The Audacious Crimes of Colonel Blood (47 page)

13
   
CSP Domestic January–June 1683
, pp.382–3.

14
   See: Peter Earle,
Monmouth's Rebels
. . ., p.32; BL Lansdowne MS 1,152, vol. 1, f.238
v
– Nicholas Cooke and Henry Lavening to Sir Bourchier Wrey, MP for Devon, reporting the capture of Perrot, 30 July, 1685.

15
   HMC ‘Ormond', vol. 2, p.253.

16
   See:
CSP Domestic 1671
, p.267;
CSP Domestic 1670
, p.174 and Marshall,
Intelligence and Espionage
. . ., p.140.

17
   A town on the border of England and Scotland.

18
   Spain, ‘Martin Beckman',
ODNB
, vol. 6, pp.740–3.

19
   TNA, SP 29/417/207, f.443.

20
   A pole arm, with an axe head below the spear-like point.

21
   TNA, SP 29/417/207 f.445.

22
   
CSP Domestic January–June 1683
, p.66.

23
   They were both serving in the navy in 1677. See BL Add. MSS, 10,115, f.73.

24
   The warship was launched as the fifty-gun third-rate frigate
Speaker
in the Commonwealth navy in 1650 and renamed
Mary
after the Restoration. In 1677 she was refitted as a sixty-two-gun ship and was rebuilt in 1688.
Mary
was lost on the Goodwin Sands shoals, off the coast of Kent, during the Great Storm of 1703.

25
   Montgomery-Massingberd,
Burke's Irish Family Records
, p.142

26
   TNA, PROB 4/54/476. Dated November 1688.

27
   TNA, PROB 11/360/467, ff.304–5. Will of Edmund Blood.

28
   
CSP Domestic March 1676–February
1677, p.77.

29
   
CSP Domestic 1678
, p.241.

30
   Montgomery-Massingberd,
Burke's
Irish Family Records
, p.143. Today, the battle is commemorated in Northern Ireland on 12 July, the day after its date under the ‘New Style' Gregorian calendar, adopted in Britain in 1752.

31
   
CSP Domestic William III 1696
, p.33. Warrant for Lieutenant Colonel Holcroft Blood to be second engineer in place of Captain Thomas Philips deceased. Kensington, 1 February 1696.

32
   Porter,
History of the Corps of Royal Engineers
, vol. 1, p.111.

33
   Spain, ‘Holcroft Blood',
ODNB
, vol. 6, pp.268–70.

34
   Holcroft Blood junior died in 1724.

35
   TNA, PROB 11/504/89, will of Holcroft Blood.

36
   Thomas Blood had two children, according to Edmund Blood's will (TNA SP PROB 11/360/467, f.304); presumably one died young.

37
   NAI MS 12,816, f.20, calls him ‘Tobias Baines'.

38
   Lisburne (1647–91) also commanded an English regiment during the Williamite wars in Ireland and was killed outright by a cannonball at the siege of Limerick in September 1691.

39
   NAIMS 12,816, f.21.

40
   NAIMS 12,816, ff.31–2.

41
   TNA, WORK 14/2/1. Paper on the adaption of the Wakefield Tower as a new jewel house and the provision of glass cases to display the regalia, 1852–69.

42
   Impey and Parnell,
The Tower of London
. . ., pp.108–10.

43
   Literally, ‘St Peter in chains', a reference to the prisoners held in the Tower of London.

44
   The burial register entry reads: ‘1674: Mr Edwards ye crown keeper, buryed October ye second'.

45
   TNA, War Office papers WO 94/58/24, f.1. Letter from a Mr Wray Hunt, of Wargrave, Berkshire, 3 December 1936.

46
   Bell,
Notices of the Historic Persons buried in
. . .
St Peter ad Vincula
. . ., p.37. Lord de Ros, perhaps modestly, provides a different version of the way Edwards' gravestone was rescued. It was recognised by a Colonel Wyndham ‘in a heap of rubbish and by the [Tower of London] constable's order fixed against in safety against the south
wall. In one of those reckless reparations which so often were allowed in the Tower, the masons employed in repairing the chapel floor threw this tablet aside but it was luckily observed' (de Ros,
Memorials of the Tower of London
, p.202).

Bibliography

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

Note: All dates employ the
‘Old Style' Julian calendar
,
in use before the introduction of the Gregorian calendar, under the Calendar Act 1752
.

Primary sources

MANUSCRIPT

Bodleian Library Broad Street, Oxford OX1 3BG

Carte MSS

32
f.202r –
Examination of James Milligan of Antrim by the earl of Mount-Alexander and William Leslie esq. about the concealment of Thomas Blood, alias Thomas Pilsen, in Antrim; 24 August 1663.

f.210 – Letter from Thomas Blood to John Chamberlin, reporting that he hoped to recruit disbanded cavalry troopers but he had no confidence in the ‘Scots . . . they stick so to a King's interest, though I have laboured with some of them of a small sort to come along with me, I can prevail little – yet, I doubt not to pick up some'; ?August 1663.

f.211 – Instructions for the bearer of above letter, listing persons who can give information and assistance, undated but endorsed: ‘copied 14 August 1663 at Wicklow'.

ff.384–5 – Order in Council by Ormond regulating military pay; Dublin, 4 May 1663.

f.388 – Order in Council by Ormond directing the return of arms to his majesty's military stores in Dublin and various other cities; Dublin, 4 May 1663.

f.446 – Sir Arthur Forbes to Ormond, reporting evidence to expect ‘some sudden design' against the State and the apprehension of the people; Newton, Co. Meath, 22 May 1663.

f.460 – Robert Green to Colonel James Walsh, reporting that ‘disguised men have been passing about these parts' and the night meetings held before the discovery of the Dublin Castle plot; Dublin, 25 May 1663.

f.538r –
Jared Hancock to Ormond, reporting the departure of a ship from Wexford, belonging to Samuel Abernattin, ‘a known fanatic', with several passengers on board; Wexford, 2 June 1663.

f.550 – Ormond to Bennet; Stephen Charnock, ‘a pretended minister, and chaplain to Henry Cromwell, is deeply involved in the guilt of the late conspiracies here' and was lodged in London at Robert Littlebury's house ‘at the sign of the Unicorn in Little Britain'; Dublin, 10 June 1663.

f.553 – Eglinton to Ormond with information on the conspirators, Lieutenant Colonel Moore and Cornet Blood; 11 June 1663.

ff.589–90 – Certificate by the borough masters and governors concerning testimony given by Jacob ‘Borstius' [Vorstius] and others about the residence in that city of Colonel Gilbert Carr; Rotterdam, 10/20 June 1663.

f.602 – Patrick Darcy, learned counsel, to Ormond, submitting lists of the members of the grand juries of the city and county of Dublin but fearing ‘not many of them [are] fit for the business now to be agitated'; 22 June 1663.

f.604
r
– Patrick Darcy to Ormond, passing on information that Sir John Ponsonby ‘has said openly . . . that at the trial of the prisoners [the government] would find themselves deceived'. Endorsed: ‘For your grace only'; 22 June 1663.

f.605
v
– List of members of grand juries of the city of Dublin and Co. Dublin; 22 June 1663.

f.608 – J[ohn] T[homson?] to William Jackson reporting that much mischief was being done here by unruly persons ‘spoiling people's houses in the night, under [the] pretence of taking prisoners for being [in] on the plot'; Loughbrickland, Co. Down, 29 June 1663.

f.645 – Petition of Major Thomas Barrington to Ormond, providing details of his service and that of Colonel Edward Warren in the uncovering of the late treasonable plot and seeking clemency in granting Warren's life and estate; [June] 1663.

f.655 – Schedule of ministers' names that are taken and sent to Carrickfergus and Carlingford relating to the late treasonous plots in Ireland; [June 1663].

f.666 – Opinion of Patrick Darcy, learned counsel, upon a point of law
submitted by the Irish Government, about the penalties faced by the Dublin Castle conspirators; Dublin, 23 May 1663.

f.668 – Patrick Darcy to Ormond; Boar's Head, Dublin, 4 June 1663.

f.669 – The case against conspirators to ‘surprise His Majesty's Castle of Dublin in respect of the penalties by law incurred thereby with questions thereon stated to learned counsel'; [?1 June] 1663.

f.669 – Further opinion of Patrick Darcy; 23 June 1663.

f.673 – Patrick Darcy to Ormond about the progress of the trial of the conspirators; Dublin, 3 July 1663.

f.686 – Information from Lieutenant Richard Thompson about his knowledge of the late conspiracy in which he ‘was unhappily involved'; written from Dublin Castle prison, 5 July 1663.

f.688 – Lieutenant Richard Thompson to Ormond. Please ‘accept these last words of a dying man . . . [I] was drawn in by Mr. Blood into the plot for which great sin I beg pardon'; Dublin Castle 5 July 1663.

ff.691–4 – Lord Santry's speech when passing judgment upon Alexander Jephson and others; Dublin, 7 July 1663.

33
f.18 – E[dward] Bagot, a former soldier, to Ormond, warning of a plot against the Lord Lieutenant's life; Blithfield, Staffordshire, 2 August 1663.

f.90 – Mrs. Charity Staples to Ormond. Prostrating herself at his feet, ‘knowing scarcely how to syllable or articulate her anguish that my son [Major Alexander Staples of Londonderry] should have his hand in treason' . . . [I] beseech [Ormond] to have a regard to his tenderness of years and to the frailty of a nature beguiled by the subtlety of some grand impostor'; ?Ballysheskin, 28 August 1663.