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Lesser Known But Intriguing Historic Criminals

Khalid Elhassan October 17, 2019 32 min

U.S. Destroyers: An Illustrated Design History - Crime

25. Britain’s Most Roguish Colonel

Colonel Thomas Blood. National Portrait Gallery

Anglo-Irish officer Colonel Thomas Blood (1618 – 1680), of County Clare, was an audacious crook who became famous as “The Man Who Stole the Crown Jewels”. The son of a prosperous blacksmith, Blood came from a good family – his grandfather lived in a castle, and was a Member of Parliament.

Blood’s adventurous career started during the English Civil War, when he left for England in 1642 to fight for king Charles I. However, when it became clear that the royalists would lose, Blood switched to the king’s Parliamentarian enemies. Charles I was defeated and beheaded. In the new regime, Blood was rewarded with a big estate, and was made a justice of the peace.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.