Edward Despard and His failed Assassination Plot

Edward Marcus Despard

There must be something about the month of November and plots to kill the British king. The dastardly treason of Guy Fawkes and his band of conspirators is well-known, and the foiling of that plot is still celebrated more than 400 years after the event, marked with fireworks, parades and bonfires throughout Great Britain on November 5.

But what about Edward Despard? Where’s his bonfire?

Here’s what happened: in the fall of 1802 Colonel Edward Marcus Despard, a decorated Irish officer of the British Army who fought for the Crown during the American War of Independence, friend of Horatio Nelson, and for a time the designated superintendent of what would become the British Honduras, allegedly conspired to kill King George III.

On November 16, a week before the assassination was supposed to take place, Despard was arrested and charged with high treason. Following his trial, he was condemned to die by hanging, drawing and quartering, the last person in Britain to ever receive such a severe and painfully redundant death sentence. Before his execution on February 21, 1803, his sentence was commuted to the less elaborate but equally redundant procedure of hanging and beheading.

At the time of his arrest, Despard was meeting with a group of about 40 laborers at a tavern in Lambeth. Government informants would testify that the group’s plan was to assassinate the king, seize the Tower of London and the Bank of London, and incite uprisings throughout the city. The plot also supposedly involved the planting of several underground bombs.

Like Despard, many of the conspirators were Irishmen who had done military service, and many of them were sympathetic to the cause of Irish independence, especially following the violent suppression by British soldiers of the Irish Rebellion in 1798.

Horatio Nelson

Despard himself was suspected of being involved in that rebellion, and he was arrested and held without trial for nearly three years in a series of prisons. He was released without being charged in 1801.

But this time there would be no such happy ending for Despard. Even the campaigning on his behalf by his wife, Catherine, didn’t sway the justices.

Catherine was a woman of African descent whom Despard met and married while stationed in the Caribbean. The Colonel brought his wife and their son with him when he came home in 1790 after nearly two decades of military service abroad. Their interracial marriage was highly unusual and perhaps even unique in England at this point in history.

In the New World, Edward and Catherine were advocates for the rights of freed black slaves, which didn’t make them popular with the white settlers. While Despard was in prison in London, Catherine worked not only to secure his release but also lobbied to improve prison living conditions for her husband and other prisoners.

Catherine persuaded Lord Nelson, who had fought alongside Despard in the 1780 San Juan Expedition, to appear as a character witness at her husband’s trial.

Despard addressing the crowd moments before his execution

Despite Nelson’s testimony, Despard was found guilty and executed with six co-conspirators at the Horsemonger Lane Gaol in Southwark, London. He proclaimed his innocence from the gallows in front of about 20,000 people, the largest crowd ever gathered for a public event up till then.

That record stood for only two more years, when it was broken by the huge crowds who gathered in London and thronged the Thames riverbanks to witness Lord Nelson’s funeral procession in January 1806, following the admiral’s death at the Battle of Trafalgar the previous October.

So, like Guy Fawkes, Despard was accused of plotting to kill the king. His plan involved explosives and was thwarted, also like Fawkes’ plan. He and his co-conspirators were publicly executed, again like Fawkes and his men. (Fawkes, however, actually fell or jumped from the gallows ladder right before his hanging and broke his neck, dying instantly.)

In fact, this chant for Guy Fawkes Day could be easily adapted with a few minor tweaks to commemorate Despard’s plot:

“Remember, remember the Fifth of December, Gunpowder treason and plot;/ For I see no reason Gunpowder Treason should ever be forgot.”

And yet, Despard remains largely forgotten just the same. If you’re among the those who celebrated Guy Fawkes Day this year, spare a moment’s thought for poor Edward Despard. The only thing worse than a failed assassination attempt is a failed attempt no one remembers.

Despard in 1803, an etching by Barlow taken from a sketch made during Despard’s trial

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Sources for this post include:

Images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Assembly Rooms, May 2015

So many articles this month! I hope you find some of them to be of interest.

Gillray-very slippy weatherThe prodigiously talented Gillray: http://18thcand19thc.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/james-gillray-prince-of-caricaturists.html

The care and upbringing of foundlings: http://www.thehistoryoflondon.co.uk/thomas-coram-and-the-foundling-hospital/

A London walk: https://londonhistorians.wordpress.com/2015/03/30/footsteps-of-soane-ii/

Continue reading “Assembly Rooms, May 2015”

Assembly Rooms – April 2015

Here’s the monthly assemblage of links of interest to lovers of the Regency era — everything from prisoners’ mementos to dishonest valets. Continue reading “Assembly Rooms – April 2015”

Being Scotch by Ann Lethbridge

Award-winning author Ann Lethbridge first published this blog when she started writing the Gilvrys of Dunross series. She graciously gave the Beau Monde permission to recycle it here.

Being Scotch

Did you think I had made a dreadful mistake? Or did you know I was talking about a drink, not a
person. I do of course mean Scotch whisky (and that too is the correct spelling).

Continue reading “Being Scotch by Ann Lethbridge”

Regency Debt and Prisons   By Ann Lethbridge

In today’s article, Ann Lethbridge, author of Falling for the Highland Rogue, completes her two-part series on Regency prisons, in particular, the two other debtors prisons located in London. After reading today’s article, you may consider imprisonment in the Fleet prison rather a treat when compared to these other prisons.

Continue reading “Regency Debt and Prisons   By Ann Lethbridge”

Prisons in the Regency   By Ann Lethbridge

Today, Ann Lethbridge, Regency romance author, whose most recent book is Falling for the Highland Rogue, begins a two-part series on Regency prisons. In this article, Ann focuses on the famous, or perhaps, the infamous Fleet prison in London. The majority of prisoners held in the Fleet during the Regency were those who could not pay their debts. This may be difficult for many of us living in the twenty-first century to understand, since people are no longer imprisoned for debt in modern times. But it was a common practice during our favorite period, and Ann’s article will help us all better understand life in the Fleet during the Regency.

Continue reading “Prisons in the Regency   By Ann Lethbridge”

Regency Dueling Protocol by Donna Hatch

 Regency Dueling Protocol by Donna Hatch 

Regency Duelling Pistols
Regency Duelling Pistols

In England, dueling was part of a long-standing code of honor, far beyond a mere tradition. Gentlemen took their dueling very seriously; they would rather die than be dishonored.

Does your heart go pitter patter just at the sound of that? I admit, at times, mine does.

How many man that honorable do you know? Okay, maybe we’d call it misplaced pride, or an overdeveloped sense of vengeance, but hey, that was a different world with a different set of rules. And yeah, I’m glad they don’t do it these days.

By the Regency Era, dueling was outlawed. However, duels still happened more frequently than many people knew. The problem was, because courts were made up of peers, they were reluctant to charge another peer with murder as a result of a duel.

Continue reading “Regency Dueling Protocol by Donna Hatch”