Dan Snow's History Hit - Greatest Heist in History: The Crown Jewels and Thomas Blood

Episode Date: May 9, 2021

On the 9 May 1671, Thomas Blood led his co-conspirators in a daring bid to steal the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London. Through a combination of trickery, guile and violence he was able to make off with Charles II's crown and some of the most important treasures in the kingdom. To help tell this astonishing tale, Sebastian Edwards, Deputy chief curator at Tower of London joins the podcast to explain how Blood nearly got away with the greatest heist of the 17th century.

Hi folks, today is the 350th anniversary of the most ambitious attempt to steal England's crown jewels in history, from the depths of the Tower of London. On the 9th of May 1671, Thomas Blood, what a great name, Thomas Blood tricked his way into the crown jewels, battered someone after death, and made off with Charles II's crown and some of the most important treasures in the kingdom. It is an astonishing tale, and to tell us all about it is Sebastian Edwards. He's the deputy chief curator at the Tower of London, where the crown jewels are held to this day. You're going to love this. Learn all about colonel blood known as the man who stole the crown jewels if you want more 17th century history there's plenty of it at historyhit.tv you simply go to

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Sebastian, thank you very much for coming on the podcast. My pleasure. Nice to be with you, Dan. Well, we are talking about the greatest heist. I mean, people talk about the Great Train Robbery. I mean, honestly, this knocks the Great Train Robbery into obscurity, doesn't it? What an adventure this is. It's an absolutely amazing story. There should have been many films made about this,

and I don't think there has been one for a long time. 1671, the tower is back in royal hands following the Restoration. What was the importance of the Tower to Charles II? Was it one of his key stops on his peripatetic travels round England and Scotland? Or was it having one of its periodic out-of-favour periods? Well, at the beginning of his reign, it was where he launched himself because, of course, he was the last king to have a great procession from the Tower through the streets of

the city with his brand new regalia that he'd had to remake after the destruction of the Crown George during the Commonwealth, which were kept there at that point. And so it was an important setting off point. But after that, he really, I think think lost interest in the tower it just didn't meet all these new requirements in re-establishing the monarchy after the restoration and tell me about the new crown jewels we've had plantagenet crown jewel adventures on this podcast so often but effectively parliament oliver cromwell broke them up and sold nearly all of it did anything endure well we think there are three swords and the anointing spoon are the survivors and the regalia. Otherwise, everything else had to be largely remade. Although we know a number of jewels survived and they're mostly bought back after the Commonwealth sale.

A great big sale of the majority of Charles's goods, apart from a few that Cromwell kept for himself. And so it was a brand new set of kit for the new king, but it was very much modelled on what people understood of the lost crown jewels. So it was intended to look as if nothing had changed, I suppose you could say. And the crown jewels, we know famously, King John the Useless Idiot allegedly lost great portions of the treasury and crown jewels in the wash as he was escaping from one corner of his kingdom to another as he was beset with his various enemies domestic and foreign the crown jewels in this period were kept in the tower of london or with the person of the king was it like

today where it was almost a kind of ceremonial setting for the crown jewels was the tower of london they had been kept there for parts of them not the entire crown jewels on and off since the middle ages and it was with henry the first when there'd been another great robbery from the Crown Jewels that people realised that leaving them at Westminster Abbey wasn't the safest basis under the auspices of the Abbey there. But it was very much a practical store when Charles II came to the throne. They were, in fact, at this time in the old Jewel jewel house which is a very modest little tower a turret almost on the northeast corner of the tower facing in towards what was today St Catherine's Dock and they were locked up in the lower story of that and it's what is today the jewel house shop

where visitors go after they visit the crown jewels and buy their souvenirs quite a small little place pretty secure because it was in the two curtain walls of the tower, but not a good place to show them off. That was happening, but as we'll discover as we talk, it was in a very modest way. It wasn't a suitable place to show them. And as it turned out in this escapade, it wasn't a good place to store them in terms of security either. So you could go and have a look at the crown jewels, could you? Yes. What you did was you tipped the assistant keeper who was a man to become famous and mr torbert edwards was about the assistant keeper and his job was to look after them and he wasn't paid very much so he could be tipped by probably

fairly well-to-do visitors of the tower we know they've been visitors of the tower for centuries but not in the numbers we have today he would take them into the little room and show them through a grill made of wood the crown jewels and talk about them on a very private intimate visit extraordinary really well it reminds me of shooksbury abbey where i went the other day where i was given a little private tour by a very kind volunteer but this is a whole magnitude of importance more when you talk about the crown jewels. Tell me about Blood. Even by the standards of the 17th century, he is an absolutely extraordinary human being. Talk to me about him. He is an amazing fellow about which there's been much discussion and I think debate by historians and he's not fully understood, I think today it's fair to say. And he is

one of these larger thanthan-life characters. You just wouldn't believe it if you read the story. You'd say, this is made up. But it's extraordinary. He was really an adventurer, but he was a man with quite strong principles. And his principles were, I suppose, primarily aligned to his Irish roots. And a lot of his adventures and misadventures centered around the fate of the Irish, and the Catholic Irish in

particular during the 17th century. He grew up during a period of turmoil. He was much involved with the Irish during the Civil War. And afterwards, he swapped sides, as many of these characters did. That was nothing too extraordinary, but he covered his tracks fairly well. And it's quite a murky character, but he always seems to come out on top right through his life. He's a soldier, he's probably a spy, I think we've all agreed on that now. And he fought initially for Charles I in the Civil War and then joined Cromwell and was quite well rewarded after the defeat of Charles I by Cromwell. Well he had rewards on both sides and he did fairly well under Cromwell,

you're right. But his big interest was in carrying on the cause through the reign of Charles II. And he first comes to light again after the Civil War in trying to storm Dublin Castle, an extraordinary thing to do, which is the seat of the Lord Lieutenant, the man in charge of Ireland on behalf of the King, who was the Duke of Ormond at this time and his life is very much wrapped up with the fate of the Duke of Ormond and those leading politicians associated with him and this happens a few years before this raid on the crown jewels so he becomes absolutely infamous he's one of the most wanted men in the three kingdoms at this point he is I mean by the time he gets around to the crown jewels he's already a wanted man and people on the lookout for him and none of the time he gets round to the crown jewels, he's already a wanted man and people are on the lookout for him.

And none of the later favours he receives from the crown have become apparent. And he's very much associated with Catholic rebels in Ireland at this time. And he takes it a step further. Having been thwarted by the Duke of Ormond, he goes on with an assassination plot on Ormond. And the idea is to actually kidnap him and hang him at Tyburn,

which is extraordinary. I suppose an example of what happens to people that oppose the Irish even though he's doing this from within England this fails again and his reputation becomes even worse at this point why on earth does he decide that his next mission is going to be to try and steal the crown jewels well I don't think anybody has the ultimate answer to that. When it happens, he doesn't treat them with any respect. They are badly damaged and in part broken up during the raid. So it's clearly not just a symbolic act, primarily aimed at sort of downing the crown.

The thinking is that he wants to profit from this, but there must be a symbolic part in it because he is a well-known irishman and he is a rebel and he comes out of it still visible he's not executed he must have other extenuating reasons for doing it but he's never admits to what the reason what's behind all this and although he's involved in many accusations of plots and being involved in espionage it doesn't seem to be a real genuine conspiracy that people have uncovered since around it to more important and more powerful people than Blood himself.

He really seems to be the leader behind it, although there may have been an eminence Grease, a member of the English court behind it, that was trying to get at Charles through attacking the Crown Jewels, I suppose. Well, Charles's succession issues are well known and covered in other podcasts what happened tell me about that day 350 years ago so blood he's decided he's going to steal the crown jewels how does he go about it well he's thoughtful about it and plans it well so he obviously has some military tactical skills because although it happens at the anniversary just coming up now on the 9th of May in 1671,

he started the whole thing, as far as we know, at least three weeks before, when he first visits the Tower, not as Colonel Blood, but incognito, in disguise, as a parson, the Reverend Eyeliff, or Eyeliff, with his wife, who wasn't his wife, as far as we know, a phony wife, with a long beard, a false beard, and dressed up as a parson, asking for a visit around the Crown Jewels. And on that occasion, his so-called wife swoons for some reason, has taken ill, that's by the emotion of seeing the Crown Jewels, and asks to be taken indoors upstairs and a tour by Edward and his wife take her in and help her recover and during this point

obviously blood is doing a reconnaissance trip on his planned raid but it's quite extraordinary but it goes beyond that he starts to befriend this couple and he makes other visits and he ends up having dinner with them and in this process learns that they have a young eligible daughter who may well be betrothed to an officer at the tower at this time or may even married her already he makes this extraordinary suggestion that it would be a good match between edwards is the assistant keeper's daughter at the tower and his own son and proposes this match and arranges another visit and so this goes on for three weeks. There were several visits. And eventually he arranges to meet with a young lady, who's named Elizabeth, on the 9th of May.

And they make an early morning visit. I'm not sure why. It was something like either 6 or 7 a.m. Perhaps that was something to do with today. The Towers' sort of working day is run by the military and people get up early and get on with things. So if you want to do something formally, as today, we have private visits to the Crown Jewels and they often happen early and get on with things. So if you want to do something formally, as today, we have private visits to the crown jewels,

and they often happen early in the morning before the visitors come and all the other business of the tower gets going, and it gets quite a crowded place. So on this day, the 9th of May, they appear, and this parson and his eligible young son to meet up with the daughter of the assistant keeper of the crown jewels. And while they're waiting to visit her upstairs, because the daughter of the assistant keeper of the crown jewels. While they're waiting to visit her upstairs, because the arrangement is the assistant keeper

lives in the upper floors of the tower, it's now known as the Martin Tower, with the jewel house below. And while they're waiting for her to get ready to meet up, he suggests that they have a visit to view the crown jewels. And they let him by Edwards, and immediately the raid begins at this point.

Poor old Edwards, I've got a feeling this is going to go badly for the poor man. He does come across, I suppose, to us today as a bit of a gullible guy, even a mug. But we do know that Blood had a really silvery tongue and was a very clever and ingenious man. And obviously he is because he survived all this. And we'll hear more of that in a moment. At this point, it becomes far less sophisticated. They just basically attack Edwards and he's got two other men with him, a man called Richard Halliwell and a man called

Robert Parrott, who are his co-conspirators, and they're all deeply up to their necks in various episodes, both during the Civil War and afterwards in these various plots and assassination attempts that Blood seems to be the ringleader in. And he throws his cloak over Edwards and he puts a gag in his mouth to stop him screaming and he tells him basically if you go along with this you'll be fine if not they all have these terrible long sharp stiletto daggers tucked into their boots and they show them these daggers and then he has pistols with him too. They say basically if you play along you'll be all fine if not you'll see what's coming. they say basically if you play along you'll be all fine if not you'll see what's coming and he doesn't play along so they whack him on the head with a mallet only one account

which is made by his boss a man called william more of called sir gilbert torbert he whacks him on the head 10 times so they really practically do him in and then when he still won't play along he's stabbed in the stomach and i think they more or less leave him for dead at this point or he's stabbed in the stomach and I think they more or less leave him for dead at this point or he's playing dead at this point because he realizes his number's up so they then carry out the raid they break open the cupboard with these timber bars on it and they start removing the crown jewels but they need to sneak them out of the tower because of course the tower is still heavily defended there isn't actually specifically a guard at this time you'd think there would be a yeoman warder outside the jewel house as today we have a military guard, armed at the teeth, but no. So they've got to get through the tower and out quietly.

So they start to get the prime objects in the regalia ready to sneak out of the tower in their clothing and now it starts to get quite farcical when you put to one side the terrible things that have happened to poor old Mr Edwards. The easiest to remove crown was the newly remade crown of St. Edmunds, which is the most important crown symbolically. And this is the one used actually for the crowning of the king because it's a smaller crown than the state crown, which has all the great jewels in it. Unfortunately, he tries to squash it to put it into his leather bag. he tries to squash it to put it into his leather bag what he hasn't perhaps realized is that as in right up until the time of queen victoria the crown in the coronation is filled with borrowed gems which are often hired in fact from the wealthy around court because the crown doesn't

actually own enough gems to fill the crown jewels and after the coronation they've been removed and sent back to their owners or some have been put into other jewellery, I imagine, that belonged to the king, and replaced with paste stones. So what is falling out around them on the floor? There's an account of a pearl being lost and later found by a lady that works at the tower. He doesn't even realise what he's stealing. It isn't necessarily of such great worth in its own right. And then another one of his assistants squashes the orb to put it into his breeches.

And the third man is trying to break apart the scepter to make it small enough to tuck under his clothing quite extraordinary bloody and messy at this point although it is all well planned you're listening to dan snow's history it's the 350th anniversary of the stealing of the crown jewels. More after this. Have you heard of the teenage werewolf prosecuted in 1603? Did you know that the 17th century British government relied heavily on female spies? And do you want to know about chin-chucking and thigh sex? Of course you do. I'm Susanna Lipscomb, and my new podcast, Not Just the Tudors, is a deep dive into what I like to think of as the long 16th century. We'll be talking about everything from Aztecs to witches, Velazquez to Shakespeare, Mughal India to the Mayflower. Not, in other words, just the Tudors,

but most definitely also the Tudors. Subscribe to Not Just the Tudors from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. Land a Viking longship on island shores, scramble over the dunes of ancient Egypt, and avoid the Poisoner's Cup in Renaissance Florence. Each week on Echoes of History, we uncover the epic stories that inspire Assassin's Creed. We're stepping into feudal Japan in our special series, Chasing Shadows, where samurai warlords and shinobi spies teach us the tactics and skills needed not only to survive, but to conquer.

Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed Shadows or fascinated by history and great stories, listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hits. There are new episodes every week. The way they treat the crown jewels, it's curious, isn't it? Maybe they were just nicking it for the base metals in them. They do smash them up, don't they? It does sound extraordinary. And you wonder why.

I mean, they probably knew from when they'd been to see as visitors that these were all new items. They'd been destroyed quite recently. So I suppose if it was a symbolic act, it was destroying the new crown jewels. It was something to do with getting against Charles II, which Bloodlater claims he never tried to do personally. So that doesn't make a lot of sense and it's obviously not so well researched in that they didn't necessarily steal enough to make a huge amount of money. Anyway, they've stuffed these things into their clothing.

They are just about to leave when unexpectedly, and this is where the plot gets even more extraordinary and quite absurd and totally like a play or a film, Talbot Edwards, the assistant keeper's son, comes home from the wars unexpectedly. He'd been fighting on the continent against the king's enemies and he comes home and he spots their lookout man outside the door. They have a chat and he says, what are you doing here? And he says, go upstairs, you'll find everybody upstairs, you'll find his sister Elizabeth upstairs and this gives him a chance as getaway man to warn them to get out quickly, which they do and they make their break in a

measured way across the tower and out through a little gate, probably the postern gate, onto the wharf to make their escape. By this time, Edwards has recovered enough to make a scream that his daughter hears, because he's still shut into the hill house downstairs, and they all come down and find the poor man there, tied up and in terrible pain and agony and wounded, and the alarm is finally raised. But by this time time the conspirators are already out on the wharf and in fact some of them got back onto their horses they arrived on horseback i was hoping they were going to escape by water it doesn't appear so no they start to

make a break for it they're actually recognized first of all one of the conspirators richard hallowell is recognized as one of the plotters against Ormond. They've got a wanted man already and people start shouting his name. Blood actually starts shouting himself as a distraction, saying a stop thief kind of thing, even though he is the thief, to try and confuse the busy, crowded wharf of the Tower of London, which is an important gateway to London, to try and get away. I'm afraid to say the Yeoman warders, this wasn't their finest hour. One of them just plainly lets the plotters go

bearing in mind they are shooting at people at this time one of them has to dodge a bullet and they haven't effectively caught them you've got edwards's son in pursuit and then the fiancee of elizabeth edwards who is another member of the military he's a swedish man called captain beckman he joins in the pursuit and it's he who finally comes face to face with Blood who has been at this point trapped on the wharf. He hasn't managed to get to his horses. Blood shoots at Beckman but Beckman manages to dodge the bullet and he's finally captured. One of the others does get away on horseback but then he careers into a car that's turning on the wharf and then he is captured too so only one man

from the ones that fly off with the crown jews actually gets away at this point four of them are captured of the five in total yeah the fiance is having a bad day i mean his girlfriend almost got married to someone involved in criminal conspiracy his father-in-law's been half killed and he's almost been shot so i'm glad it ended all right for him. Well, it did and it didn't. They didn't all do very well afterwards. Edwards was pretty badly injured and dies a few years later. His son is also injured and may have died not so long after this raid. The consequence is that none of them did too well.

And the only people that last any length of time are the man in charge, Sir Gilbert Talbot, who's the master of the jewel house, who's Edwards' boss, and Vlad himself, who finally dies after other events we get onto in 1680. I bet the boss of the jewel house, I've been in big organisations enough times to realise that I bet he hung Edwards out to dry and just cut him loose. Said, nothing to do with me, mate, it's my assistant. Well, they did all all right they got some kind of a reward there were 100 pounds and 200 pounds each which was a lot of money then but it's blood who seemed to do best out of all this was it destroying which is the next part in the plot so how on earth does blood get away with this then well i can't get my head

around this entirely so they are captured they're taken into the tower so turning from raiders they're taken immediately to prisoners close prisoners which is the most secure form of imprisonment of the tower and it was a fairly grim thing we know lots of stories about people who have died in close imprisonment from the conditions and he's kept there for a fairly short while but he won't say anything and it becomes clear that he's only going to really collaborate if he can communicate with the king himself and extraordinarily people have been bending the king's ear about this and the king agrees to have a private meeting with colonel blood to talk about why he's done this and he

says he will confess to him which is what happens so here goes to whitehall and has a private meeting with the king confesses this and all these other things he's done the raid on dublin castle the attempt to kidnap and assassination of the duke of ormond the lord lieutenant of ireland and even confesses to abandon plot to kill the king himself when the king is swimming in battersea of all things when he sort of feels sorry for the king and doesn't go ahead with it so So he makes all these extraordinary confessions, and then nothing much happens. He's moaned about being in prison already, and he's there for a few weeks, a month or two. But within the year, he's pardoned completely. And more than that, he's given £500 per annum estates in Ireland, or regains his lost estates from previous penalties.

So he gets better off treatment, certainly than Edwards. Quite extraordinary. He charms King Charles II. He thinks he's a bit of a rogue and sort of takes a shine to him. Well, it has to be more than that. And historians have looked into this. And he's up to his neck in all kinds of other dubious business, which is, of course, the business of statecraft at this time particularly after you know the period of the civil wars we have to remember that charles's hold on power is not as stable as we probably like to think it would have been you know this is only 10 years after he's come back to the throne or so and the king isn't entirely secure so he relies on people to keep

him in touch with what's going on with all his enemies as much as all his allies and he sees in blood somebody he can use and he's more valuable alive than dead so a deal is obviously done this deal has never been fully revealed and he is allowed to go free but he's then in effect reporting back to the king as an agent or spy of some kind does the king get a good deal out of that blood's subsequent adventures did he display any kind of. Does the king get a good deal out of that? Blood's subsequent adventures? Did he display any kind of loyalty to the king or did he renege? He didn't get involved in another big bad event that was obviously aimed against the crown

or against the country after this point. At this point in the king's life, he had more than enough enemies just about to enter into our third war sea against the Dutch. And what he didn't need was a load of local plotters undermining him and we know there were many plots especially in the latter part of King's reign so having a prominent member of the Irish Catholic community who was actually on his side was quite a useful thing to have to keep those people under control

Blight himself describes them as fanatics and that it is better to have one of the leading fanatics on your side than one of my enemies of them all so he did and he also acted for the king against the presbyterian dissenters in scotland so he did prove useful but i don't think it's clear what the king got out of it and whether it was worse i suppose the embarrassment of blood going free and there was a lot of rancor about it we know that so gilbert talbot the boss of the ground jaws, the master, when he finally tells the world all about this, after blood's death, in fact, he writes a sort of memoir, which wasn't exactly published, but it was well known. And there were various versions of this written memorial of this event and his own life,

which are now in places like the British Library. And we actually still have a copy at the Tower of London these days, it rankles against him that blood has got free. And other people comment on this, famous people of the time, members of court. John Evelyn meets blood not long after the raid. I'm not quite sure the circumstances, because he must have been in custody at this point.

And he's totally baffled as to why the king has let him off. But he knows the king is very much involved in a network of espionage across to Ireland and to the continent in order to help control power. So you mentioned Blood's death. He died in 1680 at 62. I mean, he's very lucky he wasn't alive, or someone was very lucky he wasn't alive in the William I Irish Wars.

I'm sure he'd have played a very prominent part, 1688, 9, 19, all that. I mean, judging on his performance so far, he might have done quite well during that event and certainly chopped and chained sides. But, you know, he did die, I think, of fairly natural causes. But, in fact, people were suspicious he had actually died and there was actually authorisation that his body be exhumed

after a few days to check that he was, in fact, dead and it wasn't just another one of his ploys to carry out another incognito, nefarious deed. was in fact dead by this time for sure and it's very telling that Gilbert Torbert the master it's only that point he sets out his thoughts of this event several years before and his account is a bit muddled probably through over time and maybe looking at different papers himself he had access to to try and set the record straight. So the crown jewels that you currently look after there in the mighty Tower of London, are they the same crown jewels that Blood tried to steal? Yeah, I mean, there have been additions and changes to them,

but no, they're fundamentally Charles II's crown jewels, is what we all celebrate today, with this exception of the three swords and the anointing spoon, which is the one medieval survivor. And so the Queen still wears the crown that was squished by blood. Did they unsquish it? They did do some unsquishing repairs, yes. As I say, these odd jewels that popped out as though they were squished were placed back into them and they looked as good as new.

I mean, the crown jewels have over time constantly changed and been maintained and repaired as needed. And then that's sometimes at the whim of Mark but essentially he was the last man to make an attempt on the crown jewels and they were put back and obviously with not a lot of publicity although more than they would have liked and it was in the papers of the day this and everything was right in the end as far as the crown jewels were concerned but not for poor Edward Edwards. Has anyone ever tried to steal the crown jewels ever since? Not as far as I know although we make a game that we sell based on this story called steal the crown jewels i think it is

well i will be playing that refining my skills for the big day just on the crown jewels obviously they're sort of priceless because of the historical import and how unique they are are they valued for insurance like what is the value of the crown jewels in the basement of the Tower of London? Their value is never discussed. I think they're generally considered to be priceless. I mean, they're irreplaceable. And that includes some of the gems within them as well

as the actual objects themselves. So no, we don't talk about their value at all. We just look after them much better than they did at this time. And I have to say, after all this event was over, after a few years, they did at this time. And I have to say, after all this event was over, after a few years, they did rethink the security at the time in the old jewel house, in this little tower, and they finally put metal bars rather sensibly in front of them,

and they made visitor arrangements a bit more controlled at this point, and put a yeoman warder on duty in front of the jewel house. Well, that's very sensible. I bet by the time the Duke of Wellington was in charge of the jewel house well that's very sensible i bet by the time the duke of wellington was in charge of the tower things were pretty tightly run ship wellington's he's very interesting character in terms of the tower's history he's obviously he was a great military man he's a great administrator but he had to deal with something that edwards had to deal with which was visitors and the big thing in Wellington's time as the

constable of the town I'm sorry he's the man in charge of it he has to deal with much more public visiting and this is paid ticketed interesting and he's actually not very keen on the many many people he thought were coming in fact it was about 10,000 people a year which is far less than we would hope to have this summer when we reopen properly you know how do you look after the crown jewels but make them accessible? And they do move through a series of jewel houses throughout the 19th and then after he's gone into the 20th century. They are moved around where you have this tension between making them as secure as possible but making them accessible because there are these iconic,

important, national objects and that's something we still have to deal with today. I think we have a much better arrangement today and it all seems to work far better, but they are stuck within a castle that is designed to be hard to get in and out of. So the irony of the crown jewels, they are not in a perfect museum setting that other great treasures of the world have put on display. Well, I hope everybody listening to this

goes and checks out the crown jewels. Please do come back and see them, especially if you haven't been there since you were a school child and bring your friends. We will be delighted. I spent my 40th birthday in the Tower of London. I mean, listen, I love the Tower of London. I love a heritage site. But when my wife and my mum secretly planned for me to go to the Tower of London on my 40th, I'm like, you know I'm there most days of the week, right?

I mean, look, I'm very happy to go to the Tower of London, but I was quite surprised when they selected that as a surprise birthday destination for the whole family. It's a wonderful place, I think, to have a birthday. Not many people have thought of that. Sebastian, thank you very much for coming on the podcast. Everybody go and check out the Tower of London as soon as it reopens. And you can see the crown jewels

that were actually stolen by blood. So exciting. Thank you. Thank you. I feel they had the history upon our shoulders. All this tradition of ours, our school history, our songs, this part of the history of our country, all were gone and finished. Hi everyone, thanks for reaching the end of this podcast. Most of you are probably asleep,

so I'm talking to your snoring forms, but anyone who's awake, it would be great if you could do me a quick favour, head over to wherever you get your podcasts and rate it five stars and then leave a nice glowing review. It makes a huge difference for some reason to how these podcasts do. Madness, I know, but them's the rules. Then we go further up the charts, more people listen to us and everything will be awesome. So thank you so much. Now sleep well.