04/04/2016
British historian Hutchinson (Young Henry) successfully describes how phenomenal self-preservation instincts and a highly unstable royal court allowed a man who stole the crown to become a royal spy. After the upheaval surrounding the 1660 restoration of Charles II cost the Blood family their Irish land, Thomas Blood, a former parliamentary soldier, channeled his bitterness into a long career of trying to recapture his holdings, or barring that, to cause financial and emotional damage to the king. Hutchinson relishes detailing Blood’s motivation and the unlikely adventures that boosted his popularity while also deciphering his elastic personal ethics. Blood’s personality is largely conveyed through his close relationships with his children as well as his dedication to heightening his reputation, which resulted in popular songs and poems being composed about him. The book’s highlight is the well-planned, if comically implemented, heist of the crown jewels. Hutchinson’s story operates more as a series of vignettes than as a fully fleshed-out biography, but Blood’s remarkable tenacity shines through, illuminating a surprisingly efficient official spy ring and a wealth of other dark secrets behind the flamboyant and seemingly carefree court of the Merry Monarch. Illus. (June)
A raffish and intrepid adventurer, Blood led one of those colorful lives that people who read too much secretly wish could be theirs. If you enjoy action-packed history, this biography should be in your beach bag.
A nailbiting chronicle of a thoroughly unrespectable life. Robert Hutchinson, thoroughly at home in the smoke-and-mirrors world of Tudor and Stuart espionage, commends this doughty old desperado to us for his panache, effrontery and audacity. The Audacious Crimes of Colonel Blood is television mini-series material — the clash of blades, the whizzing bullets and galloping hooves guarantee nonstop adventure.
Hutchinson paints a compelling portrait of a country hectic with sedition. Rambunctious and richly researched.
A marvellous romp.
A carefully researched piece of popular history. Hutchinson sifts the various theories with characteristic thoroughness and lightness of touch.
Hutchinson presents Blood as a sort of dissenting Scarlet Pimpernel whose adventures he describes vividly and cites with scholarly detail.
Hutchinson’s focus on Blood provides a great lens onto this most perilous and outrageous of times. The life of Colonel Blood and the goings-on of the Cromwellian and Restoration eras are told here with utter vivacity.
A carefully researched piece of popular history. Hutchinson sifts the various theories with characteristic thoroughness and lightness of touch.
A rigorously researched account. Hutchinson's biography draws extensively on surviving primary sources, including eye-witness accounts of Blood's many scrapes and court cases. A colourful tale of life in the shadow of the gallows.
Hutchinson paints a compelling portrait of a country hectic with sedition. Rambunctious and richly researched.
Hutchinson’s focus on Blood provides a great lens onto this most perilous and outrageous of times. The life of Colonel Blood and the goings-on of the Cromwellian and Restoration eras are told here with utter vivacity.
06/01/2016
Reading this book, it's not hard to imagine a man in an elaborate cravat introducing himself as "Blood. Thomas Blood." The titular Colonel Blood's crimes were audacious verging on unbelievable. How many times can one try to assassinate a monarch and still end up his spy? Quite a few, as it turns out. Blood (1618–80) partnered with doomsday religious fanatics (the year 1666 engendered a lot of panic), a group of radical Presbyterians, and an endless stream of antigovernment conspirators. Hutchinson (The Last Days of Henry VIII; Elizabeth's Spymaster) helpfully offers a detailed list of the people in Blood's life as well as a cheat-sheet chronology. Blood was so notorious both for his nefarious deeds and his ability to escape punishment that he was accused of starting the Great Fire of London (he didn't) and of still being alive after he died (he wasn't—they checked). The plots, planned uprisings, and double crosses pile up as Blood plows through history and readers are left surprisingly sympathetic to those who disinterred Blood—zombie criminals seem plausible by the end. VERDICT For readers interested in royal intrigue, those who enjoyed Hutchinson's other histories, and biography buffs who prefer their subjects a bit bloodthirsty.—Kate Sheehan, C.H. Booth Lib., Newtown, CT
2016-03-02
The story of "one of those mysterious and charismatic characters in British history whose breathtaking exploits underline the wisdom of the old maxim that truth can be stranger than fiction." In what is ostensibly a biography of Thomas Blood (1618-1680), the daring fighter, spy, turncoat, and adventurer, Hutchinson (The Spanish Armada, 2014, etc.) glosses over many of his subject's feats, writing mostly of changing politics during the English civil war and the restoration of Charles II. Blood fought for Charles I in the civil war and switched sides after the king's execution, an act that netted him vast lands in Ireland. He was part of an abortive rebellion in Ireland after the restoration, and revenge—especially against the Duke of Ormond, lord lieutenant of Ireland—drove him on. He was leader of a group who kidnapped Ormond in London with a view to hanging him, but Ormond escaped. That act brings in two more shady characters, the Duke of Buckingham and Barbara Palmer, Charles II's mistress. Both were sworn enemies of Ormond, and it seems likely to Hutchinson that they may have instigated the attack. After Blood attempted to steal the crown jewels from the Tower of London, he met with the king, who not only pardoned him, but also granted him a pension, removed the writ of attainder, and paid him a salary for his "services," which included spying against nonconformists. Blood was a serial turncoat with a number of disguises, even posing as a doctor, but he was no petty thief; he only wished to regain his lands. Readers hoping to discover an Errol Flynn-type swashbuckler will be disappointed; Blood does not come across as the rip-roaring, lovable rogue one might anticipate. A good history of difficult times in England and Ireland, but Hutchinson provides little significant information about the spy.
