Standing Well Back
17th Century

An explosive device in Whitehall

Some more detail of an early IED attack attempt that I had heard about  but which I didn’t have much detail of until now.  I mentioned in my post a couple of years ago here (Bomb Alleys) about an assassination attempt on Oliver Cromwell, with a device designed to burn down Whitehall Palace and I’ve found a few more details in the transcripts of the trial in ” Cobbett’s Complete Collection of State Trials and Proceedings etc Volume 5, pages 842-872″.    It seems this was a successful EOD operation as part of a complex counter-terrorism operation. What a curious world counter-terrorism was in those days – as it remains today.

Cromwell – the target of the assassination attempt

The counter-terrorism operation was run by Oliver Cromwell’s spymaster, John Thurloe.  The protagonist in this was one Miles Sindercombe, whose pseudonym was “Mr Fish”. Sindercombe appears to have been funded by a rebel puritan officer, Colonel Sexby, from the Netherlands.  After four plans to ambush Cromwell had failed, Sindercombe decided to burn down Whitehall Palace, where Cromwell was living, in the hope that it might kill him.  The device he used was constructed “by a man sent from overseas”.

The device was in a wicker basket, and contained, a gunpowder charge, and “tar, pitch and tow” and “brimstone” to add an incendiary component. It had two “slow match” burning fuses in parallel with an expected delay of about 6 hours. That’s quite a delay for a burning fuse. The device was left in a chapel in the Palace (now the site of the UK Ministry of Defence, and buildings in that area), which Sindercombe had reconnoitered by attending a service earlier. On 8th January 1657, Sindercombe and his accomplices gained entry via a back door into the chapel, and hid the device under a seat. They lit the fuze and left the premises. However Sindercombe’s cell had been penetrated by government agents working for Thurloe and the authorities were alerted.  The Palace Guard “found” the device and the Officer of the Guard rendered it safe by removing the burning fuzes.

Sindercombe was injured resisting arrest the following morning, and refused to co-operate. However all his co-conspirators did cooperate, gave testimony and Sindercombe was found guilty and sentenced to death a month later. He escaped the gallows by committing suicide by poisoning but suspicion remains he was killed to prevent a riotous public assembly at the execution. There are details of a rather bizarre post-mortem conducted some time after he had been buried beneath the gallows with a stake through his heart.

The details of his earlier assassination attempts on Cromwell are also intriguing. In one he hid an arquebus and pistols “in a viol case” (very 1920s…). In another, a purpose built firearm was to be used, described as a “strange device” that fires 12 bullets and a slug at the same time. Peculiar.

It’s surprising to me that this assassination attempt of the de facto head of state is little known about. Whitehall Palace – a mish-mash or architecture and complex passages , built mainly from wood did eventually burn down fifty years later. During the attempt to put out that fire in 1698 gunpowder charges were used to try to create firebreaks.

Here’s a useful pic of the Palace in 1680 – I’ve highlighted the chapel. It does indeed look like a warren of buildings. Those of you familiar with the area in modern day can orientate yourself with the Banqueting House and Horseguards

1650-1660

Command-initiated IED described in 1650

I’m steadily working through a book that was published in Latin in 1650, “The Great Art of Artillery” by Kazimierz Siemienowicz.  The book was translated into French, then from there into English in 1729 and of course that’s the version I’m studying. The breadth of subjects covered is remarkable, including physics, chemistry, mathematics, explosive processing, explosive storage and other related things.  There’s a lot about artillery and some interesting rocket technology related to my earlier post about the English rocket experimenter Robert Anderson who was making his rockets in 1696. I have an interesting blog post “cooking” on the technical similarities of rocket design from these two engineers, working in different countries 46 years apart. And readers of this blog will recall that the revolutionaries in Dublin in 1803 used Anderson’s rocket manufacturing instructions and it is very possible that one of the revolutionary Irishmen went to Woolwich in subequent years to assist Congreve in the manufacture of his rockets. Give me a few weeks to bottom out that detail and assess the apparent links, but this 1650 document is pretty remarkable in its technical detail, with multi-stage rockets being explicitly manufactured.

As well as covering artillery and rocketry, amongst the book are also numerous references to improvised explosive devices. For example there’s reference to a large barrel or cylinder shaped IED used in the Seige of St Andrews in 1546 that killed 321 and injured hundreds of beseigers. Ths large barrel containing “powder, stones and Iron bolts” was rolled down amongst the enemy.  I’m trying to find a cross or supporting reference for that, as that’s pretty early in my historical time line of IEDs. Siemienowiz quotes his reference to the St Andrews device as being written by an Italian in a book called “Precepts in the Modern Art of War” that must have been published prior to 1650. Unfortunately the name of the Italian author is not clear and varies between translations and I have yet to unearth it.

Here’s another example from Siemienowicz referring to command initiated improvised devices using the flintlock mechanism I have described in some recent posts – remember this was written in about 1650.  This text below is from a 1729 translation:

17th Century

Prince Rupert’s IED

 

As promised some time ago, here’s the story of an attempted IED attack in 1650.

In 1650 the second part of the English Civil War was taking place. A key Royalist commander and former cavalry chief was Prince Rupert. Prince Rupert is a very interesting gentleman, with a keen scientific interest in explosives and invention. With significant experience as a general in the 30 Years War in Europe, his dashing exploits as a cavalry commander in various battles, including Edgehill, and as an extremely ruthless Royalist leader gave him a bogeyman status amongst the Parliamentarians. By 1650 he was commanding a Royalist fleet of vessels, being pursued by a Parliamentarian fleet.

 

In 1650, his fleet took refuge in the River Tagus, near Lisbon in Portugal. The opposition fleet also lay at anchor not far off with the Portuguese enforcing some sort of ceasefire between the two fleets while they competed for support from the Portuguese king.  Trade between the merchants of Lisbon and the two fleets was natural, and Prince Rupert tried to take advantage of this.

Prince Rupert designed a large improvised explosive device in a barrel, dressed a member of his crew as a merchant and employed two locals to row a small boat, amongst other trading dinghies, down towards HMS Leopard, the key enemy warship. They entered into a trade to sell the “barrel of oil” with the quartermaster of HMS Leopard, and after agreeing a price the barrel was being hoisted aboard when the Leopard’s crew became suspicious. The three man crew were seized and the barrel investigated. It was found that a large explosive filled shell had been placed inside the barrel. A string from the merchant’s boat led in through the bunghole, to a pistol. Pulling the string would fire the pistol and ignite quickfuze leading to the shell.  It was clear that the plan was to initiate the device once it had been swing aboard, killing as many of the crew as possible and damaging the ship.

Ten years later, after the war was over Prince Rupert became one of the three founders of the Royal Society. The Royal Society took great interest in research into explosives and related inventions, and Prince Rupert himself published a paper at the Royal Society on an improved recipe for gunpowder in 1662.

Of course, students of modern day terrorism will see the instant parallels with the USS Cole attack in Yemen in October 2000, which again involved perpetrators approaching a warship with an IED, disguised as a local boat in a port.  The investigation after the USS Cole attack noted the following failures:

  • There was no co-ordinated effort to track the movement of small boats in the harbour;
  • The Cole’s own small boat, which should have been used to investigate the approach of any suspicious craft, was not ready for launching.

It appears that HMS Leopard was pretty much the same, but luckier.

Close Me
Looking for Something?
Search:
Post Categories: