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about revolution. It plays to the deepest emotions in man. If a mob could terrorize the largest city in the world for six days; if a mob could topple the ancien regime – then anything was possible.
    Where Despard got it wrong was in not gauging the mood of the people properly. George Gordon was a blue-blooded aristocrat, a member of the House of Lords. Edward Despard was merely an ex-officer and an Irishmanto boot, made bitter and resentful by the treatment he had received from authority. And he intended to kill a king, never on Gordon’s agenda. In the end, the ‘dregs’ did not rise in his support and he paid the price.

Chapter 5
    â€˜A Plot, a Plot! How they Sigh for a Plot!’
    In the year of Despard’s planned insurrection, the first edition appeared of William Cobbett’s Weekly Political Register . Knowledge was power and one prerequisite of knowledge was literacy. Without an ability to read, a man could not understand the arguments for which he faced the barricades. Without the ability to write he could not put his name to a petition demanding reform. The government knew this perfectly well and was in no hurry to educate the masses. Education was not only expensive, it was dangerous.
    We know that all the men who faced trial over the Cato Street conspiracy were literate, at least up to a point. Richard Tidd’s letter – ‘Sir I Ham a very Bad Hand at Righting’ – sounds like a Dickensian character’s efforts, but it makes sense and no doubt proved the government’s point; Tidd had murderous designs in his heart but how much of that was fostered by the incitements of the radical press? It is likely that the majority of men among the working class had basic literacy skills (this was far less true of women) because of the increasing number of schools. Sunday schools (like the one where William Davidson briefly taught) were available from 1780, although they did not take everyone. Their founder, Robert Raikes, insisted for example that all children wore shoes. Dame schools, at a penny a day, offered very basic education, but their numbers were growing. In 1810 and 1812 the National Schools were set up by Andrew Bell (for the Anglicans) and Joseph Lancaster (for the Dissenters). ‘Calendar men’, ‘Number men’ and ballad-singers hawked their written wares in working-class areas, including the ‘dying speeches’ 1 of men like Despard. They sold political tracts too.
    The radical press’s circulation fluctuated with the country’s mood. The years after Despard and before the assassination of Spencer Perceval were relatively quiet. Most eyes were focused on the Channel as Bonaparteprepared the army of Boulogne for an invasion. Nelson effectively destroyed that opportunity at Trafalgar (October 1805) and thereafter, England was safe, at least from invasion. Admiral Earl St Vincent’s boast of 1801 – ‘I do not say they [the French] cannot come. I only say they cannot come by sea’ – was now a proven fact. As the war began in Portugal and dragged on in Spain however and the bite of the Industrial Revolution was felt, the Midlands and the North saw the first outbreaks of Luddism and machine-wrecking. And when the war ended, the radical press had a field day.
    Cobbett’s Twopenny Trash was a clear winner. Between October 1816 and February 1817 it sold up to 60,000 copies a week. London dailies, like The Times and the Observer sold under 7,000 each. Thomas Wooler’s The Black Dwarf had reached 12,000 by 1819. Freedom of the press – what could and could not be published – became a big issue. Fox’s libel law of 1792 meant that juries had to decide on what was libellous and this often ran counter to advice given them by the Bench. One of the victims was the bookseller William Hone who upset Liverpool’s government in 1817 by writing parodies on the Lord’s Prayer, thereby neatly offending