Sue Wilkes reveals the shadowy world of Britain's spies, rebels and
secret societies from the late 1780s until 1820. Drawing on contemporary
literature and official records, Wilkes unmasks the real conspirators
and tells the tragic stories of the unwitting victims sent to the
gallows.
In this 'age of Revolutions', when the French fought for liberty,
Britain's upper classes feared revolution was imminent. Thomas Paine's
incendiary Rights of Man called men to overthrow governments which did
not safeguard their rights. Were Jacobins and Radical reformers in
England and Scotland secretly plotting rebellion? Ireland, too, was a
seething cauldron of unrest, its impoverished people oppressed by their
Protestant masters.
Britain's governing elite could not rely on the armed services - even
Royal Navy crews mutinied over brutal conditions. To keep the nation
safe, a 'war chest' of secret service money funded a network of spies to
uncover potential rebels amongst the underprivileged masses. It had some
famous successes: dashing Colonel Despard, friend of Lord Nelson, was
executed for treason. Sometimes in the deadly game of cat-and-mouse
between spies and their prey, suspicion fell on the wrong men, like
poets Wordsworth and Coleridge.
Even peaceful reformers risked arrest for sedition. Political meetings
like Manchester's 'Peterloo' were ruthlessly suppressed, and innocent
blood spilt. Repression bred resentment - and a diabolical plot was
born. The stakes were incredibly high: rebels suffered the horrors of a
traitor's death when found guilty. Some conspirators' secrets died with
them on the scaffold...
The spy network had some famous successes, like the discoveries of the
Despard plot, the Pentrich Rising and the Cato St conspiracy. It had
some notable failures, too. However, sometimes the 'war on terror'
descended into high farce, like the 'Spy Nozy' affair, in which poets
Wordsworth and Coleridge were shadowed by a special agent.
