Thomas Blood was born in Co Meath in 1618 to an Anglo-Irish family who were steeped in the trade of "adventuring". An incorrigible side-changer, Blood began as an anti-rebel and a Royalist before switching to the Parliamentarians. Nevertheless his lands were confiscated, sending him on a long picaresque campaign of rebellion and recalcitrance. Among a breathtaking litany of wacky shenanigans – conspiracies, espionage, kidnapping etc – his most notable action was perhaps the attempted theft of the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London. Facing the chop for such naughtiness, Blood deftly wriggled out of his comeuppance by turning double agent against his co-conspirators. This is a beautifully detailed yet accessible, and almost affectionate examination of a most unusual political mover and shaker. British politics in the era of Brexit has produced a colourful dramatis personae of chancers and narcissistic yahoos. So imagine if Bojo had operated in an era of regicide, civil war and religious turmoil, might his career have resembled that of Colonel Blood's? It's not such an implausible conjecture.
