Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 05.djvu/243

 by the court of kind's bench for 10,000l. damages of the Buckingham slander. He found bail and returned to his house in Bowling Alley, Westminster. His health, but not his spirit, was broken. His sickness lasted fourteen days. He declared himself not afraid of death, but fell into a speechless lethargy on the Monday, and died on Tuesday, 24 Aug. 1680. He was buried on the 26th, at Tothill Fields. Rumours being afloat that it had been a sham funeral, to keep the living man hidden elsewhere, his body was exhumed on the following Thursday, and identified at an inquest, after which it was reburied. Thus ended his remarkable life. Like William Bedloe he died a natural death, contrary to every expectation. John Evelyn met him at the treasurer's dinner-table on 10 May 1671.

[Carte's Life of James Butler, duke of Ormonde; Strype's Continuation of Stowe's Survey of London and Westminster, 6th ed. 1754; The Narrative of Col. Thomas Blood concerning the design reported to be lately laid against the Life and Honour of his Grace George, duke of Buckingham, &c., 1680; Remarks on the Life and Death of the fam'd Mr. Blood, 2nd edition, with large additions, printed for Richard Janeway, 1680; An Elegie on Colonel Blood, notorious for stealing the Crown, &c., who died 26 (sic) Aug. 1680. This Elegy is in rhymed verse (seventy-six lines), and begins, 'Thanks, ye kind Fates, for your last favour shown.' It is reprinted in vol. vi. of the Ballad Society's Roxburghe Ballads, and ends with the Epitaph:— Here lies the man who boldly hath run through More villanies than ever England knew; And ne're to any friend he had was true. Here let him then by all unpitied lie, And let's rejoice his time was come to die. London, printed by J. S. in the year 1680.]

 BLOOMFIELD, BENJAMIN, first (1768-1846), lieutenant-general and colonel-commandant royal horse artillery, was the only son of John Bloomfield, of Newport, co. Tipperary, and was born 13 April 1768. After studying at the Royal Military Academy, he became a second-lieutenant in the royal artillery, at the age of thirteen, on 24 May 1781. Lord Bloomfield, in the early part of his military career, served in Newfoundland and at Gibraltar. He was one of the first officers appointed to the horse-brigade on its formation. He also served on board a gun-brig during the early part of the French war, and commanded some guns at the action at Vinegar Hill during the Irish rebellion of 1798. About 1806, when brevet-major and captain of a troop of horse-artillery doing duty with the 10th hussars at Brighton (and, as his biographer observes, a very poor man), his social and musical attainments attracted the notice of the Prince of Wales, afterwards George IV, who made him a gentleman-in-waiting and afterwards his chief equerrv and clerk-marshal. In 1816 he was knighted, having been promoted to the rank of major-general the year before, and in 1817 succeeded Sir John McMahon as receiver of the duchv of Cornwall, keeper of the privy purse, and private secretary, in which capacities Sir Benjamin Bloomfield was the recognised confidant of the prince during the remainder of the regency and until 1822, when, having fallen into disfavour, he resigned his appointments. After his resignation he was sent, in 1824, as minister plenipotentiary to the court of Stockholm, and in May 1826 was raised to the Irish peerage as Baron Bloomfield of Oakhampton and Redwood, Tipperary. Subsequently he commanded the garrison at Woolwich for some years, where his hospitality and benevolence made him very popular, and where he founded the schools for the children of soldiers of the ordnance corps. He married, in 1797, Harriott, the eldest daughter of John Douglas, of Grantham, by whom he left issue. He died in Portman Square, London, on 16 Aug. 1846. Lord Bloomfiild, while in Sweden, joined the Wesleyans, and after his death a tract was published under the title : 'A Coronet laid at Jesus' Feet in the Conversion of the late Lord Bloomfield,' by G. Scott, Wesleyan minister (London, 1866, 8vo).  BLOOMFIELD, JOHN ARTHUR DOUGLAS, second (1802–1879), diplomatist, was the son of Benjamin Bloomfield. created, 14 May 1825, Baron Bloomfield in the peerage of Ireland [see ]. He was born 12 Nov. 1802, and at the early age of sixteen became an attache to the embassy at Vienna. Throughout his life he remained in the diplomatic service, and his history consists of little more than a list of the places where he served his countiy. He was paid attache at Lisbon, October 1824; secretary of legation at Stuttgard, December 1825, and at Stockholm, September 1826; secretary of embassy at St. Petersburg, June 1889; envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to that court, 3 April 1844; removed in the same