Thomas Blood

Others speculate that the king had a fondness for audacious scoundrels such as Blood and that he was amused by the Irishman's claim that the jewels were worth only £6000 as opposed to the £100000 at which the Crown had valued them. Hanrahan the author of the book Colonel Blood: The Man who Stole the Crown Jewels was historical consultant. The confiscations and restitutions under the Act of Settlement 1662 (which sought to cancel and annul some of the grants of land and real properties allocated as reward to new holders being Cromwellians under the Act of Settlement 1652) brought Blood to financial ruin and in return Blood sought to unite his fellow Cromwellians in Ireland to cause insurrection.

Colonel Thomas Blood (1618 – 24 August 1680) was an Anglo-Irish officer and self-styled colonel best known for his attempt to steal the Crown Jewels of England from the Tower of London in 1671. Described for example in one later American source as a "noted bravo and desperado" he was known for his attempt to kidnap and later to kill his enemy being the Duke of Ormonde. He had switched allegiances from Royalist to Roundhead during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms and later despite his subsequent notoriety received a Royal free pardon and found favour at the court of King Charles II.