::: CREDITS :::
Produced by ?
Directed by ?

::: TRANSMISSION DETAILS :::
Blah blah blah, yackity smackity blah blah blah. Blah blah blah, yackity smackity blah blah blah. Blah blah blah, yackity smackity blah blah blah.
Running time: ?

::: SYNOPSIS :::
This film is about the most audacious heist in British history - the theft of the Crown jewels in 1671. It culminates in the meeting of two sworn enemies: republican rebel Colonel Thomas Blood and King Charles II - a meeting which has left us with a 330-year-old mystery. Behind that mystery is the moment the British monarchy found its secret of survival - a secret the future Charles III seems to have forgotten.

Part 1: The Man With The Plan. The film begins with a beheading: the execution of Charles I. One thousand years of royal authority ended in a puddle of blood. Col Thomas Blood, republican veteran of the Civil War, jumped for joy. Blood - a cross between Kaiser Soze and Ian Paisley - was part of that radical Protestant underground which had finally triumphed.

But only 12 years later the monarchy has been restored. Charles II has to rebuild the royal image. And the Crown Jewels, got out of pawn and gloriously restored, are the pinnacle of the propaganda project. They are the symbol of everything Blood hates. Blood plans his own publicity stunt and vows to steal them - but it had more to do with grabbing headlines than pinching valuables.

Part 2: The Con Job. In terms of style, think Restoration Dogs. Mr Blood was already a wanted man. In Ireland, he plotted to take over the seat of government, Dublin Castle. The plan failed, but Blood became a celebrity with almost mythic powers. One of the plotters was due to hang, but rumour circulated that Blood was going to rescue him. The executioners fled the scaffold. His next move was to attempt to kidnap and kill the Duke of Ormonde in London. Again the plan misfired, but his notoriety grew. His name began to appear in London newsletters and ballads. He was Britain's most wanted man and the authorities were determined to put him in the Tower. So what did Blood do? He decided to go to the Tower - and steal the Crown jewels from under their noses.

Blood assembled his gang: actress Jenny Blaine to play his wife, his highwayman son to play his nephew, and a couple of usual suspects from the radical underground: Perrott and Halliwell. And Blood, already a master of disguise from his years on the run, would play a kindly parson.

First Blood visited the Tower with his young 'wife'. He was given a tour of the jewels. Jenny Blaine feigned a fainting fit and was tended to by the wife of the keeper of the jewels, 77-year-old Talbot Edwards. Blood then returned with a gift for his wife: four pairs of gloves, and struck up a friendship with Mr and Mrs Edwards. Blood utilised one of his great talents, his gift of the gab. As the famous diarist John Evlyn wrote of him: 'He was very well spoken and had a dangerously insinuating tongue.' Blood proposed a marriage between his 'nephew' (who he claimed was wealthy) and the Edwardses' young daughter. He also purchased the jewel room pistols - thus disarming Edwards. A dinner date was planned for Blood's nephew to meet his prospective wife and family: 9 May 1671, at the Tower. This was the day that Colonel Blood would steal the Crown Jewels.

Part 3: The Heist. Halliwell kept lookout outside the Tower. Blood arrived with his 'nephew' and was welcomed by Talbot Edwards. His daughter waited upstairs, anxious to get a look at her prospective husband. Perrott rushed in and a cloak was thrown over Edwards's head, a stick with an air hole placed in his mouth. He struggled and was hit several times over the head with a mallet. He continued to moan and was stabbed in the stomach. He thought it best to play dead. Blood, his son and Perrott set to work.

The details of the theft were a statement in themselves - a work of iconoclastic vandalism. First, Blood snatches the King's State Crown and batters it with mallet until it fits in his bag. Gems that fall out are stuffed into pockets. Perrott sticks the orb down his trousers. Blood's son starts to file the sceptre in half. Now the way was clear for escape.

Then there was a twist worthy of the best heist movies. Blood carried with him at all times a notebook which listed God's miraculous interventions in his life, saving him from all sorts of scrapes with the law. But it now seemed that the Almighty had turned against him. Talbot Edwards had not seen his son, who had been fighting on the Continent, for 10 years. He picked this moment to return. He arrived to find Blood and his gang leaving the Tower. Finding his father writhing on the floor and the jewels gone, he gave chase, accompanied by one Captain Martin Beckman.

Blood's son and Halliwell get through the outer gate. A guard has Blood in his sights, but maybe God was on Blood's side after all. Despite Blood being disguised, the guard recognised him as a fellow soldier in the Cromwellian army and refused to fire. Gallantly, Blood declined to take advantage and doubled back with Perrott through the Iron Gate, leading onto a busy wharf. Meanwhile, Edwards and Beckman are gaining ground. Blood, ever used to living by his wits, shouts 'Stop, thief!' and his pursuers are wrestled to the ground by the crowd. Blood and Halliwell reach their horses and mount. Beckman catches up. Blood fires. And misses.

Blood, his son, and Perrott are all imprisoned in the Tower, and await certain death.

But the strangest turn of events is yet to come. Blood is examined by magistrates, but refuses to speak to anyone but the King himself. They laughed at his sheer effrontery, but, on 12 May 1671, Blood was indeed taken from the Tower to the court at Whitehall, where he had an audience with the King. This meeting has left us with a mystery which endures to this day. The outcome of this encounter between the most notorious revolutionary of his day - a man who had fought to destroy the monarchy and all it stood for, a man who was committed to bringing down the new regime - was a pardon for Blood. And his accomplices. And a pension for Blood to boot.

What happened behind those doors in Whitehall?

Part 4: The Real Con Job. Did Blood's gift of the gab overwhelm the King? Did he agree to become a spy for the administration? Had he been a double agent all along? Had he merely been the frontman for a high-level government conspiracy? All these theories have been advanced and none of them are satisfactory. The real reason for Blood's survival lies in something altogether more modern.

But first, what did Blood say to the King? For a start, he was unapologetic, as one contemporary wrote: 'Blood answered so frankly and undauntedly that everyone stood amazed'. He admitted his role in planning to take over Dublin Castle, and in the plot to kidnap Ormonde. His trump card was to tell the King that he had once been hired to assassinate him and that he had waited in the reeds while the King bathed in the river. He had him in his sights, but was too overawed to fire.

But none of this really washed. Charles II, 'the Merry Monarch', is often misrepresented as a gallant fool who spent most of his time gambling and womanising. The latter is certainly true. Charles's court included a pet monkey, a camel, French comedians, harpers and fiddlers. He spent his time gambling, going to the theatre and having scandalous affairs (Nell Gwynne is his most famous mistress). Fun as this all was, it had a deadly serious purpose. After the execution of Charles I, royalty could no longer rely on 'divine ordination' or 'the awe of majesty'. The egalitarian political argument of the radical Protestant sects was just as hard to counter. Instead, Charles invented what we usually consider to be a modern manifestation of the monarchy: scandal and celebrity. Blood, who was the talk of all the coffee houses and inns, the subject of ballads, newsletters and poems, was a perfect addition to the menagerie. Blood was not rejected, but assimilated. He fitted perfectly with the new sexed-up image which was the antithesis of the Puritan Cromwellian reign. He was cool Britannia. And it's no accident that Charles II's reign saw the birth of the newspaper in London.

Blood's mystique persisted. When eventually he died, a public outcry dictated that he be exhumed - just to prove that he hadn't pulled off another one of his famous stunts. But it was Charles II's glamour which endured. Charles I had made the mistake of being a pompous windbag who stressed the continuity and rights of the monarchy while remaining totally out of touch with the people. Charles II learned the lesson and became sexy, scandalous and the subject of the nation's gossip - in a word, tabloid. It's a lesson that the future Charles III seems to have forgotten. Keeping your head isn't enough to ensure the monarchy's survival - you have to keep in the headlines too. And you don't do that by talking to trees about carbuncles. 		 
   
 
   
 
   
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