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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Welcome to This Day in History Class, where

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Speaker 1: History waits for no One. Today is May one, nineteen.

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Speaker 1: The day was May one, eight twenty. Radical activists Arthur

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Speaker 1: Thistlewood and four other men were executed in London for

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Speaker 1: high treason after plotting to assassinate the Prime minister's entire cabinet.

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Speaker 1: In the beginning of the nineteenth century, most of Britain

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Speaker 1: was still dealing in agriculture, but urbanization and industrialization were

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Speaker 1: taking over in some areas. The conclusion of the Napoleonic

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Speaker 1: Wars and the War of eighteen twelve had brought in

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Speaker 1: a bunch of returning soldiers and sailors looking for work. Inflation,

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Speaker 1: food shortages, and poor working conditions were rampant. Cities were

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Speaker 1: becoming overcrowded, and poverty, crime, and disease were quickly becoming

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Speaker 1: more of a problem. Workers had low pay and they

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Speaker 1: often faced harsh punishments for their mistakes. The Combination Acts

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Speaker 1: of seventeen forbade working men from collective bargaining and forming

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Speaker 1: trade unions. This caused a lot of unrest. By eight twenty,

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Speaker 1: people had already been protesting mechanization and calling for reform.

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Speaker 1: Arthur Thistlewood was one of these people, Fueled by his

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Speaker 1: drive to overthrow the government and his own financial woes.

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Speaker 1: This a Wood became involved in radical groups. He became

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Speaker 1: associated with Thomas Spence, a revolutionary who advocated for the

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Speaker 1: common ownership of land. The government did not perceive Thistlewood

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Speaker 1: as a threat at first, but after Thistlewood took part

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Speaker 1: in a failed plan to invite napole In to invade Britain,

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Speaker 1: the government took notice. Thomas Spence died in eighteen fourteen,

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Speaker 1: but his followers, the Spenciens, remained, and Thistlewood became one

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Speaker 1: of their organizers. In December eighteen sixteen, he helped plan

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Speaker 1: a riot at Spa Fields with the aims of seizing

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Speaker 1: the Bank of England and the Tower of London. Thistlewood

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Speaker 1: was later arrested, but he got off through either an

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Speaker 1: acquittal or withdrawn charges. By eighteen eighteen, Spenciens were tired

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Speaker 1: of failed plots, but Thistlewood was still stirring the pot.

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Speaker 1: He challenged Home Secretary Henry Addington, first Viscount Sidmus, a

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Speaker 1: former Prime Minister, to a duel. This earned Thistlewood a

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Speaker 1: year in prison for threatening a breach of peace, a

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Speaker 1: sentence that began in May eighteen eighteen, but Thistlewood's rebellion

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Speaker 1: did not in there Parliament passed the Sixth Act of

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Speaker 1: eighteen nineteen, which were created to suppress radical movements and

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Speaker 1: restricted people's rights to hold public meetings and distribute political literature.

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Speaker 1: Once this ale Wood was released from prison, he began

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Speaker 1: plotting to kill all of the prime minister's cabinet. He

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Speaker 1: and a group of co conspirators rented rooms on Cato

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Speaker 1: Street in London to get ready for the mass assassination.

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Speaker 1: This a Wood found out, possibly through a man named

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Speaker 1: George Edwards, that the cabinet ministers were planning on having

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Speaker 1: one of their regular dinners at the Earl of Haroldby's

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Speaker 1: home and Grosvenor Square on February eighteen twenty. He decided

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Speaker 1: that this would be the perfect time to assassinate the

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Speaker 1: cabinet so he could install a provisional government that worked

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Speaker 1: in the interests of the people. The conspirator's plan was

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Speaker 1: to rush in the Earl's home, subdue the servants, murder

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Speaker 1: all the cabinet ministers in the dining room then set

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Speaker 1: up the provisional Government and the Lord Mayor's home. But

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Speaker 1: Thomas Hyden, whom this ale Wood had tried to get

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Speaker 1: to join the plot, told Lord Castlereagh of the conspiracy.

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Speaker 1: Once Lord Harrold be found out, he canceled the dinner.

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Speaker 1: George Edwards was also a government spy, and he'd been

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Speaker 1: passing along information about Thistlewood the Bow Street Runners. A

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Speaker 1: police force rated the conspirators hide out on Cato Street

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Speaker 1: on the evening of the three as they were preparing

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Speaker 1: to leave. In the scuffle, Thistlewood ended up killing an

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Speaker 1: officer and escaping, but he was caught the next morning.

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Speaker 1: The childs for the conspirators began on April seventeen eighty.

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Speaker 1: In the end, all the men on trial were found

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Speaker 1: guilty of high treason. Five of the men's sentences were

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Speaker 1: commuted to transportation at New South Wales. About two weeks later,

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Speaker 1: on May one, thistle Wood, James Inks, James Brunt, William Davidson,

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Speaker 1: and Richard Tid were hanged and posthumously beheaded at Newgate Prison.

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Speaker 1: Around one hundred thousand people gathered to watch the execution.

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Speaker 1: So many people tried to climb a railing at St.

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Speaker 1: Sepulcher's Church, that it fell under the stress of the

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Speaker 1: load of people. This the Wood said in his last speech,

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Speaker 1: Albion is still in chains of slavery. I quit it

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Speaker 1: without regret. I shall be consigned to the grave, and

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Speaker 1: my body will be immured beneath the soil whereon I

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Speaker 1: first drew breath. My only sorrow is that that soil

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Speaker 1: should be a theater for slaves, for cowards, and for despots.

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Speaker 1: My motives, I doubt not, will hereafter be justly appreciated.

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Speaker 1: Albion just means Britain. Because government officials did not want

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Speaker 1: the execution to incite a riot, they deployed soldiers around

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Speaker 1: the prison and had the conspirators bodies interred in the

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Speaker 1: jail the same day. After the failure of the Catos conspiracy,

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Speaker 1: much of the radical activity around labor reform ended. The

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Speaker 1: Spencan philanthropists disbanded. The government pointed to the conspiracy as

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Speaker 1: proof that the Six Acts were necessary to maintain order.

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Speaker 1: I'm Eve Chef Cote, and hopefully you know a little

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Speaker 1: more about history today than you did yesterday. If you'd

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Speaker 1: like to learn more about this topic, you can listen

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Speaker 1: to the episode of Stuff You Missed in History class

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Speaker 1: called the Cato Street Conspiracy. If you haven't gotten your

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Speaker 1: fill of history after listening to today's episode, you can

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Speaker 1: follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook at t d

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Speaker 1: i h C Podcast. Come back tomorrow for another tip

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Speaker 1: it from history