed engineer to the ordnance on 19 October 1670. Beckman lived in the Tower and joined in the hue and cry after Blood ran off with the royal regalia in May 1671, receiving a £100 reward ‘for resisting that late villainous attempt made to steal the crown’. He married Elizabeth, daughter of Talbot Edwards, the deputy keeper of regalia, and in 1677 was appointed chief engineer of ‘all his Majesty’s castles, forts, blockhouses and other fortifications’, the year Elizabeth died. Knighted 20 March 1686 and naturalised 7 November 1691. Beckman married a widow, Ruth Mudd, of Stepney, Middlesex, on 31 August 1693 and died 24 June 1702 at the Tower of London.