Pod Insights Noble Blood Revolutionaries on Cato Street About this episode 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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1:35 Dana Schwartz? Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Mankey. Listener discretion advised. On a cold February night in 1820, a group of men gathered together in a dilapidated hayloft in London just off Edgeware Road. The men were as broken down as the 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.
2:17 Dana Schwartz? As they cleaned firearms and 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 not to let it show. After all, this was no simple intimidation mission. 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.
2:59 Dana Schwartz? It would be attended by all the British 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 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.
3:38 Dana Schwartz? I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is Noble Blood. When the world is going through 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 after story of wild events, both at At home and abroad, that would rival the goings-on of our day, or any day today.
4:20 Dana Schwartz? 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 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 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
5:04 Dana Schwartz? 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 the 19th 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 upside down. Then came Napoleon, stomping around the continent for over a decade, a nobody from nowhere who remade Europe in his image and declared himself an emperor.
5:48 Dana Schwartz? Back in England, King George III was sliding into a mental decline from which he would never recover. The Regency Act of 1811 removed the king's power and transferred it to his son, who would eventually become King George IV, who at this time ruled under the title Prince Regent, hence Regency-era.
6:13 Dana Schwartz? 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 prone to scandals. So we have political instability at the very top, combined with revolutionary ideas still percolating 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, and inflated costs.
6:54 Dana Schwartz? 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, 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
7:39 Dana Schwartz? and Dr. James Watson, an apothecary with a taste for explosives. The three were not new to the whole "try to overthrow the government" thing. In 1817, 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 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...
8:22 Dana Schwartz? grew to include more tradesmen, shoemakers John Brunt and Richard Tid, along with a couple ex-soldiers, John Harrison and Robert Adams. There was James Ings, a butcher who knew his way around sharp objects, and William Davidson, a cabinetmaker 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, an impoverished model maker who would become Thistlewood's second-in-command. Edwards was the ideal revolutionary recruit, broke, bitter, and hungry for action.
9:06 Dana Schwartz? For months, the crew met regularly around London, stockpiling weapons and stoking the fires of their resentment. They 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, 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.
9:51 Dana Schwartz? Their plans stopped being theoretical and started getting practical in 1819 after the horrific Peterloo massacre. At a peaceful reform meeting in Manchester, government forces charged into a crowd of unarmed protesters. Eighteen people, including a child, were killed, and over 670 were injured. The government's response to its citizens asking for basic reforms was to mow them down with cavalry. For Thistlewood and his crew, Peterloo was the final straw. If the government was willing to massacre peaceful protesters,
10:36 Dana Schwartz? then peaceful protest was clearly off the table. They began planning assassinations in earnest, initially targeting the Prince Regent, before settling on the entire cabinet.
10:52 Dana Schwartz? 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. 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 III's death. The men considered picking off individual ministers while the police and soldiers
11:36 Dana Schwartz? 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 1820, 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 Harabee, the president of the Privy Council, was hosting a dinner for the entire cabinet.
12:17 Dana Schwartz? All of the ministers would be in one 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 to the rebels, Edwards was, in reality, planting the seed for their ultimate downfall.
12:49 Dana Schwartz? 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 help that government by taking down the rebellion from the inside. Since at least early 1819, Edwards had been pushing for violent action in group meetings while feeding the conspirators' plans directly to the Home Secretary. He was the perfect double agent: broke enough to seem authentic, clever enough to gain Thistlewood's trust, and ruthless enough to send his comrades straight into a trap that would cost many of them their lives.
13:33 Dana Schwartz? 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 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? Well, Edwards had been dutifully reporting every single botched plan back to his handlers. In December, he had told them the group was talking about massacring the entire House
14:18 Dana Schwartz? 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 swarded plans surrounding the king's funeral, these men were growing desperate, frustrated, and increasingly reckless, which is exactly when Edwards struck. On Tuesday, February 22, Edwards burst into their meeting place, practically vibrating with excitement. He had just spotted an advertisement in The New Times, quote, "The Earl of..."
14:58 Dana Schwartz? of Harrowby gives a grand cabinet dinner tomorrow at his house in Grosvenor Square. That was just 10 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 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 reasonable
15:43 Dana Schwartz? 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, Home Secretary Lord Sidmouth, and Foreign Secretary Lord Castle Ray. Basically, the all-star team of everyone the radicals despised most. Lord Castle Ray was the big prize, the ultimate villain in the conspirators' minds.
16:21 Dana Schwartz? As Irish Chief Secretary, he'd helped suppress the 1798 Irish Rebellion with breathtaking brutality. Killing him would not only eliminate a hated enemy, but also potentially bring the Irish radicals to their side. The conspirators were absolutely drunk on the possibilities. They started divvying up which minister each of them would personally execute, fantasizing about the glorious changes that would follow. After the initial killing, Ings would "cut off every head that was in the room," with Castle Ray and Sidmouth's heads going into special bags.
17:03 Dana Schwartz? The heads would then be stuck on hikes and paraded through ...London, a gruesome pantomime of the punishment traditionally given to traitors. 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, and establish a provisional government. They genuinely believed their dramatic action would inspire uprisings across Britain. In their eyes, this swift and brutal act of violence would be the necessary spark
17:44 Dana Schwartz? to blow up the old way of life and make room for a more equal future for all. Tuesday, February 22nd, was spent in frantic preparation. The men gathered weapons from various hiding places. Davidson, the cabinetmaker, brought musket bullets and a handsaw, while Ings, the butcher, sharpened his long knife, declaring it was specifically for Castle Ray's head. Wednesday, the 23rd, 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."
18:26 Dana Schwartz? Men were sent to watch Harrowby's house, though they got distracted and ended up drinking at a nearby pub. Again, not 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 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.
19:09 Dana Schwartz? As evening approached, the men in the cramped loft shared bread, cheese, and porter while loading their pistols. Tensions were running high. Too few men 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 sticking place, the men prepared to leave the hayloft and head for the square. Just then, a voice called up from below.
19:54 Dana Schwartz? Plainclothes officers, known as the Bow Street Constables, climbed the ladder and ordered everyone under arrest. The dinner at Lord Harabee’s? It wasn’t real. It had been fake. 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, but the rest fought back with the same violence they had been planning to unleash on the cabinet. These men were genuinely prepared to kill,
20:38 Dana Schwartz? 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. 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, the police then showed up at that hideout and arrested him. Edwards had set up his leader before he disappeared forever,
21:23 Dana Schwartz? 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 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 11 men who stood trial in late April, the sentences varied dramatically based on how willing they were to throw themselves on the mercy of the court.
22:04 Dana Schwartz? 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 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. This was later commuted to the slightly more humane punishment
22:47 Dana Schwartz? of hanging followed by beheading. But the message was clear: these men were to be made examples of. On the morning of May 1, 1820, the five men were hanged at Newgate Prison in front of a crowd of thousands, 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 a traitor." Finally, the bodies were dumped into unmarked graves
23:32 Dana Schwartz? within the walls of Newgate Prison. The exact location of their final resting place is unknown.
23:40 Dana Schwartz? So what did this spectacular failure actually accomplish? The Cato Street Conspiracy became the most notorious plot against the British government since Guy Fawkes in 1605 and until the IRA’s attempt to blow up Margaret Thatcher in 1984. If they had succeeded, the entire course of British and world history would have changed, although almost certainly not in the utopian 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.
24:24 Dana Schwartz? The tradition of violent revolutionary politics that had been bubbling away since the French Revolution was officially dead 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, and annihilate that threat from the inside before it actually happened. The whole affair became a public obsession. People flocked to Cato Street.
25:09 Dana Schwartz? Prints and illustrations of the crime scene and executions let ordinary folks safely experience the thrill of violence 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 Street as the work of 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.
25:53 Dana Schwartz? 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, 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 "wound culture" of early 19th century Britain, where violence had become so normalized that it was an addiction, an inescapable part of the social fabric. To be human was to practice violence.
26:36 Dana Schwartz? And in an era of extreme inequality, it might have seemed to some like the only solution. You can read the 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 sort of way, this elaborate conspiracy that was orchestrated really based on nothing more than a fantasy.
27:17 Dana Schwartz? 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 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.
27:57 Dana Schwartz? That's the story of the failed Cato Street conspiracy. But keep listening after a brief sponsor break to hear a little bit more about one of the conspirators.
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30:40 Speaker 04 Hey, it's Nile Rodgers, host of Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series. I'm driving across the country, meeting some of today's most fascinating artists. We're exploring the stories before the moment that changed everything. This week, I'm joined by my friend, John Ledge. How does music actually enter your mind?
31:03 Speaker 05 I'm not sure why or how the music comes to me, but I think people who love music and write music, our brains are just filled with music.
31:12 Speaker 04 Right.
31:13 Speaker 05 Like, we have listened to so much music. We've been a part of so much music. I think of the story that I want to tell, the mood that I want to create with the music, start playing chords, see where they lead me.
31:24 Speaker 04 Sometimes I'm just not even thinking about music, right? And I hear this little thing and I go, oh, that could be this.
31:34 Speaker 05 You know, you just have to be ready for when the inspiration hits.
31:37 Speaker 04 It comes.
31:38 Speaker 05 Yeah.
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32:18 Dana Schwartz? You know, all those pieces in your closet that you find yourself reaching for over and over again, you know, the sweater that works with every outfit you try on and the jeans that you know will always fit you just right, or the bag you carry everywhere. Those are the exact pieces that earn a place in your wardrobe. And that's exactly what Quince does so well. Quince makes elevated everyday essentials using premium materials like Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton, and premium stretch denim. The designs are timeless, thoughtfully crafted, made to be worn again and again. And as the weather gets colder, Quince has everything you need to round out your wardrobe, from warm, responsibly sourced down jackets and
33:01 Dana Schwartz? cozy cashmere scarves and gloves to beautiful 14 karat jewelry that adds the perfect finishing touch and might make an excellent holiday present. Quince also doesn't just do clothes. My work bag, my leather bag that I bring every day with me to work is from Quince, and I absolutely love it. It goes with everything I wear, and it's just like a classic that makes me feel sophisticated and grown up. And everything at Quince is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands because they work directly with ethical factories, cutting out the middlemen. So you're paying for quality and not brand markup. Find the fall pieces
33:41 Dana Schwartz? you will reach for most at quince.com. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was Noble Blood. It is the best way to support this show, honestly, because I just want the Quince sponsorship to continue so I can keep buying Quince clothes and products over and over again.
34:16 Speaker 04 Hey, it's Niall Rogers, host of Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series. I'm driving across the country, meeting some of today's most fascinating artists. We're exploring the stories before the moment that changed everything. This week, I'm joined by rising star Sienna Spirer.
34:35 Speaker 06 My first ever in-the-world show was when I was 10, and I sang at a pub called The Georgian Devonshire. I was so nervous. I was 10, so they let me in only to sing my song, and then they kicked me out right after. And then I remember I wrote, I'd been writing since I was 10, so I wrote this song called "Lady in the Mirror", made this little track with it, but I just like pressed it. And I remember I sang this song, and there was like five people in there. And I remember how myself I felt, and I felt like I understood myself and understood what I needed to do.
35:02 Speaker 04 So does that take us back to, "I sing just to know I'm alive"?
35:05 Speaker 06 Hundred percent, hundred percent, in my whole life.
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35:18 Dana Schwartz? What became of James Watson, the apothecary rebel with the taste for explosives? Luckily for him, he was actually in debtor's prison at the time of the actual conspiracy in 1820, and so he escaped arrest and trial entirely. At 54, he had been the oldest member of the group, and possibly the most talented. Back in 1816, Watson had created the world's first letter bomb, a volatile mixture of 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,
36:00 Dana Schwartz? Watson was coming up with new and creative ways to kill. He wrote coded messages for the insurrectionists, and never stopped inventing new weapons 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 Dr. Watson. Here was a man with genuine genius who spent it all on failed revolutions and experimental weaponry. It's hard not to wonder what might have been accomplished if he had channeled his brilliance into creation rather than destruction. But he was a victim
36:43 Dana Schwartz? of himself and of his times, just like his compatriots who found themselves on the wrong end of the hangman's noose.
37:00 Dana Schwartz? Noble Blood is a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manke. Noble Blood is hosted by me, Dana Schwartz, with additional writing and research by Hannah Johnston, Hannah Zwick, Courtney Sender, Amy Height, and Julia Maloney. The show is edited and produced by Jesse Funk, with supervising producer, Reema Ilkayali, and executive producers Aaron Manke, Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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