The last days of the reign of George III. were full of trouble and disorder, provoked rather than repressed by the obstinate rigour with which Lord Liverpool's government put down all agitations, both harmless and dangerous. Some of the riots and risings of the years 1816-20 were remarkable for the violence and for the wild aims of those who led them. In December, 1816, a body of revolutionary enthusiasts, who called themselves "Spencean Philanthropists," raised a tumult in Spa fields, and tried to seize the Tower, to distribute arms from its arsenals among the mob. But they were as weak as they were wild, for though they shot one man dead, Lord Mayor Wood and a handful of constables turned them back in front of the Royal Exchange and dispersed them. In June, 1817, there was another rising near Derby, but five hundred armed rioters allowed themselves to be stopped and routed by eighteen hussars.
The Manchester massacre.
But the most celebrated riot of the time was that at Manchester in August, 1819; a great mob of 30,000 persons had assembled in St. Peter's Field to listen to addresses by a demagogue named Hunt. The magistrates attempted to arrest him, but being prevented from reaching him by the enormous crowd, rashly and cruelly ordered a regiment of cavalry to charge the unarmed multitude. There was no resistance made, but some four or five persons were crushed to death, and sixty or seventy injured, as they trod each other down in escaping from the horsemen. This event was called the "Manchester massacre" by the enemies of the government, who were made responsible for it because they commended the violent action of the magistrates.
The Cato Street conspiracy.
It was with the object of revenging the Manchester massacre that a bloodthirsty demagogue, named Arthur Thistlewood, one of the "Spencean Philanthropists" of 1816, formed a plot for murdering the whole cabinet. Hearing that the ministers were about to dine together on February 23, 1820, he collected a band of twenty-five desperadoes who vowed to slay them all. But one of the gang betrayed the scheme, and Thistlewood and his men were seized by the police, as they were arming at their trysting-place in Cato Street, Edgware Road. They resisted fiercely, and blood was shed on both sides, ere they were overpowered. Thistlewood and four of his associates were hung and then beheaded—being the last persons who suffered by the axe in England, for the horrid sight of their decapitation moved public opinion to demand the abolition of this ancient punishment of criminals guilty of treason.
Even after the mad Cato Street conspiracy had shocked all the wiser friends of reform, there were isolated outbreaks of rioting all over the north of England and the Scottish Lowlands, the last being a skirmish at Bonnymuir, near Glasgow, between some Lanarkshire mill hands and the local yeomanry (April, 1820).
The Six Acts.
The government dealt very harshly with all who gave it trouble, not merely with dangerous rioters, but with writers or speakers who did no more than protest against reactionary legislation or advocate radical reform. Their chief weapons against their enemies were the celebrated "Six Acts" of 1819, which Addington [56] and Castlereagh, the sternest members of the cabinet, had elaborated with much care. They imposed the heaviest penalties not only on persons caught drilling, or using arms, or engaging in riots, but on all who wrote what the government chose to consider seditious libels—a term that covered any newspaper article or pamphlet which abused themselves.
George IV. and Queen Caroline.
Repression was in full swing when the old king died, in the tenth year since he had gone mad (January 29, 1820). The prince-regent now began to rule as George IV., but his accession made no practical difference in politics. His conduct, however, soon gave his subjects one more additional reason for despising him. He brought his long quarrel with his foolish and reckless wife to a head, by refusing to acknowledge her as queen or allow her to be crowned. He accused her of adultery, and made Lord Liverpool bring in a "Bill of Pains and Penalties" to enable him to divorce her. George's life had been such that his attack on Queen Caroline, for conduct much less blameworthy than his own, provoked universal contempt and dislike. Lord Liverpool withdrew his bill in a panic, when all London was in an uproar in the queen's favour. More trouble would undoubtedly have followed if the unhappy Caroline had not died in August, 1821. Her funeral was the occasion of a bloody riot.