Customer Reviews

Colonel Blood: The Man Who Stole the Crown Jewels

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The nonfiction biography "Colonel Blood: The Man Who Stole the Crown Jewels" by David C. Hanrahan had its good and bad moments. It wasn't among the best biographies I have ever read, but it did have shining moments that made me want to read about the lives of other people mentioned in the book.

To start, "Colonel Blood" is about Thomas Blood, a seventeenth century veteran of the English Civil War who became an outlaw - and then, impossibly, became a favorite of King Charles II after Blood tried to steal from the king himself.

The idea of reading the real-life story of the man who stole the English Crown Jewels from the Tower of London was what obviously attracted me to reading this book. I figured it had to be a fascinating story. Unfortunately, the writing itself was not what I expected.

The writing is dry, for the most part. Many people are mentioned and are hard to keep track of. There is not much in terms of detail about the everyday lives of people living in seventeenth century Britain. There wasn't even that much detail about the Civil War.

However, there were a couple chapters that fascinated me, mostly because the people themselves were so fascinating. Chapter 9 on George Villiers, the Duke of Buckingham, was an interesting portrait of a man of questionable morals, personally and politically. Chapter 12 on Charles II, the Merry Monarch, was also fascinating in its portrayal of a very self-indulgent man with dozens of mistresses, to his Queen's horror. The poor Queen was childless and had to suffer the humiliating presence of the King's mistresses and illegitimate children. I felt so bad for her.

I'm not sure if this is the only biography on Colonel Blood. For me, it was hard to read (though I read it quickly) because it couldn't keep my attention. Too many people, names, incidences, etc. filled its pages without the author fleshing out their identities and stories more clearly. Honestly, I would have liked more. I would have also liked to have found Colonel Blood as interesting as some of the minor characters in the story, but it was not meant to be.

I had no idea that someone in the 1600s stole the Crown Jewels of England, so this turned out to be very interesting reading. It's about a scoundrel (Thomas Blood) who always seems to be up to no good. The author gives us a lot of good historical perspective of the violent times before, during, and after Cromwell's reign.

It's a short book, but it's not always easy to read. The author quotes a lot from original source materials, so there is a considerable amount of Ye Olde Spellynge that I found rather easy simply to skip. It's a scholarly text with footnotes, but the author has the charming habit of putting exclamation marks at the end of sentences that tell us things that apparently surprised him. What he considers surprising is not necessarily something I find surprising!

In addition to telling us the life and times of Thomas Blood, we get chapters about other interesting people from British history, and this is what makes the book the most useful. Just about everyone mentioned has roller-coaster ups and downs based on changes in political fortunes. I especially enjoyed reading about Barbara Villiers and the various Earls of Ormonde.