A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV | Page 9

and, instead of being committed to the protection of a
lunatic asylum, the author of the challenge was sentenced to a year's
imprisonment. When his prison time was over, Thistlewood came out a
man inflamed with a desire for vengeance on all the ruling classes {17}
in general, and on Ministers of the Crown in particular. Like the
murderer in "Macbeth," he thought himself one whom the vile blows
and buffets of the world had so incensed that he was reckless what he
did to spite the world. He soon got around him a small gang of agitators
as ignorant and almost as crazy as himself, and he initiated them into a
grand scheme for dealing a death-blow to all the ministers at once, and
then seizing on the Bank, Mansion House, and Tower of London, and
from these strongholds proclaiming the existence of a provisional
government.
Now the whole notion of such a plot as this, and any possible success
coming out of it, may seem, at first sight, too crazy to be accepted by
any set of men, however ignorant or however wicked, who were not
downright lunatics. But it is certain that Thistlewood did find a small

number of men who were not actually lunatics, and who yet were ready
to join with him and to risk their lives in his enterprise. The first act in
the plot was to be the assassination of the King's ministers. One of the
professional spies in the employment of the authorities, a man named
Edwards, was already in communication with Thistlewood and his
friends. The plot had been for a considerable time in preparation, and it
was put off for a while because of the death of George the Third, and
the hopes entertained by the conspirators that the new King might go
back to the political principles of his earlier years, discard Lord
Liverpool, Lord Sidmouth, and his other Tory advisers, and thus render
it unnecessary for patriotic men to put them to death in order to save
the country.
When, however, it became apparent that George the Fourth was to keep
around him the ministers who had served him when he was Prince
Regent, it was determined that the work must go on. Edwards, the spy,
was able to make it known to Thistlewood that there was to be a dinner
of the members of the Cabinet on February 23, 1820, and the
opportunity was thought to be placed by a kindly fate in the hands of
the conspirators. Meanwhile the minister at whose house the dinner
was to take place, Lord {18} Harrowby, was kept fully informed of all
that was going on, and he wisely resolved to take no public notice of
the scheme until the day for the dinner should arrive, when the
instruments of the wholesale murder-plot could be suddenly arrested at
the moment of their attempt to carry out their design. Thistlewood and
most of his companions had their headquarters in the garrets of a house
in Cato Street, Edgware Road, and there it was arranged among them
that they should remain until one or two of their accomplices, who
were kept at watch for the purpose, should come to them and report that
the doomed dinner-guests had assembled. Then the conspirators were
to repair to the neighborhood of Lord Harrowby's house in Grosvenor
Square. One of the outpost men was to knock at Lord Harrowby's door,
and the moment the door was opened all the gang were to rush in and
put the ministers to death. Lord Harrowby took good care not to have
any guests that evening, but the outpost men of the conspiracy were
deceived by the fact that a dinner-party was actually going on at the
house of the Archbishop of York next door, and when they saw

carriages arriving there they felt sure this was the dinner-party for
which they were waiting. They waited there until the last of the guests
appeared to have arrived, and then set out to give notice to Thistlewood
and his companions. Before the outpost men had got back to Cato
Street the police were already there, and an attempt was made to arrest
the whole of the conspirators. A scuffle took place, in which
Thistlewood stabbed one of the policemen to the heart. The constituted
authorities had contrived to make almost as much of a bungle as the
conspirators had done; the military force did not arrive in time, and
Thistlewood and some of his accomplices succeeded, for the moment,
in making their escape. It was only for the moment. Thistlewood was
arrested next day. There was nothing heroic or dramatic about the
manner of his capture. He had sought refuge at the house of a friend in
Moorfields, and he was comfortably asleep