Dan Snow's History Hit - The Heist of the Century: The Missing Irish Crown Jewels

Episode Date: September 8, 2024

In the shadowy halls of Dublin Castle, 1907, a daring heist shook the British Empire. Four days before King Edward VII's royal visit, the priceless Irish Crown Jewels vanished without a trace. Sir Arthur Vicars, the somewhat incompetent Ulster King of Arms, found himself at the centre of the scandal that threatened to expose dark secrets lurking in Ireland's high society. As Scotland Yard tried to unravel the mystery, suspicion fell on the charismatic Francis Shackleton, brother of the famed explorer...To this day the jewels have never been found. But now, Dan wants to try and find them, with your help. If you've ever come across any information relating to this story - an old newspaper article, a story from a relative or friend... we want to hear from you! Please write to us at [e-mail] Dan Snow's History Hit can solve the case once and for all.Produced by Mariana Des Forges and edited by Dougal Patmore.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Sign up HERE for 50% off for 3 months using code ‘DANSNOW’.We'd love to hear from you - what do you want to hear an episode on? You can email the podcast at [e-mail] can take part in our listener survey here.

It is one of the most stunning crimes of the past 150 years. The King was furious. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle offered to help, hoping his skills, a best-selling writer of detective novels, might have real-world utility. The press published breathless updates. Scotland Yard sent their best. Yet the criminals have never been identified.

The stolen goods have never been recovered. Indeed, the police reports that do exist have been meticulously removed from the archives. removed from the archives. A very serious crime seems to have prompted an establishment cover-up of corresponding magnitude. This is the remarkable story of the theft of the Irish crown jewels. of the Irish crown jewels. The United Kingdom has a lot of chivalric orders, little clubs, societies, with elite membership. I've stood in Windsor Castle. I've watched as the knights of the garter processed into the chapel, the same building where Harry and Meghan got

married. The knights have an annual shindig there. The garter is the most senior order in the kingdom. It was founded by Edward III in 1348. As I watched, former prime ministers and governors of the Bank of England, chiefs of the defence staff, all marched in, and Andrew Lloyd Webber. Going slightly down the scale, you've got the Most Honourable Order of the Bath. Each of those knights have a stall in the Henry VII Chapel at Westminster Abbey. The most illustrious order of St. Patrick was an attempt to give the Irish parity within the United Kingdom. But as always with the Irish, they were made to feel like a poor relation. The illustrious Order of St Patrick was supposed to be alongside Garter

and the Bath, the Order of the Thistle. But for one thing, the King never came to Ireland. He never attended their meeting. It was William IV's idea. He obviously was not going to go to Ireland. Astonishingly, in the century since Henry II had first claimed overlordship of Ireland, I think only three English kings had visited. You get King John very briefly, King Richard, who made a very poorly timed visit, the occasion was set upon by his cousin Henry to invade England and steal the throne. So it was not a great precedent. William III, perhaps for that reason, went very reluctantly to Ireland to drive out his father-in-law, his predecessor, James II. James had gone there after being thrown

out of England in 1688 as a kind of backdoor to England and his British kingdoms. But anyway, monarchs just did not go to Ireland. William IV certainly wasn't going to change that, goodness me, no. But he was going to endow the Grand Master of the Order of St. Patrick, the order had been established by George III, his father. He was going to endow the Grand Master, who was the Lord Lieutenant, his representative in Ireland, with a stunning set of jewels. So he'd be decked out in a style befitting his Majesty's representative. He sent the jewels across the Irish Sea. They'd once belonged to his brother's mistress. And the story goes that William IV's wife didn't want them. So like many other awkward royal relations, they were sent to Ireland. Like Prince John, like Richard Duke of York. Get them out of the way. These jewels, though, were spectacular. There was a five-inch

star with eight points, made up of Brazilian diamonds in the centre. There was a cross made of rubies. Then there was a three-lobed sort of leaf shape made of emeralds. Then there was in tiny rose diamonds, there was a Latin motto, quis separar bit, which means who will separate us, which was a rhetorical question answered very definitely in the early 1920s. There was a badge alongside the star, it was silver, had emeralds on it, another cross of rubies. Then there was a three-inch crowned harp, also made of small Brazilian diamonds. Officially, all of this was called the insignia of the Grand Master of the Order of St. Patrick. But really, it became known as the Irish Crown Jewels. And they were definitely seen together, in position, in a safe, on the 11th of June 1907.

And they have never, ever been seen since. They were stolen from inside that safe, from one of the most secure locations in the British Empire. So this is the story of the heist of the century, the theft of the Irish crown jewels. T-minus 10. Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. God save the king.

No black-white unity till there is first and black unity. Never to go to war with one another again. And lift off, and the shuttle has cleared the tower. And liftoff, and the shuttle has cleared the tower. In the heart of Ireland's capital, Dublin, is the castle. It's been there really from the birth of the English invasion and conquest of Ireland. It was built at the beginning of the 13th century, just after Henry II's invasion, and it was designed to protect the city of Dublin, to safeguard the king's treasure, to be a seat of government, a seat for the administration of justice.

It was a massive, unsubtle, rectangular stronghold. Towers at the corners, a powerful gatehouse defended by a moat. But by the very early 20th century century most of that medieval castle had been scoured away and replaced by less martial buildings which sprung up in and around the castle on its footprint so people refer to Dublin Castle they still meant in a very real sense the heart of the UK state in Ireland and it's all still there today if you walk into the upper yard many of you will have done, you get to the heart of where the old Plantagenet Fortress would have been. And there you're confronted by the magnificent Bedford Tower, a very handsome classical 18th century building, this Corinthian columns, bays with large windows, a towering clock tower. And all around it was the political and security apparatus of the UK state in Ireland.

There was the headquarters of the Dublin Metropolitan Police. There were the headquarters of the Dublin Detective Force. The headquarters of the Royal Irish Constabulary. And the head office of the Dublin Military Garrison. All within 50, 75 metres of this Bedford Tower. And it was commented at the time that there was no spot in Dublin or possibly in the United Kingdom, which is at all hours more constantly and systematically occupied

by soldiers and policemen. So I'll take you back to 1907. You're walking through that governmental, that security heart of Ireland and you get to the door of the Bedford Tower. You open that door and you get into a circular foyer. Straight ahead, there's a little administration room, and that's the realm of the messenger, his title was, William Stivey. He was a former sailor, and his job was a caretaker receptionist. Beyond his little room was a strong room. To his right there's a door leading to the library and there's a long table that runs down the middle of that

library for scholars to look up their obscure genealogy. And in that library, not in the strong room, for reasons that are slightly too tiresome to relate, is a safe. In that safe were the Irish crown jewels. Now, I repeat, they were not in the strong room where the sword of state and other various baubles, valuable baubles were. The library in which that safe was was actually quite a busy room. It acts as a waiting room because people would go into that building to see pursuivants or heralds. Now, they were allegedly volunteers who would help you with your genealogical research, but in reality, they accepted donations.

People would pay those heralds to look up their ancestry. Now, perhaps to lay claim to some crumbling mansion somewhere or to lord it over some provincial rival, neighbor, they would pay the heralds. They would pay for a grand family tree. Now that is another profession almost wiped out by the march of the internet. But back in the early 20th century, they were thriving. The boss of this building, the boss of this operation, was the Ulster King of Arms, the chief genealogist for Ireland, a man called Sir Arthur Vickers. The post had been created way back

in Tudor times, and his job was to sort of really work out who everyone was and how blue their blood was. But he was also the knight attendant of the Order of St. Patrick, which sounds grand, but it just means it's chief functionary. So he ran all the ceremonial occasions. He kept the clobber, he kept the crown, he kept the jewels, he kept the He kept the clobber. He kept the crown jewel. He kept the jewels. He kept the swords, the medals, et cetera. He put on the shows. He liked the good things in life.

He was a bit of a snob. He was short of cash, but he was long on expensive tastes. He had a big paneled office on the first floor, big windows, balconies, stone columns looking over the rest of the castle. It felt like you were entering the presence of someone very important. Next door to him, there was a secretary. And above them, next door up, there was another secretary. There was a typist as well. And the only other employee was the cleaner, Mary Farrell. She was a widow. She had three surviving sons. She'd once been in the most dire poverty. She now lived very close

to the castle. And she kept the building spick and span. She kept the show on the sons. She'd once been in the most dire poverty. She now lived very close to the castle, and she kept the building spic and span. She kept the show on the road. She was helped in her work by her sons. It was a rarefied, cozy existence, and none of them had any idea that Bedford Tower of Dublin Castle was about to be cast into the most dire crisis. On Wednesday the 3rd of July 1907, Mrs

Farrell came to work. It was just before 8am. It seems to me, researching this, that people came to work in order of how senior they were. So the cleaner, Mrs Farrell, the most junior person, arrived just before 8am. She walked into Dublin Castle, she passed the sentries, she put her key in the lock of Bedford Tower, but the door just swung open. It was unlocked. This never happened before. She searched the building. It was empty. The rest of the staff trickled in. So the more junior you were, the earlier you arrived, which meant Sir Arthur Vickers rolled in at 11 o'clock in the morning. Mrs Farrell made the report of the open door to Mr Stivey. He was worried he might have left it open. He'd been there late the previous night, but then he

remembered that there was a policeman, Owen Carr. He did the rounds after 7pm, checking that everything was locked up. Stivey waits for Sir Arthur Vickers to roll in. Sir Arthur went straight to his desk, papers, important correspondence, important stuff going on. Stivey stood there, clearing his throat, waiting for an age for an opportunity to speak, and he eventually butted in, told the news the door was open. Sir Arthur was completely unconcerned. When told that Mrs Farrell had found the door open, he simply drawled. Did she? Stivey shrugged and went about his chores. Now Vickers was distracted. He was stressed. In fact, he was probably overwhelmed because he was expecting a very special visitor. Ireland had formally been incorporated into the United Kingdom on the stroke of midnight at the start of January

the 1st, 1801 by act of union. It was now part of the United Kingdom. George III on the throne, hence George III establishing this illustrious order of St. Patrick, trying to give Ireland parity within the United Kingdom. But the reality was that Ireland was actually a very unequal part of this new state, the UK. The vast majority of Irish were Catholic and the Catholics were not allowed to vote nor be sent as MPs to the Parliament in Westminster. Great swathes of the population were openly hostile to the British state. And that is one of the reasons that George III and his son William IV did not visit Ireland. The first monarch to visit Ireland in modern times was Queen Victoria. She went to Ireland four times in her reign. I always think the fact that a medal, an actual medal, was issued to the military

and the police to mark the occasion of her visit is a bit of a tell that these visits were rather different to her visits to other parts of the UK, like Hampshire or Norfolk. Now in July 1907, it was her son Edward VII's turn to visit. After waiting a long time on the throne, he was now king, and he was due to arrive on the 10th of July 1907. Amusingly, he told the Lord Lieutenant, a rather miserly politician called Lord Aberdeen, that he was coming, and Aberdeen had a nervous breakdown when he'd been told he was expected to accommodate the large royal party he was to host them. So Aberdeen came up with a very cunning plan that the king would stay on his own yacht at his own expense.

And he'd travel into Dublin every day for various events, which was a drive of 10 miles. Now, this was obviously rather inconvenient for the king. It was also very rude. But Aberdeen came up with the brilliant idea of saying that the drive would give, quote, a splendid opportunity for the manifestation of cordial welcome and goodwill on the part of the population.

So Aberdeen managed to shift responsibility for buying new linen and lots of expensive food and wine for the king's visit, but Vickers was unable to shift responsibility. He was in charge of much of the visit. He was in charge of lots of the ceremonial and the protocol, who's standing where, all that kind of nonsense. And that meant that typically Vickers was working late at the moment. He was putting a lot of time in at the office. Two days after the weird open door incident on the 5th of July now, it's Friday night, Vickers was the last out of the tower.

He did an inspection, he tested the strong room door, he looked at the safe and he left the building at about 7.15pm. You're a listener to Dan Snow's History. We're talking about the heist of the century. More coming up. I'm Matt Lewis. And I'm Dr. Alan Orjanaga. And in Gone Medieval, we get into the greatest mysteries. The gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research from the greatest millennium in human history. We're talking Vikings, Normans, kings and popes who were rarely the best of friends, murder, rebellions and crusades. Find out who we really were by subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit wherever you get your podcasts.

Saturday, the 6th of July. Mrs Farrell let herself in. The door was locked. She walked over to Mr Stivey's desk, see if there were any notes for her, people asking her to do particular tasks, but there were none. Then she looked up, and she was astonished. The door to the strong room was open. It was ajar, only a crack, about enough for a man to squeeze through. Everything was silent. Someone could still be in there. She waited. Then, with no sign of movement for some time, she peeped inside. There was a grill beyond the door, and it was locked. But the key was in the lock. She made a quick decision. She took the key,

she slammed the door closed, then she waited for the rest of the team. It was Saturday, so they were even more slow to arrive. She obviously wasn't that patient. She left a note on Mr. Stivey's desk with the key she'd taken out of the strong room, and she left. Stivey came in at about 10.20 and he had a fit. He quickly checked the strong room. Now everything looked to be in its place. Thank goodness. He waited anxiously for Sir Arthur.

Sir Arthur arrived just before midday, but he dashed up to his office straight away, busy with his team, and Stivey was waiting to tell him in private that the strong room had been found open. At one o'clock, Sir Arthur came downstairs to place a telephone call by Stivey's desk and that's when the messenger told him. Stivey said the strong room door had been ajar. Again, Sir Arthur seemed utterly uninterested. Is that so, he said, and wandered back upstairs. Stivey couldn't believe it, but he shrugged and got on with his day. At 2.15, Stivey decided to leave early, which was

typical in those days on a Saturday. It's why soccer matches, football matches kicked off in the afternoon of Saturday. Factory workers, office workers would get Saturday afternoon off and Sunday. He went upstairs and said something like, will that be all, sir? And very unusually, in fact, this is uniquely, Sir Arthur asked him to put a valuable medal, a decoration in the safe, and he handed him the keys. He'd never done that before.

The boss, Sir Arthur alone, opened and closed the safe. Stivey went back downstairs. He didn't know how to open the safe. He tried the bottom key. It didn't work. He tried the top key. It turned, but it turned the wrong way. He tried the handle. It didn't open. It was locked. Stivey had locked the safe. He instantly realized that meant the safe had been unlocked. He didn't even touch it, he didn't even open it. He raced back upstairs. He told Sir Arthur he must have left it unlocked. Sir Arthur finally, finally seemed to get it. He seemed energised. He stood bolt upright, he grabbed the keys, he strode downstairs, he entered the library. He opened the safe and gave it a nervous scan.

Everything seemed to be there, but then he spotted a key sticking out of a lockbox within the safe. A lockbox which contained the Irish crown jewels. A witness said he muttered, the key is in the lock. I wonder if they're all right. He knelt. He in the lock. I wonder if they're all right. He knelt. He opened the lockbox. It was empty. He goggled.

For a moment, he was absolutely frozen. He gaped at the empty box. Then he shouted, my God, they are gone! The jewels are gone! He tore open other boxes containing the jeweled collars which the knights of the order would have worn. They were gone. Then he went back and opened up the main box again in case he was dreaming.

He noticed something extraordinary. The ribbon and the pin which fixed the jewels to the royal person, well, they were in there. Someone had taken the time not to tear it off and rip it off, but to unscrew the tiny little screws and remove the jewels from this mount. That would prove important later on. Sir Arthur completely panicked. All hell broke loose. Stivey was sent out to get help, and he was not told to get a policeman.

He was told to go and get the commissioner of the Dublin Metropolitan Police. Sir Arthur was going straight to the top. As for the man himself, Sir Arthur raced upstairs, and he announced to his team, something dreadful has happened. When the police arrived, it was actually not the commissioner,

but the deputy commissioner, Sir Arthur straight away went route one and he blamed another government department. He said that he'd told them the safe needed to be in the strong room, but they put it in the library. Classic play there. He also blamed the safe, by the way. He said the safe was not secure. The detective asked immediately, had the strong room been tampered with and Sir Arthur said no which was a lie. It seems like he couldn't admit that he hadn't acted sooner when he was told about that strong room door being ajar. As more and more police turned up Vickers really got to swing of it and started blaming really everyone he could think of, various people vaguely connected with the building, the jewels and his office. He still did not tell the detectives about the discovery that Mrs Farrell had made that morning.

One of the people that he blamed reasonably quickly was his coachman, Phillips. He did have access to Sir Arthur's keys. He'd once driven them from Sir Arthur's house to the office when Sir Arthur had forgotten them. And he was a convenient person to blame. He wasn't a gentleman. He was a useful scapegoat. No one would really mind if he got locked up the rest of his life. The police absolutely rinsed Phillips. Sir Arthur Vickers fired him, but no one could find a shred of evidence he had anything to do with it. So poor

Phillips was the first person to have his life completely ruined in this tragedy. To be fair, after his first shocking reaction, Sir Arthur Vickers did regret it and paid for Phillips's family to emigrate to the USA, but it certainly doesn't reflect very well on Sir reaction. Sir Arthur Vickers did regret it and paid for Phillips's family to emigrate to the USA, but it certainly doesn't reflect very well on Sir Arthur. Sir Arthur, that afternoon, he goes home. He immediately summons his nephew, Pierce Gunn Mahoney. He's one of the heralds. He's one of these assistants, these so-called volunteers who help people with their genealogy. He summoned him round to his house. Now he rushed round to Sir Arthur's house and he gave him keys which he had in his possession. One to the door of Bedford Tower,

the other to the door of the strong room. No one had told the police that one of the heralds, Sir Arthur's nephew in this case, had keys to the building in the strong room. Sir Arthur had clearly been a bit loose and was now trying to clean up his tracks. The next day, the police interviewed Mrs Farrell and they were astonished to learn that the strong room had in fact been compromised the day before. They also found out that a few months earlier, at the start of 1907, she'd been in the building alone.

She'd heard the front door open. She went to check it out and there in the library was a man who was not connected with the building at all, but who she thought she recognised as Lord Haddo, friends, the son of Lord Aberdeen, the Lord Lieutenant, the King's representative in Ireland. They had this face-off in the library and she realised that he'd let himself into Bedford Tower with a key. He should not have had a key. She reported it, but it was not investigated. The police then asked the guards at the castle entrances

about when various people had arrived and left, and they did not know. They didn't remember. They'd not remember, for example, what time Sir Arthur Vickers had arrived or left on the day before the theft was discovered. So the next time you go through the apparently utterly pointless and tiresome signing in and out of some building or facility,

spare a thought for the exasperated police who realised that there was no record of who had come and who had gone from the upper yard on the night in question. At this point, two men are on their way to Dublin, not together, but both of whom are rather important. One was another herald, like Pierce Gunn Mahoney. He was a genealogist who worked in the building, worked under Sir Arthur Vickers. His name was Francis Shackleton. And if that feels like a name you recognize, well, you're right. He was the brother of the explorer, Sir Ernest Shackleton, who you will have heard me talk about on this podcast once or twice. But on this episode, we don't care about Sir Ernest at all. We're interested in Francis. He was a businessman. He was certainly a social climber. He was very ambitious for money

and social success. He'd fought in the Boer War, but he'd been sent home either because of illness or because he was homosexual and being caught with another soldier, depending on the stories you listen to. He had initially volunteered in the College of Arms to try and meet the right sort of people. And he'd eventually entered a slightly strange deal with Sir Arthur Vickers, whereby they shared a grand house in Dublin. Sir Arthur could live like a man of importance because Shackleton paid half his rent, even though Shackleton was very rarely there. And in return, Shackleton had been given the post of the so-called Dublin Herald, a very useful rung on the ladder into the world of gentry and aristocracy. And from that launchpad,

Shackleton spent most of his time trying to make money in London. But now he's on the way home and he was apparently rather worried. First of all, the theft was obviously a disaster for the organisation he was part of. Hugely embarrassing. Secondly, he'd said something very, very odd a few days before. The timing was fascinating. Just a couple of days before the theft had been discovered, he'd been at a fancy lunch over in England, and the subject of the Irish crown jewels had come up, and he'd said, sort of showing off,

how weak security was, and how he wouldn't be surprised if someone had a go at stealing them. But a few days later, he'd rather hope that had been a throwaway comment, and it had been forgotten, but he was wrong. Everyone at that lunch took great pleasure recounting it to all and sundry when just two days later the news broke that they had in fact been stolen. Why had he said such a strange thing at such a particular time? The other man travelling to Dublin was a Scotland Yard inspector, one of the best in that business, John Kane, Irish by birth. He'd been in the force since 1874. He was dogged and thorough. nor did they think it had been turned with a wax impression.

It was either the key or a replica key, which would have taken a specialist locksmith an entire day to make, and he would have had to have the original key in his possession. By the 9th of July, an initial police report was already pointing the finger at the staff at Bedford Tower. The facts at present known would appear to indicate that the larceny was committed by some person familiar with the place who had ordinary means of access. Once Inspector Kane had been briefed, he came to that same conclusion. He said that they, quote, need to look for the thief in this building because of what has been described to me

would be utterly impossible to my mind on the part of an ordinary thief. And there was one essential observation of the crime scene that led him to that conclusion. Experienced teachers, he would later observe, that when a thief secures his booty in another man's house, the first thing uppermost in his mind is to secure his retreat. What does he care whether cases are restored? He wants to get away. And he pointed to the fact that the strongroom door had been left the jar, yet nothing taken. Any normal thief surely had a swipe the golden crown, other valuables therein. But he also said the fact that that ribbon had been so carefully removed from one of the decorations, and the protective tissue paper in the boxes

in which the other jewels had been stored had been meticulously put back. The boxes had been closed. They'd been placed back in the safe. The safe had been closed. It was all very neat. What kind of a thief would do that? You're listening to Dan Snow's History.

We're talking about the heist of the century. More coming up. I'm Matt Lewis. And I'm Dr. Alan Orjanaga. And in Gone Medieval, we get into the greatest mysteries. The gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research. From the greatest millennium in human history. We're talking Vikings.

Normans. Kings and Popes, who were rarely the best of friends, murder, rebellions, and crusades. Find out who we really were by subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts.

When Sir Arthur Vickers came face to face with Kane and the Scotland Yard man said this to him Vickers freaked out I have implicit confidence in every member of my staff was all he could blurt out The UK Treasury offered a reward of £1,000 for such information that will lead to the recovery of the jewels. That reward has never been claimed. But who knows, after this podcast, we may uncover a new lead.

The jewels were said actually to be worth up to £50,000. That's a huge amount of money, well over a million pounds of today's money. In 1908, £400 would buy you a car. day's money. In 1908, 400 pounds would buy you a car. On the 10th of July, Edward VII arrived for his now very inconvenient trip to Ireland. The King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, Emperor of India, ruler of an imperial domain on which the sun never set. And he was not amused. The first thing he said to the Lord Lieutenant, Lord Aberdeen, was a reference to the theft. It left Lord Aberdeen squirming, and indeed everyone was getting desperate. And this is where Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stepped in to help. Perhaps he thought he could bring his creation,

Sherlock Holmes, to the problem. Things got even more weird. On the 14th of July, Ah, things got even more weird. On the 14th of July, a group of spiritualists gathered at Sir Arthur Vickers' house and a medium held the key to find out where the jewels were. The medium announced they were in a disused churchyard in Clonsilla in north-west County Dublin. The following day, Vickers and the police searched that churchyard thoroughly. The jewels were not found. And I always liked the detail. The medium had the foresight not to bother going on the search.

The following day, Kane from the yard, an altogether more serious figure, made his initial report, 16th of July, 1907. We know there were two copies of this report produced, one for Scotland Yard, one for Dublin Castle. Neither of those two copies has survived. Both copies have been carefully removed from the archives. Now here is our best theory as to why. Inspector Kane had been looking unsuccessfully for the crown jewels, but he had found something rather more unexpected, rather different, and altogether less welcome. Kane had uncovered a ring of elite homosexuals in Dublin. a ring of elite homosexuals in Dublin. This was not cool in Edwardian Britain and Ireland.

Homosexuality was, in theory, at least still punishable by death. It was not publicly acknowledged. It was not discussed. It would mean immediate disgrace. But during the course of Kane's investigations, it become clear that the College of Arms was at the centre of a group of homosexuals, a group of gay men, some of whom were linked to another group of high-ranking gay men in London. And that link was Francis Shackleton. The reports have disappeared, but we do get a sense of this from one very interesting piece of communication. The king himself was impatient, so his private secretary, Lord Knollis, wrote to Aberdeen, the Lord Lieutenant, on the 17th of September 1907, some little time later. He wrote, the king knows that you personally are anxious that the mystery of this audacious robbery should be cleared up, and the blame fastened upon the proper shoulders but it does not appear to

his majesty that the feeling is universal and the inquiry seems to be dawdling on in a somewhat leisurely fashion. Four days later Aberdeen replied. Now he wrote simply asking for an audience because he wanted to update the king in person but he also noted that the king should prepare himself because the names of several suspects were in fact officers in the militia. So they were people of hitherto pretty good standing. But we think there's more missing documentation here because when Lord Knollis wrote back granting that audience, he also wrote, the king is not surprised to hear of the very disagreeable disclosures which appear to be forthcoming, as he was sure there were features in the case

which caused it to hang fire under investigation in the unaccountable way it has done. Well, what's interesting is in Aberdeen's letter, he doesn't mention any very disagreeable disclosures. mention any very disagreeable disclosures. So it's likely that there was an accompanying note, and that accompanying note is not, for whatever reason, in the Royal Archives. But if we look into stories and gossip and rumour, no doubt some of it malicious, but if we try and weigh it up, it does seem that we do get a sense of what those very disagreeable disclosures now are. It appears that Sir Arthur Vickers was in the habit of holding parties, soirees, in Bedford Tower after office hours, and they would be attended by prominent gay and bisexual men. Among them,

Lord Aberdeen's son, Lord Haddo, who I mentioned earlier. He was the one whom the redoubtable Mrs Farrell had found standing awkwardly in the library one Saturday morning. We have an account of at least one occasion in which Sir Arthur Vickers passed out through drink. He was apparently something of a lightweight. The key to the jewels had been insecure. There's the suggestion that on one occasion when Sir Arthur Vickers passed out, one of the Circle took the key, swiped the jewels as a gag, and returned them the very following day. So, friends, things were loose in Bedford Tower. One figure who emerged at this point as part of this set

was Captain Richard Howard Gorge. He was a deeply troubled man. He was a decorated soldier. He'd fought in wars in South Africa against the Boers, against the Matabele. He was of old Anguirus stock, but had fallen on hard times. He'd been injured in the line of duty. He seemed to be carrying both physical and mental wounds from his time in the service. He and Shackleton were both gay. They both frequented Dublin Castle. Gorge had returned from Southern Africa and was a training officer in the army. He was regularly in Ireland for training purposes.

As well as Sir Arthur Vickers, Haddo and Shackleton, it does seem like Gorge was present on several occasions at after-hours parties, and as an officer it would not have been remarked upon by the sentries as he walked in and out of Dublin Castle, no matter what the hour. There was an inquiry, but it lacked teeth. Witnesses could choose to attend, they were not placed under oath. It was held in the library of the Bedford Tower, so that in fact the very room where the crime had been committed

is surely a first in history. The formal hearings occur at the crime scene, but it achieved no purpose. But during that inquiry, there was enough innuendo and aspersion, and Shackleton and Gorge in particular got their reputations absolutely battered. At the close of that inquiry, Shackleton left the College of Arms. He left Ireland. He would never return. Eventually, Sir Arthur Vickers also bowed to the inevitable and resigned his position as well, protesting his innocence, blaming other people until the day he died. No one was ever brought to trial. Whispers destroyed the lives and reputations of many of the men who were innocent and one or two who may have been guilty. In 1909, a couple of years later, there was an extraordinary to

and fro in the House of Commons in London. An Irish MP used his parliamentary privilege, so that's his freedom for being sued for libel. He asked a question about the theft of the jewels and in particular, the reports, I'm quoting him from Hansard, essentially the minutes of the House of Commons, the reports, quote, implicating as principal and accomplices in theft, and also as principals in sodomy and other beastly crimes, F.R. Shackleton and Captain Gorges. The Speaker of the House immediately shot back,

the honourable member has really no right to bring in the names of gentlemen in matters of that sort without submitting his question to me. I will say whether it's a proper one to ask. So it's clear that in governmental circles there was deep suspicion about the role that Shackleton in particular had played. We may never know whether Shackleton and Gorge were guilty. Oddly, many of the characters at the heart of this drama did find themselves in dire straits or even come to very sticky ends. Pierce Gunn Mahoney, you'll remember he was like Shackleton,

one of the heralds, he was a nephew of Vickers. He was found dead a few years later in July 1914. He'd been walking alone, carrying a shotgun for a day shooting on a neighbouring estate, and an inquest found that as he was climbing over a stile, the trigger of the shotgun must have been snagged in the barbed wire and fired both barrels into his chest. Gorge had an extremely troubled life from that point onwards. He was broke, he was addicted to alcohol.

He at one stage desperately offered to throw in his lot with Irish insurrectionists. When that came to nothing, he would sit in rented rooms, shouting obscenities, raving, and even firing his pistol into the air. One night, the police came to confiscate his pistol and he shot an officer, a crime for which he went to prison. Now, there's a fascinating epilogue to that particular story. In December 1916, there were reports from an inmate that one of his fellow prisoners was raving about having stolen the crown jewels. Well, that prisoner was Gorge.

An inspector from Scotland Yard was sent to investigate. We have no report of the interview that survives. So Arthur Vickers was murdered during the Irish Civil War. He was killed at his home by the IRA. As for Shackleton, well, he was ruined by the Crown Jewels affair. And as so often his reputation is standing in the business world, which was based on confidence, began to deteriorate. Several of his business deals went bad. He was declared bankrupt in 1910, and he actually fled to Portuguese West Africa, where he took a job as a manager at a plantation. But Scotland Yard sent out a man to arrest him in late 1912 on fraud charges, and he stood trial in London.

He was found guilty in the Old Bailey of fraud charges, and he stood trial in London. He was found guilty in the Old Bailey of fraudulently dealing with funds that had been entrusted to him, and he was sentenced to 15 months hard labour. There have been many hoaxes and conspiracy theories through the last century about the whereabouts of the crown jewels, but to this day, they have never been found. And call me hopelessly naive or romantic, but folks, I want to see if this worldwide network of listeners can help me solve this century-long mystery. Let's do this. Let's have a bit of fun. Between us, does someone

somewhere know something? Come on, any leads that we can investigate? I'd love to hear from you, if you remember anything an old family member may have told you sometime. Any little facts you've come across that might help us head in the right direction. Send any tips to ds.hh at historyhit.com. And if we get something credible, there are one or two stories out there that are worth further research. We might do another episode on the investigations. We might hunt them down ourselves. We might claim that reward.

Thanks for listening, folks. See you next time. Goodbye. you