Despard Plot

Last updated

Etching by Barlow (based on sketch taken at trial) ColonelDespard.jpg
Etching by Barlow (based on sketch taken at trial)

The Despard Plot was a failed 1802 conspiracy by British revolutionaries led by Colonel Edward Marcus Despard, a former army officer and colonial official. Evidence presented in court suggested that Despard planned to assassinate the monarch George III and seize key strong points in London such as the Bank of England and Tower of London as a prelude to a wider uprising by the population of the city. The British Government was aware of the plot five months before the scheduled date of attack, but waited to arrest to gain enough evidence. [1] One week before the scheduled attack, Despard and his co-conspirators were arrested at the Oakley Arms pub in Lambeth on suspicion of plotting an uprising. [2] Despard's execution on 21 February 1803 was attended by a crowd of around 20,000, the largest public gathering until the funeral of Lord Nelson two years later following the Battle of Trafalgar. [3]

Contents

The plot

Despard had been arrested by the Bow Street Runners on 16 November 1802 while attending a meeting of 40 working men at the Oakley Arms tavern: eight carpenters, five labourers, two shoemakers, two hatters, a stonemason, a clockmaker, a plasterer (formerly a sailor), and a wood cutter had been among the arrested. Many had been soldiers, including Despard, and several were Irishmen who had served on the King's ships. Furthermore, several of those arrested had been Irish labourers "united in Ireland", a contemporary code-phrase which implied that the mass killings and terror inflicted by the British following the Irish Rebellion of 1798 had not extinguished the Irish enthusiasm for independence. [4] The tavern was immediately down the road from the Albion Mills, the first London steam-powered mill which had been burned in 1791, part of the direct, anonymous resistance to the industrial revolution; the neighbourhood was a hotbed of continued resistance to exploitation both parliamentary and economic. An area where the government stood was referred to as "Man Eaters," and Parliament as the "Den of Thieves." [5]

Although the plot was highly publicised, details of the trial have never been released. In 1794 the British government failed to prove that the London Corresponding Society (of which Despard was a member) was treasonous. Because of this, many of the details focused on the attempted assassination of Despard's plot, as this is what prosecutors focused on. Informers claimed that John Wood offered to post himself sentry with a cannon to fire at the King's carriage as it was going to what was then called Buckingham House. It is unlikely that Despard favoured this plan, as it was viewed as very dangerous and still hoped that men in high places, such as the politician Francis Burdett, would agree to non-regicidal changes in government. Though that may be true, evidence produced at the trial suggests that Despard did indeed consider regicide.

Sir Edward O'Brien Pryce [6] approached authorities the day of Despard's arrest to offer evidence against Despard. Pryce claimed that, through notes, Despard had offered him unlimited sums of money in exchange for advice on making underground bombs. Despard, it was alleged, had sent him a diagram of boxes with spring locks containing three powder barrels surrounded by balls and metal spikes. These were to be buried under the road and detonated by connecting wire. Bombs were to be placed in three locations: the road to Windsor Castle, between Buckingham House and Hyde Park gate, and an exit of Buckingham House, opposite the gate into the lower part of Green Park.

Although seemingly conclusive, Pryce's evidence was not used in court; this was because the authorities wondered why he had failed to make contact with them in February when this happened. [7] While the trial (and thus information about the plot) was mostly focused on the attempted assassination of the King, Despard and his co-conspirators also contemplated the seizure of the Bank of England and a military rising of the Third Grenadiers stationed at the Tower of London. They hoped that these attacks would set off uprisings all over the country. [1]

The trial

There was little physical evidence produced during this trial. The only pieces were printed copies of the United Englishmen's constitution which called for independence for Britain and Ireland, equal rights, and compensation for those who fall in the struggle to achieve these ideals. Although the United Englishmen's constitution was revolutionary, there was little evidence of planned regicide. The 1797 Act Against Administering Unlawful Oaths made these constitutions stronger evidence for rebellion, but not necessarily for regicide. Like the similar case of James Hadfield, another possible attempted assassin of King George III, Colonel Despard's sanity was questioned during the trial. Many of Despard's contemporaries, including Cobbett and Lord Cloncurry (who had earlier been suspected of complicity), distanced themselves from Despard's failure. The jury concluded that Despard's words had been freely given in public spaces and thus was judged as sane. Although judged sane, public society deemed Despard and his plan mad. William Cobbett commented on this distinction, "If you abhor treason, you are told Despard was a madman; if you are discontented with public affairs, you are told he was a hero." [7]

Under the Treason Act 1795, there was little legal distinction between plotting treason and committing treason. The jury was impressed by the Colonel's character references such as that given by Evan Nepean and Horatio Nelson, who had been his companion in Honduras; the jury was also unsure about the lack of solid evidence and, consequently, Despard and his colleagues were found guilty of high treason but the jury recommended mercy. [1]

The proposed execution raised considerable anxiety, given that it was to be in an area congested by working men (exactly the kind of man to whom Despard had appealed) and the chief magistrate, Sir Richard Ford, expressed his concern over the size of the crowds that assembled during the day and evenings near the jail. He had trouble hiring workmen to build the scaffold; the jailer feared to leave the safety of the prison; and he deployed over 100 armed soldiers throughout the neighbourhood on the night before the execution. Handbills calling on the people to rise had been distributed and the authorities feared the possibility of a riot, if not an outright attempt to free the prisoners. The prisoners remained recalcitrant, especially Despard, refusing to discuss their plans or to reveal the identities of any others who might have been involved in the plot. [8]

A further problem for the authorities was Catherine Despard, Despard's wife, who caused considerable dismay. A woman of African descent, she had accompanied her husband from Central America to London in 1790. Active in prisoners' rights, she formed a link between her husband and the other revolutionaries with their colleagues and families outside the prison. She had worked for improvement of prison conditions, including the necessities of life: warmth, fresh air, food, space, writing materials, and access to friends and families. She was, essentially, a courier between the condemned and the outside world, and furthermore an intrepid correspondent. The prison wardens feared she was smuggling goods in and out of the prison, but feared to search her. It was she who had approached Lord Nelson to speak at the trial, and he made further applications to the government on behalf of Despard and his compatriots. [9]

Those executed were Despard, John Francis, John Wood, James Sedgewick, Thomas Broughton, Arthur Graham, and John Macnamara. [10] They were executed in Old Horsemonger Lane Gaol in Southwark on Monday 21 February 1803. [1]

Legacy

In his seminal The Making of the English Working Class (1963), E. P. Thompson identified the Despard affair as "an incident of real significance in British political history". It appeared to "justify the Government's policy of 'alarm' and of the suspension of popular liberties". At the same time, for Jacobin ultras it initiated "the strategy (or, perhaps, fantasy) of the coup d'etat" that was to issue in the Cato Street Conspiracy of 1820. [11]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">London Corresponding Society</span> Late 18th-century British parliamentary reform organization

The London Corresponding Society (LCS) was a federation of local reading and debating clubs that in the decade following the French Revolution agitated for the democratic reform of the British Parliament. In contrast to other reform associations of the period, it drew largely upon working men and was itself organised on a formal democratic basis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edward Law, 1st Baron Ellenborough</span> Lord Chief Justice of England

Edward Law, 1st Baron Ellenborough,, was an English judge. After serving as a member of parliament and Attorney General, he became Lord Chief Justice.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">High treason in the United Kingdom</span> Offence under British law

Under the law of the United Kingdom, high treason is the crime of disloyalty to the Crown. Offences constituting high treason include plotting the murder of the sovereign; committing adultery with the sovereign's consort, with the sovereign's eldest unmarried daughter, or with the wife of the heir to the throne; levying war against the sovereign and adhering to the sovereign's enemies, giving them aid or comfort; and attempting to undermine the lawfully established line of succession. Several other crimes have historically been categorised as high treason, including counterfeiting money and being a Catholic priest.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Popish Plot</span> Fictitious conspiracy causing anti-Catholic hysteria affecting England, Scotland, and Ireland

The Popish Plot was a fictitious conspiracy invented by Titus Oates that between 1678 and 1681 gripped the kingdoms of England and Scotland in anti-Catholic hysteria. Oates alleged that there was an extensive Catholic conspiracy to assassinate Charles II, accusations that led to the executions of at least 22 men and precipitated the Exclusion Bill Crisis. During this tumultuous period, Oates weaved an intricate web of accusations, fueling public fears and paranoia. However, as time went on, the lack of substantial evidence and inconsistencies in Oates's testimony began to unravel the plot. Eventually, Oates himself was arrested and convicted for perjury, exposing the fabricated nature of the conspiracy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Wickham (civil servant)</span> British civil servant and politician

William Wickham PC PC (Ire) was a British spymaster and a director of internal security services during the French Revolutionary Wars. He was credited with disrupting radical conspiracies in England but, appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland, failed in 1803 to anticipate a republican insurrection in Dublin. He ended his career in government service in 1804, resigning his post in Ireland where, privately, he denounced government policy as "unjust" and "oppressive".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Francis Burdett</span> British politician

Sir Francis Burdett, 5th Baronet was a British politician and Member of Parliament who gained notoriety as a proponent of universal male suffrage, equal electoral districts, vote by ballot, and annual parliaments. His commitment to reform resulted in legal proceedings and brief confinement to the Tower of London. In his later years he appeared reconciled to the very limited provisions of the 1832 Reform Act. He was the godfather of Francisco Burdett O'Connor, one of the famed Libertadores of the Spanish American wars of independence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alured Clarke</span> Canadian politician

Sir Alured Clarke was a British Army officer. He took charge of all British troops in Georgia in May 1780 and was then deployed to Philadelphia to supervise the evacuation of British prisoners of war at the closing stages of the American Revolutionary War. He went on to be Governor of Jamaica and then lieutenant-governor of Lower Canada in which role he had responsibility for implementing the Constitutional Act 1791. He was then sent to India where he became Commander-in-Chief of the Madras Army, then briefly Governor-General of India and finally Commander-in-Chief of India during the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edward Despard</span> Irish officer in the service of the British Crown

Edward Marcus Despard, an Irish officer in the service of the British Crown, gained notoriety as a colonial administrator for refusing to recognise racial distinctions in law and, following his recall to London, as a republican conspirator. Despard's associations with the London Corresponding Society, the United Irishmen and United Britons led to his trial and execution in 1803 as the alleged ringleader of a plot to assassinate the King.

Valentine Brown Lawless, 2nd Baron Cloncurry, was an Irish peer, politician and landowner. In the 1790s he was an emissary in radical and reform circles in London for the Society of United Irishmen, and was twice detained on suspicion of sedition. He gained notoriety for his celebrated lawsuit for adultery against his former friend Sir John Piers, who had seduced Cloncurry's first wife, Elizabeth Georgiana Morgan. He took up residence at Lyons Hill, Ardclough, County Kildare and, commensurate with his status as an Anglo-Irish lord, appeared to reconcile to the Dublin authorities. Lawless served as a Viceregal advisor and eventually gained a British peerage, but it was not as an Ascendancy loyalist. He pressed the case for admitting Catholics to parliament and for ending the universal imposition of Church of Ireland tithes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coldbath Fields Prison</span>

Coldbath Fields Prison, also formerly known as the Middlesex House of Correction and Clerkenwell Gaol and informally known as the Steel, was a prison in the Mount Pleasant area of Clerkenwell, London. Founded in the reign of James I (1603–1625) it was completely rebuilt in 1794 and extended in 1850. It housed prisoners on short sentences of up to two years. Blocks emerged to segregate felons, misdemeanants and vagrants.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1794 Treason Trials</span>

The 1794 Treason Trials, arranged by the administration of William Pitt, were intended to cripple the British radical movement of the 1790s. Over thirty radicals were arrested; three were tried for high treason: Thomas Hardy, John Horne Tooke and John Thelwall. In a repudiation of the government's policies, they were acquitted by three separate juries in November 1794 to public rejoicing. The treason trials were an extension of the sedition trials of 1792 and 1793 against parliamentary reformers in both England and Scotland.

Arc

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Linebaugh</span> American Marxist historian

Peter Linebaugh is an American Marxist historian who specializes in British history, Irish history, labour history, and the history of the colonial Atlantic. He is a member of the Midnight Notes Collective.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hanged, drawn and quartered</span> Legal punishment in medieval England, Wales and Ireland for men convicted of high treason

To be hanged, drawn and quartered became a statutory penalty for men convicted of high treason in the Kingdom of England from 1352 under King Edward III (1327–1377), although similar rituals are recorded during the reign of King Henry III (1216–1272). The convicted traitor was fastened to a hurdle, or wooden panel, and drawn by horse to the place of execution, where he was then hanged, emasculated, disembowelled, beheaded, and quartered. His remains would then often be displayed in prominent places across the country, such as London Bridge, to serve as a warning of the fate of traitors. For reasons of public decency, women convicted of high treason were instead burned at the stake.

Peter Finnerty was an Irish printer, publisher, and journalist in both Dublin and London associated with radical, reform and democratic causes. In Dublin, he was a committed United Irishman, but was imprisoned in the course of the 1798 rebellion. In London he was a campaigning reporter for The Morning Chronicle, imprisoned again in 1811 for libel in his condemnation of Lord Castlereagh.

Lionel Anderson, alias Munson was an English Dominican priest, who was falsely accused of treason during the Popish Plot, which was the fabrication of the notorious anti-Catholic informer Titus Oates. He was convicted of treason on the technical ground that he had acted as a Catholic priest within England, contrary to an Elizabethan statute, but was reprieved from the customary death sentence. He was eventually released and sent into exile, after a biased trial, and after serving a term of imprisonment.

General John Despard (1745–1829) was an Irish-born soldier who had a long and distinguished career in the British Army and as a colonial administrator. He was the brother of Edward Despard, also a soldier, who was executed in 1803 for his part in the Despard Plot.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clerkenwell explosion</span>

The Clerkenwell explosion, also known as the Clerkenwell Outrage, was a bombing in London on 13 December 1867. The Irish Republican Brotherhood, nicknamed the "Fenians", exploded a bomb to try to free one of their members being held on remand at Clerkenwell Prison. The explosion damaged nearby houses, killed 12 people and left 120 injured. None of the prisoners escaped. The event was described by The Times the following day as "a crime of unexampled atrocity", and compared to the "infernal machines" used in Paris in 1800 and 1835 and the Gunpowder Treason of 1605. The bombing was later described as the most infamous action carried out by the Fenians in Britain in the 19th century. It enraged the public, causing a backlash of hostility in Britain which undermined efforts to establish home rule or independence for Ireland.

Catherine Despard, from Jamaica, publicised political detentions and prison conditions in London where her Irish husband, Colonel Edward Despard, was repeatedly incarcerated for their shared democratic convictions. Her extensive lobbying failed to save him from the gallows when, in 1803, he was tried and convicted for a plot to assassinate King George III.

Thomas Evans was a British revolutionary conspirator. Active in the 1790s and the period 1816–1820, he is otherwise a shadowy character, known mainly as a hardline follower of Thomas Spence.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Smith, A. W. (1955). "Irish Rebels and English Radicals 1798–1820. Past & Present". JSTOR   650175.{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  2. ↑ Porter, Bernard (1989). Plots and Paranoia: a history of political espionage in Britain, 1790–1988. London, Boston: Unwin Hyman. p. 28.
  3. ↑ Jay, Mike (2005). The Unfortunate Colonel Despard. Bantam Press.
  4. ↑ Peter Linebaugh, Marcus Rediker, The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantica, Beacon Press, 2013, pp. 229–230.
  5. ↑ Rediker, pp. 250–251.
  6. ↑ Sir Edward O'Brien Pryce (indebted baronet and former officer in service to the King), The London Gazette, Part I., Prisoners of the King's Bench, Surrey, T. Neuman, 1812, p. 526.
  7. 1 2 Poole, Steve (2000). The politics of regicide in England, 1760–1850: Troublesome Subjects. Manchester University Press. pp. 62, 135–138.
  8. ↑ Rediker, pp. 251–252.
  9. ↑ Rediker, p. 253.
  10. ↑ Oman, C. W. C. (1928). "The Last Days of Colonel Despard". The English Historical Review. Oxford University Press. 43 (169): 83. JSTOR   551769.
  11. ↑ Thompson, E. P. (1964). The Making of the English Working Class. New York: Pantheon. p. 527. ISBN   9780394703220.

Bibliography

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.