Blood, THOMAS

Blood, THOMAS, adventurer, was born in Ireland about 1618, and in the Great Rebellion sided with the parliament. Deprived of his estate at the Restoration, he put himself in 1663 at the head of a plot to seize Dublin Castle and Ormonde, the lord-lieutenant. On its discovery his chief accomplices were seized and executed; but he himself escaped to Holland, and was there received with high consideration. He soon found his way back to England to try what mischief might be brewed among the Fifth-Monarchy men; and thence proceeding to Scotland was present at the battle of Rullion Green (1666). On the night of 6th December 1670, the Duke of Ormonde was seized in his coach in St James's Street by a gang of braves, tied on horseback behind one of them, and hurried away towards Tyburn. The timely approach of his attendants at the moment when, in struggling with his riding-companion, he had succeeded in bringing him to the ground, probably saved the duke from hanging. Blood was the leader in this daring villainy. His next enterprise was still wilder and more dangerous. On 9th May 1671, disguised as a clergyman, with three accomplices he entered the Tower, determined to carry off the regalia. After nearly murdering the keeper of the jewels, he actually succeeded in getting off with the crown under his cloak, while one of his associates bore away the orb. They were pursued, however, seized, and committed to the Tower. Now came a singular turn of fortune. At the instigation of Buckingham, who was accused of having hired Blood to attack the Duke of Ormonde, King Charles visited the dauntless miscreant in prison, and, dreading the threat that there were hundreds of Blood's associates banded together by oath to avenge the death of any of the fraternity, pardoned him, took him to court, restored him his estate of £500 a year, and raised him so high in favour that for several years Colonel Blood was an influential medium of royal patronage. He quarrelled, however, with Buckingham, and was committed by the King's Bench on a charge of slander against him; he was bailed out, but died on 24th August 1680. See T. Seecombe's Lives of Twelve Bad Men (1896).