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.
