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The Plot to Kill the British Government
Unlike Guy Fawkes this event in 1820 is almost forgotten by popular history
In a couple of weeks, on 5th November, the whole of Britain will be alight with fireworks, to celebrate the defeat of the so called Gunpowder Plot in 1605. Every schoolchild knows the story of the failed Catholic plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament and assassinate King James I.
Remember, remember the fifth of November, gunpowder, treason and plot.
Yet two hundred years later, on the 23rd February 1820, there was another attempt to murder the entire British Cabinet, including the Prime Minister, Lord Liverpool. Coined the Cato Street Conspiracy – due to the fact they gathered in a loft above a cow shed in Cato Street, with the intention of moving on to the home of Lord Harrowby, where it was erroneously believed the Cabinet were meeting for a sumptuous dinner – it is now more or less forgotten by the majority of us.
It was doomed from the moment of its inception. George Edwards, second in command to Arthur Thistlewood (the ring leader of the conspirators), was a government spy. From the very onset, all information about the conspiracy was being fed back to the authorities. The plot was doomed from the beginning. On the night…
