Hi I'm the History Guy. I have a degree in history and I loved history,
and if you love history too, this is the channel for you.
205 years ago today, May 11th of 1812, something happened which had never happened before nor
since. The sitting Prime Minister of the United Kingdom was assassinated. Now you might think
that the assassination of the Prime Minister, literally in the House of Commons, would be a
traumatic event for the English people. But the public response to the assassination of Spencer
Perceval was actually surprisingly ambivalent and even celebratory in some places. And the reasons
why I have less to do with the Prime Minister himself than the events of the day. 1812 was
a difficult and unsettled time for the United Kingdom and for the world. Not just because of the
monumental events of the day, but also because of the disruptions caused by the unavoidable drumbeat
of time and progress. Spencer Perceval had been a successful solicitor who was pulled rather
reluctantly into his career in politics, although he rose quickly. In 1809 he became Prime Minister
by surprise, the result of an unlikely series of events and parliamentary compromises. He was
an ardent opponent of radicalism and an enemy of Napoleonic France. At 5:15 p.m. on May 11th 1812,
he had just stepped into the lobby of the House of Commons on his way to a meeting.
A man stepped in front of him, drew a pistol from his jacket, placed it up against Percival's chest
and pulled the trigger. Perceval reportedly said “I am murdered” those were his last words. The
first concern was that the assassination might have been the start of a broader rebellion,
but it was not. The assassin, a businessman named John Bellingham had a personal complaint against
the government and had become convinced that shooting the Prime Minister was the
only way for his complaint to be heard. But the fear of a broader rebellion was real,
and despite his personal motives there were those who supported Bellingham's Act. And to
understand that you have to understand the challenges facing the United Kingdom in the
year 1812. And to start we have to talk about the state of the monarchy. In 1812 the King,
George the 3rd, had been ruling for 52 years, the longest reigning British monarch up to that
time. And while his reputation has gone through many different revisions, one thing was clear,
the king was given to bouts of extreme madness. He had fallen into one of those bouts of madness
in 1809 and Spencer Perceval had been compelled to pass a Regency Act, allowing the Kings son,
the Prince of Wales, to rule in the King's stead. But King George the 3rd was an ally of Spencer
Perceval, and the Prince of Wales was an opponent. Doctors said there was a good chance that the king
would recover and therefore Spencer Perceval had placed restrictions upon the princes Regency,
which angered the Prince. But the Prince had not called for a new government because he was
afraid that his father might recover and would be angry if the Prince had dismissed the Kings
favorite politician. And so at this extremely challenging time for the Empire, the stabilizing
influence of the monarchy was at its weakest. And the relationship between the Prime Minister and
the regent was at its best, an uneasy truce. And then there was the devastating Napoleonic Wars,
Britain had been fighting Napoleon's France since 1803 and the allies fighting France had
faced some significant defeats. The British Army was mired in the Peninsular campaign in Portugal.
And while as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Spencer Perceval had managed to come up with financing
for the war without further raising taxes, the cost of the war was devastating the economy,
and England was in deep recession. And then there was the cost in blood which had been
underlined by the disastrous Walcheren campaign in 1809. Britain had sent an army with the goal
of capturing Antwerp and opening up a second front against Napoleon but while the army was staging on
the Dutch island of Walcheren, it was struck by disease, and 4,000 soldiers died. The campaign
had cost 9 million pounds and 4,000 lives for no military gain. And Percivals government had
barely withstood an inquiry into the campaign in 1810. A more immediate effect was something called
the Orders of Council, which had been passed in 1807 in response to Napoleon's economic attack
on England that was called the Continental System, which essentially embargoed trade with England. In
response, England embargoed trade with France and allowed English vessels anywhere in the world to
board any ship and confiscate cargo if they were accused of doing trade with France. This was not
only driving England towards war with neutral states like Denmark and the United States, but
it had a devastating effect on trade. The value of English exports and imports had dropped 75%,
and some industries were devastated. In fact Spencer Perceval was on his way to an inquiry into
the Orders of Counsel when he was assassinated. And the economic woes were exacerbated by a new
challenge, technological progress. The English textile industry had been particularly hard-hit
in the recession and there was significant underemployment when a new villain arose,
automated textile machines, which the worker saw as a direct threat to their
jobs. The movement that arose was called the Luddite movement, which was named after an
early leader of the movement and they would engage in what was called machine breaking,
which means that they would break into factories and bust apart automated machines with hammers. By
1811, the Luddite movement which was centered in Nottinghamshire, had moved to open rebellion, and
the government response was extreme. At one point Britain had more troops fighting the Luddites than
they had fighting Napoleon. And Spencer Perceval took the blame. When he was assassinated there was
open celebration in Nottingham. And all these woes were derived from the social forces of the time.
The French Revolution and the rise of Napoleon had really been a reform movement that was opposed to
the excesses of monarchy and proposed Republican reform. And while Britain had been repulsed by
the revolutions own excesses with the guillotine, Britain could not ignore the forces of reform. One
of the loudest voice is for Reform in England was a member of Parliament named Sir Francis Burdett,
who was one of those radicals that Spencer Perceval opposed. And he proposed reforms to
Parliament like standardizing Parliamentary Districts and universal male suffrage. One
of the most divisive issues upon which the two disagreed was the issue of Catholic emancipation,
which had to do with repealing laws that dated all the way back to the sixteenth century,
that it sought to protect the Church of England by placing restrictions on Roman Catholics in
Great Britain, including a prohibition against Roman Catholics serving in Parliament. Perceval
had supported King George the third in opposing Catholic emancipation and that had put him at
odds with Francis Burdett to the point where Percival's government had had Burdett jailed,
on the charge of labelling the House of Commons. When Percevals assassin was being taken in the
wagon to his trial Burdett, supporters mobbed the waggon because they were anxious to congratulate
and shake hands with the assassin. In many ways the assassination of Spencer Perceval represents
the chaos of the era. The decline of monarchies, the rise of republicanism, the emerging Industrial
Revolution and the devastating Napoleonic Wars changed England and the world. Not long after
his assassination the tide of war would turn and would lead down to the path of inevitable
defeat of Napoleon, and the resulting economic recovery, would give Percival successor time to
deal with these pressing issues as the nation moved into the Victorian era. And that begs
the question of how different Percival's legacy might have been had he not been assassinated.
Symbolically Spencer Perceval was the last of the British Prime Minister's to wear the powdered wig
and short button pants representative of the fashion of the 18th century, as if his passing
literally represented a change in eras. King George the 3rd never recovered from his bout
with insanity in 1809, although he would live clear until 1820. The assassin John Bellingham
refused to plead insanity and so was executed by hanging. A descendant of John Bellingham
serves in Parliament today. Spencer Perceval left behind a widow and 12 children, and the question
of what might have been. The chief justice at Bellingham’s trial lamented the country's loss
with the assassination of Spencer Perceval. He said, “By his death, charity has lost one of its
greatest promoters. Religion one of its finest supporters. Domestic society one of its happiest
and sweetest examples, and the country one of its brightest ornaments. A man whose ability
and worth was likely to produce lasting advantages to this Empire and ultimate benefit to the world.”
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