The Audacious Crimes of Colonel Blood (13 page)

Certainly Blood, or Morton, failed in his mission to escort Ludlow to Paris. The parliamentary general was not impressed by Blood when he and John Phelps talked to him in Lausanne and anyway he was wary of travelling as he had heard of ‘several persons sent out of England to destroy the friends wheresoever they may be met with', according to his intercepted letter.
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Doubtless the assassination of the regicide John Lisle by three Royalist agents in a churchyard at Lausanne almost two years before was also still fresh in his memory. Nor did Ludlow trust the Dutch, pointing to the arrest of the three regicides Miles Corbet, John Barkstead and John Okey in the Netherlands by Sir George Downing, the English ambassador there, in 1661.
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This, said Ludlow, was ‘an act of treachery and bloodguilt' for which the Dutch should repent ‘before God's servants could join with them'.

After much ‘heart-searching',
Ludlow refused to budge from the anonymous safety of Switzerland. Blood was equally unimpressed by the republican hero, believing him ‘very unable for such an employment' and much more interested in ‘writing a history as he called it'.
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Meanwhile Arlington, focusing on the problems of the naval war against the Dutch, was slow off the mark to appreciate the dangers of new unrest in Ireland. He warned Ormond the following August that Blood ‘and other notorious conspirators would resort' to Ireland, with the aim of spreading sedition throughout the ranks of the militia. ‘Some of my informers have offered to go to Ireland', he added, but, perhaps believing that local knowledge paid the best dividends, declined to send them, unless Ormond specifically asked for assistance.
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Williamson had received intelligence from one of his spies, Captain John Grice, a former parliamentary agent, who also reported that Blood and Captain Roger Jones (the infamous ‘Mene Teke') had ‘gone to Ireland . . . to do mischief'.
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Grice had generously offered his services to arrest them, suggesting that a good man to detain would be the innkeeper of the Black Boy at Oxmantown, ‘who will know [of] any plot in Ireland'.
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Although the adventurer had returned to London from Europe in the early summer of 1666,
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Orrery, attending the lord lieutenant on a progress through the province of Munster that September, was convinced of Blood's permanent presence in Ireland. Accordingly, he had ‘put all the province on their guard in case of disturbance. Those who are in arms here are of one mind in their loyalty', he assured Arlington.
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One spy told Sir George Lane that ‘John Breten in Bride's Alley [Dublin] a tobacco man [and] one Johnson, a shoemaker in St Patrick's Street' would know where the fugitives were.

The man that keeps the Black Boy [tavern] in Oxmantown in [north] Dublin . . . [this] was the place where Blood lay. It had his horses or [he] caused them to be brought [to] him that morning that he made his escape from Dublin.

The man's name
I have forgotten but you may find him out for his wife is blind.
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Like the ‘Scarlet Pimpernel' of another era, Blood was seemingly here, there and everywhere. He was accused of starting the Great Fire of London, which began about one o'clock in the morning of 2 September 1666 in the bakery of Thomas Farriner in Pudding Lane and went on to consume most of the medieval city before it burned out three days later.
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‘Divers strangers, Dutch and French were during the fire apprehended upon suspicion that they contributed mischievously to it who are all imprisoned', reported the
London Gazette
at the time.
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Much later, Israel Tonge, the unhinged confederate of the rabid anti-papist Titus Oates, suggested that Blood had a ‘share' in starting the fire and claimed it was a ‘Popish-French Louvestin [Republican] plot, Blood being the agent for the latter'.
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Another culprit, named in a letter to Charles II, was Captain John Mason. These all proved to be idle allegations. Williamson published a memorandum which concluded that ‘after many examinations by . . . his majesty's ministers, nothing has been found to argue [that] the fire in London [was] caused by other than the hand of God, a great wind and a very dry season'.
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Amid the chaos and destruction caused by the Great Fire, Arlington reported to Sir George Lane on 6 September that Blood had been reported in Lancashire but had travelled to London and came near to arrest after the fire had broken out.
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Five weeks later, Arlington had changed his mind about strengthening the intelligence network in Ireland, dispatching his own agents (Leving and later his fellow spy William Freer, or Fryer) to Dublin. Leving was armed with another letter of protection to show to the lord lieutenant: ‘The bearer of this letter is sent into Ireland to endeavour to take Blood and his conspirators. His true name is Ward but he goes by the name of Williams.'
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The spymaster was being cautious about the identity of his agent, using two separate aliases for Leving.

It is particularly difficult for an agent to operate in the strange environment of a different country. Who you know, after all, is
more important than what you know. Leving, however, managed to infiltrate the Presbyterian community in Ulster, delivering ‘information concerning Blood and other conspirators who are fled from Ireland' to Ormond on 16 November.
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He and Freer spent ten weeks in Ireland before returning to England in December. Lev-ing's last message from Ireland regretted that he had not detained Blood or ‘Mene Teke' in Ireland. He had, however, met several of their acquaintances and had passed on the intelligence he had gained from them to Ormond.
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Meanwhile, in Scotland, one Presbyterian rebellion had actually come to pass. Although seemingly unpremeditated – it was triggered on 13 November 1666 by soldiers bullying an old man in Dalry, Kirkcudbrightshire, about his unpaid fines for not attending authorised church services – there had been signs that an insurrection was already being planned. Four townsmen rescued the victim, shooting a corporal in the stomach and disarming four other soldiers. As feelings rose, 200 men rode to Dumfries and kidnapped Sir James Turner, the local military commander (still wearing his nightgown and feeling ‘indisposed') and shamefully disarmed his two infantry companies, before throwing them into prison.
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From there, the rebellion escalated rapidly, with the rebel force growing to about 2000-strong. The rebels maintained steadfastly their loyalty to Charles II, yet demanded the end of episcopal rule in the Church in Scotland, a restoration of Presbyterianism and that deprived ministers should be returned their livings.
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Three days later, the Scottish Privy Council mobilised its forces under Lieutenant General Thomas Dalziel. It was wary of support for the rebels from a ‘fifth column' of collaborators, so in the Scottish capital of Edinburgh security was tightened at the gates, the night watch reinforced and the militia ordered to swear an oath of allegiance to the government in London.
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On the morning of 28 November, the rebels, depleted by desertion to just over 1,000, fought Dalziel's troops at Rullion Green, seven miles (11.3 km) from Edinburgh. They defended a snow-covered hilltop position, and despite fighting desperately were defeated at sunset after three charges by government troops. About fifty rebels were killed and
120 captured in the night pursuit that followed.
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One of those killed was the minister Andrew McCormack, Blood's fellow conspirator in the Dublin Castle plot.
¹⁰²

Evidence for Blood's involvement in the Pentland uprising is scant. Viscount Conway was told of his role there by Charles II himself soon after its defeat and Orrery also informed Ormond of Blood's participation, based on information received from Arlington.
¹⁰³
An almost contemporary report from Sir Philip Musgrave,
custos rotulorum
of Westmorland, in April 1667 mentioned ‘one Blood, who was among the Scotch rebels last winter and in last year's insurrection in Ireland'. He had been spotted in Westmoreland ‘at a rigid Anabaptist's [house] with whom he corresponds'. More recent authorities maintain that he was present when the Presbyterian forces were routed but escaped unharmed.
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Strange then that Blood's name does not appear on the government list naming the Scottish rebels' leaders.

Warrants for his arrest were issued in London on 19 January 1667
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and on 2 March – the latter granted to Leving, permitting him to seize Blood, Timothy Butler, Captain Lockyer and others together with ‘any instruments of war that may be in the places where they are seized'. The prisoners had to be brought to Arlington for interrogation if arrested in London or Westminster, ‘or in the country, before the nearest deputy lieutenant or justice of the peace'.
¹⁰⁶
But the bird had apparently flown from the capital. On 21 January, Grice reported Blood in his old stomping ground of Lancashire, living ‘about Warrington or Manchester' under the name of ‘Allen' or ‘Groves'. He planned to remain in the area until the end of February.
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Blood had had enough. He decided to withdraw from the dangerous world of espionage. Casting around for a more ‘safe and quiet way to get a livelihood' he made the bizarre decision to become a doctor, practising at Romford, Essex, under the assumed name of ‘Ayliff'. Without any medical qualifications, one wonders what became of his patients. His wife Mary and his eldest son, Thomas, were sent to live in an apothecary's shop in Shoreditch, north of London, where they changed their name to Weston.
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Aside from his own charlatan medical practice, Blood had suddenly become a law-abiding citizen.

But his apothecary's hat and gown were merely another cover to mask his true activities. His greatest adventures were yet before him.

4

A Friend in Need

Two of the soldiers . . . singled [Blood] out
and drove him into a courtyard where he made a stand, his sword in one hand and his pistol in the other.

Remarks on the Life and Death of the fam'd Mr Blood
¹

The government's secret service was slowly but surely closing in on the devout conspirators. One of its spies, Captain William Leving, alias Leonard Williams, requested another warrant from Williamson on 28 February 1667 for the arrest of fifteen ringleaders of a new plot against the government. These included Colonel Henry Danvers, Captain John Lockyer, Timothy Butler, Ralph Alexander and Majors Blood and Lee. Our adventurer had promoted himself again.
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Every attempt to capture the revolutionaries failed, however.

Espionage was never a very lucrative trade in the late seventeenth century. Though the work was, by definition, highly dangerous, the recompense was frequently less than generous. Moreover, the embryo intelligence service was sometimes slipshod in making the regular payments promised to its agents. Leving therefore always seemed painfully short of money.
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To bolster his uncertain income, he was compelled to become a part-time highwayman, initially in Leicestershire and then in the green hills and dales around Leeds, Yorkshire, partnered by his fellow informer, the equally impecunious William Freer.

Leving's new career of holding up and robbing coaches and horsemen at pistol point proved less than successful. His victims may have stood but rarely did they deliver. He was soon apprehended by
the local constables and on 18 May 1667 found himself in a dirty, rat-infested cell in York Castle.
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Freer managed to evade capture and went to ground in Leeds.
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A crumpled piece of paper, bearing a ‘warrant for passing on the king's affairs' – his ‘get-out-of-jail card' – was discovered in the pocket of Leving's coat and revealed his true identity and occupation to the startled authorities.
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Unfortunately it did not work. Arlington had other plans for his hapless spy.

Leving was taken to London and thrown into the city's Newgate prison. From there he wrote a plaintive letter to Arlington on 11 July, explaining how he had unwittingly fallen into a life of crime. It was a familiar story of an innocent abroad, easily influenced by hard-drinking criminals who made glib promises of easy earnings:

Being without hopes of employment, I went to visit some friends in Leicestershire . . . [but] fell into ill company and offended, but did not hurt any man's person and thus got into prison.

Always anxious to demonstrate his worth to Arlington, Leving added that while locked up in York Castle he had not been idle. The spy had met ‘a person of good descent and estate who is willing to lay aside his business and be the king's agent, not from fear or necessity but conscience'. Leving boasted: ‘He can discover any treachery and either foreign or domestic conspiracy.'
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