In April 1670, one of Edward’s visitors was a country preacher accompanied by his wife. Paying Edwards his modest fee, the couple followed the old man into the jewel room. As they stood admiring their king’s ceremonial gear, the parson’s wife slumped against the wall, insisting she was completely overcome at the sight of such magnificence, complained of a ‘qualm upon her stomach’ and asked for a glass of wine to calm her. Concerned and compassionate by nature, Edwards invited the parson and his wife upstairs to his quarters where the lady could lie down until she felt better.
Leading the pair up the winding stone stairs, Edwards handed the woman over to his wife and provided wine for her and her husband. After a short rest, the lady insisted she was fully restored and again apologised for being a nuisance. Her husband, too, expressed his thanks and the pair left. The kindly country preacher and his wife were, of course, none other than Blood and his female accomplice, and Blood now knew all he needed about the layout of the jewel room, the access route through the tower and the location of Edwards’ apartments. He also knew that on a table near the iron jewel cage there was a brace of unpleasant-looking pistols in a heavy wooden box.
Several days later, ‘Parson’ Blood returned to the Martin Tower. This time he had several pairs of finely embroidered gloves, which he gave to Mrs Edwards in gratitude for her kindness to his wife. Thrilled at such a thoughtful gesture, Mrs Edwards invited the Reverend and his wife to dinner. It was the beginning of a friendship that Colonel Blood would milk for all it was worth. The two couples became close friends, dining together often and sharing confidences. Sometimes the Edwards’ daughter, Elizabeth, who lived with her parents in the tower rooms, joined them. The parson and his wife quickly became familiar faces around the Tower of London. All the guards knew them by sight and their comings and goings became accepted in the heavily guarded fortress. One evening after dinner, Blood and Edwards strolled the grounds of the Tower’s inner ward. As they did so, Edwards confessed that he was worried about his daughter’s future. He was over seventy and could not expect to live much longer. When he died, his wife would get a small widow’s pension that would see her through, but what would become of his daughter? Already near thirty and not yet married, how would she survive?
With the concern expected of a man of faith and a close friend, the ‘Reverend’ Blood said he might be able to help. He had a nephew, who was also his ward, and the boy was both single and had a yearly income of nearly £200 a year. It was not a lordly sum, but certainly provided the life of a gentleman. Blood went on to explain that he had been thinking the pair would make a fine match but had been reticent to mention the matter for fear of overstepping his bounds. Accustomed to living on a soldier’s pay, Edwards must have been dumbfounded. Immediately he agreed. The next time the good parson and his wife came to dinner, they should bring their nephew with them and if he and Edwards’ daughter liked each other, the matter would be settled. Blood agreed. Edwards later recalled Blood’s words: ‘If your daughter be free, and you approve of it, I will bring him hither to see her and we will endeavour to make it a match.’
Only days later Blood, his ‘wife’ and their ‘nephew’, in reality the newest member of the gang, Tom Hunt, gathered at the Martin Tower for dinner with the Edwards family. Handsome and charming, Hunt quickly won the attention of Elizabeth Edwards. After a pleasant dinner filled with laughter, wine and good conversation, Blood asked Edwards if his nephew could be allowed to see the Crown Jewels. Talbot Edwards was delighted to show off the jewels and while the women cleared the table, the men descended to the jewel room.
While Hunt peered dutifully at the hoard of gold and gems, Blood mentioned that he had noticed a fine brace of pistols next to the jewel cage and said they would make a fine gift for his neighbour, a nobleman who collected guns. Would he consider selling them? Edwards hesitated, but Blood’s offer of considerably more than the pistols’ actual value was enough to convince him to part with the weapons. By the time Blood, Hunt and their female accomplice left the Tower, Hunt was fully familiar with the layout of the Martin Tower and Talbot Edwards had surrendered his only means of defence.
Blood and company again dined with the Edwards on 8 May 1671. Over the course of the meal, Blood mentioned that he had two friends staying with him and they would love to see the Crown Jewels. The problem was, they had to leave London early the next morning and would be gone by the time the Tower was open to the public. Ever ready to help a friend, Talbot Edwards said he would be glad to let Blood and his companions in earlier than usual if they would meet him at the main gate at seven o’clock the next morning. Obviously, Blood agreed.
In the grey hours before dawn, Blood and his accomplices made their final preparations. Each man armed himself with a short dagger, Blood had the newly purchased brace of pistols hidden beneath his long travelling cloak and Desborough, Perrot, Hunt and Kelfy had one pistol each. John Kelfy also had a leather travelling bag in which Blood had placed a wooden mallet, a file and a gag to silence Talbot Edwards. Shortly before six on the morning of 9 May, the group set off through the London mist towards the great Tower complex and the Crown Jewels of England.
Just before seven o’clock they reached the main gate of the Tower where Talbot Edwards was already waiting for them. Greeting everyone warmly, Edwards led Blood and three of the men towards the centre of the Tower maze. Desborough remained behind with the horses safely outside the Tower walls. As the group reached the inner ward, Tom Hunt excused himself, saying he would like to stay in the courtyard. He had already seen the crown, and he would rather wait outside in the hopes of catching a glimpse of Elizabeth. Smiling at the thought of young love, Edwards said it would be perfectly all right and led the rest of the group into the Martin Tower and down the narrow stairs to the jewel room. Hunt could now serve as a lookout without arousing any suspicion.
Leading the way to the jewel room, Edwards approached the massive lock on the jewel cage door. As he bent down to put the key in the lock, Colonel Blood threw his long cape over the old man’s head and held his arms tight at his sides. Kelfy opened his travelling bag and Perrot pulled out a nasty-looking wooden plug with a leather thong attached to it. Shoving the plug roughly in Talbot Edwards’ mouth, he tied the thongs behind his neck to hold the gag tightly in place. Before releasing his struggling captive, Blood told Edwards that if he didn’t cause any trouble, he wouldn’t be hurt. Perrot then smashed the old man across the back of the head with the wooden mallet and Blood let him slide to the ground.
Entering the cage, the three men went to work. Blood grabbed the wooden mallet from Perrot and began hammering away at the crown until it was flat enough to fit, unseen, beneath his loose-fitting cassock while Perrot shoved the orb of state into his balloon-bottomed knee breeches which made him walk as though he was holding a cantaloupe melon between his knees. In order to fit the massive sceptre into his travelling bag, Kelfy began sawing it in half with the file. While the men were busily stowing away the king’s treasure, Talbot Edwards roused himself enough to begin moaning and puffing against the wooden gag. In a fury, one of the men, probably Perrot, waddled out of the cage as fast as his orb-filled trousers would let him, drew his dagger and stabbed the keeper of the jewel house in the belly.
Outside in the courtyard, things were not going any better. As Tom Hunt stood guard, a young man who introduced himself as Wythe Edwards, son of Talbot Edwards, approached him. He said he had just come home on leave from the Royal Navy and wanted to see his parents and sister, and did the young man know if they were at home? Panic-stricken, Hunt began saying anything he could think of to detain Wythe from entering the tower. He was Elizabeth’s fiancé, and he was very glad to meet his future brother-in-law and no, he had not seen the Edwards all morning. Of course there was a limit to how long he could detain the man and eventually he had to step aside and let him enter the tower. Fortunately Wythe Edwards mounted the stairs to his family’s apartment, totally unaware of the plot unfolding only feet beneath
him. As he rounded the stairs, Hunt ran down to the jewel room, grabbed Blood and told him they were about to be exposed. The four dashed up the stairs, leaving the half-ruined sceptre and the bleeding Talbot Edwards lying on the floor of the jewel house.
They hustled across the inner ward as quickly as they could without looking too obvious. Just as they rounded the corner of the Byward Tower, they heard loud, confused shouts coming towards them from the rear. Wythe Edwards’ mother had told him that his father was showing some friends the Crown Jewels and Wythe had gone to the jewel room to find his father lying in a pool of blood mumbling: ‘Treason! Treason! Thief!’
Wythe rushed up the stairs towards the courtyard shouting for the guards, where Captain Beckman, head of the day’s watch, quickly joined him. The two rushed towards the Byward Tower and the main gate, calling for help as they ran. In less than a minute there were guardsmen streaming in from every direction. As more and more Beefeaters poured into the yards and alleyways of the Tower, Blood and his companions realised they had been discovered. In an attempt to divert attention from themselves, they pointed to the main gate and began shouting ‘Stop! Thief!’, running madly as though they, too, were chasing some imaginary thieves.
As they rounded the corner of the Byward Tower, one of the warders blocked their path with his long-handled halberd. Blood drew one of his pistols, aimed and fired, sending the man tumbling to the ground screaming. The chase had escalated into a running gun battle. In the confusion, one of the guards narrowly missed shooting Wythe Edwards who was an unfamiliar face in the close-knit Tower community.
In the forecourt, as the quartet of thieves headed for the main gate, John Kelfy was tackled by a Beefeater who wrestled him to the ground where two more guards held him down. Seconds later Edward Perrot, still encumbered by the orb sloshing around in his breeches, reached the edge of the wharf outside the gate, only to be wrestled to the ground. While three burly warders ripped off his pantaloons, pulled out the orb and pawed through his clothes for more treasure, Thomas Blood and Tom Hunt crossed the drawbridge and headed across the wharf to freedom. As Hunt, the youngest and most agile of the gang, dashed through the outer gate, Captain Beckman caught up with Colonel Blood.
Drawing his second pistol and aiming it at Beckman’s head, Blood pulled the trigger; but the gun misfired. Frantically trying to recock his piece and run at the same time, Blood hesitated just long enough for Beckman to land a swift kick in his groin. Even as he was dragged to his feet coughing and gasping, Blood remained defiant. Staring directly into Beckman’s face, he smiled and arrogantly said, ‘It was a gallant deed, even if it failed. It was, after all, to gain the crown.’
Hunt actually made it beyond the outer gate where he joined the frightened Desborough, who had remained with the horses. The pair jumped on their horses and raced through the narrow streets surrounding the Tower. Hurtling down St Katherine’s Lane, Hunt failed to duck in time to avoid a low-hanging barber’s pole projecting into the roadway. Torn from his horse, he lay stunned in the gutter where he was recognised as a wanted criminal by a shopkeeper and held for the warders. Only James Desborough managed to escape. Within minutes of leaving the Martin Tower, the other four gang members found themselves being hustled back into the Tower to more permanent accommodations.
In any normal tale of theft and pursuit this would have been the end of the story, but there was never anything normal about the life of Colonel Thomas Blood. Under questioning he arrogantly refused to talk, stating that he would only confess to the king himself. His behaviour was so bizarre that an account of it made its way into the official report of the Lieutenant of the Tower and was duly passed on to the Duke of Buckingham, King Charles’s chief minister. By the end of the day, the entire Court was buzzing with the gossip of the daring attempt to steal the Crown Jewels, and the tragic destruction of the crown and sceptre. Trying to lighten the king’s mood, Buckingham showed the report of Blood’s strange demand to confess to the king. While King Charles was indeed amused, his reaction was not what Buckingham probably expected.
There is little doubt that the king had heard of Colonel Blood through his attempt to seize Dublin Castle and the daring, daylight kidnapping of the Duke of Ormond. Intrigued by the sheer unmitigated gall of this unrepentant rogue, the king ordered that Thomas Blood be brought to Whitehall where he would be given the opportunity to be as good as his word. He could confess directly to his king. Two days later, Blood was bundled out of his cell, locked in chains and carted off to Whitehall for a private audience with Charles II, King of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland.
When the guards led Blood to a private audience chamber, they were ordered to wait outside. Desperate to know what was happening, they must have pressed their ears to the door in an effort to overhear snippets of conversation, but to no avail. We will never know what passed between the thief and his monarch; but we do know that there were no raised voices, no shouting and no loud pleas for mercy. It would seem that Blood neither begged nor grovelled but apparently was quite calm in placing his life in the hands of the man whose royal treasure he had mangled beyond repair.
Within days of this strange meeting Thomas Blood was ordered released from the Tower with a full royal pardon. Even stranger, he was given the lordly pension of £500 pounds per year for life. In an age when any theft with a value of more than a shilling commonly led to the scaffold, such a thing was unprecedented and unimaginable. Only days later, Blood was spotted by two old friends parading around Tower Green wearing an expensive new suit of clothes, a new hat and an elaborate wig. Within weeks, the rest of the gang was pardoned, including Desborough who had eluded capture.
Inevitably, the strange treatment of Colonel Blood set the gossiping tongues at the royal court wagging furiously. Rumours and theories abounded: chronically broke, King Charles had been in on the plot from the beginning; it was all arranged by the king to check out the security measures at the Tower; the king had made a wager with some of his cronies that he could steal his own Crown Jewels; and on, and on, and on. The truth is probably more prosaic. Being a bit of a rascal himself, King Charles had simply been intrigued by this gutsy man with more balls than brains. Possibly, with his longstanding connections with members of the old Parliamentarian government and knowledge of Irish revolutionaries, Blood could serve as a spy reporting directly to the king. Certainly Blood was adept at spreading rumours, lies and disinformation when it served his own best interests. Whatever the case, Blood quickly became a familiar face around court.
If King Charles had hoped Blood would make an effective spy, it was in vain. With his newfound place at court, Blood’s old friends avoided him like the plague and his new associates at court did not think much more highly of him. Although the king seemed to enjoy his company, no one trusted Blood and despite his charm he managed to alienate first one and then another of the royal courtiers. On 10 May 1672, only one year after the incident at the Tower, the famous diarist John Evelyn attended a dinner where Blood was present. His comments make clear the court’s general reaction to having this notorious villain in their midst:
Dined at Mr. Treasurer’s house where [I] dined [with] Monsieur de Gramont and several French noblemen, and one Blood, that impudent bold fellow who had not long before attempted to steal the imperial crown itself out of the Tower. How came he to be pardoned, and even received into favour, not only after this but several other bold exploits almost as daring . . . I could never understand. . . . the only treason of this sort that was ever pardoned. The man had not only a daring, but a villainous unmerciful look, a false countenance, but very well spoken and insinuating.
For more than seven years, Blood wavered between being in and out of favour. He would insult someone, or be caught involving himself in some unsavoury plot, and be banished from court. Eventually, he would worm his way back into someone’s good graces and be called back. Finally, almost inevitably, he went too far. When he insulted the Duke of Buckingham, the man unintentionally responsibl
e for bringing him to the king’s attention, he was sued in open court for libel and ended up in prison. Blood did eventually pay his fine and get out of jail, but his health had been broken in the confines of the dark, damp cell and he was never again welcome at court.
On 24 August 1680, Thomas Blood, sometimes Colonel, sometimes Reverend, sometimes courtier, sometimes revolutionary, but always criminal, died at the age of sixty-two, and was buried in the churchyard at Tothill Fields. But even now, he could not rest. Blood’s reputation was so well known among the local villagers that no sooner had the lid been nailed on the coffin than rumours began to spread. He was not dead – the coffin was empty; it was another of his tasteless jokes; there was someone else in the wooden box beneath the sod of the churchyard; it was all a part of one of Blood’s bizarre schemes to disappear so that he could carry out some wild plan under an assumed name. Conflicting stories flew so thick and fast that only nine days after the funeral, the local coroner ordered the body exhumed. The rumours were wrong. The grave was one tight spot that even the notorious Colonel Blood could not wriggle out of.
If anything good came of the wasted life of Thomas Blood, it was that security surrounding the Crown Jewels was stepped up. And although they remain in the Tower of London to this day, no one has ever again come so close to pulling off a successful royal heist.
Talbot Edwards lived for more than two years after the brutal attack at the Martin Tower, but never fully recovered from his wounds. His daughter Elizabeth, for whose future Talbot was so concerned, eventually married a Major Beckman, the same Captain Beckman who had been promoted as a result of his daring capture of Colonel Thomas Blood.
Tales From the Tower of London Page 17