corundum, quality.9, spinel, gems

Abbott recounts the extraordinary career of Colonel Thomas Blood (1618–1680), the Anglo-Irish adventurer best remembered for his attempted theft of the English Crown Jewels from the Tower of London in 1671. After reviewing Blood’s involvement in political and religious intrigues following the Restoration, Abbott describes the elaborate plot in which Blood, disguised as a clergyman, cultivated the acquaintance of Talbot Edwards, keeper of the jewels, and gained access to the Jewel House with several accomplices. During the robbery the elderly Edwards was struck, bound, and stabbed, while Blood seized St. Edward’s Crown and attempted to flatten it with a mallet so that it could be concealed beneath his clothing; his companions took the sceptre and orb. The thieves were interrupted and captured before escaping from the Tower. Most remarkably, Blood subsequently obtained a personal audience with Charles II, received a royal pardon, and was granted an Irish estate worth £500 annually. Abbott examines the circumstances surrounding this extraordinary clemency and the persistent suspicion that Blood possessed political connections or information that made prosecution inconvenient, while presenting the attempted theft of the Crown Jewels as the culminating episode in a career characterized by conspiracy, violence, audacity, and intrigue.