On May 9, 1671, five men stole the crown jewels from the Tower of London. The leader of the party, an experienced criminal dressed as an Anglican priest, grabbed the imperial state crown and used a wooden mallet to flatten its raised bows in order to fit it in a small bag. Another stashed the gold orb in his breeches. With the elderly keeper of the jewels lying on the floor—brutally beaten and stabbed—they would have had a clean escape, except that, with providential timing, the keeper’s son chose that moment to return home after ten years overseas. The criminal party hurried away to the sound of the rising hue and cry. What followed was a cinematic chase. When finally taken prisoner, the “priest” told his captor that “It was a gallant attempt, however unsuccessful! It was for the crown.”

This was not the first violent crime attempted by the Irish-born Colonel Thomas Blood (1618–1680). Under a variety of aliases, Blood had engaged in a series of intrigues against the restored Stuart monarchy, including attempts to capture Dublin Castle, to seize the city of Limerick, to foment an uprising in Scotland, and to assassinate both the Duke of Ormonde and the King himself. Blood gained renown throughout the kingdoms of England, Ireland, and Scotland for his violent adventures. Nevertheless—for reasons that baffled his contemporaries and later historians—instead of a death sentence, Blood received a royal pardon and a pension. Robert Hutchinson’s The Audacious Crimes of Colonel