The Audacious Crimes of Colonel Blood (39 page)

3
     Greaves,
Deliver Us from Evil
, p.145.

4
     Blood was exaggerating for effect. Sir William Petty estimated the Protestant death toll in the Irish Confederation rebellion to be 37,000 (Sir Richard Musgrave,
Memoirs of the different Rebellions in Ireland
[London, 1801] p.30).

5
     This is a reference to the 1643 agreement between the English and Scottish Parliaments to preserve the Presbyterian religion in Scotland and its adoption in England. After the restoration of the monarchy, the Sedition Act of 1661 (13 Caro II St.1
cap.
1) declared the agreement unlawful and it was burnt publicly in London by the common hangman.

6
     ‘Veitch & Brysson Memoirs', pp.508–9.

7
     ‘Veitch & Brysson Memoirs', p.509. A letter to Ormond of 11 June 1663 with information on the conspirators refers to him as ‘Cornet Blood' – the lowest officer rank in the cavalry. See: Bod. Lib. Carte MS 32, f.553. The rebels' declaration was later burnt in Dublin by the public executioner.

8
     TNA, SP 63/313/170, f.351 and Bod. Lib. Carte MS 68, f.564.

9
     TNA, SP 63/313/225, f.458.

10
   TNA, SP 63/313/173, f.355; Ormond to [Secretary Bennet], Dublin Castle, 23 May 1663; SP 63/313/174, f.357; Ormond to Bennet, Dublin Castle, 24 May 1663.

11
   TNA, SP 63/313165 f.340.

12
   Bod. Lib. Carte MS 32, f.446. Sir Arthur Forbes to Ormond, 22 May 1663.

13
   Aungier was created Viscount Longford in the Irish peerage in 1675 and Earl of Longford two years later.

14
   TNA, SP 63/313/172, f.354.

15
   Churchill, one-time MP for Weymouth and Melcombe Regis, was knighted in 1664. He was the father of John Churchill, First Duke of Marlborough, and ancestor of his namesake, the twentieth-century statesman and prime minister.

16
   
CSP Ireland 1663–5
, pp.104.

17
   TNA, SP 63/312/174, f.357. Ormond to Bennet, Dublin Castle, 24 May 1663.

18
   TNA, SP 63/313/221, f.451. Talbot to Williamson, 13 June 1663.

19
   
CSP Ireland 1663–5
, pp.97–8; Dublin Castle, 21 May 1663.

20
   TNA, SP 63/313/164, f.335.

21
   SAL
Proclamations, Ireland 1572–1670
, vol. 17, f.75. Another copy is in Bod. Lib. Carte MS 54, f.537.

22
   TNA, SP 63/313/169, f.349. Vernon to Secretary Bennet, Dublin, 23 May 1663.

23
   An adherent of the religious group founded in Germany and Switzerland in the sixteenth century which only recognised the baptism of adult believers and rejected Anglican doctrines.

24
   TNA, SP 63/313/168, f.346.

25
   SAL
Proclamations Ireland 1572–1670
, vol. 17, f.75 and Bod. Lib. Carte MS 71, ff.388–9; ‘Proclamation upon the occasion of the late conspiracy by the lord lieutenant and council of Ireland'.

26
   Bod. Lib. Carte MS 49, f.193.

27
   Morrice,
Collection State Letters of Roger Boyle
. . ., pp.69–70.

28
   The suspects ‘ride always by night and on Sunday mornings, but never by the highways. Sometimes there are six or seven in a company'. Bod. Lib. Carte MS 32, f.460, Dublin, 25 May 1663.

29
   Bod. Lib. Carte MS 32, f.608, Loughbrickland, 29 June 1663.

30
   Bod. Lib. Carte MS 214, f.438, Dublin, 22 May 1633.

31
   Bod. Lib. Carte MS 165, f.111. Warrant to evict Dublin citizens from accommodation overlooking the city's quays and replacing them with soldiers; Dublin Castle, 30 May 1663.

32
   TNA, SP 63/313/180 f.366; Bod. Lib, Carte MS 143, f.133
v
.

33
   Bod. Lib. Carte MS 143, f.133
r
.

34
   TNA, SP 63/313/186, f.376. Vernon to [Secretary Bennet] Dublin, 30 May 1663.

35
   TNA, SP 63/313/187, f.378. Deposition of James Tanner; Dublin, 31 May 1663.

36
   
CSP Ireland 1663–5
, p.116; Ormond to Bennet, Dublin Castle, 3 June 1663.

37
   TNA, SP 63/313/193, f.395; Sir Nicholas Armorer to Joseph Williamson, Dublin, 3 June 1663. Armourer was a Royalist spymaster during the English Civil Wars and after the Restoration was appointed a captain in the Irish Guards and governor of Duncannon fort, a star-shaped fortification built to protect Waterford harbour at New Ross in Co. Wexford.

38
   
CSP Ireland 1663–5
, p.117; Sir Thomas Clarges to Secretary Bennet, 3 June 1663.

39
   TNA, SP 63/313/198, f.430. Vernon to Joseph Williamson, 5 June 1663.

40
   Bod. Lib. Carte MS 221, ff.52–3. Bennet to Ormond, Whitehall, 6 June 1663; Carte MS 46, f.55; 1 June 1663.

41
   TNA, SP 63/313/207, f.419. Ormond to Bennet, Dublin Castle, 10 June 1663. Ormond, worried about successfully prosecuting the conspirators, had toyed with the idea of trying them under martial law unconstrained by normal legal requirements. But he concluded that ‘in time and place of war it was, and could be again, practised without scruple but in time of peace, a court martial will hardly be found that will sentence a soldier to death . . .' Bod. Lib. Carte MS 143, ff.142
r
and
v.
Ormond to Bennet, 13 June 1663.

42
   Little Britain connects St Martin's Le Grand in the east with West Smithfield in the northern part of the City of London.

43
   TNA, SP 63/313/209, f.422. Dublin Castle, 10 June 1663.

44
   
TNA, SP 63/313/209, f.425.

45
   Bod. Lib. Carte MS 114, f.505. Edward Tanner to Lieutenant Colonel Staples, 15 June 1663.

46
   Proudfoot's Castle was formerly known as Fyan's Castle, from its previous owners: Thomas Fyan was sheriff of Dublin in 1640. Later in the seventeenth century, the tower was acquired by the merchant George Proudfoot, cousin to the chief justice, Sir James Barry, First Baron Santry (Gilbert,
History of the City of Dublin
, vol. 1, p.375). Proudfoot apparently rented the structure to Francis Sleigh, a Dublin tanner, who agreed, in turn, to lease it to Philip Carpenter, the sergeant-at-arms, at £30 a year and on payment of £70 ‘for keeping therein such prisoners as shall be committed to Carpenter's charge' (
CSP Ireland 1663–5
, p.138).

47
   Darcy (1598–1668) was a Catholic lawyer who was admitted as a student at London's Middle Temple in July 1617 before practising on the Connacht circuit from
c
.1627. He was instrumental in drawing up the constitution of the Irish Catholic Confederation in 1642 and, after Cromwell's invasion, was imprisoned in the Marshalsea jail, Dublin. He was buried in Kilconnell Abbey, Co. Galway, with this epitaph inscribed upon his tomb:
Hic misera patria sola columna jacet
– ‘Here, wretched country, lies your sole support'.

48
   Bod. Lib. Carte MS 32, ff.666, 668 and 669.

49
   Santry (1603–72) was the eldest of three sons of Alderman Richard Barry of Dublin. He was recorder of the City of Dublin, sergeant-at-law, second baron of the Irish Exchequer, before being appointed chief justice of the court of King's Bench in November 1660 as a reward for his ‘many good services to Charles I and his eminent loyalty to Charles II'. He was created First Baron Santry of Santry, Co. Dublin, in February 1661. See: E. Barry,
Records of the Barrys of Co. Cork
, p.135 and Ball, ‘Notes on the Irish Judiciary in the Reign of Charles II', p.90.

50
   
CSP Ireland 1663–5
, p.131. Ormond to Secretary Bennet, Dublin, 13 June 1663.

51
   TNA, SP 63/33/245, f.495. Ormond to Secretary Bennet, Dublin Castle, 25 June 1663.

52
   
The Irish Parliament, sitting at Drogheda, passed two laws in 1495 relating to treason. The first (10 Henry VII,
cap.
25) made it treason to ‘stir the Irishry to war' and the second (10 Henry VII,
cap.
37) decreed that murder ‘of malice pretensed' was also treason. It seems likely that the former legislation was used against the conspirators. See David B. Quinn, ‘Bills and Statutes of Irish Parliament of Henry VII and Henry VIII' in
Analecta Hibernica
, no. 10 (July 1944), pp.71–169.

53
   
CSP Ireland 1663–5
, p.138. Vernon to Williamson, 17 June 1663.

54
   HMC ‘Ormond', vol. 3, pp.57–8. Eleven ministers were arrested in Carrickfergus, Co. Antrim, and sent to Carlingford, but nine could not be found, including two – ‘Henry Hunter and Mr Bruces' – who had escaped to Scotland. The troops also failed to find one of the named plotters, the ‘pretended minister' Andrew McCormack (Bod. Lib. Carte MS 32, f.655).

55
   Bod. Lib. Carte MS 59, f.86 and TNA 63/313/226, f.460.

56
   Bod. Lib. Carte MS 43, f.192. King to Ormond, [10] June 1663.

57
   Ormond was probably not a party to Vernon's plans to free Alden. On 20 June, the lord lieutenant reported the informer's escape; ‘owing to the negligence of the constable of the castle I believe he is gone into England but hope to have news of him through one of my spies'.
CSP Ireland 1663–5
, p.142.

58
   
CSP Ireland 1663–5
, p.139; 19 June 1663. The previous day Ormond signed a warrant for the recapture of Alden ‘late a prisoner in Dublin Castle, under charge of high treason'; Bod. Lib. Carte MS 165, f.116
v
.

59
   Bod. Lib. Carte MS 68, f.562. It was housed in the Four Courts building, so called because cases in the Chancery, King's Bench, Exchequer and Common Pleas courts were heard there. The present building was constructed in 1786–96.

60
   TNA, SP 63/313/243, f.491. Sir George Lane to [Secretary Bennet], Dublin Castle, 25 June 1663.

61
   
CSP Ireland 1663–5
, p.121. Vernon to [Joseph Williamson], 6 June 1663.

62
   Bod. Lib. Carte MS 32, f.602, Dublin, 22 June 1663.

63
   Ponsonby (
c
.1609–78), from Haile in Cheshire, came with Cromwell
to Ireland in 1649 as a colonel of horse and received substantial lands around Bessborough in Co. Kilkenny as a reward for his military service. He was also MP for the county in the Dublin Parliament and was active in seeking to maintain Protestant domination of Ireland.

64
   Bod. Lib. Carte MS 32, f.604
r
. The letter is marked: ‘For your grace only'.

65
   The ancient law of the Hebrews, attributed to Moses and contained in the Pentateuch or Torah, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible.

66
   TNA, SP 63/314/2, f.3. Vernon to Joseph Williamson, 1 July 1663.

67
   Bod. Lib. Carte MS 32, f.673; Dublin, 3 July 1663.

68
   Bod. Lib. Carte MS 32, ff.691–4. Lord Santry's speech in passing judgment upon Jephson and others; Court of King's Bench, Dublin, 7 July 1663.

69
   
CSP Ireland 1663–5
, p.169. Robert Leigh to Joseph Williamson, 8 July 1663.

70
   TNA, SP 63/314/11, f.32. Sir George Lane to Secretary Bennet, Dublin Castle, 11 July 1663.

71
   
CSP Ireland 1663–5
, p.167. Robert Leigh to Williamson, Dublin, 11 July 1663.

72
   Thompson is also referred to as a ‘major' or a ‘captain' in contemporary documents.

73
   Campbell (
c.
1607–61) was accused of treason for collaborating with the Commonwealth during the interregnum and his role in the suppression of the Royalist uprising in Scotland in 1653–4, led by William Cunningham, Eighth Earl of Glencairn. Campbell was beheaded in Edinburgh on 27 May 1661 by ‘the Scottish Maiden', an early form of guillotine which was used to execute more than 150 persons in the city between 1564 and 1710. One is preserved today in the Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh.

74
   Bod. Lib. Carte MS 32, f.688; Dublin Castle, 5 July 1663.

75
   Greaves,
Deliver Us from Evil
, p.149. Early the following November, a widow called Mary Roberts petitioned Ormond for payment of a debt owed her by Thompson, out of his estate that had become forfeit to the crown. Bod. Lib. Carte MS 144, f.123
v
.

76
   Bod. Lib. Carte MS 32, ff.589–90. Certificate by the borough
masters of Rotterdam about the residence in that city of Colonel Gibby Carr; Rotterdam, 10–20 June 1663.

77
   
CSP Ireland 1663–5
, p.166. Ormond to Bennet, Whitehall, 10 July 1663.

78
   Bod. Lib. Carte MS 46, ff.61–4. Bennet to Ormond, Whitehall, 27 June 1663.

79
   Bod. Lib. Carte MS 32, f.202. Examination of James Milligan of Antrim by the Earl of Mount Alexander and William Leslie esq., in relation to the concealment of Thomas Blood; Antrim, 24 August 1663.

80
   Bod. Lib. Carte MS 32, f.202
r
. Interrogation of James Milligan.

81
   Bod. Lib. Carte MS 214, f.534. Earl of Mount Alexander to Ormond, Newtown, 25 August 1663. In early August, a former soldier E[dward] Bagot, wrote to Ormond from Blithfield in Staffordshire to warn the lord lieutenant that former parliamentary troops in Ireland were plotting to kill him. ‘Some of these men have told my intelligencer [spy] that, when their blow shall be struck in Ireland, there [is] a party in England ready to second them.' Bod. Lib. Carte MS 33, f.18.

82
   Bod. Lib. Rawlinson MS A. 185, f.374
r
.