The Audacious Crimes of Colonel Blood (5 page)

He went from Limerick with a vessel pretended for the discovery of a Brazil
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and under that shelter [cover] has been fitting with arms, ammunition, provisions [for] the two or three months past.
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Ormond continued to fear a fresh insurrection and was right to be cautious. By mid-April he knew the conspiracy to seize Dublin Castle had been resurrected by a wider and more capable group of conspirators. The news had come from a spy dispatched to Waterford, Kilkenny and Tipperary to act as an agent provocateur, pretending to recruit dissidents to the banner of rebellion. The agent, identified only by his initials ‘P.A.' (noted on his report by a recklessly careless Ormond), indicated that two army officers, Major Alexander Staples and a Colonel Wallace, had joined the plot.
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This time, the lord lieutenant decided to sit tight, allow the plot to come to fruition, and catch the conspirators red-handed.

Informing the king of this new danger, the lord lieutenant said the conspiracy involved ‘the same kind of people' as were responsible for the former. He believed it was a real threat because of
the ‘unusual meetings and preparations . . . about the same time in several parts of the kingdom'.
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Secretary Bennet, in response, inquired if Ormond had any new information about the plot and whether he could discover ‘any connections with England and Scotland . . . [where] there is certainly much combustible matter if a fire should ever break forth, from which God keep us'.
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Doubtless inflamed by his brother-in-law's incendiary polemics, Blood was deeply involved in the first plot – but the precise role he played remains ffustratingly opaque. During 1662, Blood was said to be active recruiting supporters amongst former parliamentary soldiers in Dublin
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and at Christmas that year he and William Leckie had journeyed north to Ulster to sow sedition amongst the Scottish Presbyterian settlers. Here he received some promises of support, with the Scots agreeing to ‘rise in arms and second the design of taking the castle'.
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The part he played in the revived conspiracy is rather more transparent. Although the informer Alden contemptuously plays down his role, dismissing ‘Lieutenant Blood' as merely an ‘agent [whom] they sent upon errands and not the chief of the rebels as generally reported to be',
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it is clear he was much more than just a humble messenger boy.

‘Thomas Blood of Sarney' heads the list of wanted men named in the government proclamation promulgated after the second plot unravelled, and Blood was supposedly the author of the rebels' declaration, printed for general distribution after the successful capture of both Ormond and Dublin Castle.
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He looms large in the accounts of the conspiracy given under interrogation, as he was to lead the assault on Dublin Castle and claimed, according to one informer, to have planned the coup d'état ‘for three-quarters of a year'.
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Mere mention of Blood's name was enough to send a cold shiver of apprehension down the spines of both the Irish and English governments in the months and years to come.

Vernon commented to Bennet that while the lord lieutenant had ‘nipped the last little design in the bud, there is now one in blooming which (if it take) he will be surer to gather it when it is full ripe, which will be in a short time'. At the heart of the conspiracy
was one Stephen Charnock, a former chaplain to Henry Cromwell, Parliament's lord deputy in Ireland for two years from 1657. Charnock, said Vernon,

was private, not stirring out of his lodging but on his coming and departure it's good to have an eye on him but by a very curious [careful] hand, lest he, finding himself suspected may cause a jealousy [hamper] upon our intelligence.

Government spies had established that this new conspiracy was part of a much more ambitious plan to overthrow the monarchy – with concurrent uprisings by radical nonconformists in England and Scotland. Charnock had

told the villains [plotters] that they were so hampered in England they could not stir ‘till the ice was broken here or in Scotland' (which is said to be very forward) and he assured them of £20,000 ready in [the] bank.

He proposed Henry Cromwell as . . . their general which was generally rejected.

The Scotch designers [plotters] seem to lean towards [establishing a new] Commonwealth and did not positively refuse Ludlow for their . . . captain.

In England, Vernon warned, there were ‘rich discontents' who had to be closely watched, ‘being there is so much money stirring and my Staffordshire intelligencer [spy] assured me they had notice from London that God had raised them up considerable friends beyond their expectation but at that time, the Lord's harvest was not ripe'.

I could say more, but it is unwise to do so without [using] a cypher. There are some postmasters on the road who are subtle fellows and have actually served as intelligencers and officers to the rebels.
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The Irish government imposed new security measures to counter the insurrection. On 4 May, two orders in council were signed. The first, designed to secure at least the temporary loyalty of royal troops, regulated military pay and organised the payment of arrears. The second directed ‘the return to his majesty's stores in Dublin and in various other cities and towns, of arms formerly taken from thence' – an administrative attempt to neutralise at least some of the weapons and munitions that had been stolen over the previous few months.
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Ormond was confident he had the measure of the plotters. ‘The design . . . ripens very fast and is very far spread, yet my greatest care is not to let the conspirators find they are discovered lest they desist' he told the king on 16 May.

I want evidence and matter sufficient to make examples of some of them . . . Nothing would contribute [more] to the future settlement and peace of this kingdom.

I do not doubt but that knowing what I do of their actions and intentions, I shall be able to resist and apprehend them in the very act of their attempting the castle . . .

The lord lieutenant assured Charles: ‘I would not have acted upon my own responsibility in this matter but that I cannot, in all probability, [because of slow communications] have your directions. God preserve your majesty's person and government from this wicked generation.'
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Three days later, he instructed the governors of Carrickfergus, Derry and Galway to search diligently for conspirators and take action to secure the loyalty and security of their garrisons.
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Matters were now coming to a head.

That same day, Colonel Alexander Jephson, MP for Trim in Co. Meath, had approached Sir Theophilius Jones at his home in Lucan, eight miles (13 km) south of Dublin, with an incredible offer. Jones, a former governor of Dublin under the Protectorate and, since 1661, scoutmaster
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of Ireland, had a case set down for hearing by the reviled Court of Claims.

Jephson's horse had cast a shoe and while the two awaited its re-shoeing at a nearby blacksmith's forge, Jones had invited his visitor into his home. In the buttery, a tankard of ale, a bottle of cider and a plate of meat were ordered up and, as they awaited these refreshments, Jephson laid his hand ‘on a large sword which he had by his side'.

He said he had not worn that sword for thirteen years before and had made his will and left his wife and thirteen children behind him and was going to Dublin where . . . he and many more men were resolved to adventure their lives and they . . . doubted not to secure the English interest.

They were assured of the castle[s] of Dublin and Limerick, Waterford and Clonmell.

Jones, doubtless open-mouthed at this revelation, could only stammer out that this ‘seemed a very high undertaking' and required ‘many weighty considerations for effecting it, particularly a good army and money to maintain it'. Jephson assured him there was no problem there.

We want not an army, for there are 15,000 Scots excommunicated in the north by the Bishop of Down and the rest of the bishops, which were ready within two days and they doubted not that our army would join with them.

And they had a bank of money in Dublin sufficient to pay off all the arrears of money both in Oliver's [Cromwell] time and since the king came in.

Naturally, Jones asked him where all this cash had come from.

He did not know from whence the bank of money should come, if not from Holland and that he [saw] three or four firkins [casks containing cash] carried into Mr Boyd's house and he himself could carry out of the bank £500 tomorrow.

Jephson threw all caution aside and revealed more details of the plot to an incredulous Jones.

There were 1,000 horse [cavalry] in Dublin . . . which Sir Henry Ingoldesby was to appear with as soon as the castle was taken and a flag put up.

They intended to offer no violence to any [who] . . . opposed them. That the lord lieutenant was to be seized . . . but to be civilly treated. That several other persons were to be secured and Jephson was to seize the Earl of Clancarty
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and Col. Fitzpatrick. Every party had particular orders to surprise all of the guards in the city.

Six ministers in Dublin who went about in periwigs but laid them by when they were in prayer . . . were to be in the street to see that no plunder or disorder should be committed.

This was to be a godly rebellion then. Thousands of copies of a declaration had been printed ready for distribution after Dublin Castle and the city had been taken. These would set out the manifesto for the uprising: securing the ‘English interest' in the three kingdoms (which had been ruined by ‘the countenance given to popery'); restoration of all the estates in Ireland possessed by the English on 7 May 1659 and re-establishment of the church along the nonconformist principles of the Solemn League and Covenant. There was no suggestion of a return to a republic.

Jephson, carried away by his own enthusiasm, even rashly disclosed the rebels' passwords: ‘For the king and English interest'.

What of that offer to Sir Theophilius Jones? Jephson promised him that after capturing Dublin, he would become the commander of the rebels' ‘20,000-strong army'. There was no risk, he added:

[He] should run no hazard in it but might sit still and not appear until the whole work was done.

There were two amongst the conspirators who did not trust Jones, the colonel told him, believing him to be ‘too great a creature of the
Duke's [Ormond] . . . but these [views did] not prevail', all the rest being for the good knight.
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After Jephson rode back to Dublin, cock-a-hoop that the rebels had a commander-in-chief in waiting, Jones began to worry that there were elements of self-delusion in those wild claims of support. He wrote down a detailed account of this seditious conversation and, in fulfilment of the beliefs of the doubting Thomases amongst the conspirators, early the following morning revealed everything to Ormond.

That night, 20 May, three nonconformist ministers met in Dublin to seek God's blessing on the enterprise.

Blood was staying at the Bottle Inn near the city's St Patrick's Gate. Together with his brother-in-law, William Leckie, he and two other plotters, Lieutenant Richard Thompson (deputy provost-marshall for Leinster) and James Tanner (a Dubliner who was formerly a clerk to Henry Cromwell's secretary) met at the White Hart, further along Patrick Street, to finalise the arrangements for the coup. After their meal ended, they were joined by Jephson, two men from his Trim constituency called Ford and Lawrence, and a Captain Browne.

The remaining conspirator who attended this cosy gathering was the informer Philip Alden.

Over the preceding days there had been much acrimonious debate about whether to kill Ormond or merely to take him hostage. Some maintained that the lord lieutenant had been ‘a great patron to the English and the Protestant religion' and therefore should be spared. The more ruthless among them countered that Ormond was unwaveringly loyal to the king and ‘his interest in the kingdom and the army' was so strong that, if spared assassination, ‘[at] one time or another he would prevail against them'. Their arguments prevailed and the plotters finally agreed to kill him after the castle had been stormed.
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Lawrence urged them to strike now, even though they only had ten cavalrymen at their disposal instead of the 120 planned – or the 1,000 horse that Jephson had earlier boasted of.
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Later, Alden reported:

It was resolved by the confederates not to stay [delay] longer (having greater numbers with their arms, garrisons and towns as they gave out and believed) to second them in that country, in Scotland and England, but the next morning to surprise the castle of Dublin and afterwards to march northwards to join the Scots.

The plan was simple. Six men, including a Dublin shoemaker called Jenkins, would enter the castle about six o'clock the following morning by its Great Gate, disguised as petitioners, exercising their ancient right to seek redress from the lord lieutenant for legal wrongs done them. They would walk to the back gate leading from Ship Street (or Sheep Street as it was known then) and await the arrival of a delivery of bread. The baker would drop his basket of loaves and, in the confusion, the sentinels at the gate would be overpowered.

Blood and about one hundred former parliamentary officers and soldiers would then sweep into the castle, capture it and seize Ormond. He apparently had no intention of killing the viceroy. Lord Dungannon's troop of soldiers would be lured away by men commanded by one Crawford. William Warren, brother of Colonel Abel Warren, would recruit some of the cavalry at Trim, lately under Sir Thomas Armstrong's command.
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Once the castle and its arsenal of weapons had been secured – indicated by a flag being hoisted on its highest tower – rebel cavalry would patrol the city streets, dispersing any bands of loyal soldiers they encountered. The nonconformist ministers would use their godly influence to prevent any looting in Dublin. Then the insurgents, reinforced by others rallying to the Protestant flag, would head north to Ulster to join up with a hastily recruited army of Scots settlers, and so sweep on to a glorious victory over the Irish government and the papists.