Conspiracy on Cato Street

478 Pages·15.831 MB·English

by  Vic Gatrell

CONSPIRACY ON CATO STREET
On the night of 23 February 1820 twenty-five impoverished craftsmen
assembled in an obscure stable in Cato Street, London, with a plan to
massacrethewholeBritishcabinetatitsmonthlydinner.TheCatoStreet
ConspiracywasthemostsensationalofallplotsaimedattheBritishstate
sinceGuyFawkes’GunpowderPlotof1605.Itendedinbetrayal,arrest,and
trial, and with five conspirators publicly hanged and decapitated for
treason. Their failure proved the state’s physical strength, and ended
hopes of revolution for a century. Vic Gatrell explores this dramatic yet
neglected event in unprecedented detail through spy reports, trial
interrogations, letters, speeches, songs, maps, and images. Attending to
the‘reallives’andhabitatsofthemen,women,andchildreninvolved,he
throwsfreshlightonthetroubledandtragicworldofregencyBritain,and
ononeofthemostcompellingandpoignantepisodesinBritishhistory.
Vic Gatrell is a professorial Life Fellow of Gonville and Caius College,
who has taught for most of his career in the Cambridge Faculty of
History. His previous books include The Hanging Tree: Execution and the
EnglishPeople(1997),whichwasawardedtheWhitfieldPrizeoftheRoyal
HistoricalSociety;CityofLaughter:SexandSatireinEighteenth-CenturyLondon
(2009), which was awarded the Wolfson Prize for History and the PEN
Hessell-Tiltman Prize; and The First Bohemians: Life and Art in London’s
GoldenAge(2013),whichwasshortlistedforthePENHessell-TiltmanPrize.

CONSPIRACY ON CATO STREET
A Tale of Liberty and Revolution in Regency London
Vic Gatrell
UniversityPrintingHouse,CambridgeCB28BS,UnitedKingdom
OneLibertyPlaza,20thFloor,NewYork,NY10006,USA
477WilliamstownRoad,PortMelbourne,VIC3207,Australia
314–321,3rdFloor,Plot3,SplendorForum,JasolaDistrictCentre,
NewDelhi–110025,India
103PenangRoad,#05–06/07,VisioncrestCommercial,Singapore238467
CambridgeUniversityPressispartoftheUniversityofCambridge.
ItfurtherstheUniversity’smissionbydisseminatingknowledgeinthepursuitof
education,learning,andresearchatthehighestinternationallevelsofexcellence.
www.cambridge.org
Informationonthistitle:www.cambridge.org/9781108838481
DOI:10.1017/9781108974981
©VicGatrell2022
Thispublicationisincopyright.Subjecttostatutoryexception
andtotheprovisionsofrelevantcollectivelicensingagreements,
noreproductionofanypartmaytakeplacewithoutthewritten
permissionofCambridgeUniversityPress.
Firstpublished2022
PrintedintheUnitedKingdombyTJBooksLimited,PadstowCornwall
AcataloguerecordforthispublicationisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary.
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Names:Gatrell,Vic,1941–author.
Title:ConspiracyonCatoStreet:ataleoflibertyandrevolutioninRegencyLondon/
VicGatrell,UniversityofCambridge.
Othertitles:TaleoflibertyandrevolutioninRegencyLondon
Description:Cambridge;NewYork,NY:CambridgeUniversityPress,2022.|
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
Identifiers:LCCN2021049190(print)|LCCN2021049191(ebook)|
ISBN9781108838481(hardback)|ISBN9781108974981(ebook)
Subjects:LCSH:CatoStreetConspiracy,1820.|Revolutionaries–GreatBritain–
History–19thcentury.|GreatBritain–History–GeorgeIV,1820–1830.|Great
Britain–Politicsandgovernment–1789–1820.|Thistlewood,Arthur,1770–1820.|
Treason–England–London–History–19thcentury.|Conspiracies–England–
London–History–19thcentury.|BISAC:HISTORY/Europe/GreatBritain/General
Classification:LCCDA537.G382022(print)|LCCDA537(ebook)|
DDC941.07/4–dc23/eng/20211102
LCrecordavailableathttps://lccn.loc.gov/2021049190
LCebookrecordavailableathttps://lccn.loc.gov/2021049191
ISBN978-1-108-83848-1Hardback
CambridgeUniversityPresshasnoresponsibilityforthepersistenceoraccuracyof
URLsforexternalorthird-partyinternetwebsitesreferredtointhispublication
anddoesnotguaranteethatanycontentonsuchwebsitesis,orwillremain,
accurateorappropriate.
Presently,passingtoparticularinstances,werecalledthealreadyoldstoryof
theattempttoblowuptheGreenwichObservatory;ablood-stainedinanityof
sofatuousakindthatitwasimpossibletofathomitsoriginbyany
reasonableorevenunreasonableprocessofthought.Forperverseunreason
hasitsownlogicalprocesses.Butthatoutragecouldnotbelaidholdof
mentallyinanysortofway,sothatoneremainedfacedbythefactofaman
blowntobitsfornothingevenmostremotelyresemblinganidea,anarchistic
orother.AstotheouterwalloftheObservatoryitdidnotshowasmuchas
thefaintestcrack.Ipointedallthisouttomyfriendwhoremainedsilent.
JosephConradin1920,onhisnovel,TheSecretAgent:
ASimpleTaleoftheNineteenthCentury(1907)
Whenanyman,oranysetofmen,placethemselvesabovethelawsoftheir
country,thereisnoothermeansofbringingthemtojusticethanthroughthe
arms[weapons]ofaprivateindividual.Ifthelawsarenotstrongenoughto
preventthemfrommurderingthecommunity,itbecomesthedutyofevery
memberofthatcommunitytoridhiscountryofitsoppressors....
Insurrectionthenbecameapublicduty.
ArthurThistlewood’slastspeech,28April1820
This,gentlemen,isnotthewaythatkingsaredestroyed,and
governmentsoverthrown.
JohnAdolphus,defencecounsel,19April1820

Contents
ListofIllustrationsandMaps pageix
Preface xv
Acknowledgements xviii
ListofAbbreviations xx
Timeline xxi
ANoteontheText xxiii
PART ONE THE SIMPLE TALE
1 TheCatoStreetConspiracy:WhatHappened . . . . . . . . . 3
2 ArrestsandReactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
PART TWO TAKING ITS MEASURE
3 InterpretingtheConspiracy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
4 WhatTheyWereUpAgainst . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
5 WhatTheyBelieved . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
6 Fantasy,Myth,andSong . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
7 Rebellion’sHabitats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
PART THREE THISTLEWOOD: HIS STORY
8 ATerroristintheMaking:1774–1816 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
9 TheSpaFieldsInsurrection:1816–17 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
10 ThistlewoodUnhinged:1818–19 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
11 PeterlooinLondon:1819–20 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
12 EdwardstheSpy:1819–20 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
vii
CONTENTS
PART FOUR ORDINARY BRITONS
13 ConspiratorsandOthers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
14 Wives,Marriages,Children . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305
15 MenofColour:WedderburnandDavidson . . . . . . . . . . 321
PART FIVE THE EXECUTIONS
16 TrialsandVerdicts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343
17 MayDayatNewgate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365
18 Epilogue:GéricaultGoestoCatoStreet . . . . . . . . . . . . 379
ThePeopleListed 390
HistoriographicalNote 396
TrialReports 399
Notes 403
Bibliography 429
Index 435
viii