Conspiracy on Cato Street
A Tale of Liberty and Revolution in Regency London

Tells the immensely dramatic but neglected story of one of the most sensational plots in British history.

Vic Gatrell (Author)

9781108971454, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 18 May 2023

475 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.7 cm, 0.694 kg

'Vic Gatrell is that rarest of people; an academic historian steeped in the archives who can write the most beautiful prose. Conspiracy on Cato Street brings his trademark erudition and style to bear … [in this] wonderful book.' Jason McElligott, Irish Times

Shortlisted for the Duff Cooper Prize, and a Daily Telegraph and BBC History Magazine Book of the Year. On the night of 23 February 1820, twenty-five impoverished craftsmen assembled in an obscure stable in Cato Street, London, with a plan to massacre the whole British cabinet at its monthly dinner. The Cato Street Conspiracy was the most sensational of all plots aimed at the British state since Guy Fawkes' Gunpowder Plot of 1605. It ended in betrayal, arrest, and trial, and with five conspirators publicly hanged and decapitated for treason. Their failure proved the state's physical strength, and ended hopes of revolution for a century. Vic Gatrell explores this dramatic yet neglected event in unprecedented detail through spy reports, trial interrogations, letters, speeches, songs, maps, and images. Attending to the 'real lives' and habitats of the men, women, and children involved, he throws fresh light on the troubled and tragic world of Regency Britain, and on one of the most compelling and poignant episodes in British history.

Part I. The simple tale: 1. The Cato Street conspiracy: what happened
2. Arrests and reactions
Part II. Taking its measure: 3. Interpreting the conspiracy
4. What they were up against
5. What they believed
6. Fantasy, myth, and song
7. Rebellion's habitats
Part III. Thistlewood: his story: 8. A terrorist in the making: 1774-1816
9. The Spa Fields insurrection: 1816-17
10. Thistlewood unhinged: 1818-19
11. Peterloo in London: 1819-20
12. Edwards the spy: 1819-20
Part IV. Ordinary Britons: 13. Conspirators and others
14. Wives, marriages, children
15. Men of colour: Wedderburn and Davidson
Part V. Executions: 16. Trials and verdicts
17. May Day at Newgate
18. Epilogue: Géricault goes to Cato Street
Historiographical note
The trial reports.

Subject Areas: Revolutionary groups & movements [JPWQ], Terrorism, armed struggle [JPWL], Revolutions, uprisings, rebellions [HBTV], Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 [HBLH], British & Irish history [HBJD1], True stories: discovery / historical / scientific [BTH]