Latest / Ridiculous History / Colonel Blood and the Theft of the Crown Jewels

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Colonel Blood and the Theft of the Crown Jewels · Ridiculous History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you so much for
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: tuning in to another heist episode. Yeah, well, what do
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: you have those Oceans eleven movies? Man? You know, heist
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: films are divisive, but I love the formula. They are formulaic,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: you know. And you're a big fan of the whole
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: ensemble of a heist crew, aren't you. That's the thing
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: you're asking new friends. You're like, who would you want
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: to be? And I always say the bag Man, even
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: though I don't really know what the bag Man does?
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Sounds like a cool title. Who would you be? Ben?
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Do you? Did you even go so far as to
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: cast yourself or just something you just ask of others?
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: I'm null, by the way, your null. My name is
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Ben Bullen, and I typically ask people just to keep
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Partly it's a way to get to know people, but
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: also it's a way to know in advance what someone
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: feels their set of skills would be. In case you're
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: ever in this situation. I've of course asked our super
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: producer Casey Pegram what his heist position would be. But
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: you know what, maybe we should ask just while we're here,
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: since we're all film buffs, Casey, what do you think
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: of heist films in general? I think it's great anytime
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: you have like a solid genre grounding like that and
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: you can just fill it up with like interesting, cool,
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: funny people or whatever, like The Oceans movies. I think
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  Speaker 1: it's a blast. So I'm I'm in favor of Casey
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: on the case. I agree it's nice to have the
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: predetermined steaks set up and then everything else is just
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: sort of like built around that. Um so everyone's got
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: a job to do. There's sometimes disagreements, there's all kinds
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: of thumps in the road that happened along the way,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: and then you've got the are they going to pull
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: it off or not? Steaks in place. Today's episode is
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: more about an individual, less about a crew. It is
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: one of my personal favorite names in historical uh confidence men. Yeah,
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: and there is a crew involved at some point at
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: some point. Yes, Today we're exploring the strange story of
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  Speaker 1: Colonel Thomas Blood and the Crown Jewels. Was his crew
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: called the blood Boys? How are the blood Bags? You know? Uh,
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: you know, they had a couple of different names for crews.
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  Speaker 1: He ran in because as we will learn, Thomas Blood's
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: life involved messing with a lot of strange, controversial, dare
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: I say, disreputable groups at times. So what do we
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  Speaker 1: know about this Thomas Blood guy. Well, I'll tell you
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  Speaker 1: one thing we do know. Um. You know when people say, oh,
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: the crown jewels of something, Oh, that's the crown jewels
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: of cars, or the crown jewels of you know, gold
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: bars or whatever of vinyl hammer pants exactly, well, how
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: about stealing the actual crown jewels of the crown jewels. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: And that is what our boy, Colonel Blood had his
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  Speaker 1: sights set on. Um. We will get to that. That
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: was kind of his uh, his coup de gras, but
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: it took him a long time to get to that.
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  Speaker 1: He was born um an Irishman in County Meath in
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  Speaker 1: sixteen eighteen. His father was a blacksmith of some note.
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  Speaker 1: Uh and he you know it was. It was a
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  Speaker 1: pretty I wouldn't say wealthy family, but upper middle class,
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  Speaker 1: solidly upper upper middle class merchant class. Yeah. And he
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  Speaker 1: was also well connected. He had a grandfather who lived
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  Speaker 1: in Oh boy, the folks from Ireland go ahead, shred
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: us in advance. But maybe it's entirely wrong. Who knows,
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: I never know what these things killing the boy Castle.
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  Speaker 1: He lived in a castle as grandfather did, and was
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: actually a member of Parliament. And the English Civil War
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  Speaker 1: broke out in sixteen forty two. This is when Blood,
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: who is not yet a colonel story in and of itself.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: This is when Blood came to England and he wanted
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  Speaker 1: to fight for Charles the First But as soon as
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: he figured out that Cromwell was gonna win, he flipped.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: He switched sides. He joined the round Heads because he
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  Speaker 1: wanted to be He wanted to be on the successful
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: side of history. Plus they had the better haircuts they
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: had the rounder Heads. In sixty eight he married a
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  Speaker 1: Miss Holecroft in Lancashire, and shortly after that he went
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  Speaker 1: back to Ireland. He had become an officer in the
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: Cromwellian Army, and instead of getting paid for his service
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  Speaker 1: in the army, he said, just give me grants of
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  Speaker 1: land and let me, you know, become a member of
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  Speaker 1: the landed gentry. People suspect today that he was involved
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  Speaker 1: in some sort of espionage during the Civil War, but
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  Speaker 1: you know, that's still kind of a rumor anyhow, Charles
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  Speaker 1: the First is defeated sixteen fifty three, Blood becomes a
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: Justice of the Peace and he gets what he wanted.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: He gets that large estate for a little while, just
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: as to the peace, being something of like a notary
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: or a junior judge exactly. Yeah, so not exactly a
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  Speaker 1: super high position, but still working his way up. Right. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: it's a good government job. You've gotten a state. Things
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: are looking pretty good for our pal Tommy Blood. I
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: like that nickname. I mean he was Tommy Blood for
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: a while. It feels like a nineteen eighties hair metal
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: band and shortened to t Blood and make it sort
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: of early two thousand's rap name. And then we would
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: figure out what his mid auts mid auts, Yeah, his
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: two thousand tens name would be, because that's when we
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: get into the litl or the young Yes, that's right.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: Uh huh, yeah that's true, young Blood. It's been done. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: it's a shame, it's all been done. Ben Young Tommy
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  Speaker 1: a little Tommy Blood. Oh anyway, so he's a Justice
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  Speaker 1: of the peace. Things are looking up for uh, Tommy Blood.
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  Speaker 1: Charles the Second returns the throne in sixteen sixty and
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  Speaker 1: our boy Blood loses all of his lands he loses
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  Speaker 1: his estate, he flees to Ireland with his wife and son.
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  Speaker 1: Is this because he found himself on the wrong side
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  Speaker 1: of history? And this in this case exactly so. In
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  Speaker 1: sixteen sixty three he developed a plot to kidnap a
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  Speaker 1: man by the name of James Butler a k a.
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  Speaker 1: The Duke of ormond Um who was Lord Lieutenant of
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: Ireland and lived in a castle, Dublin Castle, to be precise, Casey,
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: can we get just a little bit of your favorite
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: light heist music. This is his first provable heist, so
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: we have the espionage rumor. But as we say, the
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: Duke of Mormond is his first documented heist. Okay, so
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  Speaker 1: got our heist music playing. Here's what happened. He donned
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  Speaker 1: some sort of disguise. He gets his crew together and
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: they try to force their way into the castle in
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  Speaker 1: this disguise. But of course, like every Hight film, something
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: goes wrong, somebody goes awry. Um, they were found out,
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  Speaker 1: somebody snitched, somebody left the badgers out of the bag,
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  Speaker 1: as Ben would say, and um, everyone except blood uh
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: likely because he turned tail and ran Um was were arrested. Uh.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: And there was some really I love it this, that's
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  Speaker 1: how his reads like stock characters and murder mystery. Two
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  Speaker 1: of the known disguises in question were the Quaker and
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: the priest. Right because as he is high tailing and
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: the rest of the gang, including his brother or brother
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  Speaker 1: in law Lackey, are getting arrested blood dress as a
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  Speaker 1: Quaker that his brother in law's name is Lackey. Uh yeah,
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  Speaker 1: l A c K I E was a different time,
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  Speaker 1: so no, no, but but A Lackey on the right,
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  Speaker 1: and his sister Minion was probably there as well, exactly
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  Speaker 1: en Henchmen. Uh So he is running away, he dresses
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  Speaker 1: up first as a Quaker, and then he changes it
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  Speaker 1: and dresses as a priest while he's escaped being to Holland,
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  Speaker 1: and he he hides out in Holland. I'm picturing something
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  Speaker 1: very similar to the film in Bruges, right they had to.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: It's a fantastic uh crime movie where two kind of
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  Speaker 1: on the lamb criminals end up hiding out in a
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: very idyllic little town in Bruce in Belgium. Yeah. And
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: actually Casey and I almost I think we almost ran
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: into each other in Brussels, is that correct? We literally
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: stayed around the corner from each other, like not not
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: you know, figuratively around the corner, like actually on the map,
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  Speaker 1: around the corner, within a day or two of each other.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: I was there to see a Stereo lab concert and
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: uh I was only there for like a couple of nights,
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  Speaker 1: maybe just one night, and uh yeah. After I got back,
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: I was like, where did you stay? And looked it
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: up on the map. I was like, oh my god,
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  Speaker 1: we were literally next door to each other. So that's
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: our shout out to Belgium. It's a lovely place to
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: check it out. Check out the Comic Strip Museum, but
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: be ready for some problematic art. Anyhow, Colonel Blood's not there.
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  Speaker 1: He's in Holland because he has a price on his head.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: In England, his brother that we mentioned, Lackey, was tried, convicted,
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  Speaker 1: and executed on the charge of high treason cheeze. And
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  Speaker 1: what were they what were they after they were forcing
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  Speaker 1: their way into this castle, they were just gonna kidnap
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  Speaker 1: this guy for a ransom, presumably, yeah, presumably for a ransom.
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  Speaker 1: And this is strange because we see that Blood, Thomas
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  Speaker 1: Blood has a lot of different links. Remember how at
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  Speaker 1: the top of the show we said that he rolled
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: with a couple of different crazy controversial groups. Right. He
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: was involved with a lot of groups who were a
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: hostile to the government, even though he was also working
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: at different times for the government. So he was almost
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: like it's like a secret anarchist trying to bring down
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: the system from within. Yeah, you know, Yeah, he's like
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  Speaker 1: a double agent. His whole life is a series of
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: decisions to go whichever way the wind leads him, you
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: know what I mean. He's very much self centered. He's
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: very much trying to get ahead. I don't think he
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  Speaker 1: has a lot of deep sea did a loyalty. He'll
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: switch sides when needed. He's opportunistic. He eventually returns to England,
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: even though there is a bounty on his head, and
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: he gets a new name. Uh, and he says that
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: he's a doctor, and he begins practicing medicine. His new
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: name is a real mouthful A loaf, I loaf. A
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: loaf would be a good rap name, yet it would
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  Speaker 1: You got t blood and a loaf, a y l
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: O F f EF maybe a loaf? Yeah, when nationality
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: do you think that is? After checking out a little
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: bit of the etymology here, it's not certain that's a
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: very disappointing outcome then it is, but you know that
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: helps him with his man of mystery bit that he's doing.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: Although I don't really want a mysterious doctor. If I
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: go to a doctor, I want them to be pretty transparent. Absolutely,
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: you want a good paper trail. Yeah, I like doctors
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: with documents. Well, what happens next? What happens after he
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: returns to England? Uh, Purporting to be a doctor, he
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: goes for the Duke of Ormond to get in Like
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: he didn't learn his lesson, Like the guy can't. He's
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: incorrigibles as a as a as a nineteen thirties mother
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: might say to a child, um, exactly, Yeah. He real
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: goes for the same heighst a second time, the one
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: that got his brother executed or by some accounts, brother
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: in law. Um, but yeah, that's it's it's insane. It's
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: in sixteen seventy Colonel Blood comes back around this time.
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  Speaker 1: He has a plan to hang the Duke. This time
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  Speaker 1: it's personal that that must be it. It's almost maybe
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  Speaker 1: for revenge. Now that now that you've killed my brother
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: because he tried to kidnap, you prepared to die. So
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: he goes for him. He actually goes gunning for him,
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  Speaker 1: most literally with a pistol and Uh. He takes a
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: shot at him, but he's he's pulled from the jaws
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: of death at the last minute Um and escapes unscathed.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: This is another interesting little detail because we start getting
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: some conflicting stories like is he an assassin at this point?
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: Is he in it for the money? There is an
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: account that says that claims that he was actually acting
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: on orders from George Viller's who was the second Duke
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: of Buckingham. So it's possible that there was some duke
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: beefs going on here and that our boy, Colonel Blood
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: was just kind of caught in the middle of it,
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: obviously for some money. But the Duke of Ormond's son
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: accused Villier uh, the second Duke of Buckingham, of employing
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: Blood to perpetrate this kidnapping and an attempt on his life. Uh.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: And that it's believed by some historians that Blood was also,
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: as you conjectured, ben Um, acting in pure revenge. Um.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: That that that sweet sweet dish that is best served
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: cold apparently, Uh. And for the murder of his brother
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: and the way his gang got completely screwed over. But again,
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: you know, like he had it coming. He did it
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: to himself. What is he like blaming the guy for
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: protecting himself, you know when he's uh, he's literally attacking
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: him and um trying to steal him way. It's a
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: little you know, it's that kind of thief mentality, you know,
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: where it's like no honor among thieves and all that, right,
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: or you know, I should do whatever I want, but
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: if other people have a problem with it, they're automatically jerks.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: We should point out we're getting a lot of this
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: information from a great right up from the Claire County Library,
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: So do support your local library, please do. And then
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: they offer a final possibility, which is even more political,
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: is that he was planning on holding the Duke Um
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: hostage until he agreed to restore the lands that were
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: stripped from him when King Charles the Second came into power.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: That's right, and all of these may you know. The
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: thing that's interesting about all these guesses is none of
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: them are mutually exclusive. We said he was born in
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: sixteen eighteen. What what it interested me about this second
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: heist case? I hope the music was playing during the
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: psychnised Uh is that do in this time he's fifty
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: two years old, it's sixteen seventy. Is born sixteen eighteen.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: And now we get to the real the Crown Jewel
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: of the story, which in this case is about the
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: Crown Jewels, because just like any good heist film, Tommy
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: Blood says he's going to do one last job, last job.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, up to this point, it doesn't
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: sound like he's had much success. Uh well, maybe, you know,
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: I admit, maybe we are cherry picking a little bit
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: of his less successful things. But the Duke of Ormond
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: keeps getting away, you know what I mean, that's his roadrunner.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: He's got a wildly coyote thing going on with that guy. Yeah,
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: and much like wildly coyote, you know, on the trick
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: is when you step off the cliff, you don't look
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: down right. I don't know how that applies here, but
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: it's just something I always think it is worth mentioning.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: It's a good metaphor for life. Yeah, yeah, that's so.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: I mentioned it in the Salvador Dolly episode, which has
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: not come out yet. You did, indeed, I did. Oh,
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: we're jumping around their time. People will find out, uh, Yes,
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: check out our check out our two part episode on Solvador,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: Dolli and Disney that's coming out. It's a doozy. We
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: just plugged our own show in the middle of our show. Yeah,
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: but it's a good two parter for the holidays. It'll
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: get you through. It's a fun one. It's a story
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: that I need nothing about, and keep a lookout for it.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: It's got some multimedia aspects I think we'll be rewarding.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: Let's pause for a second, because there is another crucial
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: ingredient to any good heist. What's that been. It's a
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: good meal beforehand, a healthy meal. You gotta be well
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: fed with fresh, healthy ingredients to give you the energy
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: you need to pull off these kind of elaborate crimes. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
• 15:44
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  Speaker 1: not spelled out. So here we are one last job.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: Tommy Blood decides he's going to steal the Crown Jewels,
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: which are stored in the Tower of London. As we
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: know is like you know, usually described as being impenetrable
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: some version of that, you know, guarded to the teeth
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: all of that. What do when they say to the
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: teeth do you ever wonder about that? It means the
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: teeth have guns? Tiny guns. Yeah, guns were originally invented
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: for teeth. That's straight seahorse teeth man. Yep, that's also
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: where they comes from. Tiny guns. Yeah, yeah, it's very Uh,
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: it's etymology that is so true. You shouldn't even bother
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: check in. We need to bring back straight seahorse teeth
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: never left. We've had people. I've had people at least
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: tell me that in real life now people I know,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: no one's just come up to be on the street
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: and said something with straight seahorse teeth. Has that happened
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: to you on the internet? Sometimes they do it on
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: the internet on our Facebook community page, ridiculous historians were
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: done with plugs. We're gonna finish. I was doing the story.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: The story. So it's April May sixteen seventy one, making
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: Tommy Blood about fifty two, fifty three years old. Here's
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: the thing. Britain's original crown jewels had been melted down
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: and sold back in sixty nine during the rule of Cromwell.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: But with Charles the Second taking the reins of the
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: country back, he had decided to get some replacements and
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: he spared no expense. So they had a crown that
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: had diamonds, tons of other gems on it, that a
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: golden orb and a gold scepter, and these would have
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: been items that would have been used during ceremonies and such,
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: placed on the king's head, you know, and then put
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: back in the tower. Yeah, yeah, yeah, And we could
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: probably do a story on that, uh, in its own right,
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: because it always seemed weird to me, the choice of jewels.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: Who says I need an orb? Is it like the sun?
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: Is it meant to be like holding the sun. But
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: orb is like the scepter, right, that's the thing that
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: you also, it's it's literally it's like a ball that
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: has little cross on it in some cases. Yeah, what's
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: that for? You just hold it? Yeah, it's just for
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: the look. Like Will Smith with cigars in that Miami song.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: It's just for the look. I don't like it. He
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: just bites it. Yeah. So these things are beautiful and
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: as you said, no they're They're only taken out during
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: um ceremonies of great import. Otherwise they're stored in a
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: basement in the Tower of London. And they have a
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: guy whose entire job is just to watch these things.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: His name is Talbot Edwards. He had one job, yeah exactly.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: He is of an older veteran and he shows the
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: jewels to tourists in exchange for a small fee. Now,
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: I gotta say, it doesn't sound like they have their
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: best and brightest on the job. I mean, I'm not
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: not trying to be agist here, but he is described
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: in this history dot Com article as being essentially a
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: retired soldier who was allowed to supplement his wages by
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: giving tours of the jewels. For a small fee. Um,
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: and so he is is a said, he's the keeper
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: of the jewels, and I'm guessing there's other guards in place.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: But at the time this was kind of a new thing,
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: um all of our Cromwell sold the old ones because
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: he has showed all of the glitter and trappings of
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: this kind of exorbitant wealth. He was much more of
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: an austere kind of monk like monarch. He also thought
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: that they stood for quote, the testable rule of kings,
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: and he was not about that. So after Cromwell died
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: and Charles the Second came into power, he spent thirty
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: two thousand pounds on the new ones and they were
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: made of solid gold. They had hundreds of precious stones,
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: diamonds encrusted. It was absolute bling before bling was even
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: a thing um. And then blood. He kind of had
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: a bit of a what's the word a code kind
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: of like, you know. Even his attacking of the of
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: the Duke of Ormand seemed to have been rooted in
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: some sort of ideology, depending on which story you believe.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: But he thought that the showing off of the crown
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: jewels and the spending of that money was in poor
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: taste and uh, he wanted to teach the king a lesson.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: It wasn't so much about the cash, so he claimed. Yeah,
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: it's not about the money, it's about sending a message. Right.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: There's one extra piece of the story here that I
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: think has a nice symmetry to it. Almost all of
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: those earlier pieces from the reign of King Charles, the
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: first that we're you know, melted down in the Tower
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: of London re emerged as currency, and these melted down
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: jewels transformed into coins were used to pay the same
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: army that it defeated the king. Here's Colonel Blood's log
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: con Regardless of what his ideology may have been and
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: his rationalization may have been, we do know what his
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: plan was. First, he makes friends. He pulls the you know,
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: like I'm really tight with everybody else named Ben. He
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: manages to befriend this guy, Thomas Edwards. This is also
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: the man in charge of guarding the jewels. He's alternately
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: known as Talbot Edwards or Thomas Edwards. So Edwards lives
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: on the ground. But you know, as we said, he's
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: allowed to make a little money on the side, charging people,
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: but he's not specifically paid for his work. So he's
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: a volunteer, which is not what you want for something
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: that's valuable. Anyway, Blood goes back to his normal m O.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: He disguises himself as as a vicar, an Anglican clergyman,
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: and he hires an actor to pose as his wife.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: So they go to the Tower of London. They paid
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: Talbot Edwards to view the crown jewels there behind this
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: metal great in room protected by this reinforced door. And
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: then his quote unquote or as you would say, no,
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: his wife uh fakes a sudden illness, and so Edwards,
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: being not a piece of garbage, says, oh, no, are
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: you okay here? Uh come to my upstairs apartment, taking
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: some air, you know, lay down, collect yourself. Yeah. It's
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: that's sad that he's kind of the patsy in this story,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: because he seemed like a kindly old gent you know,
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: who was again just trying to supplement his pensioner's income
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: with just given tours, you know. I mean, it's it's
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: a shame that he got taken in by this this ruse. Oh,
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: as you said, in his good natured, kind heartedness, um,
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: he allowed the supposedly ailing woman to you know, rest
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: in his apartment. By the way, he lived in that
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: upstairs apartment with his entire family, and blood thanked this. Uh,
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: this kindly gentleman. He doesn't steal anything, doesn't see anything.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: And then a couple of days later, he came back
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: with a gift for uh Talbot's wife. It was four
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: pairs of white gloves. Then following that, several weeks later,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: the colonel created this entire kind of backstory. He really
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: ingratiated himself into a relationship and actual friendship with Edwards
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: and his family and started visiting there frequently. Um. And
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: you know at this point, you know, every time he
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: would visit, he would take a look around and get
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: a sense of the exits and entrances and all of
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: the weaknesses and really really earned the trust of this couple.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: Really uh some conniving stuff. And he says, he says,
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: you know, Edwards, you and I were buddies. You know,
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: you met my wife, I met your wife. I got
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: you some gloves. We love hanging out and I want
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: to be honest with you. Your daughter is not married
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: and an hour day and age. That's really weird. So uh,
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: I have a nephew who's also a little weird. And
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: also unmarried. So why do you know, why don't we
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: help each other out a little bit and get these
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: kids hitched up. Edwards says, oh, what a fantastic idea. Yes,
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: please bring the nephew over for a meeting as soon
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: as you can, as soon as convenient, and Blood says, oh, yes, absolutely,
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: and then he leaves and he uh, he starts looking
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: for a nephew, because the one thing about the story
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: he was telling Edwards was that this nephew he described
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: does not exist. So maynae. It's about seven in the morning.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: Blood gets to the Tower of London. He's got his
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: crew together. Here's here are the members of his crew.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: His son also named Thomas, who's going to pose as
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: the nephew, and then Robert Perrot, Richard Halliwell and William Smith.
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: Each of these three men and I think the sun
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: as well had strapped. Yeah, they were strapped. They had
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: pistols and they had daggers. And then Blood was still
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: dressed as a priest that's so cool, or a parson.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: Rather he hid a wooden mallet inside his robes. So
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: he's kind of like you remember how in Tombstone, Doc
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: Holiday has the shotgun under his trench coach. He's pulling
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: that kind of move, which to me, just the image
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: of this is fantastic. Was this mallet a weapon he
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: was gonna bonk people with this mallet? Or was it
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: like a tool for for breaking an entering? Both? He
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: just he he was a b a who needed a hammer.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: So all the while Smith is waiting with a gang
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: of horses uh near the entrance to the tower. The
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: tower gates um And that is when Perot, Thomas the Sun,
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: and Blood, the leaders still posing as the parson, go
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: and meet with Talbot Um of course, introducing his son
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: as the nephew in question and Perot as a as
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: a family friend or something, and says, hey, I got
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: a fun idea or waiting for your daughter to come around,
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: why don't you give us a tour. You're the tour guy, right,
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: give us a tour, give us a little peek at
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: the old Crown jewels. And he's like, I do keep
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: the jewels. Yes, yes, here here, follow me please, and
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: he's unlocking the door. And as soon as the tumblers click.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: As soon as the door is unlocked, Blood and his
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: cronies gag, gag Talbot edwards this guy's seventy seven years old. Boy,
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: they throw a sack over his head. He doesn't take
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: it laid down. He tries to fight back, and that's
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: when Blood takes out his mallet and as you said,
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: bunks the crap out of him. So he's gagged, black
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: bagged and bombed, and uh he is so this makes
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: him lose consciousness just for extra uh, just for some
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: extra bells and whistles. Blood also stabs this old man
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: in the gut, but as will come to find, Blood
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: is very bad at killing people. So this guy is
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: bleeding out and the robbers tear off the grate, remember
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: that metal great we described earlier protecting the jewels, And
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: then they start trying to re fashion this stuff to
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: make it easier to take away with them. So the
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: colonel uses his mallet and U slams on the imperial
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: crown until he makes it like a flat plate. And
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: then his son, who is not super intelligent, begins trying
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: to saw the scepter and half because he can't fit
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: it in the back. Right. Well, I think like time
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: and a place. You know, at that point you're at
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: the level the higst where you have to think of
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: your time management. But I love how this whole thing
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: feels like a Quentin Tarantino film. Tarantino, if you're listening,
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: just make this scene. You don't have to make the
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: whole film. Everything just starts to hit the fan as
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: it were, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. So Pero
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: is not going to try to flatten stuff. He's not
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: gonna try to break the scepter. He takes that royal
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: orb and he just stuffs it down his pants, like
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: Jimmy is it's just hilarious? Is that a royal orb
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: in your pants? Are you just happy to see me? Right? Uh?
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: He was probably pretty happy at the time. But Hallowell,
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: remember we hadn't mentioned hollow Well Smith's outside. Hallowell has
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: been serving as a lookout and he pops into the
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: room and he says, Talbot Edward's son has unexpectedly returned home.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: He's upstairs looking for his father. And so the thieves
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: all try to get their stuff together and run away.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: But remember we said Tommy Blood is bad at killing people.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: Right as they're running away, Talbot Edwards seventies seven year
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: old Talbot Edwards, he wakes up, He slips off his
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: gag and he starts screaming mud treason. The crowd is stouted,
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: so it's like the alarm going off right as their
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: exiting in the bank. Yeah, yeah, it was absolutely an
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: absolute ship show. It's true. Who's in the shouting murder treason,
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: Talbot Edwards. Talbert Edwards. So he's been he's been nagging,
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: slam came back. He came back, he's been gut stabbed, nagging, slammed,
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: and he's still sounding the old man wheezing alarm once
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: he regains consciousness. Yeah, yeah, well that's such that's a
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: shame for for the crew. But obviously they had a
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: coming because they didn't have to stab the old guy
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: in the gut, they didn't even have to bash him
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: in his knock. That was gratuitous. It really really was,
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: especially I mean adding insult to injury because they really
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: he seemed like a kindly gentleman and they really just
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: he wormed his way into his good graces and then
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: literally stabbed him, not even in the back of the front,
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: and uh yeah, it's just it just makes me sad.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: So what happens next? Then they're they're they're on the lamb,
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: they're running and the Bobbies are are in hot pursuit.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: It wouldn't have been bobbies, so they would have been
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: like palace guards or something. Some of them might have
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: been named Bob or Robert. Maybe there were several. Maybe
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: there were bobbies. So Talbot Edward's son, guy named why Edwards,
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: that's the that's the soldier, and a military engineer from
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: Sweden named Martin Beckman are running after Blood. Blood, Hallowell
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: pro Smith and Blood's son Thomas are making a dash
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: to get to the tower gates. They dropped the scepter
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: as they're running. Things are going bad, and Blood still
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: dressed as a parson. By the way, I cannot over
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: emphasize this. He turns around, he draws his pistol and
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: he fires at the people chasing them. He wounds one
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: of the guards and this distracts people long enough for
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: him to make it to his horse until he gets snatched.
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: He gets tackled before he can climb into the saddle,
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: so that engineer Beckman that we mentioned, uh, just totally
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: knocks him to the ground. And then in a matter
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: of minutes, most of the other outlaws were rounded up
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: and the crown jewels, which had been you know, distorted
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: and deformed are recovered, and Colonel Blood finds himself dragged
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: back inside the Tower of London in chains. By the way,
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: Talbot Edwards was promised a reward, the crowd said that
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: we're going to give him two hundred pounds. Yeah, I
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: mean that that was a gut stab. That's that's also
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: a very Tarantino esque thing. It reminds me of Reservoir
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: Don I think gets gets shot in the gut and
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: spends a whole movie bleeding out in the back of
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: a car. That's kind of what's going on here. But
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: you know, at least he sounded the alarm and Colonel
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: Blood did get his come up. It's more or less.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: But here's the thing. Blood knew that the king had
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: a reputation for identifying with, you know, very bold acts
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: of defiance in a weird way, like you wouldn't think
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: that about a king. But he was a fan of
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: scoundrels and figured that he could kind of weasel his
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: way out of of the noose um as as he
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: you know, been known to do in the past. Yeah,
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: and there's this great line to Tarantino asked his jailers,
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: are you know, roughing him up? They're asking the questions,
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: where you're doing with the jewels? We got you this time, Blood,
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: What made you do this? What was your plan? What
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: are you gonna do? But Blood refuses to answer any questions. Instead,
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: he says, he says that he refuses to speak with
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: anyone but the King himself. Uh. And weirdly enough, uh,
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: the King gives him that audience because when he's saying that,
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: you know, as we just said, he knows that this
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: could work, that the King would have this interest, and
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: he lays it on thick right. He becomes a real
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: con artist, you know, and he says, I'm in awe
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: of the majesty of the King and Keith Charles kind
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: it dicks. It sort of appeals to his uh you know,
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: inflated ego because he's the one who spent all his cash,
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: the king on on these replacement crown jewels and he
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: was basically saying, oh, I had to have them because
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: they were just so you know, it was honestly I
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: did it like out of respect, right, really flipping the script. Man,
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: what an interesting con you know, But it's so weird
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: because there's a there's a penis joke in here. Why
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: did you catch that. So one of the things he says.
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: He's talking to the king and he says, you know,
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: I wants planned to shoot you with a musket. I
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: spied you bathing in the river, but I lost my
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: nerve if I was in all of your majesty, right,
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: what we have to be careful because it's family show.
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: But that's what you say. And so Charles is like, oh,
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: you owed so and so ah, and then Blood says
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: and also, you know, those crown jewels probably weren't worth
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: a hundred thousand pounds. I would say much less. And
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: this blows my mind because you would think when when
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: Blood devalued these crown jewels by saying I don't think
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: they're worth a hundred pound hundred thousand pounds were like
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: six thousand pounds, you would think that would have done
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: the opposite. Like, you know, he's trying to appeal to
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: the King's ego and his inflated sense of of self,
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: you know, worth and all of that stuff. And he's
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: the one who uh sanctioned these crown jewels to be
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: purchased for so much money. Um. But in fact, the
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: king was amused by how audacious this rogue was in claiming,
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: you know that the jewels are actually worth far far less,
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: absolutely bonkers and counterintuitive, and it makes no sense. There's
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: another there's another um I would say substrate of narrative here.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: So Charles the Second shocks everyone. He gives Tommy Blood
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: a full pardon. He gives him land in Ireland worth
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: five pounds a year, and people are still debating why
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: he would do this. A lot of the early accounts said, well,
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: you know, that's how the king is. He just he
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: thought Blood was a bloody good time and he liked
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: his you know, he liked his stories. It was like
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: he was into that version of Ted Talks and he said,
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: good show, old boy. But we now think that because
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: Thomas Blood, who was a self appointed colonel by the way,
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: he just sort of started calling himself that people think
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: that because of Blood's history and espionage, he may have
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: been working as uh, one of the chief operatives of
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: Charles the Second's court. Remember we said that the Duke
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: of Buckingham may have hired him to kidnap or attempt
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: to murder some folks. Charles the Second may have been
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: aware of this, and the tower heist might have been
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: an inside job. Wait, a minute, right, heist music casey,
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: and so the Duke pulled some strings, possibly on Blood's behalf.
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: And some scholars will even argue that Charles the second
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: because he was cash poor because it was short on funds,
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: that he was in on the scam and planned to
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: take a cut of the loot. My question is, would
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: there have been something akin to an insurance policy on
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: something so valuable in those days or was that his
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: insurance in that way more and more of a modern concept,
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: you know, I I am not aware of that. We
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: could do a history of insurance that would be either
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: really fascinating or really boring. It would get fascinating because
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: of the early days of insurance and then the wildest
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: things were ever insured. But at this point, um just guessing,
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: I would say there wasn't. Yeah, I would think so too,
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: but it's a it's just something that popped into my head.
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: But so instead of like getting a cut of the
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: insurance money, he was literally going to get a cut
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: of like the fenced loot. It's an in theory here
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: in theory. So this is like, why was he so
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: cash poor because he was embroiled in different wars and
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: restoring the throne was a was a dangerous endeavor that
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: it wasn't a cheap one. That makes sense. And by
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: the way, and insurance didn't really start in the United
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: States until seventeen thirty five. I guess who was involved
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: in it, Benjamin Franklin, right, go, Ben's so uh, just
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: for comparison, for anyone who lives in the US, this
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: heist is like breaking into the Pentagon to steal something,
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: or you know what, breaking into Fort Knox if there's
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: any golden Fort Knox and then getting caught and then
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: going to meet the president, and the president is the
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: guy who put the job together and and sort of
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: you know does that Monty Burns steeple with their hands
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: and says, you know what, let's just tell everybody that
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: I think you're hilarious. Usually go to prison, Yeah, usually
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: go to prison. But we're gonna give you. We're gonna
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: give you some land out in the Caribbean or you
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: out and um someplace on the coast, someplace nice, and
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: then we'll give you five hundred bucks a year. How
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: does that sound? Is that real? Ben? What's that the
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: thing that you just laid out? That's just I'm just
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: comparing the situation's nothing to see here, right, I mean, yeah,
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: it really I don't know it's it's it's when it
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: comes to conspiracies, as we know from the other two
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: that we do stuff that I want you to know,
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: they're often very difficult to prove, and the term conspiracy
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: theory is often thrown about as sort of what is
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: it called ben like a self terminating cliche exactly. So
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: the idea when you refer to something in these terms,
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: it belittles it to the point of rendering it kind
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: of inert that's the hope, um. But very often conspiracies
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: are very real, and this one sure seems to hold
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: some some sand. If this is what happened, it makes
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: absolutely no sense that the king would have gone so
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: light on the guy who literally killed the old man
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: in charge of guarding the crown jewels, tried to steal them,
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: stuffed them down their pants, you know, absolutely defiled every
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: aspect of these precious items, and then just claimed that
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: he was charming, so he gave him all this stuff
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: and let him go completely. And also, it's the king,
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: so people are gonna be hard pressed to go you know,
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: your majesty, this kind of stinks you know there's there's
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: something rotten in your reasoning. No one's gonna say that.
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: So it seems that Charles the second found more value
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: in Thomas Blood as a living political operative than he
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: did as a prisoner or an executed criminal. So he
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: probably let him go because he was useful as a
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: spy and enforcer and informant. However, he still was taking
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: in sidework freelance espionage, and in sixteen seventy nine things
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: soured with his pal, the Duke of Buckingham, who was
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: probably the guy who kept him out of jail, if
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: not setting him up for these heists in the first
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: as Blood apparently says something bad about the Duke's character,
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: and so the Duke says, give me ten thousand pounds
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: to make that right, because you sa besmirched my good name.
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: And then Blood becomes ill in sixteen eighty, so the
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: Duke never gets his his ten large and Blood dies
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: on August sixteen eighty at the ripe old age of
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: sixty two. There is one footnote for this, which is
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: so crazy. He died deeply in debt. He did not
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: die a wealthy man. He hadn't been in the best
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: of health for a while. But the problem would being
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: a double agent for your entire career is that eventually
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: people don't trust you know. How little did they trust
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: this guy upon his death? Yeah, he was trusted about
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: as little as a human person can possibly be trusted
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: in that they the authorities actually dug up his body
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: to make sure that he was actually dead, that he
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: had not faked his own death to avoid going to
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: Debtort's prison. You know. Um, he was that much of
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: a shady character. Um. So he was in fact reburied
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: and his headstone supposedly read here lies the man who
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: boldly hath run through more villainies than England ever knew.
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: And there is a nineteen sixty seven comedy SATs are
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: called The Jokers, that involves stealing the crown jewels. Um.
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: I think there was an episode of Sherlock That's what
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: it was, Moriarty where where he steals the crown Benedict
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: Cumberg cumber Briar past. Yes, that one. And the guy
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: that plays Moriarty I I love very much. Didn't I
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: didn't care for his Moriarty. You didn't like him. I
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: just like that actor a lot. Yeah, it's a great,
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: great actor he's in He's in flea Bag. He plays
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: a priest in Fleabag, and he's also in that episode
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: of Black Mirror. Um. I enjoyed his Moriarty though, but
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: that's fun teacher and Moriarty. Growing up, for some reason,
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: I was taken with U with the John Goodman vehicle
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: Duke of Earle. Do you guys remember that one? It's uh,
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: it's about John Goodman plays a guy who likes bowling
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: or something, and then there's this huge mishap in the
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: English royal family and he becomes the king. Uh and
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: it's it's, you know, a fish out of water comedy.
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: But that's that's what I always associate with royalty in
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: England because I was just a sucker for that song.
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: And John Goodman and John Goodman, if you're listening, I
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: think I think you are a fantastic actor as well.
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: I'd love to see you play Moriarty. I'd love to
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: see someone play Thomas Blood like Casey Nol. Does this
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: not sound like a narrative that would be ripe for
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: an action film? Yeah, I think it'd be a lot
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: of fun. I'll tell you whose crown jewels were actually stolen? Uh?
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: And the perpetrators escaped on a speedboat the crown Jewels
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: of Sweden belonging to King Carl the ninth and Queen Christina.
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: They also had a royal orb and we're stolen last
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: year um in a pretty incredible heist um almost like
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: the type you'd see in a James Bond movie again
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: with complete with the high speed speedboat chase. And I
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: do believe that they have been recovered, but the British
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: Crown Jewels have thus far not been attempted to be
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: lifted since this daring escapade, which I want to see
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: as a high like think about as a producer, right
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: the just we take the heist film formula that we're
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: talking about in the beginning, we make it a period piece.
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: Maybe we embellish a little bit, give Hallowell and Pero
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: and Smith their own kind of specialties or something completely
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: but like a priest, come on, man with a mallet
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: in the robes. I don't know if it's the coffee
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: or what, but I think this is fantastic. As a
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: matter of fact, I gotta go work on this screenplay
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: right now, if it hasn't already happened. Thank you so
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: much for tuning in everyone. We hope that you enjoyed
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: this installment of of ridiculous history on historical heist. Thanks
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: as always to our super producer Casey Pegram, Thanks to
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: Gabe Lousier. Thanks to Alex Williams who composed this wonderful,
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: wonderful music you hear at the beginning and end of
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: the show. Thanks to Chris Frasciota's here in Spirit Jonathan
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: stick Lit. Here is some sort of lingering ghoulish miasthma.
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: And uh, have we thanked super richer Casey program. I
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: think we have, but you know, let's think of again
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: because he's the best. And hey, I'm just seeing an
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: ad come up for a new Grand Theft Auto DLC
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: called Grand Theft Auto Online the Diamond Casino Heist. We
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: are not being paid, but it looks pretty cool if
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: you're into heisty stuff. Yeah, and also thanks to Gene Chandler,
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: Duke of earl Oh. I got some weird news unrelated
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: to anything you guys. Hit me. I beat Skyrim, like
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: not just the main quest, what I've done everything, Dude,
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: I I know you have a percent completion. Yeah, I
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: got like the stones you know you have to collect
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: this twenty four stones. I got, like the weird mask,
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: I get the whole thing. That's pretty cool. And I
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: don't know if I told you. I quit playing the
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: game because my save was too old, and uh the
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: I I had advanced to point where I was I
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: had no business being because I had not leveled up enough.
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: Oh no, so I just gave it up. But it
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: was a fun game. Maybe now enough time it's passed
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: that I can just start fresh, because that is a
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: really fun game. It is, it is, and I guess
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: you know now you say it, it's such a buggy
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: game that I probably don't have a hundred percent completion
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: because you know, Bethesda's is the torious for that. But
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: you're you're more of a fallout guy, right I am? Indeed,
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: So let us know the story of Thomas Blood and
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: the Crown Jewels better as a video game, better as
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: a Ocean's eleven esque heist film. We'd like to hear
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: from you. You can find us on Facebook, you can
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: find us on Twitter, you can find us on Instagram.
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: We've got our community page, Ridiculous Historians. Of course, you
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: can also find us as individuals. I am at ben
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: Bolan on Instagram. Stay tuned because I will be on
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: some adventures soon. To check that out. You can find
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: me exclusively on Instagram as at how now, Noel Brown,
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: We'll see you next time. Box. For more podcasts from
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: My Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows