Irish-born Thomas Blood had returned to England…
December 1670 CE
Irish-born Thomas Blood had returned to England at the outbreak of the First English Civil War in 1642, initially taking up arms with the Royalist forces loyal to Charles I.
As the conflict progressed, however, he had switched sides and become a lieutenant in Oliver Cromwell's Roundheads.
At the cessation of hostilities in 1653, Cromwell had awarded Blood land grants as payment for his service and appointed him a justice of the peace.
Following the Restoration in 1660, Blood had fled with his family to Ireland.
The Act of Settlement 1662 had affected Blood's finances and driven him to unite fellow supporters of Cromwell in Ireland and stir up an insurrection.
As part of the expression of discontent, Blood had conspired to storm Dublin Castle, usurp the government, and kidnap James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.
On the eve of the attempt the plot had been foiled.
Blood had managed to evade the authorities by hiding with his countrymen in the mountains and ultimately escaped to the Netherlands.
A number of Blood's collaborators had been captured and subsequently executed.
As a result, some historians state that Blood swore vengeance against the duke.
While in the Netherlands, Blood is said to have gained the favor of Admiral Ruyter, and is implicated in the Scottish Covenanters Pentland Rising of 1666.
At some point during this period Blood had become the client of the wealthy George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, who nineteenth-century commentators believed used Blood as a means to punish his own political and social adversaries, since his own class ranking would not allow him to meet them "in the field".
Despite his status as a wanted man, Blood had returned to England in 1670 and is believed to have taken the name Ayloffe and practiced as a doctor or an apothecary in Romford Market, east of London.
A second attempt had followed, this time on the life of the Duke of Ormonde, who since returning to England has taken up residence at Clarendon House.
Blood has followed Ormonde's movements and noted that he frequently returns late in the evening accompanied by a small number of footmen.
Ormonde on the night of December 6, 1670, is attacked by Blood and his accomplices while driving up St. James's Street.
The duke is dragged from his coach, bound to one of Blood's henchmen, and taken on horseback along Piccadilly with the intention of hanging him at Tyburn.
The gang also pins a paper to the duke's chest spelling out their reasons for his capture and execution.
Ormonde, however, together with one of his servants who had given chase on horseback, succeeds in freeing himself and escapes.
The plot's secrecy means that Blood is not suspected of the crime, despite a reward being offered for the capture of the attempted assassins.
In the aftermath Ormonde's son, Thomas Butler, in the king's presence, accuses the Duke of Buckingham of being behind the crime.
Butler threatens to shoot Buckingham dead in the event of Ormonde's meeting with a violent end.