Colonel Thomas Blood (1618 - August 23, 1680) was an Irish-born colonel best known for attempting to steal the Crown Jewels of E
Colonel Thomas Blood (1618 - August 23, 1680) was an Irish-born colonel best known for attempting to steal the Crown Jewels of England from the Tower of London in 1671. Described as a "noted bravo and desperado", he was also implicated in one attempted kidnapping and one attempted murder of the Duke of Ormonde, had switched allegiances from Royalist to Roundhead during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms and later, despite his notoriety, found favour at the court of King Charles II. Blood was born in Co. Clare, the son of a successful blacksmith and raised in County Meath in Ireland. His family was respectable and his grandfather a member of Parliament and resident at Kilnaboy Castle. He was educated in England. At age 20, he married Maria Holcroft, the daughter of a Lancashire gentleman from Golborne and returned to Ireland. At the outbreak of the First English Civil War in 1642, Blood returned to England and initially took up arms with the Royalist forces loyal to Charles I. However, as the conflict progressed he switched sides and became a lieutenant in Oliver Cromwell's Roundheads. In 1653 at the cessation of hostilities Cromwell awarded Blood land grants as payment for his service and appointed him a justice of the peace. Following the Restoration (when Charles II returned to the throne) in 1660, Blood fled with his family to Ireland. The Act of Settlement 1662 (which sought to revert the Cromwellian Act of Settlement 1652) affected Blood's finances and drove him to unite fellow supporters of Cromwell in Ireland and stir up an insurrection
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