November 4, 2025 • 29 mins
In 1820, a group of desperate radicals came up with a violent plan for complete social and political reform in England: murdering the entire cabinet at a nearby dinner party. But their scheme—known as the Cato Street Conspiracy—was over before it even began.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm
and Mild from Aaron Manky listener discretion advised. On a
cold February night in eighteen twenty, a group of men
gathered together in a dilapidated hayloft in London, just off
Edgeware Road. The men were as broken down as the
(00:23):
building they were gathered in, but all of that was
about to change. They had a plan that would upend
the face of Great Britain, if not the world. The
men readied their weapons, pistols, muskets, knives, grenades, anything they
could get their hands on. As they cleaned firearms and
(00:44):
sharpened blades, they talked through last minute details of their plan.
Most of the men were adrenalized with the idea of
changing the course of history and creating a better future
for everyone. But there were others among them who were
having cold feet and struggling to hold it together, trying
(01:05):
not to let it show. After all, this was no
simple intimidation mission, and from this point on there would
be no turning back. They were about to ambush a
nearby dinner hosted by Lord harrowby the President of the
Privy Council. It would be attended by all the British
(01:26):
Cabinet members, as well as by the Prime Minister himself.
Once in, the men's plan was simple, kill everyone. These
men would not stop until every government official had been assassinated.
As they were preparing to leave, they heard a noise
(01:48):
in the stable below them, footsteps, a shout. It was
the police, and they were followed by soldiers. The men
were found out, They looked at one another wondering who
among them had been the mole. I'm Danish Schwartz, and
this is noble blood. When the world is going through
(02:12):
what we sometimes say are unprecedented times, it's tempting to
think that this is the most crazy things in history
have ever been. It makes sense. Perhaps things truly are
the most unstable or uncertain that they've felt in our lifetimes.
But when we look back through history, we see story
(02:35):
after story of wild events, both at home and abroad,
that would rival the goings on of our day or
any day to day. Stasis is a story we like
to tell ourselves, but by and large, true progress has
been made by way of unpleasant, radical disruption and periods
(02:57):
of uncertainty and chaos, sometimes as in the case of
the Cato Street conspiracy, disruption doesn't pan out the way
it was planned, or really pan out at all. Their
plan had been radical, to wipe out the entirety of
(03:18):
the British cabinet and build a new government from the
ground up. You might be wondering, how did things get
to such an extreme place where anyone would have that plan. Well,
let's do a quick rundown of the vibes in regency
era England at this time. By the second decade of
(03:40):
the nineteenth century, England found itself in a particularly turbulent period.
The French Revolution had shown all of Europe just how
flimsy gilded walls could be, Governments could be toppled, kings
could lose their heads, and the whole social order could
be turned up so down. Then came Napoleon, stomping around
(04:03):
the continent for over a decade, nobody from nowhere, who
remade Europe in his image and declared himself an emperor.
Back in England, King George the Third was sliding into
a mental decline from which he would never recover. The
Regency Act of eighteen eleven removed the king's power and
(04:25):
transferred it to his son, who would eventually become King
George the Fourth, who at this time ruled under the
title Prince Regent, hence Regency era. The Prince wasn't great
at taking the national temperature, or maybe he just didn't care.
Either way, he was widely disliked, an extravagant spender, and
(04:50):
prone to scandals. So we have political instability at the
very top, combined with revolutionary ideas still perkle from across
the channel, stirred together with a healthy dose of wealth inequality.
The rich minority had become even richer thanks to the
Napoleonic Wars, while most British citizens were dealing with unemployment, poverty,
(05:17):
and inflated costs. Parliamentary reform was being debated, but not
nearly fast enough for people who couldn't afford to put
food on the table. It was a powder keg situation
and almost everyone knew it. But some folks were ready
to take matters into their own hands. Enter Arthur Thistlewood,
(05:42):
an ex soldier turned semi professional malcontent who decided that
if the system wouldn't change peacefully, then it was time
to blow the whole thing up. Thistlewood wasn't alone. He
had managed to join with some fellow radicals, including a
shoemaker named Thomas Preston and doctor James Watson, an apothecary
(06:07):
with a taste for explosives. The three were not new
to the whole try to overthrow the government thing. In
eighteen seventeen, they had planned an insurrection after a reform
meeting in London. We won't get into the details because
it's not that interesting, but their plan was thwarted and
they narrowly escaped execution for treason. But that didn't slow
(06:31):
them down. They kept meeting, kept plotting, and kept recruiting
other like minded revolutionaries. This is the part of the
story where you can imagine the Ocean's eleven montage of
assembling the team. The group grew to include more tradesmen,
shoemakers John Brunt and Richard Tidd, along with a couple
(06:54):
ex soldiers, John Harrison and Robert Adams. There was James Ings,
a butcher who knew his way around sharp objects, and
William Davidson, a cabinet maker who had been born in
Jamaica to a Scottish farmer and a black Jamaican mother
before making his way to London. There was also George Edwards,
(07:17):
an impoverished model maker who would become Thistlewood's second in command.
Edwards was the ideal revolutionary recruit. Broke, bitter and hungry
for action. For months, the crew met regularly around London,
stockpiling weapons and stoking the fires of their resentment. They
(07:39):
also compiled a hit list with the names and addresses
of over thirty ministers and cabinet officials. Fueled by the
writings of revolutionary thinker Thomas Spence, the men truly believed
that an armed uprising could work in England, just as
it had in other places around the world. Spending time together,
(08:03):
agreeing with each other, bolstering each other up, one can
imagine the ways their small echo chamber created a sense
not just of certainty but also of inevitability. Their plans
stopped being theoretical and started getting practical. In eighteen nineteen,
after the horrific Peterloo massacre, at a peaceful reform meeting
(08:29):
in Manchester, government forces charged into a crowd of unarmed protesters.
Eighteen people, including a child, were killed and over six
hundred and seventy were injured. The government's response to its
citizens asking for basic reforms was to mow them down
(08:50):
with cavalry. For Thistlewood and his crew, Peterloo was the
final straw. If the government was willing to massacre peaceful protesters,
than peaceful protest was clearly off the table. They began
planning assassinations in earnest, initially targeting the Prince Regent before
(09:12):
settling on the entire cabinet. The men's plans kept getting
more ambitious and more desperate. First, they considered murdering the
entire House of Commons, but they realized there was a
small hitch in the plan. They didn't have enough bullets.
Thistlewood then decided he only wanted to kill the ministers anyway,
(09:37):
so they scaled back their vision to better match their resources.
They planned to attack various dinners and events, but something
always went wrong. One potential target was too heavily guarded
by police. Another event was canceled because of King George
the Third's death. The men considered picking off individual ministers
(09:59):
while the police and soldiers were attending the king's funeral,
until someone pointed out that the ministers would probably be
at the funeral too far be it from me to
Monday morning quarterback. But the rebels really could have done
with someone who maybe lacked muscle power but made up
for it with attention to detail. Then, in February eighteen twenty,
(10:23):
George Edwards, the model maker turned second in command, brought
the group the perfect opportunity. He had spotted a piece
in the newspaper which announced that Lord Harroby, the President
of the Privy Council, was hosting a dinner for the
entire cabinet. All of the ministers would be in one
(10:44):
place at one time with minimal security. It was exactly
the opportunity they had been waiting for. What Thistlewood and
the others didn't know was that Edwards, the second in command,
was also a police informant. In delivering the perfect opportunity
(11:04):
to the rebels, Edwards was in reality planting the seed
for their ultimate downfall. On the surface, George Edwards was
another desperate revolutionary looking to overthrow the government, but in
reality he was a spy, an agent provocateur, working to
(11:25):
help that government by taking down the rebellion from the inside.
Since at least early eighteen nineteen, Edwards had been pushing
for violent action in group meetings while feeding the conspirator's
plans directly to the Home Secretary. He was the perfect
double agent, broke enough to seem authentic, clever enough to
(11:47):
gain Thistlewood's trust, and ruthless enough to send his comrades
straight into a trap that would cost many of them
their lives. Some of the other conspirators had their suspicions
about Edwards, but Thistlewood trusted him completely. Whether this says
more about Thistlewood's discernment of character, or his single minded
(12:11):
devotion to the cause, or maybe just Edwards's ability as
a double crosser, is unclear. Remember that comedy of errors
we talked about earlier, all those failed assassination attempts that
kept getting derailed by inconvenient security details and dead kings.
While Edwards had been dutifully reporting every single botched plan
(12:36):
back to his handlers. In December, he had told them
the group was talking about massacring the entire House of Commons,
but decided against it because, and it bears repeating, because
it is a little ridiculous. They didn't have enough bullets. Again,
a logistics person really would have come in handy with
this crew. But after their sworded plan surrounding the King's
(12:59):
f funeral, these men were growing desperate, frustrated, and increasingly reckless,
which is exactly when Edward struck. On Tuesday, February twenty second.
Edwards burst into their meeting place practically vibrating with excitement.
He had just spotted an advertisement in the New Times
(13:21):
quote the Earl of Harrowby gives a grand cabinet dinner
tomorrow at his house in Grosvenor Square. That was just
ten minutes from the Hayloft in Cato Street where the
rebels held their meetings. After months of missed opportunities, the
whole cabinet would be there, sitting ducks. If Thistlewood had
(13:45):
been thinking clearly, he might have found this a little suspicious.
The New Times was edited by a Tory loyalist, and
the advertisement didn't appear in any other paper. A reasonable
person might have smelled a rat. It might as well
have been an announcement for a sitting duck convention. But
(14:07):
reasonable people don't usually plan to decapitate cabinet ministers, and
past delays had brought the group to an absolute fever pitch.
They took the bait completely, and what tempting bait it was.
The dinner was supposed to include Prime Minister, Lord Liverpool,
(14:28):
Home Secretary Lord Sidmouth, and Foreign Secretary Lord Castlereagh, basically
the all star team of everyone the Radicals despised most.
Lord Castlereagh was the big prize, the ultimate villain in
the conspirator's minds. As Irish Chief Secretary, he'd helped suppress
(14:50):
the seventeen ninety eight Irish rebellion with breathtaking brutality. Killing
him would not only eliminate a heated enemy, also potentially
bring the Irish Radicals to their side. The conspirators were
absolutely drunk on the possibilities. They started divvying up which
(15:10):
minister each of them would personally execute, fantasizing about the
glorious changes that would follow. After the initial killing, ings
would quote cut off every head that was in the room,
with Castlereagh and Sidmuth's heads going into special bags. The
heads would then be stuck on hikes and paraded through London,
(15:34):
a gruesome pantomime of the punishment traditionally given to traders.
But the men weren't planning to stop with a simple massacre.
Once they'd eliminated the cabinet, they intended to set fires
across London seize weapons at the artillery ground, commandeer significant buildings,
(15:54):
and establish a provisional government. They genuinely believed their dramatic
act would inspire uprisings across Britain. In their eyes, this
swift and brutal act of violence would be the necessary
spark to blow up the old way of life and
make room for a more equal future for all. Tuesday
(16:16):
February twenty second was spent in frantic preparation. The men
gathered weapons from various hiding places. Davidson, the cabinet maker,
brought musket bullets and a handsaw, while Ings the butcher
sharpened his long knife, declaring it was specifically for Castlereat's head. Wednesday,
(16:36):
the twenty third started off with revolutionary fervor and organized chaos.
Thistlewood scrawled out placards for after their victory, quote your
tyrants are destroyed, the provisional government is now sitting. Men
were sent to watch Harrowby's house, though they got distracted
and ended up drinking at a nearby pub. Again not
(17:00):
the best planners. Thistlewood had believed many others would be
eager to join their cause, but strangely, mustering followers was
proving challenging. Of the forty or so men they had
been counting on, nearly half had failed to show up.
James Wilson, an ex soldier turned milkman, said he had
(17:22):
to deliver milk first. Some who did show up were
just desperate, like James Gilchrist, an unemployed cobbler who had
joined because he was starving. As evening approached, the men
in the cramped loft shared bread, cheese, and porter while
loading their pistols. Tensions were running high. Two few men
(17:46):
had shown up, and some were having second thoughts. Ings
began stamping and swearing, shouting, damn my eyes. If you
drop the concern now, I will cut my throat or
shoot myself. Thistlewood tried to rally them, assuring the rebels
that the whole massacre wouldn't take more than ten minutes. Again,
not the best logistical thinker, Their courage screwed to the
(18:09):
sticking place. The men prepared to leave the hayloft and
head for the square. Just then a voice called up
from below. Plain clothes officers known as the Bow Street
Constables climbed the ladder and ordered everyone under arrest. The
dinner at Lord Harrowby's it wasn't real. It had been fake,
(18:33):
a trap that the conspirators had walked straight into. The
Cato Street conspiracy was over before it even begun. When
the Bow Street runners burst into that cramped hayloft on
Cato Street, chaos erupted. Some of the rebels surrendered immediately,
(18:54):
but the rest fought back with the same violence they
had been planning to unleash on the cabin. These men
were genuinely prepared to kill, and one officer found that
out the hard way. The arrival of the Coldstream Guards,
who were a little late to the party, turned the
stable and surrounding alley into a scene of complete chaos.
(19:17):
Some conspirators were captured, others tried to hide in the vicinity,
and a few managed to slip away under cover of darkness.
Thistlewood was among those who escaped. Edwards, his trusted second
in command, who had actually orchestrated the entire trap, was
the one who helped Thistlewood find a hideout. Of course,
(19:39):
the police then showed up at that hideout and arrested him.
Edwards had set up his leader before he disappeared forever,
never to be seen again. When the conspirators were hauled
before the courts, they faced a laundry list of conspiracy
and treason charges. Several of the men flipped, testifying against
(20:02):
their former comrades in exchange for reduced sentences. The authorities
wanted justice to be fast and merciless, so several of
the men were released when it was clear there wasn't
quite enough strong evidence to prosecute them. Of the eleven
men who stood trial in late April, the sentences varied
(20:23):
dramatically based on how willing they were to throw themselves
on the mercy of the court. Six changed their pleas
from not guilty to guilty during the trial. Five of
these six were sentenced to exile in Australia for life.
The sixth, James Gilchrist, the starving Scottish bootmaker, who had
(20:43):
joined for the promise of a free meal, was believed
by the authorities and given only a short prison sentence.
For the five who maintained their defiance, Thistlewood, tid Ings,
Davidson and Brunt, the court handed down the traditional sentence
for treason, They were to be hanged, drawn and quartered.
(21:07):
This was later commuted to the slightly more humane punishment
of hanging, followed by beheading, but the message was clear,
these men were to be made examples of. On the
morning of May one, eighteen twenty, the five men were
hanged at Newgate Prison in front of a crowd of thousands,
(21:29):
with many paying top dollar to secure premium viewing spots.
After the bodies had hanged for half an hour, an
unidentified figure in a black mask lowered them one by one.
He decapitated each corpse, then displayed their heads to the
assembled spectators with the traditional declaration, behold the head of
(21:52):
a trader. Finally, the bodies were dumped into unmarked graves
within the walls of Newgate Prison. The exact location of
their final resting place is unknown. So what did this
spectacular failure actually accomplish. The Cato Street conspiracy became the
(22:12):
most notorious plot against the British government since Guy Fowx
in sixteen oh five and until the Iras attempt to
blow up Margaret Thatcher in nineteen eighty four. If they
had succeeded, the entire course of British and world history
would have changed, although almost certainly not in the utopian
(22:34):
direction the conspirators envisioned. But of course it never could
have succeeded because the plan itself was based on a lie.
The executions of the conspirators would mark the end of
an era. The tradition of violent revolutionary politics that had
been bubbling away since the French Revolution was officially dead
(22:58):
and buried. The British state had shown both its weakness
and its strength. Yes, it was vulnerable enough that a
couple dozen desperate men with homemade weapons could come terrifyingly
close to eliminating the entire government, but not actually, because
the government was still ruthless enough to anticipate, infiltrate, manipulate,
(23:22):
and annihilate that threat from the inside before it actually happened.
The whole affair became a public obsession. People flocked to
Cato street prints and illustrations of the crime scene and
executions let ordinary folks safely experience the thrill of violence
(23:42):
from a comfortable distance, sort of the equivalent of present
day true crime podcasts and documentaries. The humble hayloft where
the conspiracy was born, became as famous as Parliament itself,
at least for a time. There's been a tendency among
many historians to dismiss Cato straight as the work of
(24:05):
deluded fantasists, which it was, but that's also a bit
of an oversimplification that avoids reckoning with the situation that
brought those men there in the first place. Yes, they
may have absolutely lacked some crucial organizational and critical thinking skills,
but they weren't random lunatics. They were products of their time,
(24:29):
shaped by economic desperation, political oppression, and a generation's worth
of warfare and revolution in the air. The Cato Street
conspiracy exemplifies what historian Mark Seltzer calls the quote wound
culture of early nineteenth century Britain, where violence had become
(24:50):
so normalized that it was an addiction, an inescapable. Part
of the social fabric to be human was to practice violence,
and in an era of extreme inequality, it might have
seemed to some like the only solution. You can read
(25:11):
this story multiple ways in the hands of a satirist.
It's a razor sharp exploration of government paranoia and failed
group dynamics as a tragedy. It's the story of desperate
people driven to extremes by a system that then destroyed
them for daring to fight back. In a black humor
(25:34):
sort of way, this elaborate conspiracy that was orchestrated really
based on nothing more than a fantasy. The Cato Street
Conspiracy was simultaneously a historical footnote and a pivotal moment,
proof that even failed revolutions can reshape how a nation
sees itself and its vulnerabilities. In the end, it stands
(25:58):
as a fascinating snapshot of England at one of its
most volatile moments, a time when the gap between the
rulers and the ruled had grown so wide that mass
political murder seemed like a reasonable solution to some very
unreasonable people. That's the story of the failed Cato Street Conspiracy.
(26:26):
But keep listening after a brief sponsor break to hear
a little bit more about one of the conspirators. What
became of James Watson, the apothecary rebel with the taste
for explosives. Luckily for him, he was actually in Debtors
(26:49):
prison at the time of the actual conspiracy in eighteen twenty,
and so he escaped arrest and trial entirely. At fifty four,
he had been the oldest member of the group and
possibly the most talented. Back in eighteen sixteen, Watson had
created the world's first letter bomb, a volatile mixture of
(27:10):
ground up silver, steel shavings and crushed flint that would
detonate at the moment someone opened an envelope. While other
pharmacists were helping people get better, Watson was coming up
with new and creative ways to kill. He wrote coded
messages for the insurrectionists and never stopped inventing new weapons
(27:32):
and ways of killings. Would he have been able to
see through Edward's ploy if he had been involved when
the actual conspiracy came about. It's impossible to say, But
if anyone would have, my money is on doctor Watson.
Here was a man with genuine genius who spent it
all on failed revolutions and experimental weaponry. It's hard not
(27:56):
to wonder what might have been accomplished if he had
channeled his brilliant into creation rather than destruction. But he
was a victim of himself and of his times, just
like his compatriots who found themselves on the wrong end
of the Hangman's news. Noble Blood is a production of
(28:24):
iHeart Radio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manky. Noble
Blood is hosted by me Dana Schwartz, with additional writing
and research by Hannah Johnston. Hannaswick, Courtney Sender, Amy Hit
and Julia Milaney. The show is edited and produced by
Jesse Funk, with supervising producer rima Il Kaali and executive
(28:47):
producers Aaron Manke, Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm
and Mild from Aaron Manky listener discretion advised. On a
cold February night in eighteen twenty, a group of men
gathered together in a dilapidated hayloft in London, just off
Edgeware Road. The men were as broken down as the
(00:23):
building they were gathered in, but all of that was
about to change. They had a plan that would upend
the face of Great Britain, if not the world. The
men readied their weapons, pistols, muskets, knives, grenades, anything they
could get their hands on. As they cleaned firearms and
(00:44):
sharpened blades, they talked through last minute details of their plan.
Most of the men were adrenalized with the idea of
changing the course of history and creating a better future
for everyone. But there were others among them who were
having cold feet and struggling to hold it together, trying
(01:05):
not to let it show. After all, this was no
simple intimidation mission, and from this point on there would
be no turning back. They were about to ambush a
nearby dinner hosted by Lord harrowby the President of the
Privy Council. It would be attended by all the British
(01:26):
Cabinet members, as well as by the Prime Minister himself.
Once in, the men's plan was simple, kill everyone. These
men would not stop until every government official had been assassinated.
As they were preparing to leave, they heard a noise
(01:48):
in the stable below them, footsteps, a shout. It was
the police, and they were followed by soldiers. The men
were found out, They looked at one another wondering who
among them had been the mole. I'm Danish Schwartz, and
this is noble blood. When the world is going through
(02:12):
what we sometimes say are unprecedented times, it's tempting to
think that this is the most crazy things in history
have ever been. It makes sense. Perhaps things truly are
the most unstable or uncertain that they've felt in our lifetimes.
But when we look back through history, we see story
(02:35):
after story of wild events, both at home and abroad,
that would rival the goings on of our day or
any day to day. Stasis is a story we like
to tell ourselves, but by and large, true progress has
been made by way of unpleasant, radical disruption and periods
(02:57):
of uncertainty and chaos, sometimes as in the case of
the Cato Street conspiracy, disruption doesn't pan out the way
it was planned, or really pan out at all. Their
plan had been radical, to wipe out the entirety of
(03:18):
the British cabinet and build a new government from the
ground up. You might be wondering, how did things get
to such an extreme place where anyone would have that plan. Well,
let's do a quick rundown of the vibes in regency
era England at this time. By the second decade of
(03:40):
the nineteenth century, England found itself in a particularly turbulent period.
The French Revolution had shown all of Europe just how
flimsy gilded walls could be, Governments could be toppled, kings
could lose their heads, and the whole social order could
be turned up so down. Then came Napoleon, stomping around
(04:03):
the continent for over a decade, nobody from nowhere, who
remade Europe in his image and declared himself an emperor.
Back in England, King George the Third was sliding into
a mental decline from which he would never recover. The
Regency Act of eighteen eleven removed the king's power and
(04:25):
transferred it to his son, who would eventually become King
George the Fourth, who at this time ruled under the
title Prince Regent, hence Regency era. The Prince wasn't great
at taking the national temperature, or maybe he just didn't care.
Either way, he was widely disliked, an extravagant spender, and
(04:50):
prone to scandals. So we have political instability at the
very top, combined with revolutionary ideas still perkle from across
the channel, stirred together with a healthy dose of wealth inequality.
The rich minority had become even richer thanks to the
Napoleonic Wars, while most British citizens were dealing with unemployment, poverty,
(05:17):
and inflated costs. Parliamentary reform was being debated, but not
nearly fast enough for people who couldn't afford to put
food on the table. It was a powder keg situation
and almost everyone knew it. But some folks were ready
to take matters into their own hands. Enter Arthur Thistlewood,
(05:42):
an ex soldier turned semi professional malcontent who decided that
if the system wouldn't change peacefully, then it was time
to blow the whole thing up. Thistlewood wasn't alone. He
had managed to join with some fellow radicals, including a
shoemaker named Thomas Preston and doctor James Watson, an apothecary
(06:07):
with a taste for explosives. The three were not new
to the whole try to overthrow the government thing. In
eighteen seventeen, they had planned an insurrection after a reform
meeting in London. We won't get into the details because
it's not that interesting, but their plan was thwarted and
they narrowly escaped execution for treason. But that didn't slow
(06:31):
them down. They kept meeting, kept plotting, and kept recruiting
other like minded revolutionaries. This is the part of the
story where you can imagine the Ocean's eleven montage of
assembling the team. The group grew to include more tradesmen,
shoemakers John Brunt and Richard Tidd, along with a couple
(06:54):
ex soldiers, John Harrison and Robert Adams. There was James Ings,
a butcher who knew his way around sharp objects, and
William Davidson, a cabinet maker who had been born in
Jamaica to a Scottish farmer and a black Jamaican mother
before making his way to London. There was also George Edwards,
(07:17):
an impoverished model maker who would become Thistlewood's second in command.
Edwards was the ideal revolutionary recruit. Broke, bitter and hungry
for action. For months, the crew met regularly around London,
stockpiling weapons and stoking the fires of their resentment. They
(07:39):
also compiled a hit list with the names and addresses
of over thirty ministers and cabinet officials. Fueled by the
writings of revolutionary thinker Thomas Spence, the men truly believed
that an armed uprising could work in England, just as
it had in other places around the world. Spending time together,
(08:03):
agreeing with each other, bolstering each other up, one can
imagine the ways their small echo chamber created a sense
not just of certainty but also of inevitability. Their plans
stopped being theoretical and started getting practical. In eighteen nineteen,
after the horrific Peterloo massacre, at a peaceful reform meeting
(08:29):
in Manchester, government forces charged into a crowd of unarmed protesters.
Eighteen people, including a child, were killed and over six
hundred and seventy were injured. The government's response to its
citizens asking for basic reforms was to mow them down
(08:50):
with cavalry. For Thistlewood and his crew, Peterloo was the
final straw. If the government was willing to massacre peaceful protesters,
than peaceful protest was clearly off the table. They began
planning assassinations in earnest, initially targeting the Prince Regent before
(09:12):
settling on the entire cabinet. The men's plans kept getting
more ambitious and more desperate. First, they considered murdering the
entire House of Commons, but they realized there was a
small hitch in the plan. They didn't have enough bullets.
Thistlewood then decided he only wanted to kill the ministers anyway,
(09:37):
so they scaled back their vision to better match their resources.
They planned to attack various dinners and events, but something
always went wrong. One potential target was too heavily guarded
by police. Another event was canceled because of King George
the Third's death. The men considered picking off individual ministers
(09:59):
while the police and soldiers were attending the king's funeral,
until someone pointed out that the ministers would probably be
at the funeral too far be it from me to
Monday morning quarterback. But the rebels really could have done
with someone who maybe lacked muscle power but made up
for it with attention to detail. Then, in February eighteen twenty,
(10:23):
George Edwards, the model maker turned second in command, brought
the group the perfect opportunity. He had spotted a piece
in the newspaper which announced that Lord Harroby, the President
of the Privy Council, was hosting a dinner for the
entire cabinet. All of the ministers would be in one
(10:44):
place at one time with minimal security. It was exactly
the opportunity they had been waiting for. What Thistlewood and
the others didn't know was that Edwards, the second in command,
was also a police informant. In delivering the perfect opportunity
(11:04):
to the rebels, Edwards was in reality planting the seed
for their ultimate downfall. On the surface, George Edwards was
another desperate revolutionary looking to overthrow the government, but in
reality he was a spy, an agent provocateur, working to
(11:25):
help that government by taking down the rebellion from the inside.
Since at least early eighteen nineteen, Edwards had been pushing
for violent action in group meetings while feeding the conspirator's
plans directly to the Home Secretary. He was the perfect
double agent, broke enough to seem authentic, clever enough to
(11:47):
gain Thistlewood's trust, and ruthless enough to send his comrades
straight into a trap that would cost many of them
their lives. Some of the other conspirators had their suspicions
about Edwards, but Thistlewood trusted him completely. Whether this says
more about Thistlewood's discernment of character, or his single minded
(12:11):
devotion to the cause, or maybe just Edwards's ability as
a double crosser, is unclear. Remember that comedy of errors
we talked about earlier, all those failed assassination attempts that
kept getting derailed by inconvenient security details and dead kings.
While Edwards had been dutifully reporting every single botched plan
(12:36):
back to his handlers. In December, he had told them
the group was talking about massacring the entire House of Commons,
but decided against it because, and it bears repeating, because
it is a little ridiculous. They didn't have enough bullets. Again,
a logistics person really would have come in handy with
this crew. But after their sworded plan surrounding the King's
(12:59):
f funeral, these men were growing desperate, frustrated, and increasingly reckless,
which is exactly when Edward struck. On Tuesday, February twenty second.
Edwards burst into their meeting place practically vibrating with excitement.
He had just spotted an advertisement in the New Times
(13:21):
quote the Earl of Harrowby gives a grand cabinet dinner
tomorrow at his house in Grosvenor Square. That was just
ten minutes from the Hayloft in Cato Street where the
rebels held their meetings. After months of missed opportunities, the
whole cabinet would be there, sitting ducks. If Thistlewood had
(13:45):
been thinking clearly, he might have found this a little suspicious.
The New Times was edited by a Tory loyalist, and
the advertisement didn't appear in any other paper. A reasonable
person might have smelled a rat. It might as well
have been an announcement for a sitting duck convention. But
(14:07):
reasonable people don't usually plan to decapitate cabinet ministers, and
past delays had brought the group to an absolute fever pitch.
They took the bait completely, and what tempting bait it was.
The dinner was supposed to include Prime Minister, Lord Liverpool,
(14:28):
Home Secretary Lord Sidmouth, and Foreign Secretary Lord Castlereagh, basically
the all star team of everyone the Radicals despised most.
Lord Castlereagh was the big prize, the ultimate villain in
the conspirator's minds. As Irish Chief Secretary, he'd helped suppress
(14:50):
the seventeen ninety eight Irish rebellion with breathtaking brutality. Killing
him would not only eliminate a heated enemy, also potentially
bring the Irish Radicals to their side. The conspirators were
absolutely drunk on the possibilities. They started divvying up which
(15:10):
minister each of them would personally execute, fantasizing about the
glorious changes that would follow. After the initial killing, ings
would quote cut off every head that was in the room,
with Castlereagh and Sidmuth's heads going into special bags. The
heads would then be stuck on hikes and paraded through London,
(15:34):
a gruesome pantomime of the punishment traditionally given to traders.
But the men weren't planning to stop with a simple massacre.
Once they'd eliminated the cabinet, they intended to set fires
across London seize weapons at the artillery ground, commandeer significant buildings,
(15:54):
and establish a provisional government. They genuinely believed their dramatic
act would inspire uprisings across Britain. In their eyes, this
swift and brutal act of violence would be the necessary
spark to blow up the old way of life and
make room for a more equal future for all. Tuesday
(16:16):
February twenty second was spent in frantic preparation. The men
gathered weapons from various hiding places. Davidson, the cabinet maker,
brought musket bullets and a handsaw, while Ings the butcher
sharpened his long knife, declaring it was specifically for Castlereat's head. Wednesday,
(16:36):
the twenty third started off with revolutionary fervor and organized chaos.
Thistlewood scrawled out placards for after their victory, quote your
tyrants are destroyed, the provisional government is now sitting. Men
were sent to watch Harrowby's house, though they got distracted
and ended up drinking at a nearby pub. Again not
(17:00):
the best planners. Thistlewood had believed many others would be
eager to join their cause, but strangely, mustering followers was
proving challenging. Of the forty or so men they had
been counting on, nearly half had failed to show up.
James Wilson, an ex soldier turned milkman, said he had
(17:22):
to deliver milk first. Some who did show up were
just desperate, like James Gilchrist, an unemployed cobbler who had
joined because he was starving. As evening approached, the men
in the cramped loft shared bread, cheese, and porter while
loading their pistols. Tensions were running high. Two few men
(17:46):
had shown up, and some were having second thoughts. Ings
began stamping and swearing, shouting, damn my eyes. If you
drop the concern now, I will cut my throat or
shoot myself. Thistlewood tried to rally them, assuring the rebels
that the whole massacre wouldn't take more than ten minutes. Again,
not the best logistical thinker, Their courage screwed to the
(18:09):
sticking place. The men prepared to leave the hayloft and
head for the square. Just then a voice called up
from below. Plain clothes officers known as the Bow Street
Constables climbed the ladder and ordered everyone under arrest. The
dinner at Lord Harrowby's it wasn't real. It had been fake,
(18:33):
a trap that the conspirators had walked straight into. The
Cato Street conspiracy was over before it even begun. When
the Bow Street runners burst into that cramped hayloft on
Cato Street, chaos erupted. Some of the rebels surrendered immediately,
(18:54):
but the rest fought back with the same violence they
had been planning to unleash on the cabin. These men
were genuinely prepared to kill, and one officer found that
out the hard way. The arrival of the Coldstream Guards,
who were a little late to the party, turned the
stable and surrounding alley into a scene of complete chaos.
(19:17):
Some conspirators were captured, others tried to hide in the vicinity,
and a few managed to slip away under cover of darkness.
Thistlewood was among those who escaped. Edwards, his trusted second
in command, who had actually orchestrated the entire trap, was
the one who helped Thistlewood find a hideout. Of course,
(19:39):
the police then showed up at that hideout and arrested him.
Edwards had set up his leader before he disappeared forever,
never to be seen again. When the conspirators were hauled
before the courts, they faced a laundry list of conspiracy
and treason charges. Several of the men flipped, testifying against
(20:02):
their former comrades in exchange for reduced sentences. The authorities
wanted justice to be fast and merciless, so several of
the men were released when it was clear there wasn't
quite enough strong evidence to prosecute them. Of the eleven
men who stood trial in late April, the sentences varied
(20:23):
dramatically based on how willing they were to throw themselves
on the mercy of the court. Six changed their pleas
from not guilty to guilty during the trial. Five of
these six were sentenced to exile in Australia for life.
The sixth, James Gilchrist, the starving Scottish bootmaker, who had
(20:43):
joined for the promise of a free meal, was believed
by the authorities and given only a short prison sentence.
For the five who maintained their defiance, Thistlewood, tid Ings,
Davidson and Brunt, the court handed down the traditional sentence
for treason, They were to be hanged, drawn and quartered.
(21:07):
This was later commuted to the slightly more humane punishment
of hanging, followed by beheading, but the message was clear,
these men were to be made examples of. On the
morning of May one, eighteen twenty, the five men were
hanged at Newgate Prison in front of a crowd of thousands,
(21:29):
with many paying top dollar to secure premium viewing spots.
After the bodies had hanged for half an hour, an
unidentified figure in a black mask lowered them one by one.
He decapitated each corpse, then displayed their heads to the
assembled spectators with the traditional declaration, behold the head of
(21:52):
a trader. Finally, the bodies were dumped into unmarked graves
within the walls of Newgate Prison. The exact location of
their final resting place is unknown. So what did this
spectacular failure actually accomplish. The Cato Street conspiracy became the
(22:12):
most notorious plot against the British government since Guy Fowx
in sixteen oh five and until the Iras attempt to
blow up Margaret Thatcher in nineteen eighty four. If they
had succeeded, the entire course of British and world history
would have changed, although almost certainly not in the utopian
(22:34):
direction the conspirators envisioned. But of course it never could
have succeeded because the plan itself was based on a lie.
The executions of the conspirators would mark the end of
an era. The tradition of violent revolutionary politics that had
been bubbling away since the French Revolution was officially dead
(22:58):
and buried. The British state had shown both its weakness
and its strength. Yes, it was vulnerable enough that a
couple dozen desperate men with homemade weapons could come terrifyingly
close to eliminating the entire government, but not actually, because
the government was still ruthless enough to anticipate, infiltrate, manipulate,
(23:22):
and annihilate that threat from the inside before it actually happened.
The whole affair became a public obsession. People flocked to
Cato street prints and illustrations of the crime scene and
executions let ordinary folks safely experience the thrill of violence
(23:42):
from a comfortable distance, sort of the equivalent of present
day true crime podcasts and documentaries. The humble hayloft where
the conspiracy was born, became as famous as Parliament itself,
at least for a time. There's been a tendency among
many historians to dismiss Cato straight as the work of
(24:05):
deluded fantasists, which it was, but that's also a bit
of an oversimplification that avoids reckoning with the situation that
brought those men there in the first place. Yes, they
may have absolutely lacked some crucial organizational and critical thinking skills,
but they weren't random lunatics. They were products of their time,
(24:29):
shaped by economic desperation, political oppression, and a generation's worth
of warfare and revolution in the air. The Cato Street
conspiracy exemplifies what historian Mark Seltzer calls the quote wound
culture of early nineteenth century Britain, where violence had become
(24:50):
so normalized that it was an addiction, an inescapable. Part
of the social fabric to be human was to practice violence,
and in an era of extreme inequality, it might have
seemed to some like the only solution. You can read
(25:11):
this story multiple ways in the hands of a satirist.
It's a razor sharp exploration of government paranoia and failed
group dynamics as a tragedy. It's the story of desperate
people driven to extremes by a system that then destroyed
them for daring to fight back. In a black humor
(25:34):
sort of way, this elaborate conspiracy that was orchestrated really
based on nothing more than a fantasy. The Cato Street
Conspiracy was simultaneously a historical footnote and a pivotal moment,
proof that even failed revolutions can reshape how a nation
sees itself and its vulnerabilities. In the end, it stands
(25:58):
as a fascinating snapshot of England at one of its
most volatile moments, a time when the gap between the
rulers and the ruled had grown so wide that mass
political murder seemed like a reasonable solution to some very
unreasonable people. That's the story of the failed Cato Street Conspiracy.
(26:26):
But keep listening after a brief sponsor break to hear
a little bit more about one of the conspirators. What
became of James Watson, the apothecary rebel with the taste
for explosives. Luckily for him, he was actually in Debtors
(26:49):
prison at the time of the actual conspiracy in eighteen twenty,
and so he escaped arrest and trial entirely. At fifty four,
he had been the oldest member of the group and
possibly the most talented. Back in eighteen sixteen, Watson had
created the world's first letter bomb, a volatile mixture of
(27:10):
ground up silver, steel shavings and crushed flint that would
detonate at the moment someone opened an envelope. While other
pharmacists were helping people get better, Watson was coming up
with new and creative ways to kill. He wrote coded
messages for the insurrectionists and never stopped inventing new weapons
(27:32):
and ways of killings. Would he have been able to
see through Edward's ploy if he had been involved when
the actual conspiracy came about. It's impossible to say, But
if anyone would have, my money is on doctor Watson.
Here was a man with genuine genius who spent it
all on failed revolutions and experimental weaponry. It's hard not
(27:56):
to wonder what might have been accomplished if he had
channeled his brilliant into creation rather than destruction. But he
was a victim of himself and of his times, just
like his compatriots who found themselves on the wrong end
of the Hangman's news. Noble Blood is a production of
(28:24):
iHeart Radio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manky. Noble
Blood is hosted by me Dana Schwartz, with additional writing
and research by Hannah Johnston. Hannaswick, Courtney Sender, Amy Hit
and Julia Milaney. The show is edited and produced by
Jesse Funk, with supervising producer rima Il Kaali and executive
(28:47):
producers Aaron Manke, Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Host
Dana Schwartz
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