Governmental Crisis
Industrialization in the early 1800s created serious social unrest, disrupting the peaceful agricultural society that the British were accustomed to. This evolution from rural to urban, and the complications that arose from it – such as inflation and shifts in employment needs – created an environment conducive to radicals like the Cato Street conspirators. The end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 further disturbed the delicate situation by returning job-seeking soldiers to the homeland. Then, King George III's death on January 29, 1820, created a new governmental crisis. In a meeting held on February 22, one of the Spenceans, George Edwards, suggested that the group could exploit the political situation and kill all the cabinet ministers. They planned to invade a cabinet dinner at the home of Lord Harrowby, Lord President of the Council, armed with pistols and grenades. Thistlewood thought the act would trigger a massive uprising against the government. James Ings, a coffee shop keeper and former butcher, later announced that he would have decapitated all the cabinet members and taken two heads to exhibit on Westminster Bridge. Thistlewood spent the next hours trying to recruit more men for the attack. Twenty-seven men joined the effort.
Read more about this topic: Cato Street Conspiracy
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