The morning Colonel Blood stole the crown

In the 1670s the Crown Jewels were kept in the Martin Tower and shown to visitors, for a fee, by their elderly keeper Talbot Edwards. An Irish adventurer calling himself Colonel Blood spent weeks befriending Edwards in the guise of a clergyman. On the morning of 9 May 1671 he returned with accomplices, overpowered the old man, crushed the crown flat with a mallet to hide it under his cloak, stuffed the orb into a companion's breeches and tried to saw the sceptre in half. Edwards' son arrived home unexpectedly, the alarm went up and the gang was caught at the gate after a running fight. Blood refused to speak to anyone but the king. Charles II saw him, pardoned him and granted him Irish estates worth £500 a year. Why has never been explained.

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In 1671 the Crown Jewels had been at the Tower for only a decade. The medieval regalia had been sold off or melted down by Parliament after Charles I’s execution, and a new set had been made in a hurry for Charles II’s coronation in 1661. They were kept on the ground floor of the Martin Tower, in a cupboard behind a grille, in the care of a seventy-seven-year-old keeper called Talbot Edwards, who lived upstairs with his family and supplemented his unpaid position by showing the jewels to visitors for a tip.

That spring a clergyman began to call. He was courteous, he was interested, he brought his wife, who was taken ill and nursed by Mrs Edwards. Over several visits the parson grew close to the family and proposed a match between the Edwards’ daughter and a well-off nephew of his. A day was fixed for the nephew to come and meet her.

The parson was Thomas Blood, an Irish-born adventurer who had fought for Parliament, lost his lands at the Restoration, and spent the years since in plots, including an attempt to kidnap the Duke of Ormond in the street. “Colonel” was a rank he had given himself.

Nine o’clock, 9 May

Blood arrived early on the morning of 9 May with three companions, explaining that the nephew was on his way and asking whether, while they waited, his friends might see the jewels. Edwards let them into the room and closed the door as usual. He was struck down with a mallet, stabbed when he struggled, and gagged.

They had planned for the awkward shapes. The crown was hammered flat with the mallet so that it would fit under Blood’s cloak. The orb went down the breeches of one accomplice. The sceptre was too long and they set about sawing it in two. At that moment Edwards’ son, a soldier, came home unexpectedly from service abroad, and Edwards, who was not as dead as they thought, got his gag free and shouted “Treason! Murder!” His daughter ran out raising the alarm.

The gang fled across the inner ward, through the Byward gate and along the wharf, firing at the guards who chased them, and were brought down near the Iron Gate at the wharf’s east end with the flattened crown still under Blood’s arm. He reportedly said, as he was seized, that it had been a gallant attempt, however unsuccessful.

The king’s decision

Blood refused to answer questions from anyone but the king himself, and, remarkably, the king agreed. Charles II interviewed him, and instead of the traitor’s death that followed such a crime, Blood was pardoned, released, and given Irish estates worth £500 a year. He became a familiar figure at court for the rest of his life.

Nobody has ever satisfactorily explained it. Some suggest Blood was already useful to the government as an informer among the republican underground; some point to his possible patron, the Duke of Buckingham; some simply credit the king’s taste for a rogue. Talbot Edwards, who had defended the jewels with his life, was promised a reward that arrived late and in part. He died in 1674.

The regalia were repaired, the sceptre re-joined, and security improved. Visitors today see them through armoured glass from a moving walkway. The empty crown frames in the Martin Tower are the closest you can get to the room as it was that morning.