Regency Spies: Secret Histories of Britain's Rebels and Revolutionaries - Hardcover

Sue Wilkes

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1783400617 ISBN 13: 9781783400614

Publisher: Pen & Sword Books Ltd, 2015

Synopsis

An Age of Revolutions:

Sue Wilkes uncovers the hidden histories of Regency spies and the men they hunted. Eavesdrop on the secret meetings of Britain’s underground political societies of the 1790s and early 1800s. Discover the true stories behind the riots, rebellions, and treason trials in late Georgian Britain.

Regency Spies explores the plots, intrigues and perils of those thrilling times:

• Wolfe Tone’s ambitious plan to free Ireland from British rule   
  

• Luddites incite arson and machine-breaking in Britain’s industrial

heartlands

• The doomed Pentrich uprising of 1817
  

• The race to stop the 1820 plot to murder cabinet ministers and seize control of the capital
  

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...

About this title

Review:

"The book is, as one would expect from an experienced historian and author, skilfully written, covering a range of cases whilst never seeming disjointed or convoluted. For those with little knowledge of the area, there is valuable background about the role of the local magistrate in recruiting spies, and a helpful appendix of who the key Regency conspirators were, when they were active, and who the politicians and magistrates were who were charged with dealing with them were."--Your Family History

About the Author:

SUE WILKES has written extensively on social history, and industrial history and heritage. Sue was born in Lancashire; she has lived in Cheshire since the early 1980s. She read Physics at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, and is a member of the Society of Authors. A creative writing tutor specialising in non-fiction, Sue is married, with two children. Sue is the author of seven books and is a well-known family historian. A regular contributor to Jane Austen's Regency World for over a decade, she has written many articles for history and family history magazines such Who Do You Think You Are? and BBC History.

About this edition

• Publisher: Pen & Sword Books Ltd
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1783400617
• ISBN 13: 9781783400614
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 224