The Secret Plot to Kill the Government

Dan Snow's History Hit

History Hit

History

4.7 • 12.9K Ratings

🗓️ 15 May 2022

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On the night of February 23 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.

Historian Vic Gatrell joins Dan to explore this dramatic event. They discuss how one of the most compelling episodes in British history ended in betrayal, arrest, and trial, and with five conspirators publicly hanged and decapitated for treason. Their failure would end hopes of revolution for a century.

Produced by Hannah Ward

Mixed and Mastered by Dougal Patmore

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Transcript

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0:00.0	3Lit Words is back for another season exclusively on Amazon Music.
0:06.8	We asked people to bring in 3 words of meaning and significance to their lives.
0:11.8	And we used that as a springboard for conversation.
0:14.3	And then at the end of the show, we asked them for a word that they'd be happy never to hear again.
0:19.3	So that's 3Lit Words with made John Bishop and Tony Pitts listen to it every Friday exclusively on Amazon Music.
0:31.7	This episode is sponsored by Audible, where you can now stream the new series of that brilliant Stephen Fry's
0:38.0	Secrets of Podcast. It peaks behind the curtain of the 1920s this time.
0:43.2	The life and times are the flappers, police women, radio, the movies, jazz, the British sense of humour,
0:51.7	censorship and the secrets and lies, the financial crash.
0:56.3	This is another installment of Stephen Fry that listeners love.
0:59.6	There are some brilliant stories in here, all told in a very Stephen Fry type of way.
1:03.7	You're going to love it. Listen now, subscription required, see audible.co.uk for terms.
1:09.5	I've all welcomed down to those history here. The second half of the second decade of the 19th century.
1:15.7	The 18 teams were a tough time. The Polionic Wars, the Greatest War in British history, I just come to an end.
1:24.0	Soldiers and sailors have been demobbed in a health of scale to chaotic way.
1:28.0	The economy was unbalanced. There was a recession. The flow of public money was tightened up by fiscally hawkish politicians.
1:37.6	The industrial revolution was going on. Working practices were undergoing gigantic changes,
1:42.9	probably some of the greatest changes in history.
1:46.0	As a result, those years saw up heavals, revolutionary murmurs within Britain and elsewhere.
1:53.3	People of course listening to this podcast from the know about the Peter Lou massacre,
1:56.7	when 60,000 non-violent demonstrators and some Petersfield in Manchester were attacked by the militia,
2:03.6	by British soldiers, many killed and wounded, but perhaps less famously.
	...

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