WEBVTT - Revolutionaries on Cato Street 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:04.600 Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm 0:00:04.600 --> 0:00:10.840 and Mild from Aaron Manky listener discretion advised. On a 0:00:10.920 --> 0:00:14.640 cold February night in eighteen twenty, a group of men 0:00:14.760 --> 0:00:18.759 gathered together in a dilapidated hayloft in London, just off 0:00:18.920 --> 0:00:23.000 Edgeware Road. The men were as broken down as the 0:00:23.040 --> 0:00:26.400 building they were gathered in, but all of that was 0:00:26.440 --> 0:00:30.600 about to change. They had a plan that would upend 0:00:30.720 --> 0:00:34.559 the face of Great Britain, if not the world. The 0:00:34.680 --> 0:00:40.600 men readied their weapons, pistols, muskets, knives, grenades, anything they 0:00:40.600 --> 0:00:44.320 could get their hands on. As they cleaned firearms and 0:00:44.440 --> 0:00:49.200 sharpened blades, they talked through last minute details of their plan. 0:00:49.960 --> 0:00:52.960 Most of the men were adrenalized with the idea of 0:00:53.159 --> 0:00:56.880 changing the course of history and creating a better future 0:00:56.920 --> 0:01:00.840 for everyone. But there were others among them who were 0:01:00.960 --> 0:01:05.800 having cold feet and struggling to hold it together, trying 0:01:05.840 --> 0:01:09.319 not to let it show. After all, this was no 0:01:09.520 --> 0:01:14.080 simple intimidation mission, and from this point on there would 0:01:14.120 --> 0:01:17.959 be no turning back. They were about to ambush a 0:01:18.080 --> 0:01:23.040 nearby dinner hosted by Lord harrowby the President of the 0:01:23.080 --> 0:01:26.920 Privy Council. It would be attended by all the British 0:01:26.959 --> 0:01:30.679 Cabinet members, as well as by the Prime Minister himself. 0:01:31.400 --> 0:01:38.240 Once in, the men's plan was simple, kill everyone. These 0:01:38.280 --> 0:01:43.839 men would not stop until every government official had been assassinated. 0:01:44.640 --> 0:01:47.920 As they were preparing to leave, they heard a noise 0:01:48.000 --> 0:01:52.440 in the stable below them, footsteps, a shout. It was 0:01:52.520 --> 0:01:55.880 the police, and they were followed by soldiers. The men 0:01:55.920 --> 0:02:00.080 were found out, They looked at one another wondering who 0:02:00.120 --> 0:02:04.960 among them had been the mole. I'm Danish Schwartz, and 0:02:05.160 --> 0:02:12.480 this is noble blood. When the world is going through 0:02:12.560 --> 0:02:16.880 what we sometimes say are unprecedented times, it's tempting to 0:02:16.919 --> 0:02:21.239 think that this is the most crazy things in history 0:02:21.280 --> 0:02:26.320 have ever been. It makes sense. Perhaps things truly are 0:02:26.520 --> 0:02:31.200 the most unstable or uncertain that they've felt in our lifetimes. 0:02:31.760 --> 0:02:35.440 But when we look back through history, we see story 0:02:35.520 --> 0:02:39.359 after story of wild events, both at home and abroad, 0:02:39.720 --> 0:02:43.000 that would rival the goings on of our day or 0:02:43.320 --> 0:02:47.240 any day to day. Stasis is a story we like 0:02:47.360 --> 0:02:51.639 to tell ourselves, but by and large, true progress has 0:02:51.680 --> 0:02:57.320 been made by way of unpleasant, radical disruption and periods 0:02:57.360 --> 0:03:02.560 of uncertainty and chaos, sometimes as in the case of 0:03:02.639 --> 0:03:07.880 the Cato Street conspiracy, disruption doesn't pan out the way 0:03:07.960 --> 0:03:13.359 it was planned, or really pan out at all. Their 0:03:13.480 --> 0:03:17.960 plan had been radical, to wipe out the entirety of 0:03:18.040 --> 0:03:21.680 the British cabinet and build a new government from the 0:03:21.720 --> 0:03:26.120 ground up. You might be wondering, how did things get 0:03:26.240 --> 0:03:31.280 to such an extreme place where anyone would have that plan. Well, 0:03:31.480 --> 0:03:34.840 let's do a quick rundown of the vibes in regency 0:03:34.880 --> 0:03:40.000 era England at this time. By the second decade of 0:03:40.040 --> 0:03:46.160 the nineteenth century, England found itself in a particularly turbulent period. 0:03:46.560 --> 0:03:49.760 The French Revolution had shown all of Europe just how 0:03:49.880 --> 0:03:55.200 flimsy gilded walls could be, Governments could be toppled, kings 0:03:55.240 --> 0:03:58.880 could lose their heads, and the whole social order could 0:03:58.960 --> 0:04:03.960 be turned up so down. Then came Napoleon, stomping around 0:04:03.960 --> 0:04:07.920 the continent for over a decade, nobody from nowhere, who 0:04:07.960 --> 0:04:12.480 remade Europe in his image and declared himself an emperor. 0:04:13.160 --> 0:04:17.200 Back in England, King George the Third was sliding into 0:04:17.240 --> 0:04:21.480 a mental decline from which he would never recover. The 0:04:21.520 --> 0:04:25.880 Regency Act of eighteen eleven removed the king's power and 0:04:25.960 --> 0:04:29.360 transferred it to his son, who would eventually become King 0:04:29.600 --> 0:04:33.120 George the Fourth, who at this time ruled under the 0:04:33.120 --> 0:04:39.760 title Prince Regent, hence Regency era. The Prince wasn't great 0:04:39.960 --> 0:04:45.000 at taking the national temperature, or maybe he just didn't care. 0:04:45.800 --> 0:04:50.600 Either way, he was widely disliked, an extravagant spender, and 0:04:50.800 --> 0:04:55.359 prone to scandals. So we have political instability at the 0:04:55.520 --> 0:05:01.120 very top, combined with revolutionary ideas still perkle from across 0:05:01.160 --> 0:05:06.200 the channel, stirred together with a healthy dose of wealth inequality. 0:05:06.800 --> 0:05:10.520 The rich minority had become even richer thanks to the 0:05:10.600 --> 0:05:17.120 Napoleonic Wars, while most British citizens were dealing with unemployment, poverty, 0:05:17.160 --> 0:05:23.039 and inflated costs. Parliamentary reform was being debated, but not 0:05:23.240 --> 0:05:26.800 nearly fast enough for people who couldn't afford to put 0:05:26.839 --> 0:05:31.159 food on the table. It was a powder keg situation 0:05:31.760 --> 0:05:35.880 and almost everyone knew it. But some folks were ready 0:05:35.920 --> 0:05:42.560 to take matters into their own hands. Enter Arthur Thistlewood, 0:05:42.920 --> 0:05:48.040 an ex soldier turned semi professional malcontent who decided that 0:05:48.120 --> 0:05:51.880 if the system wouldn't change peacefully, then it was time 0:05:52.040 --> 0:05:56.680 to blow the whole thing up. Thistlewood wasn't alone. He 0:05:56.720 --> 0:06:01.240 had managed to join with some fellow radicals, including a 0:06:01.360 --> 0:06:07.400 shoemaker named Thomas Preston and doctor James Watson, an apothecary 0:06:07.480 --> 0:06:11.680 with a taste for explosives. The three were not new 0:06:11.760 --> 0:06:15.400 to the whole try to overthrow the government thing. In 0:06:15.440 --> 0:06:20.360 eighteen seventeen, they had planned an insurrection after a reform 0:06:20.400 --> 0:06:23.719 meeting in London. We won't get into the details because 0:06:23.760 --> 0:06:27.040 it's not that interesting, but their plan was thwarted and 0:06:27.080 --> 0:06:31.359 they narrowly escaped execution for treason. But that didn't slow 0:06:31.400 --> 0:06:36.479 them down. They kept meeting, kept plotting, and kept recruiting 0:06:36.640 --> 0:06:40.919 other like minded revolutionaries. This is the part of the 0:06:41.000 --> 0:06:44.800 story where you can imagine the Ocean's eleven montage of 0:06:45.120 --> 0:06:49.760 assembling the team. The group grew to include more tradesmen, 0:06:50.160 --> 0:06:54.600 shoemakers John Brunt and Richard Tidd, along with a couple 0:06:54.720 --> 0:07:00.599 ex soldiers, John Harrison and Robert Adams. There was James Ings, 0:07:00.720 --> 0:07:04.440 a butcher who knew his way around sharp objects, and 0:07:04.680 --> 0:07:08.160 William Davidson, a cabinet maker who had been born in 0:07:08.279 --> 0:07:11.840 Jamaica to a Scottish farmer and a black Jamaican mother 0:07:12.200 --> 0:07:16.800 before making his way to London. There was also George Edwards, 0:07:17.160 --> 0:07:22.640 an impoverished model maker who would become Thistlewood's second in command. 0:07:23.360 --> 0:07:29.240 Edwards was the ideal revolutionary recruit. Broke, bitter and hungry 0:07:29.280 --> 0:07:34.560 for action. For months, the crew met regularly around London, 0:07:34.960 --> 0:07:39.760 stockpiling weapons and stoking the fires of their resentment. They 0:07:39.840 --> 0:07:43.880 also compiled a hit list with the names and addresses 0:07:44.240 --> 0:07:49.200 of over thirty ministers and cabinet officials. Fueled by the 0:07:49.240 --> 0:07:54.760 writings of revolutionary thinker Thomas Spence, the men truly believed 0:07:55.160 --> 0:07:59.160 that an armed uprising could work in England, just as 0:07:59.200 --> 0:08:03.320 it had in other places around the world. Spending time together, 0:08:03.600 --> 0:08:07.400 agreeing with each other, bolstering each other up, one can 0:08:07.440 --> 0:08:11.120 imagine the ways their small echo chamber created a sense 0:08:11.640 --> 0:08:17.240 not just of certainty but also of inevitability. Their plans 0:08:17.440 --> 0:08:23.160 stopped being theoretical and started getting practical. In eighteen nineteen, 0:08:23.600 --> 0:08:28.880 after the horrific Peterloo massacre, at a peaceful reform meeting 0:08:29.000 --> 0:08:35.080 in Manchester, government forces charged into a crowd of unarmed protesters. 0:08:35.760 --> 0:08:40.840 Eighteen people, including a child, were killed and over six 0:08:40.960 --> 0:08:45.640 hundred and seventy were injured. The government's response to its 0:08:45.640 --> 0:08:50.040 citizens asking for basic reforms was to mow them down 0:08:50.200 --> 0:08:55.000 with cavalry. For Thistlewood and his crew, Peterloo was the 0:08:55.040 --> 0:09:00.959 final straw. If the government was willing to massacre peaceful protesters, 0:09:01.400 --> 0:09:06.080 than peaceful protest was clearly off the table. They began 0:09:06.360 --> 0:09:12.880 planning assassinations in earnest, initially targeting the Prince Regent before 0:09:12.920 --> 0:09:19.040 settling on the entire cabinet. The men's plans kept getting 0:09:19.200 --> 0:09:24.559 more ambitious and more desperate. First, they considered murdering the 0:09:24.760 --> 0:09:28.400 entire House of Commons, but they realized there was a 0:09:28.440 --> 0:09:32.319 small hitch in the plan. They didn't have enough bullets. 0:09:32.840 --> 0:09:37.240 Thistlewood then decided he only wanted to kill the ministers anyway, 0:09:37.600 --> 0:09:41.520 so they scaled back their vision to better match their resources. 0:09:42.240 --> 0:09:46.120 They planned to attack various dinners and events, but something 0:09:46.240 --> 0:09:50.800 always went wrong. One potential target was too heavily guarded 0:09:50.800 --> 0:09:55.000 by police. Another event was canceled because of King George 0:09:55.040 --> 0:09:59.559 the Third's death. The men considered picking off individual ministers 0:09:59.640 --> 0:10:02.800 while the police and soldiers were attending the king's funeral, 0:10:03.320 --> 0:10:06.680 until someone pointed out that the ministers would probably be 0:10:06.840 --> 0:10:09.520 at the funeral too far be it from me to 0:10:09.760 --> 0:10:13.760 Monday morning quarterback. But the rebels really could have done 0:10:13.880 --> 0:10:17.440 with someone who maybe lacked muscle power but made up 0:10:17.480 --> 0:10:22.760 for it with attention to detail. Then, in February eighteen twenty, 0:10:23.280 --> 0:10:27.640 George Edwards, the model maker turned second in command, brought 0:10:27.679 --> 0:10:31.960 the group the perfect opportunity. He had spotted a piece 0:10:32.080 --> 0:10:36.480 in the newspaper which announced that Lord Harroby, the President 0:10:36.559 --> 0:10:40.079 of the Privy Council, was hosting a dinner for the 0:10:40.280 --> 0:10:44.079 entire cabinet. All of the ministers would be in one 0:10:44.240 --> 0:10:49.520 place at one time with minimal security. It was exactly 0:10:49.679 --> 0:10:54.000 the opportunity they had been waiting for. What Thistlewood and 0:10:54.200 --> 0:10:58.520 the others didn't know was that Edwards, the second in command, 0:10:59.080 --> 0:11:04.840 was also a police informant. In delivering the perfect opportunity 0:11:04.920 --> 0:11:09.680 to the rebels, Edwards was in reality planting the seed 0:11:10.080 --> 0:11:16.360 for their ultimate downfall. On the surface, George Edwards was 0:11:16.559 --> 0:11:21.240 another desperate revolutionary looking to overthrow the government, but in 0:11:21.280 --> 0:11:25.800 reality he was a spy, an agent provocateur, working to 0:11:25.960 --> 0:11:30.560 help that government by taking down the rebellion from the inside. 0:11:30.600 --> 0:11:35.080 Since at least early eighteen nineteen, Edwards had been pushing 0:11:35.200 --> 0:11:39.160 for violent action in group meetings while feeding the conspirator's 0:11:39.280 --> 0:11:43.440 plans directly to the Home Secretary. He was the perfect 0:11:43.559 --> 0:11:47.760 double agent, broke enough to seem authentic, clever enough to 0:11:47.880 --> 0:11:52.960 gain Thistlewood's trust, and ruthless enough to send his comrades 0:11:53.080 --> 0:11:56.320 straight into a trap that would cost many of them 0:11:56.440 --> 0:12:00.880 their lives. Some of the other conspirators had their suspicions 0:12:00.920 --> 0:12:06.160 about Edwards, but Thistlewood trusted him completely. Whether this says 0:12:06.200 --> 0:12:11.160 more about Thistlewood's discernment of character, or his single minded 0:12:11.200 --> 0:12:15.560 devotion to the cause, or maybe just Edwards's ability as 0:12:15.679 --> 0:12:20.960 a double crosser, is unclear. Remember that comedy of errors 0:12:21.000 --> 0:12:25.080 we talked about earlier, all those failed assassination attempts that 0:12:25.280 --> 0:12:30.360 kept getting derailed by inconvenient security details and dead kings. 0:12:30.960 --> 0:12:35.520 While Edwards had been dutifully reporting every single botched plan 0:12:36.120 --> 0:12:39.800 back to his handlers. In December, he had told them 0:12:39.960 --> 0:12:44.040 the group was talking about massacring the entire House of Commons, 0:12:44.520 --> 0:12:48.400 but decided against it because, and it bears repeating, because 0:12:48.480 --> 0:12:52.839 it is a little ridiculous. They didn't have enough bullets. Again, 0:12:52.880 --> 0:12:55.640 a logistics person really would have come in handy with 0:12:55.720 --> 0:12:59.840 this crew. But after their sworded plan surrounding the King's 0:12:59.840 --> 0:13:06.000 f funeral, these men were growing desperate, frustrated, and increasingly reckless, 0:13:06.520 --> 0:13:12.200 which is exactly when Edward struck. On Tuesday, February twenty second. 0:13:12.679 --> 0:13:17.040 Edwards burst into their meeting place practically vibrating with excitement. 0:13:17.559 --> 0:13:21.080 He had just spotted an advertisement in the New Times 0:13:21.559 --> 0:13:25.840 quote the Earl of Harrowby gives a grand cabinet dinner 0:13:25.840 --> 0:13:30.160 tomorrow at his house in Grosvenor Square. That was just 0:13:30.480 --> 0:13:34.000 ten minutes from the Hayloft in Cato Street where the 0:13:34.040 --> 0:13:39.400 rebels held their meetings. After months of missed opportunities, the 0:13:39.480 --> 0:13:45.240 whole cabinet would be there, sitting ducks. If Thistlewood had 0:13:45.280 --> 0:13:49.680 been thinking clearly, he might have found this a little suspicious. 0:13:50.440 --> 0:13:54.880 The New Times was edited by a Tory loyalist, and 0:13:54.960 --> 0:13:59.800 the advertisement didn't appear in any other paper. A reasonable 0:14:00.080 --> 0:14:03.680 person might have smelled a rat. It might as well 0:14:03.720 --> 0:14:07.160 have been an announcement for a sitting duck convention. But 0:14:07.360 --> 0:14:12.520 reasonable people don't usually plan to decapitate cabinet ministers, and 0:14:12.760 --> 0:14:17.360 past delays had brought the group to an absolute fever pitch. 0:14:18.040 --> 0:14:22.960 They took the bait completely, and what tempting bait it was. 0:14:23.640 --> 0:14:27.920 The dinner was supposed to include Prime Minister, Lord Liverpool, 0:14:28.360 --> 0:14:34.520 Home Secretary Lord Sidmouth, and Foreign Secretary Lord Castlereagh, basically 0:14:34.640 --> 0:14:39.120 the all star team of everyone the Radicals despised most. 0:14:39.800 --> 0:14:44.280 Lord Castlereagh was the big prize, the ultimate villain in 0:14:44.320 --> 0:14:49.880 the conspirator's minds. As Irish Chief Secretary, he'd helped suppress 0:14:50.080 --> 0:14:56.160 the seventeen ninety eight Irish rebellion with breathtaking brutality. Killing 0:14:56.240 --> 0:15:01.040 him would not only eliminate a heated enemy, also potentially 0:15:01.360 --> 0:15:06.080 bring the Irish Radicals to their side. The conspirators were 0:15:06.120 --> 0:15:10.520 absolutely drunk on the possibilities. They started divvying up which 0:15:10.640 --> 0:15:14.920 minister each of them would personally execute, fantasizing about the 0:15:14.960 --> 0:15:19.760 glorious changes that would follow. After the initial killing, ings 0:15:19.800 --> 0:15:23.640 would quote cut off every head that was in the room, 0:15:24.360 --> 0:15:28.880 with Castlereagh and Sidmuth's heads going into special bags. The 0:15:28.960 --> 0:15:33.560 heads would then be stuck on hikes and paraded through London, 0:15:34.000 --> 0:15:38.440 a gruesome pantomime of the punishment traditionally given to traders. 0:15:39.160 --> 0:15:43.040 But the men weren't planning to stop with a simple massacre. 0:15:43.720 --> 0:15:48.360 Once they'd eliminated the cabinet, they intended to set fires 0:15:48.440 --> 0:15:54.280 across London seize weapons at the artillery ground, commandeer significant buildings, 0:15:54.280 --> 0:15:59.680 and establish a provisional government. They genuinely believed their dramatic 0:15:59.720 --> 0:16:04.480 act would inspire uprisings across Britain. In their eyes, this 0:16:04.760 --> 0:16:08.479 swift and brutal act of violence would be the necessary 0:16:08.640 --> 0:16:11.800 spark to blow up the old way of life and 0:16:11.960 --> 0:16:16.120 make room for a more equal future for all. Tuesday 0:16:16.200 --> 0:16:20.400 February twenty second was spent in frantic preparation. The men 0:16:20.480 --> 0:16:24.880 gathered weapons from various hiding places. Davidson, the cabinet maker, 0:16:25.000 --> 0:16:28.840 brought musket bullets and a handsaw, while Ings the butcher 0:16:29.000 --> 0:16:36.160 sharpened his long knife, declaring it was specifically for Castlereat's head. Wednesday, 0:16:36.240 --> 0:16:41.480 the twenty third started off with revolutionary fervor and organized chaos. 0:16:42.040 --> 0:16:46.960 Thistlewood scrawled out placards for after their victory, quote your 0:16:47.040 --> 0:16:51.800 tyrants are destroyed, the provisional government is now sitting. Men 0:16:51.840 --> 0:16:55.640 were sent to watch Harrowby's house, though they got distracted 0:16:55.760 --> 0:17:00.360 and ended up drinking at a nearby pub. Again not 0:17:00.600 --> 0:17:05.399 the best planners. Thistlewood had believed many others would be 0:17:05.440 --> 0:17:10.199 eager to join their cause, but strangely, mustering followers was 0:17:10.320 --> 0:17:14.359 proving challenging. Of the forty or so men they had 0:17:14.400 --> 0:17:17.920 been counting on, nearly half had failed to show up. 0:17:18.680 --> 0:17:22.880 James Wilson, an ex soldier turned milkman, said he had 0:17:22.880 --> 0:17:26.280 to deliver milk first. Some who did show up were 0:17:26.440 --> 0:17:31.520 just desperate, like James Gilchrist, an unemployed cobbler who had 0:17:31.600 --> 0:17:36.240 joined because he was starving. As evening approached, the men 0:17:36.359 --> 0:17:41.280 in the cramped loft shared bread, cheese, and porter while 0:17:41.400 --> 0:17:46.400 loading their pistols. Tensions were running high. Two few men 0:17:46.480 --> 0:17:50.040 had shown up, and some were having second thoughts. Ings 0:17:50.080 --> 0:17:53.840 began stamping and swearing, shouting, damn my eyes. If you 0:17:53.960 --> 0:17:56.320 drop the concern now, I will cut my throat or 0:17:56.320 --> 0:18:01.240 shoot myself. Thistlewood tried to rally them, assuring the rebels 0:18:01.240 --> 0:18:05.159 that the whole massacre wouldn't take more than ten minutes. Again, 0:18:05.440 --> 0:18:09.760 not the best logistical thinker, Their courage screwed to the 0:18:09.840 --> 0:18:13.560 sticking place. The men prepared to leave the hayloft and 0:18:13.760 --> 0:18:18.119 head for the square. Just then a voice called up 0:18:18.160 --> 0:18:22.800 from below. Plain clothes officers known as the Bow Street 0:18:22.960 --> 0:18:28.679 Constables climbed the ladder and ordered everyone under arrest. The 0:18:28.720 --> 0:18:33.280 dinner at Lord Harrowby's it wasn't real. It had been fake, 0:18:33.840 --> 0:18:38.199 a trap that the conspirators had walked straight into. The 0:18:38.320 --> 0:18:44.760 Cato Street conspiracy was over before it even begun. When 0:18:44.760 --> 0:18:48.479 the Bow Street runners burst into that cramped hayloft on 0:18:48.560 --> 0:18:54.159 Cato Street, chaos erupted. Some of the rebels surrendered immediately, 0:18:54.640 --> 0:18:57.879 but the rest fought back with the same violence they 0:18:57.880 --> 0:19:01.280 had been planning to unleash on the cabin. These men 0:19:01.359 --> 0:19:05.399 were genuinely prepared to kill, and one officer found that 0:19:05.520 --> 0:19:09.680 out the hard way. The arrival of the Coldstream Guards, 0:19:09.680 --> 0:19:12.159 who were a little late to the party, turned the 0:19:12.200 --> 0:19:16.600 stable and surrounding alley into a scene of complete chaos. 0:19:17.080 --> 0:19:21.320 Some conspirators were captured, others tried to hide in the vicinity, 0:19:21.600 --> 0:19:25.200 and a few managed to slip away under cover of darkness. 0:19:25.800 --> 0:19:31.000 Thistlewood was among those who escaped. Edwards, his trusted second 0:19:31.040 --> 0:19:35.199 in command, who had actually orchestrated the entire trap, was 0:19:35.240 --> 0:19:39.679 the one who helped Thistlewood find a hideout. Of course, 0:19:39.760 --> 0:19:43.600 the police then showed up at that hideout and arrested him. 0:19:43.840 --> 0:19:47.880 Edwards had set up his leader before he disappeared forever, 0:19:48.560 --> 0:19:52.720 never to be seen again. When the conspirators were hauled 0:19:52.840 --> 0:19:57.240 before the courts, they faced a laundry list of conspiracy 0:19:57.320 --> 0:20:02.520 and treason charges. Several of the men flipped, testifying against 0:20:02.720 --> 0:20:08.040 their former comrades in exchange for reduced sentences. The authorities 0:20:08.119 --> 0:20:11.760 wanted justice to be fast and merciless, so several of 0:20:11.800 --> 0:20:14.119 the men were released when it was clear there wasn't 0:20:14.200 --> 0:20:18.840 quite enough strong evidence to prosecute them. Of the eleven 0:20:19.040 --> 0:20:23.280 men who stood trial in late April, the sentences varied 0:20:23.440 --> 0:20:27.280 dramatically based on how willing they were to throw themselves 0:20:27.320 --> 0:20:31.040 on the mercy of the court. Six changed their pleas 0:20:31.080 --> 0:20:34.800 from not guilty to guilty during the trial. Five of 0:20:34.840 --> 0:20:38.720 these six were sentenced to exile in Australia for life. 0:20:39.320 --> 0:20:43.760 The sixth, James Gilchrist, the starving Scottish bootmaker, who had 0:20:43.840 --> 0:20:47.160 joined for the promise of a free meal, was believed 0:20:47.200 --> 0:20:51.080 by the authorities and given only a short prison sentence. 0:20:51.840 --> 0:20:56.840 For the five who maintained their defiance, Thistlewood, tid Ings, 0:20:56.960 --> 0:21:01.760 Davidson and Brunt, the court handed down the traditional sentence 0:21:01.920 --> 0:21:06.320 for treason, They were to be hanged, drawn and quartered. 0:21:07.080 --> 0:21:11.720 This was later commuted to the slightly more humane punishment 0:21:12.200 --> 0:21:16.480 of hanging, followed by beheading, but the message was clear, 0:21:17.040 --> 0:21:21.800 these men were to be made examples of. On the 0:21:21.800 --> 0:21:25.600 morning of May one, eighteen twenty, the five men were 0:21:25.680 --> 0:21:29.760 hanged at Newgate Prison in front of a crowd of thousands, 0:21:29.800 --> 0:21:34.080 with many paying top dollar to secure premium viewing spots. 0:21:34.720 --> 0:21:38.160 After the bodies had hanged for half an hour, an 0:21:38.240 --> 0:21:42.840 unidentified figure in a black mask lowered them one by one. 0:21:42.880 --> 0:21:47.280 He decapitated each corpse, then displayed their heads to the 0:21:47.320 --> 0:21:52.800 assembled spectators with the traditional declaration, behold the head of 0:21:52.840 --> 0:21:57.360 a trader. Finally, the bodies were dumped into unmarked graves 0:21:57.400 --> 0:22:01.679 within the walls of Newgate Prison. The exact location of 0:22:01.720 --> 0:22:06.480 their final resting place is unknown. So what did this 0:22:06.760 --> 0:22:12.879 spectacular failure actually accomplish. The Cato Street conspiracy became the 0:22:12.960 --> 0:22:17.760 most notorious plot against the British government since Guy Fowx 0:22:17.960 --> 0:22:22.199 in sixteen oh five and until the Iras attempt to 0:22:22.280 --> 0:22:26.560 blow up Margaret Thatcher in nineteen eighty four. If they 0:22:26.600 --> 0:22:30.679 had succeeded, the entire course of British and world history 0:22:30.720 --> 0:22:34.679 would have changed, although almost certainly not in the utopian 0:22:34.760 --> 0:22:39.520 direction the conspirators envisioned. But of course it never could 0:22:39.560 --> 0:22:43.600 have succeeded because the plan itself was based on a lie. 0:22:44.359 --> 0:22:48.320 The executions of the conspirators would mark the end of 0:22:48.440 --> 0:22:53.359 an era. The tradition of violent revolutionary politics that had 0:22:53.400 --> 0:22:58.119 been bubbling away since the French Revolution was officially dead 0:22:58.240 --> 0:23:02.359 and buried. The British state had shown both its weakness 0:23:02.520 --> 0:23:06.439 and its strength. Yes, it was vulnerable enough that a 0:23:06.720 --> 0:23:11.760 couple dozen desperate men with homemade weapons could come terrifyingly 0:23:11.800 --> 0:23:16.840 close to eliminating the entire government, but not actually, because 0:23:16.880 --> 0:23:22.000 the government was still ruthless enough to anticipate, infiltrate, manipulate, 0:23:22.119 --> 0:23:26.680 and annihilate that threat from the inside before it actually happened. 0:23:28.640 --> 0:23:32.760 The whole affair became a public obsession. People flocked to 0:23:32.880 --> 0:23:36.560 Cato street prints and illustrations of the crime scene and 0:23:36.720 --> 0:23:42.359 executions let ordinary folks safely experience the thrill of violence 0:23:42.600 --> 0:23:47.000 from a comfortable distance, sort of the equivalent of present 0:23:47.119 --> 0:23:52.000 day true crime podcasts and documentaries. The humble hayloft where 0:23:52.000 --> 0:23:56.000 the conspiracy was born, became as famous as Parliament itself, 0:23:56.400 --> 0:24:00.520 at least for a time. There's been a tendency among 0:24:00.600 --> 0:24:05.119 many historians to dismiss Cato straight as the work of 0:24:05.400 --> 0:24:10.880 deluded fantasists, which it was, but that's also a bit 0:24:11.000 --> 0:24:15.480 of an oversimplification that avoids reckoning with the situation that 0:24:15.680 --> 0:24:19.120 brought those men there in the first place. Yes, they 0:24:19.200 --> 0:24:24.680 may have absolutely lacked some crucial organizational and critical thinking skills, 0:24:25.280 --> 0:24:29.520 but they weren't random lunatics. They were products of their time, 0:24:29.760 --> 0:24:34.960 shaped by economic desperation, political oppression, and a generation's worth 0:24:35.040 --> 0:24:38.960 of warfare and revolution in the air. The Cato Street 0:24:39.080 --> 0:24:45.280 conspiracy exemplifies what historian Mark Seltzer calls the quote wound 0:24:45.320 --> 0:24:50.240 culture of early nineteenth century Britain, where violence had become 0:24:50.359 --> 0:24:55.639 so normalized that it was an addiction, an inescapable. Part 0:24:55.840 --> 0:25:01.280 of the social fabric to be human was to practice violence, 0:25:01.800 --> 0:25:06.280 and in an era of extreme inequality, it might have 0:25:06.359 --> 0:25:10.960 seemed to some like the only solution. You can read 0:25:11.080 --> 0:25:14.840 this story multiple ways in the hands of a satirist. 0:25:15.000 --> 0:25:20.200 It's a razor sharp exploration of government paranoia and failed 0:25:20.280 --> 0:25:25.639 group dynamics as a tragedy. It's the story of desperate 0:25:25.720 --> 0:25:30.119 people driven to extremes by a system that then destroyed 0:25:30.160 --> 0:25:34.280 them for daring to fight back. In a black humor 0:25:34.359 --> 0:25:39.240 sort of way, this elaborate conspiracy that was orchestrated really 0:25:39.320 --> 0:25:43.399 based on nothing more than a fantasy. The Cato Street 0:25:43.440 --> 0:25:49.240 Conspiracy was simultaneously a historical footnote and a pivotal moment, 0:25:49.880 --> 0:25:54.000 proof that even failed revolutions can reshape how a nation 0:25:54.320 --> 0:25:58.400 sees itself and its vulnerabilities. In the end, it stands 0:25:58.480 --> 0:26:02.560 as a fascinating snapshot of England at one of its 0:26:02.720 --> 0:26:06.560 most volatile moments, a time when the gap between the 0:26:06.680 --> 0:26:11.840 rulers and the ruled had grown so wide that mass 0:26:11.920 --> 0:26:17.240 political murder seemed like a reasonable solution to some very 0:26:17.560 --> 0:26:26.080 unreasonable people. That's the story of the failed Cato Street Conspiracy. 0:26:26.440 --> 0:26:29.720 But keep listening after a brief sponsor break to hear 0:26:29.880 --> 0:26:40.879 a little bit more about one of the conspirators. What 0:26:41.080 --> 0:26:45.600 became of James Watson, the apothecary rebel with the taste 0:26:45.640 --> 0:26:49.800 for explosives. Luckily for him, he was actually in Debtors 0:26:49.840 --> 0:26:53.360 prison at the time of the actual conspiracy in eighteen twenty, 0:26:53.520 --> 0:26:58.000 and so he escaped arrest and trial entirely. At fifty four, 0:26:58.400 --> 0:27:01.119 he had been the oldest member of the group and 0:27:01.320 --> 0:27:06.360 possibly the most talented. Back in eighteen sixteen, Watson had 0:27:06.400 --> 0:27:10.879 created the world's first letter bomb, a volatile mixture of 0:27:10.960 --> 0:27:15.440 ground up silver, steel shavings and crushed flint that would 0:27:15.440 --> 0:27:19.480 detonate at the moment someone opened an envelope. While other 0:27:19.600 --> 0:27:23.760 pharmacists were helping people get better, Watson was coming up 0:27:23.800 --> 0:27:27.440 with new and creative ways to kill. He wrote coded 0:27:27.600 --> 0:27:32.520 messages for the insurrectionists and never stopped inventing new weapons 0:27:32.560 --> 0:27:35.679 and ways of killings. Would he have been able to 0:27:35.760 --> 0:27:38.880 see through Edward's ploy if he had been involved when 0:27:38.880 --> 0:27:43.080 the actual conspiracy came about. It's impossible to say, But 0:27:43.600 --> 0:27:46.800 if anyone would have, my money is on doctor Watson. 0:27:47.400 --> 0:27:50.760 Here was a man with genuine genius who spent it 0:27:50.800 --> 0:27:56.280 all on failed revolutions and experimental weaponry. It's hard not 0:27:56.400 --> 0:27:59.280 to wonder what might have been accomplished if he had 0:27:59.359 --> 0:28:04.240 channeled his brilliant into creation rather than destruction. But he 0:28:04.440 --> 0:28:08.679 was a victim of himself and of his times, just 0:28:08.880 --> 0:28:12.240 like his compatriots who found themselves on the wrong end 0:28:12.359 --> 0:28:24.320 of the Hangman's news. Noble Blood is a production of 0:28:24.440 --> 0:28:28.639 iHeart Radio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manky. Noble 0:28:28.680 --> 0:28:32.639 Blood is hosted by me Dana Schwartz, with additional writing 0:28:32.720 --> 0:28:37.240 and research by Hannah Johnston. Hannaswick, Courtney Sender, Amy Hit 0:28:37.400 --> 0:28:41.400 and Julia Milaney. The show is edited and produced by 0:28:41.520 --> 0:28:47.120 Jesse Funk, with supervising producer rima Il Kaali and executive 0:28:47.160 --> 0:28:51.360 producers Aaron Manke, Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick. For more 0:28:51.440 --> 0:28:56.880 podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or 0:28:57.000 --> 0:29:03.760 wherever you listen to your favorite shows.