The Audacious Crimes of Colonel Blood (41 page)

45
   
CSP Domestic 1663–4
, p.629.

46
   ‘Remarks . . .', p.221. If this story is true, Blood must have met de Rutyer before his departure in early May on a naval expedition to the coast of West Africa where he recaptured some of the Dutch slave stations briefly held by the English. He then crossed the Atlantic to raid English colonies in North America. In April 1665, de Rutyer was in Barbados.

47
   ‘Remarks . . .', p.222.

48
   TNA, SP 29/102/48, f.57.

49
   TNA, SP 29/102/49, f.59. Order by the commissioners for the repair of the Tower of London; 12 September 1664.

50
   
CSP Ireland 1663–3
, p.459. Major Rawdon to Viscount Conway, Lisburn, 20 December 1664.

51
   TNA, SP 29/121/131, f.175. List of thirty-one disaffected persons in London.

52
   
CSP Domestic 1664–5
, p.259. Williams to Secretary Bennet, 18 March 1665.

53
   
CSP Domestic 1664–5
, p.259. Williams to Secretary Bennet, 18 March, 1665.

54
   The alias of the Fifth Monarchist Captain Edward Carey, who escaped from a messenger (an arresting officer) in 1664.

55
   
CSP Domestic 1664–5
, p.259. Williams and John Betson to Sir Roger Langley, London, 18 March 1665.

56
   Marshall,
Intelligence and Espionage
. . ., p.158. Petty France was so
called because of the number of French merchants who lived there. The street was later renamed York Street.

57
   This was probably the chamber mentioned during the interrogation of William Ashenhurst, a prisoner in the White Lion prison in Southwark. He said the conspirators ‘sometimes stayed there all night and some bring arms [and] looking through the keyhole, he heard them in earnest discourse [about] something to be done' the following April (TNA, SP 29/115/44, f.124). The White Lion was one of four prisons located between Newcomen Street and St George's church on the east side of Borough High Street, Southwark, the others being the King's Bench and Marshalsea (both dating back to the fourteenth century) and the House of Correction.

58
   Blood's notebook suggests that the court martial was held there (Bod Lib. Rawlinson MS A. 185, ff.473–5). Coleman Street runs from Gresham Street to London Wall and a congregation of Anabaptists was active there during this period. Swan Lane was also a known haunt of Fifth Monarchists. (See: Champlin Burrage, ‘The Fifth Monarchy Insurrections',
EHR
, vol. 25, pp.724–5.

59
   ‘Remarks . . .', pp.222–3; Burghclere,
Life of Ormond
, vol. 2, p.183.

60
   The winter of 1664/5 was particularly cold, with the ground frozen from December to March and the River Thames twice blocked to river traffic by thick ice.

61
   Marshall,
Intelligence and Espionage
. . ., pp.161–2;
CSP Domestic 1664–5
, p.271.

62
   TNA, SP 29/103/21, f.13.

63
   Marshall, ‘William Leving',
ODNB
, vol. 33, p.545. The earliest cases occurred in the spring of 1665 in a parish outside the city walls called St Giles-in-the-Fields. The death rate began to rise during the summer months and peaked in September when 7,165 Londoners died in one week.

64
   Bod. Lib. Rawlinson MS A. 185, f.474.

65
   
CSP Ireland 1663–5
, p.101. Browne was involved in the Dublin Castle plot, liaising between ‘the fanatics of England and Ireland'.

66
   The French periwig or ‘peruke' became fashionable for men of high social standing after Charles II was restored to the throne in 1660.
Wearing the wig, which had shoulder-length or longer human hair, had its own problems. Pepys, in his Diary for 18 July 1664, noted: ‘Thence to Westminster to my barber's [Mr Jervas] to have my periwig [that] he lately made me cleansed of its nits which vexed me cruelly that he should put such a thing into my hands.' (vol. 4, p.178).

67
   
CSP Ireland 1663–5
, p.662. Orrery to Secretary Arlington, Dublin, 8 November 1665.

68
   The naval war against the United Provinces of the Netherlands was fought between 4 March 1665 and 31 July 1667. The Royal Navy won an initial victory at the Battle of Lowestoft on 13 June 1665 and although both sides claimed victory in the so-called ‘Four Days Battle' of 1–4 June 1666, the English ships suffered considerable damage. After the Dutch had blockaded the Thames estuary, the St James's Day Battle (25 July 1666) off Kent's North Foreland was another victory for the English fleet. When fighting resumed in the spring of 1667 the Dutch sailed into the Thames and destroyed warships in the River Medway in one of the most humiliating defeats suffered by the Royal Navy.

69
   TNA, SP 29/147/115, f.147.

70
   This area, once in the suburbs of Dublin, surrounds a small valley with a tributary of the River Poddle, otherwise known as the Coombe Stream. In the late seventeenth century it was the centre of the local weaving or clothing industry.

71
   TNA, SP 63/320/45, f.1. Earl of Orrery to Ormond, Charleville, Co. Cork, 12 February 1666. Charleville was founded by Orrery in 1661 and named after Charles II.

72
   TNA, SP 63/320/45, f.2. ?Dame Dorcas Lane to her husband, Sir George Lane, 8 February 1666.

73
   Was this Blood's little joke? Morton was the name of an assiduous London magistrate.

74
   In April 1662, the canton of Berne granted Ludlow protection for him to live in the area.

75
   Blood's notebook records him being ‘a prisoner in Zeeland'. Bod. Lib. Rawlinson MS A. 185 f.473
v
. entry no. 39.

76
   Phelps (
c
. 1619–after 1666) was clerk of the high court trying Charles
I for his life. At the Restoration, he escaped prosecution. He lived in exile in Lausanne and Vevey, Switzerland. A black marble monument to his memory was erected in the Swiss Reformed church of St Martin, Vevey, in 1882 by William Phelps of New Jersey, American ambassador to Prague, Czechoslovakia, and Dr Charles A. Phelps of Massachusetts, ‘descendants from across the seas'.

77
   TNA, SP 9/32/313. Williamson's address book.

78
   Marshall,
Intelligence and Espionage
. . ., pp.201–2 and, by the same author, ‘Colonel Thomas Blood and the Restoration Political Scene',
HJ
, vol. 32, pp.576–8.

79
   
CSP Ireland 1666–9
, p.80. Ormond to Arlington, Dublin Castle, 2 April 1666. The matter had taken some time to reach this stage: Captain Barnes had petitioned Ormond to become custodian of Blood's lands in February 1664 (Bod. Lib. Carte MS 159, ff.175 and 175
v
).

80
   Bod. Lib. Carte MS 43, f.505. The king to Ormond, Whitehall, 11 April 1666. TNA, SP 63/320/129, f.2.

81
   Marshall, ‘Colonel Thomas Blood and the Restoration Political Scene',
Hf
, vol. 32, p.576; TNA, 84/180/62, intercepted letter from Ludlow.

82
   All three were executed in London on 19 April 1662. At the Restoration, Downing had been rewarded for his loyalty by the grant of land adjoining St James's Park which became Downing Street.

83
   Blood's opinion of Ludlow appears in
A Modest Vindication
, p.2.

84
   Bod. Lib. Carte MS 46, ff.357. Arlington to Ormond, Whitehall, 26 August 1666.

85
   TNA, SP 29/168/148, f.148. Grice to [Williamson], 24 August 1666. Grice clearly had been involved on the periphery of the Dublin Castle plot, as he named seven of its conspirators (including Lieutenant Colonel Jones, late governor of the castle) on condition the promise to him that he would not be called as a witness was kept. Grice, a former parliamentary cavalry cornet, had spied for Sir Arthur Heselrige, governor of Newcastle, during the Civil War. See: TNA, SP 46/95/72 and 46/95/78.

86
   
CSP Domestic 1666–7
, p.64. Grice had his enemies. The marshal, Gilbert Thomas, told Arlington the following October that Grice ‘is too
large in his discourses' and was a ‘babbling fellow'.
Ibid.
, p.178.

87
   A note from Gilbert Thomas, marshal of the Gatehouse prison in Westminster, to Arlington, dated 2 May 1666 reports where ‘Allen, if he be Blood, doth lodge or lye'. TNA, SP 29/155/17, f.24.

88
   TNA, SP 63/321/164, f.55. Orrery to Arlington, Charleville, 22 September 1666.

89
   
Bod. Lib. Carte MS 35, f.52
r
. Notes on persons suspected of complicity in seditious plots in Ireland.

90
   It destroyed 13,200 homes, eighty-seven parish churches and St Paul's Cathedral, as well as a number of official buildings such as the Royal Exchange.

91
   
London Gazette
,no. 85,Monday, 10 September 1666, p.1, col.1. Some of the French and Dutch had ‘little hand-grenades about the size of a ball which they carried in their pockets' (HMC, ‘le Fleming', p.41). Patrick Hubert, a French-born watchmaker, claimed to have started the fire as an agent of Pope Alexander VII. Despite doubts about his mental state and fitness to plead, he was hanged on 28 September.

92
   HMC ‘Ormond', vol. 4, p.462. Sir Robert Southwell to Ormond, 22 October 1678.

93
   TBA, SP 29/173/132, f.206. Arlington also told Ormond on 7 September that ‘we are reasonably secure the quiet of the kingdom will not be discomposed [by the fire] not being able, by any of the circumstances, to trace out or suspect that it was either contrived or fomented by any of the discontented party' (Bod. Lib. Carte MS 46, ff.363–4). A correspondent of Lord Conway also assured him ‘there was nothing of a plot in this, though the people would think otherwise and lay it on the French or Dutch or on the fanatics breaking out so near 3 September their celebrated day of triumph. Others lay it on the papists because some of them are said to be now in arms but it is merely as militia men. The stories of making and casting of fireballs, when traced, are found to be fictitious.' TNA, SP 29/450/712, f.46.

94
   Bod. Lib. Carte MS 35, f.54
v
. Arlington to Sir George Lane. Blood had been in Lancashire and had come close to arrest after the Great Fire of London. Whitehall, 6 September 1666.

95
   Bod. Lib. Carte MS 46, f.383. Arlington to Ormond, Whitehall, 12 October 1666.

96
   Bod. Lib. Carte MS 35, f.128.

97
   
CSP Domestic 1666–7
, p.349. Leving to Arlington, 15 December 1666.

98
   
London Gazette
, issue 106, 19–22 November 1666, p.2 col.2; HMC ‘le Fleming, p.43.

99
   B.L. Add. MS 23,125, f.198
r
. Declaration by the Pentland rebels.

100
 B.L. Add. MS 23,125, f.149
r
. Sir Peter Wedderburn, clerk to the Privy Council, to the Duke of Lauderdale.

101
 
London Gazette
, issue 110, 3–6 December 1666, p.2, cols. 1 and 2.

102
 Sergeant,
Rogues and Scoundrels
, p.125.

103
 Greaves,
Enemies Under His Feet
, p.75.

104
 TNA, SP 29/196/6, f.6. Sir P. M[usgrave] to Williamson, 1 April 1667. Lady Burghclere, in her biography of Ormond, maintains that Blood ‘was present at the Battle of Pentland Hills on 26 November 1666 and when the insurgents were routed, he contrived, after his usual fashion to make good his escape' (
Life of Ormond
, vol. 2, p.184).

105
 Bod. Lib. Carte MS 35, f.146
r
. List of persons declared rebels [in Scotland] by proclamation.

106
 
CSP Domestic 1666–7
, p.545.

107
 
CSP Domestic 1666–7
, p.463.

108
 ‘Remarks . . .', p.223.

CHAPTER 4: A FRIEND IN NEED

1
     ‘Remarks . . .', p.225.

2
     
CSP Domestic 1666–7
, p.537: ‘All proclaimed persons [were] to be brought before Lord Arlington, should [they] be found in London and Westminster. It should also warrant a search for arms in the houses where they are taken'. The warrant was granted on 2 March.

3
     Leving claimed to be paid £20 a year as a spy – equivalent in modern purchasing power to just over £2,500 per annum.

4
     Thomas Gardiner, controller of the Post Office in London, had reports of ‘several robberies about Leeds lately. Leving, one of the thieves is taken; Freer, another, has gone to London and has been
several times with Lord Arlington.'
CSP Domestic 1667
, p.114. A warrant for Freer's arrest ‘for dangerous and seditious practices' had been issued earlier that month;
ibid.
, p.114

5
     
CSP Domestic 1667
, p.114. A reward of £10 was offered for Freer's arrest. A warrant for his detention was issued ‘at court at Whitehall' in May, for his ‘dangerous and seditious practices'. TNA, SP 29/201/93, f.108.

6
     TNA, SP 29/201/39, f.46. John Mascall to Williamson, York, 18 May 1667.

7
     TNA, SP 29/209/44, f.54. W.L[eving] to Lord Arlington, Newgate, 11 July 1667.

8
     
CSP Domestic 1667
, p.310. Mason had been held in the Tower since 15 June. Two weeks later, his married sister Joan Prestwood received permission to visit him.
CSP Domestic 1667
, pp.193 and 245.

9
     Now the Life Guards, the senior regiment of the British Army, which, with the Blues and Royals, forms the sovereign's Household Cavalry. The regiment was formed in 1658 and its third troop, made up of exiled Royalists, became the Duke of York's troop. It was originally recruited from gentlemen and its corporals were commissioned, and had a rank equivalent to lieutenants in the remainder of the army.