The Audacious Crimes of Colonel Blood (46 page)

66
   An officer on board ship who keeps the accounts and sometimes has charge of the provisions.

67
   In March 1669, the diarist Samuel Pepys, a member of the Navy Board, was temporarily named captain of
Jersey
as a legal manoeuvre to render him eligible to become a member of a court martial over the loss of HMS
Defiance.
The appointment gave him ‘much mirth'. HMS
Jersey
, the first of eight ships to bear the name in the Royal Navy, was captured by the French in the West Indies on 18 December 1691 and renamed, rather unimaginatively She remained in French naval service until 1716. See: Brian Lavery,
The Ship of the Line
, vol. 1,
Development of the Battlefleet 1650–1850
(London, 2003), p.160. Her name comes from one of the Channel Islands and an image of the ship appeared on a 23p Jersey stamp in 2001. See also: BL Add. MS. 10,115 (Williamson papers on projected war with France in 1677), f.73 – Blood's two sons serving in Royal Navy.

68
   
CSP Domestic March-December 1678
, p.20.

69
   Henry Ball told Williamson in June 1673 that Blood ‘pretends to have a great estate left his wife but Dr Butler tells me this was “a flam [a deceit] and he has none at all on that side”.' ‘Williamson Letters', vol. 1, p.15.

70
   Place or take under the control of a court.

71
   
Lancashire Record Office MS DDX 26/70/1. This petition is also calendared in the State Papers under the year 1665 but as Charles Holcroft died in December 1672, it must date from 1673 at the earliest.

72
   Kaye,
Romance and Adventures of Colonel Blood
. . ., pp.250–3; Lancashire Record Office MS QSP/547/15.

73
   ‘Williamson Letters' vol. 1, p.15 fn.

74
   TNA, SP 29/294/235, f.295.

75
   Lillywhite,
London Coffee Houses
, p.639.

76
   Marshall, ‘Colonel Thomas Blood and the Restoration Political Scene',
Hf
, vol. 32, p.571.

77
   Fifty-six pounds or 25.4 kg.

78
   TNA, SP 29/333/82, f.126. Richard Wilkinson to Colonel John Russell, Appleby, 10 February 1673.

CHAPTER 9: THE WAYS OF THE LORD

1
     Explained in a sermon, preached at Colchester [Essex] by Edmund Hickeringill, rector of All Saints, p.1.

2
     ‘T.S.',
The Horrid Sin of Man-catching
. . ., p.1.

3
     To deceive or trick.

4
     ‘Sham Plots', p.1. Samuel Bold (1649–1737), the vicar of Shapwick in Dorset and an earnest advocate of religious toleration preached a sermon against religious persecution when a brief was read out in support of Huguenot refugees in 1682, declaring that informers were the ‘brutish and degenerate part of mankind' and were men ‘of desperate fortunes'. His sermon was subsequently published as
A Sermon against Persecutions, preached 26 March 1682
(London, 1682), pp.7–9. For an excellent overview, see Marshall,
Intelligence and Espionage
. . ., p.207.

5
     ‘Sham Plots' p.1.

6
     Allen, ‘Political Clubs in Restoration London',
Hf
, vol. 19, pp.563 and 566.

7
     
CSP Domestic 1667–8
, p.89.

8
     Waller (
c.
1637–99) was the son of the parliamentary general of the same name who fought in the Civil War and his second wife.

9
     Dryden,
Absalom andAchitophel
, pt. 2, line 53.

10
   Waller's club is mentioned in the Catholic midwife Elizabeth Cellier's
Malice Defeated.
For Blood's infrequent attendances there, see ‘Counter-plots', 1679, p.6.

11
   After Richard Cromwell's fall from power, he was unkindly nicknamed ‘Queen Dick' by Royalists and was now exiled in France.

12
   TNA, SP 29/397/7, f.7. Williamson's notes of information received from Mr Blood, 2 October 1678.

13
   Peyton (
c.
1633–89) fled to Holland after the succession of James II but a botched attempt to kidnap him and bring him back to England caused a diplomatic incident between the two countries. In 1688, he commanded a regiment in William of Orange's invasion force after it landed in Dorset. The following year Peyton died in London from a fever, reportedly two days after drinking bad claret.

14
   
CSP Domestic 1677–8
, p.571. Williamson to Boyle, Whitehall, 12 January 1678. It may have been connected with his old lands at Sarney. On 5 June 1679, a note was issued to the lord lieutenant of Ireland about ‘the petition of Thomas Blood for a grant of the chief rent payable out of land belonging to him called Sarney, Co. Meath, of £6 per annum, not claimed for thirty-eight years and the arrears thereof'. See:
CSP Domestic January 1679–August 1680
, p.164.

15
   
CSP Domestic 1678
, p.290. Blood to Duke of York, 16 July 1678.

16
   
CSP Domestic 1677–8
, pp.30–1. Ralph Burnett, the postmaster at Lincoln, sent on North's letter to the king two days after it was written with a note saying the ‘enclosed is upon life and death and on other great concerns. I therefore pray you to take special notice that it may be delivered very carefully so that answer may come by Thursday's post.'

17
   The church was not rebuilt after the fire and the parish was united with that of St Michael, Wood Street in 1670. Since 1965, there has been a garden on its site.

18
   HMC, ‘Ormond', vol. 4, p.462.

19
   Barker was fined £50 for ‘illegal practice' by the College of Physicians in 1656. In December 1673 he was appointed a physician in ordinary to Charles II – an honorary position, apparently without any fees.

20
   Pollock,
The Popish Plot
. . ., p.13.

21
   Williams, ‘
The Pope-Burning Processions of 1679, 1680 and 1681',
Jnl Warburg and Courtauld Institutes
, vol. 21, p.108.

22
   Kenyon,
The Popish Plot
, p.78.

23
   That old gossip Aubrey believed that Hill was also a member of the queen's household (Aubrey's
Brief Lives
, vol. 1, p.320). The murder had been committed in the courtyard of Somerset House, off the Strand, and the body later dumped at Primrose Hill (Kenyon,
The Popish Plot
, p.150). Miles Prance pleaded guilty to perjury in 1686 and was fined £100 and ordered to stand in the pillory (
ibid.
, p.295).

24
   Primrose Hill was popularly known afterwards for a short time as ‘Greenberry Hill' after the names of the men executed there. Their corpses would have been suspended on the gallows for some time afterwards.

25
   ‘T.S.',
The Horrid Sin of Man-catching
. . ., p.20.

26
   HMC ‘Fitzherbert', pp.114–5.

27
   See: Bury,
A True Narrative of the Late Design of the Papists
. . ., p.8; Marshall,
Intelligence and Espionage
. . ., p.211.

28
   HMC ‘Fitzherbert', pp.114–5.

29
   HMC ‘Fitzherbert', p.115.

30
   He was canonised in 1975.

31
   Oates was retried for perjury in 1685 and sentenced to be whipped through London twice, imprisoned for life and pilloried every year. At the accession of William of Orange and Mary in 1689, he was pardoned and granted an annual pension of £260. Oates died on 12 or 13 July 1705.

32
   Bod. Lib. Carte MS 228, f.151. Newsletter addressed to Thomas Wharton at Winchendon, Buckinghamshire, reporting Lord Sunderland's interview with Blood, 3 March 1679.

33
   ‘Remarks . . .', p.229 and ‘Narrative' p.4.

34
   A ‘trepan' is a seventeenth-century noun for a person who lures or tricks another into a disadvantageous or ruinous act or position.

35
   Marshall,
Intelligence and Espionage
. . ., p.222.

36
   Dalrymple,
Memoirs of Great Britain
. . ., vol. 2, p.231.

37
   HMC ‘Ormond' vol. 4, pp.328–9. Hester Chapman has claimed that
Blood was the chief protagonist of the plot against Buckingham, but this seems unlikely. See her
Great Villiers
. . ., pp.262–4.

38
   Melton, ‘A Rake Reformed . . .',
HLQ
, vol. 51, pp.300–1.

39
   ‘Narrative', p.28.

40
   Pritchard, A Defence of His Private Life . . .',
HLQ
, vol. 44, pp.164 and 168.

41
   HMC ‘Ormond', vol. 5, pp.296–7.

42
   ‘Narrative', p.18.

43
   Ram Alley, later renamed Hare Place, was a place of sanctuary for debtors in the seventeenth century and a very insalubrious area.

44
   More properly known as the ‘Bear at Bridgefoot'.

45
   ‘Le Mar', p.14.

46
   ‘Remarks . . .', p.231.

47
   A written precept, under a magistrate's seal, directing a constable to take a suspected felon to prison. From the Latin, meaning ‘we send'.

48
   ‘Narrative', p.10.

49
   ‘Narrative', p.12.

50
   HMC ‘Ormond', vol. 5, p.324.

51
   Marshall,
Intelligence and Espionage
. . ., p.222.

52
   
CSP Domestic 1679–80
, p.521.

53
   
London Gazette
, issue 1500, 1–5 April 1680, p.2, cols. 1 and 2.

54
   
CSP Domestic 1679–80
, p.560. Newsletter to Sir Francis Radcliffe at Dilston, Northumberland, 18 July 1680.

55
   Sir William Dolben (
c.
1625–94) was appointed a justice of the Court of King's Bench on 23 October 1678. He was a man of small stature with a surprisingly loud voice and was known popularly as ‘an arrant old snarler'.

56
   TNA, SP 29/414/23, f.40. Blood to James, Duke of York, 15 July 1680.

57
   There was clearly some arrears in this payment.

58
   TNA, SP 29/414/26, f.46. Blood to Secretary Jenkins, 18 July 1680.

59
   The prison, situated in Angel Place, off Borough High Street, had been rebuilt in Henry VIII's reign with a high brick wall enclosing a courtyard and buildings. This was demolished in 1761 after the completion of a new prison on a four-acre (1.62 hectare) site close to St George's Fields, Southwark.

60
   
CSP Domestic 1679–80
, p.568.
Newsletter to Roger Garstell, Newcastle, 22 July 1680.

61
   Bod. Lib. Rawlinson MSS A.185 (Pepys Papers), ff.473
r
–475 – Copy of notes from Blood's pocketbook.

62
   Bod. Lib. A.185, f.474
r
.

63
   Bod. Lib. A.185, ff. 473
r
–474
r
, entries 2, 5, 6, 16, 18, 21, 33, 39–43, 47–52, 54, 59, 67. The Bull's Head tavern was located between Maiden Lane and the Strand. It was pulled down in 1897 and replaced by the Nell Gwynne public house.

64
   Bod Lib. A.185, f.474
r
.

65
   Bod. Lib. A.185, f.473
v
–474
r
, entries 4–7, 10, 15–16, 21. See also Marshall,
Intelligence and Espionage
. . ., pp.198, 202, 204.

66
   TNA, PROB/11/364/248. Probate was granted on 4 November 1680.

67
   TNA PROB 4/5301. Inventory of Thomas Blood of the parish of St Margaret, Westminster, 7 May 1681.

68
   ‘Remarks . . .', pp.233–4.

69
   This was built in 1638–42 as a chapel of ease and burial ground for St Margaret's church, Westminster. It was demolished and replaced in the nineteenth century by a new church, Christchurch. This was destroyed by bombing in the 1941 London Blitz and the burial ground was converted into a public garden in 1950 at the junction of Broadway and Victoria Street and designated a conservation area in 1985. A monument commemorating the Suffragette Movement was erected in the gardens in 1970.

70
   ‘Remarks . . .', p.234.

71
   Chappell,
Roxburghe Ballads
, Ballad Society, vol. 6, pp.787–8.

72
   ‘Remarks . . .', pp.235 and 227.

EPILOGUE

1
     TNA, SP 29/417/207, f.443.

2
     Buckingham founded the Bilsdale Hunt in Yorkshire in 1668, reputedly the oldest hunt in England.

3
     ‘HoC
Jnls'
, vol. 10, p.280, 6 November 1678

4
     Firth (rev. Blair Warden), ‘Edmund Ludlow',
ODNB
, vol. 34, p.717.

5
     
Bod. Lib. MS English Letters C.53, f.131. P. Maddocks to Sir Robert Southwell, 14 November 1684.

6
     Diana, Princess of Wales, was one of his descendants.

7
     Marshall, ‘Henry Bennet, first earl of Arlington',
ODNB
, vol. 5, pp.101–5.

8
     Kenyon,
The Popish Plot
, p.155.

9
     Marshall, ‘Sir Joseph Williamson',
ODNB
, vol. 59, p.356.

10
   The anniversary of the accession of Protestant Elizabeth I to the throne of England in 1558 on the death of her Catholic half-sister Mary I.

11
   
CSP Domestic January–June 1683
, pp.66 and 104.

12
   Now known as Red Cross Way.