Caught by Love

AUTHOR’S NOTEThe Cato Street Conspiracy was exactly as I have described it. Thistlewood, ‘the renegade gentleman’ who had been in prison, planned to murder the entire Cabinet when they were dining at Lord Harrowby’s house at Grosvenor Square on February 23rd 1820. Lord Harrowby was warned on the morning of the dinner party and the Duke of Wellington advised the Prime Minister not to alter his arrangements, but other Members of the Cabinet were not so eager to meet the assassins. So the dinner was cancelled, although none of the members of Lord Harrowby’s staff, including his French chef, were told. One of Thistlewood’s spies, hiding in the square, saw guests arriving for a dinner party two doors away at the home of the Archbishop of York and thought that they were the Cabinet arriving at Lord Harrowby’s. He reported back to Cato Street that all was well and then, just as the conspirators were ready to set out, a party of Bow Street Officers appeared at the foot of a loft ladder. Thistlewood killed their leader with a sword. Someone snuffed out the candles and a terrible fight took place during which he escaped. In the middle of it, Captain Fitzclarence arrived with a troop of Coldstream Guards. He was late, as he had lost his way, but the soldiers arrested nine of the criminals including Archie Ings the butcher, a bootmaker and a cabinet-maker. Thistlewood was caught the next day. Five of the conspirators, including Thistlewood and Ings, were ordered to be hanged and the rest were transported to Australia. A crowd of thousands watched the hangings outside Newgate Prison.