They were taken up the stairs into the room where the Regalia was kept, but immediately they had entered, the ruffians threw a cloak over Edwards’s head and gagged him with a wooden plug, which had a small hole in it so that the person gagged could breathe; this they fastened with a piece of waxed leather which encircled his neck, and placed an iron hook on his nose so as to prevent him from crying out. They swore they would murder him if he attempted to give an alarm—which the poor old fellow could scarcely have done under the circumstances. But the plucky old keeper struggled hard, whereupon they beat him upon the head with a wooden mallet, and stabbed him until he fainted. The villains, thinking they had killed him, then turned their attention to rifling the treasures in the room. One of them, Parrot, put the orb in his breeches pocket, Blood placed the Crown under his cloak, and the third began to file the sceptre in two pieces, it being too long to carry away without being seen. At this moment steps were heard; Edwards’s young son having just returned from Flanders in the very nick of time. The thieves dashed down the stairs past the young man who was coming up, carrying with them the orb and crown, the sceptre being left behind in the hurry of their flight. The pursuit was immediate; young Edwards had brought with him his brother-in-law, a Captain Beckman, and the latter hearing cries of “Treason! Murder!” from the terrified women in the Tower, and the cry “The Crown is stolen!” rushed after Blood and the two other men. These had meanwhile crossed the drawbridge between the Main Guard at the White Tower and the Wharf; at the bridge a warder had tried to stop them, but Blood fired his pistol, and the man, although not wounded, fell to the ground, and they dashed past him. At St Katharine’s Gate, near which horses were in waiting for the thieves, Beckman overtook them; Blood again discharged his pistol but missed his pursuer, who ducking his head, promptly seized the sham clergyman, from under whose cloak the Crown fell to the ground, rolling in the gutter. Then followed what the _London Gazette_ of the day called a “robustious struggle,” Blood ultimately being secured, remarking that “It was a gallant attempt, for it was for a Crown!” When the Crown fell to the ground, some of the gems came loose from their settings, and a large ruby, which had belonged to the sceptre, was found in Parrot’s pocket. Little harm, however, was done, except to the poor old keeper, who was nearly eighty years of age and had been terribly injured; he was soon past all suffering, and was buried in the Chapel of St Peter’s, where his gravestone can still be seen.