Introduction
In December 1670, Thomas Blood, believed on all sides to be a dangerous republican revolutionary, tried to hang the Duke of Ormond like a common criminal on the gallows at Tyburn. His plan went awry, but once again Blood, his son-in-law Thomas Hunt and the rest of the gang eluded the authorities. Five months later, the Irishman was back in the capital, this time with a plan to steal the Crown Jewels.
SEVEN o’clock in the morning of May 9th, 1671, found Talbot Edwards, Keeper of the Regalia in the Tower of London, once more proudly showing off the Crown Jewels* to his friend the country parson.*
On his first visit to the Tower some weeks before, the parson’s wife had had ‘a qualm upon her stomach’ and over a little brandy in Mr Edwards’s rooms the families became friendly: so much so, that at a convivial dinner shortly afterwards, the parson wondered if Mr Edwards’s charming daughter might like to meet his nephew, a handsome bachelor? Four days later the parson brought his nephew along, with a Mr Perrot who wanted to see the crown too.*
No sooner were they inside the chamber than the elderly Mr Edwards was pinioned with a cloak, and gagged; a blow on the head failed to silence the old soldier, so he was stabbed, though not fatally.* As the nephew stood sentry, the parson seized the crown,* Mr Perrot the orb. An accomplice was sawing the sceptre in two when Edwards’s son, returning today after ten years’ military duty in Flanders, burst in good-naturedly, looking for his father.*
* Edwards was entitled to do this. He had not been able to draw his salary from the Treasury for some years, and when he heard about it Charles joked that it was only natural, as the Treasury had nothing in it. Fortunately or unfortunately, Charles did not leave it there. In lieu of payment, Edwards was encouraged to charge a small fee to tourists curious to see the Crown Jewels.
* We are told that Blood adopted a false beard and a hat with earflaps for his disguise. It was a favourite ruse. After making Ireland too hot for himself in 1663, he had wandered Scotland and England dressed as a series of clergymen and entered energetically into the varied roles. “One day he was a Scottish pastor,” wrote historian W. Hepworth Dixon (1821-1879), “hot in zeal against the scarlet lady, and the next an Irish priest devoted to the Pope of Rome”.
* The name was Perrot in the London Gazette’s report published a few days later, though Parrot and other variations appear elsewhere. “His [Blood’s] nearest comrade” Dixon tells us censoriously “was Edward Parrot, who assumed the title of Lieutenant Parrot, once a Roundhead trooper, now a Government spy, hanging about the jails in which old Roundheads were confined, and earning dirty bread by telling odious lies.” Whereas Blood had assumed the cover-story of a West Country physician, Perrot was now a silk-dyer in Thames Street.
* “One of the Company was for killing the Old man outright,” we are told by ‘RH’, who published an enlarged account of Thomas Blood’s life in 1680, “but his Brother the Doctor [i.e. the parson] would not permit so great a piece of Barbarism.”
* A more recent Keeper of the Jewels, Major-General Sir George Younghusband (1859-1944), stated that Blood made off with the King’s State Crown, as it was lighter than its sibling the Crown of St Edward (both new, made by Sir Robert Vyner in 1661), but nonetheless richly studded with gems including the Black Prince’s ruby. After this affair the State Crown, which Blood flattened so it would not show under his gown, was retired, and some of its stones reset in the Crown of Edward. The sceptre was not taken, as the thieves were interrupted before they could cut it down to a manageable size.
* This young man appears in the London Gazette’s report of the incident as the Keeper’s son-in-law; as his son, he is also mentioned in the narrative published in 1680 by ‘RH’. “But just in the nick of their Departure, a Son of the Old man’s, who had not been in England in ten years before (so strange a Providence attends the Discovery of great Crimes) coming to the House to see his Father, and making enquiry where he was, was told he was in the Treasury shewing the Regalia to some friends.”
Précis
In the Spring of 1671, Thomas Blood disguised himself as a clergyman and struck up a friendship with Talbot Edwards, keeper of the Crown Jewels in the Tower of London. Then on May 9th that year, Blood prevailed on Edwards to show the regalia to him and two friends, and seizing his opportunity, made off with the nation’s jewels. (59 / 60 words)
In the Spring of 1671, Thomas Blood disguised himself as a clergyman and struck up a friendship with Talbot Edwards, keeper of the Crown Jewels in the Tower of London. Then on May 9th that year, Blood prevailed on Edwards to show the regalia to him and two friends, and seizing his opportunity, made off with the nation’s jewels.
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