Colonel Blood and the Crown Jewels

The case

To fit the crown of England under his coat, Thomas Blood beat it flat with a mallet. It was the morning of 9 May 1671, in the basement room of the Martin Tower at the Tower of London where the regalia were kept behind a grille. One of his companions was sawing the sceptre in half to get it into a bag. Another had pushed the orb down the front of his breeches. On the floor lay the keeper of the jewels, Talbot Edwards, a man in his late seventies, bound, gagged and stabbed.

The robbery had been weeks in the making. That spring Blood had visited the Tower dressed as a clergyman, with a woman posing as his wife, and paid to see the jewels. When the woman pretended to be taken ill, the Edwards family took her up to their lodgings above the jewel room to recover. Blood came back with gifts, became a friend of the household and proposed a marriage between the Edwardses' daughter and a nephew of his, a young man with a good income. The meeting to settle the match was the cover for the raid.

Blood was no ordinary thief. Born in Ireland around 1618 to a family of English descent, he had fought in the civil wars, on the king's side at first and then for Parliament, and been rewarded with Irish land. The Restoration of Charles II in 1660 stripped him of it. In 1663 he was among the plotters of a rising to seize Dublin Castle and its governor, the Duke of Ormond; the plot was betrayed, several accomplices were executed, and Blood escaped to a life of hiding, false names and conspiracy in Ireland, the Netherlands and Scotland.

In December 1670, back in London and posing as a physician, he led a gang that dragged Ormond from his coach in St James's Street and carried him off on horseback toward Tyburn, apparently meaning to hang him there. Ormond struggled free with the help of a servant. Nobody was charged.

The jewel raid was interrupted, by most accounts, through bad luck. Edwards's son Wythe, home from soldiering in Flanders, arrived at the door just as the thieves were at work, and the old man worked his gag loose and shouted that the crown was stolen. The gang ran for the gate, dropping the sceptre, firing at the warders and wounding one. Blood was caught on the wharf by Captain Beckman, a relative of the Edwards family, struggling and calling it a gallant attempt. His brother-in-law Hunt and an accomplice named Perrot were taken with him. The crown was recovered, though stones had come loose and some were missing.

Then came the strangest part. Blood would answer to no one but the king, and he was taken before Charles II, Prince Rupert and others for questioning. He claimed among other things that he had once had the king in his sights while he bathed in the Thames and had held back from awe of majesty. Within weeks he was not only pardoned but granted Irish land worth £500 a year, and he became a familiar figure at court, where he acted as a go-between for petitioners. Ormond, whose kidnapping had gone unpunished, was reportedly furious. The Edwards family received a promise of a few hundred pounds that was never paid in full.