BARRICADES PROJECT

These two men were leading members of the Anti-Corn Law League founded in 1839 in Manchester. They sought the repeal of the Corn Laws that had become a bone of contention in British Politics from 1814. The Corn Laws were of medieval origin, designed to ensure that Britain grew enough grain for her population. They used import duties to prevent the undercutting of domestic production by cheap imports, together with export bounties to ensure that grain was not shipped abroad when the domestic price was high. By the end of the eighteenth century, demand for grain by Britain’s population increasingly outstripped supply. Export bounties became irrelevant and were abolished in 1814. The subsequent Corn Law debates – the source of consistent controversy from 1814 to 1846, when the Corn Laws were finally repealed – produced major popular disturbances and political conflict. The Laws were seen as serving the interests of landowners, sustaining artificially high prices and protecting them from foreign competition. It was an issue that the political economist David Ricardo took a strong free-market position on, seeing it as an artificial and inappropriate interference in the free flow of goods and the determination of market price. From the early 1820s there were those in government or opposition who could see the force of Ricardo’s case but, in part because of the power of the landowning group in Parliament, it required a particular conjunction of interests to secure their repeal. Although they came to be seen as protecting the wealthy, the initial issue in relation to the Corn Laws at the end of the Napoleonic Wars was simply one of trying to ensure that there was enough 'corn' (which encompassed rye, wheat, oats, malt and barley) to feed the population. This was to be done by setting a price for each crop, below which grain could not be imported – thus guaranteeing a return on agricultural investment to landowners, and ensuring there were sufficient incentives for domestic production. Underlying that ambition was not just the pressure of the landowners, who called for much higher prices, but also a concern about the need for self-sufficiency in time of war – a serious issue during Napoleon’s blockade of Britain. Also, heavy imports of grain were a drain on gold reserves and threatened the government’s attempts to stabilise the economy and reduce rates of taxation and debt. The 1815 Act allowed overseas grain to be paid for and stored in British warehouses as a way of trying to curtail fluctuations in price. While there was government sympathy with removing the Corn Laws and leaving the price to the international market, high levels of rural distress (resulting from bad harvests and the exhaustion of poor land brought into cultivation to meet demand) gave additional reasons to make concessions to the agricultural sector – even at the cost of higher food prices for all. In the 1822 Act, Lord Liverpool allowed an increase in the price at which imports could be allowed, but also added a clause that allowed the government to let cheaper grain in or to release wheat from warehouses, when prices started to rise, so that the effective price remained lower than landowners demanded. In the second half of the 1820s, unrest in manufacturing towns was increasingly driven not by machinery, but by high food prices, leading to further agitation against the Corn Laws. In a series of changes in government, plans for a reformed Corn Law went through a number of iterations, with these settling on a sliding tariff that responded to domestic prices. Effectively, these measures sought a way of ensuring the food supply while protecting domestic production, with increasing tensions between the landowning classes and liberal Tories who supported free trade. It was increasingly clear to government that domestic production would never be adequate, and that meant that they had strong reasons to make Britain an attractive market for foreign production. There was a preference for colonial production, but government also looked to avoid stimulating a retreat from production in its customary European provisioners. The Corn Laws chart a succession of conflicts within British Society – between town and country, rich and poor, landowner and labourer – all revolving around questions of the adequacy of supply, the price of provision, the incentives for production, and the extent of self-sufficiency that was really practical. It engaged the new political economy of Thomas Malthus and Ricardo on the side of the free market, against a protectionist policy promoted by Whigs who were keen to retain (although they eventually lost) the support of the landowners. Also, the issue rose and fell both with respect to good and bad harvests, but also with respect to the fortunes of the manufacturing districts; when manufacturing areas faced downturns conflicts focused sharply on the price of provisions and their artificial inflation. In 1839 a national Anti-Corn Law League was founded in Manchester, generating 225 affiliated associations by 1845. Led by Richard Cobden (a merchant) and John Bright (a manufacturer), it produced a press onslaught on the policy and, indeed, an entire ‘theatre’ of opposition activity, which coupled protest and entertainment. The movement also strongly identified free trade with peace, giving it a sense of moral crusade. When Melbourne tried substantially to reduce duties in 1841, his administration was defeated and the conservatives won a sizable majority at the election that followed. The subsequent Peel administration – seeing reform as inevitable and necessary – reduced tariffs and in 1845 sought to suspend the Corn Laws, which led his supporters to force him to resign. When Russell (also a reformer) was unable to form a government, Peel returned to office and forced through the legislation with support from Liberals and Radicals. The 1846 Act introduced dramatically lower duties and, crucially, stipulated that from 1849 all special duties were to cease, and all foreign corn to be admitted at a duty of 1s. per quarter, and all foreign meal and flour at a duty of 4½d. per cwt.—the same nominal duties conceded to grain and flour produced by British territories abroad from 1846. The argument was over.

The Six Acts were a response to growing unrest, exacerbated by Peterloo and the failure to obtain any redress for the radicals, which the government sought to close down. It had suspended habeas corpus and introduced legislation against seditious meetings in 1817 following the Spa Fields Riot of December 1816, what appeared to be a shot fired at the Prince Regent following the opening of Parliament in January 1817, and the Blanketeers March from Manchester in March 1817. But the former measure was thought to be ineffective and it was restored the following year. As unrest grew in 1819, and intensified following Peterloo, Lord Liverpool's government, with Lord Sidmouth as Home Secretary, recalled Parliament early (in November) and passed legislation (known as the Six Acts) to curb popular disorder (introduced into the House on 29 November, and receiving Royal assent on 30th December). The Acts made military training illegal; further limited rights to hold political meetings of more than fifty people; magistrates were given powers to undertake household searches without a warrant; newspaper duties were increased further and extended to cover all cheap publications; the laws against blasphemous and seditious libel were strengthened by adding a clause authorising banishment for seven years on a second conviction; and steps were taken to speed the process from indictment to trial and conviction for offenders. The Acts were not widely contested, because of internal divisions within parliament and the reform movement, and they passed into law - leading at least some of the reformers to conclude that they had no alternative to conspiracy available to them. In the following month or two the foundations for the Cato Street Conspiracy to blow up the Cabinet were laid, and then betrayed, leading to the execution of five of the conspirators in May 1820. George Cruickshank's two prints depict the shackling of the reformer's mind and body by the six acts - with the locked jaw being a trope used (by West/Fores) in a caricature from 1795 in A Lock's Jaw for John Bull - in which Pitt locks John Bull's mouth shut (a reference to the Gagging acts of November 1795). Cruckshank's image was also used in a simpler form in William Hone's Political Alphabet, under Q - 'Q stands for Question - How long shall this be a portrait of man destin'd to be free?' In the wake of the Six Acts several reform papers, including The Cap of Liberty and Medusa collapsed, but others sought new means to circumvent the laws. One such instance was William Hone's pamphlet, with his first use of George Cruikshank engravings, Man in the Moon, which satirised the Prince Regent's Speech on the early re-opening of Parliament and demonstrated that while prose might be prosecuted for sedition, parody and verse could be far more effective and was far more difficult to prosecute. The parody of the speech begins - My L__rds and G___tl__n, I grieve to say That poor Old Dad Is just as _bad As when I met you here the other day... and continued.... Reform, Reform, the swinish rabble cry- Meaning, of course, rebellion, blood, and riot - Audacious rascals! you, my Lords, and I, Know 'tis their duty to be starved in quiet: But they have grumbling habits, incompatible With the repose of our august community. In an unpredictable twist, the death of George III in January 1820, and the accession of George IV generated a new constitutional crisis with respect to the claims of George's estranged wife, Queen Caroline. The London radical movement was suddenly rejuvenated by the crisis and used the Queen's return as the basis for a range of meetings and addresses that evaded the Six Acts by being couched as loyal addresses to the sovereign's wife. The Queen Caroline affair was a curious final act in the fortunes of post-war London radicalism, which subsequently took a much more muted form, with popular support for George IV reviving in the 1820s.

The Black Dwarf was a London newspaper and comment sheet, published by T J Wooler from January 1817 until 1824. It was a major target for the government, which brought charges of libel against Wooler for pieces in the paper of 12 February and 2 April 1817. In both cases, Wooler sought to claim that the statements for which he was being prosecuted for libel were in fact true, and therefore not a libel; and the prosecution sought to insist that something could be true, but still be a libel. Understandably, juries were not wholly impressed. Wooler was acquitted by the jury on the second offence and the improprieties in the manner of the declaration of the verdict in the first case rendered it unsafe. He was prosecuted again for his part in a mass meeting held at Birmingham on 12 July 1819 (an important precursor to the Peterloo Meeting) and tried the following year, when he was sentenced to fifteen months in prison. Despite his imprisonment, Wooler managed to keep the paper in production, thanks in part to his fellow publisher Richard Carlile. The paper was a part of the resurgence of the post-war radicalism of 1816 to 1820, and to the government's attempts to crack down on popular protest. Wooler led the campaign against the use of Special Juries in London, and the Black Dwarf was framed with a black border in mourning for the death of trial by jury until the Special Jury List was reformed in 1817. Wooler depended heavily on the moral and financial support of veteran reformer Major John Cartwright, who had been advocating annual parliaments and universal manhood suffrage since the 1770s, but who became a more active campaigner in the last years of the war, initiating the spread of Hampden Clubs throughout the country in 1816. When Cartwright died in 1824, Wooler was unable to carry on publishing. The Trials of the Black Dwarf have been dramatized by the Loft Theatre Company, devised and directed by David Fletcher (see also Queen Caroline). A recording of the production is available above in an mp3 file..

There were more than seventy poems and songs published in the immediate aftermath of the massacre. Almost half of these were published in radical journals, with the rest comprising broadside ballads and a few from chapbooks. Despite many of them having 'song' in their title, only nineteen state a specific tune. Turning to poetry and song as a vehicle for political protest was nothing new in 1819; already in the 1790s the marriage of song and political expression was used by radicals as a crucial form of expression. Poems and songs have a longstanding tradition within English folk culture as a swiftly produced and widely disseminated method of information, commemoration, and protest. The broadside ballad with its diversity of subject-matter and accessibility of style was the cornerstone of folk culture from Tudor times until the mid-Victorian era, when the increase in newspapers led to its decline. The radical press in 1819 sought to replicate the immediacy and accessibility of the broadside as part of a wider cultural response to the events in Manchester as well as contributing in innovative ways to the English tradition of protest poetry. What is of note regarding the ballads and songs of Peterloo is the speed with which they were written and published as well as the variety of genres used by the largely unknown balladeers to convey the grief, rage, and horror felt by the majority of the English people for the murder and maiming of their compatriots. ‘Manchester Yeomanry Valour’ This song was published in two radical newspapers: the Manchester Observer on 18 September 1819 and Medusa on 30 October 1819, aimed at both a London and Manchester readership. To mark the 150th anniversary of Peterloo, the song appeared in the Stockport Advertiser on 14 August 1969. The unnamed poet begins by directly appealing to St Peter before turning his anger on the cowardly MYC who injured and killed the defenceless. No tune was given for the original version, although the strong rhythm and rhyme suggest it would have been sung. 'The Manchester Massacre, or Adieu to Slavery' The tune for this song is ‘Scots wha hae wi’ Wallace bled’, a popular tune for radical songs, including three in the Peterloo collection. In 1793, Robert Burns wrote his famous lyrics in which Robert the Bruce addresses his troops on the eve of the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314 to a traditional Scottish tune, 'Hey Tuttie Tatie’'. 'The Manchester Massacre' was published around 1820 in The Radical Reformers’ New Song Book, Being a Collection of Patriotic Songs, a chapbook published by John Marshall, a Newcastle radical and printer. 'It is Lovely to Die for Our Country' This poignant elegy equates the deaths of those at St Peter’s Field with soldiers on the battlefield and Christ on the cross. The title reminds the reader of Wilfred Owen’s 'Dulce et Decorum Est', written a century later amidst the horror of the First World War, with both poems evoking a bitterness at the waste of life. This elegy mourns the lack of honour and ceremony accorded to the victims but is confident that, spread by a 'holy flame', this death will inspire many. It was published in the White Hat in 1819, one of the most ephemeral of the radical journals which emerged in the aftermath of Peterloo.

On 16 August 1819, during the summer wakes holiday season, around 60,000 men, women, and children gathered together at St Peter’s Field in central Manchester. They marched from many outlying districts of Manchester, wearing their best clothes, carrying banners, and singing songs, including such patriotic staples as 'Rule Britannia' and 'God Save the King'. They came from Oldham and Bury, Stockport and Rochdale to hear the famous Henry 'Orator' Hunt speak on the need for electoral reform: universal male suffrage, annual elections, and a secret ballot. It was to become one of the most significant events in modern British history. Hunt took to the hustings at 2.00pm; twenty minutes later, eighteen were dead, including four women and a two-year-old child, and more than six hundred had been injured by the sabres and horses’ hooves of the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry Cavalry (MYC) and the Fifteenth Hussars. The Manchester Magistrates, fearful of unrest, had read the Riot Act out of an open window at the edge of the square and had subsequently given the order for the troops to arrest Hunt and the other organisers of the legal meeting. Hemmed in by buildings on all sides, there had been nowhere for the crowd to escape to and they became easy targets for a drunken yeomanry whose newly-sharpened sabres are a clear indication that they had been spoiling for a fight. As the historian E.P. Thompson so aptly notes, 'This was class war'. News of what was depicted as a massacre spread quickly throughout the country, due in part to the publication of a lengthy article in The Times on 19 August by John Tyas, the only journalist employed by a national paper present at St Peter’s Field and who was arrested alongside Hunt. In the article, he stressed the peaceful nature of the crowd, even when the MYC rode into their midst: 'Not a brick-bat was thrown at them — not a pistol was fired at them during this period — all was quiet and orderly'. Once arrests had been made, the MYC began to attack the banners and liberty caps carried by the marchers, 'cutting most indiscriminately to the right and the left in order to get at them'. Then the crowd began to fight back: 'From that moment the Manchester Yeomanry Cavalry lost all command of temper'. In an ironic 'nod' to the Battle of Waterloo, fought four years earlier in 1815, the journalist, James Wroe, named the event ‘Peter Loo’ on 21 August in the Manchester Observer. Despite government and royal support for the actions of the Manchester Magistrates, the reaction to the massacre was largely condemnatory and took the form not only of newspaper articles and letters, but also of cartoons, poetry and even ceramics, many of which appeared within days of the massacre. Established radical journals, such as Leigh Hunt’s Examiner and Thomas Wooler’s Black Dwarf, voiced their outrage in the pages of their journals and were briefly joined by new publications, including The White Hat and The Briton, all of which sprang out of the wave of protest surrounding Peterloo and which fell victim to repressive legislation at the end of the year. ‘The Peterloo Man’ As with many of the songs written about Peterloo, the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry Cavalry, who inflicted most of the deaths and injuries on an unarmed people, are depicted as cowardly, primarily due to their violence towards women and children whom they deliberately targeted. Published in the radical journal, Black Dwarf, on 6 October 1819, the tone of this poem is vitriolic and the comparison with the battle-field of Waterloo only serves to highlight the cowardly nature of the yeomen at Peterloo. The Meeting at Peterloo The Bodleian Library’s Broadside Ballads Collection contains two copies of this broadside ballad, neither of which states the printer. The use of colloquial language in the song lends authenticity to what seems to be an eye-witness account of events on the day and it begins by gathering an audience to listen to the song in a centuries-old ballad tradition. The fact that the chorus is not printed suggests the audience would have been familiar with it and it may have been a version of 'With Henry Hunt We’ll Go'. There were more than seventy poems and songs published in the immediate aftermath of the massacre. Almost half of these were published in radical journals with the rest comprising broadside ballads with a few from chapbooks. Despite many of them having 'song' in their title, only nineteen state a specific tune.

After a brief period of liberal rule under the Constitution of Cadiz (1812-1814), when Spain was fighting against French occupation, the country became subordinated to the absolutist rule of Ferdinand VII. Over the next six years, Spain was deeply divided between supporters of the restored absolutism of Ferdinand VII, those wanting a restoration of the privileges of the elite and the Church, and liberals who wanted a constitutional order and something close to representative democracy. Moreover, the loss of the South American colonies had dramatically curtailed the revenues of the state, and there were inadequate and costly attempts to restore Spanish control of its former colonial lands. On 1 January 1820 Lieutenant Colonel Rafael de Riego was due to lead troops from Cadiz to Buenos Aires to subdue those resisting the attempt to restore Spanish rule. He assembled the troops in the plaza of the small Spanish town of Las Cabezas de San Juan where they were stationed and called on them to resist Ferdinand and to support the restoration of the 1812 Constitution. This 'pronunciamiento' was followed by similar eruptions across Spain. Riego then led his troops, which were greatly outnumbered by Ferdinand, in a march punctuated by skirmishes with the enemy over a two month period that served to spread the revolt more widely. However, his extensive losses meant that he was eventually forced to seek temporary refuge in Portugal, and he was there when he learned of Ferdinand’s capitulation. Riego became a national hero, wholly identified with the ensuing trienio. There was a Royalist putsch against the liberal regime (increasingly bitterly divided between moderates and 'exaltados', which weakened it further) in July 1822, when Riego led an urban guerilla group resisting the Royal Guard. Sections of the country remained under control of counter-revolutionaries, and the government became increasingly dominated by 'exaltados'. In 1823, Ferdinand appealed to France for assistance in re-establishing his regime and the French invaded. The consequent war lasted from April through to September 1823. Riego was captured by the French and turned over to Ferndinand’s forces to be executed as part of a wide-scale set of reprisals against those who had challenged his authority. The Himno de Riego was written by a compatriot of the soldier during the 1820 uprising, but became a popular song associated with 'exaltado' ambitions in which he held a major place. The Spanish wars, like the Peninsular War before it, were often marked by extreme brutality and reprisals. Riego, however, seems to have shown consistent restraint in his treatment of his opponents and those loyal to the old regime.

El Trágala was a Spanish revolutionary song composed soon after the triumph of the 1820 revolution. Radical liberals sang it at public gatherings, often as part of street protest events and patriotic festivals. It was used to single out and shame those suspected of compromising, or of sympathising with absolutism. On 3 September 1820, the singing of El Trágala during a theatre performance in Madrid at which Lieutenant Colonel Riego was the guest of honour – there are contradictory reports on whether he actually joined the chorus – sparked the first of many crises pitting the radicals against the moderates. The music and the lyrics drew on popular tradition. The performance, following the script of charivari songs, featured a lead singer, who often adapted the words to local circumstances, followed by the crowd singing the chorus: 'swallow it [the constitution], dog, swallow it, swallow it'. Some contemporaries called it the Ça Ira of the Spanish Revolution and, for the non-radicals, it represented the intransigence and violent disposition of the liberal mob. The riotous singing caused such a prominent debate that one version from 1821 was self-referential: ‘They say that El Trágala is insulting but only the ruffians feel the injury. Swallow it and die, you slave because in Spain, bedbugs die’. During the civil (Carlist) war of the 1830s, pro-Isabella militiamen often played the tune on the church organ during mass as part of the ritual of liberating a town or village from absolutist hands.

In the winter of 1819-1820, following Peterloo and the clear resolution of the Government to resist all reform, a strand of insurrectionist radicalism emerged that operated largely underground, although some of the leaders were those who had been in the break-away sections of the 2 December 1816 Spa Fields meeting that went to attack the Bank of England but were quickly dealt with. A range of plans were discussed, with the guards at the Bank being watched to judge the most favourable time for an assault; but the settled plan became to use a dinner of the Cabinet as the occasion for a bombing and an attack. As part of the preparations for the attack, it was agreed to prepare a statement for release when the group overthrew the government. Two versions of this remain. The first draft ran: 'Englishmen Justice is triumphant, and your Tyrants are destroyed, a glorious destiny awaits your patriotic endeavours a Provisional Government is appointed to succeed the Oligarchy which have for more than 100 years enslaved and borne you down. Obedience to the Decrees of the Prov. Government will insure to each Individual the full enjoyment of his property and Protection – and as a Guarantee for the Amelioration of the conditions of our Country it is decreed that every act passed by the Borough Mongering Usurpation shall from and after this date cease to be obeyed as such – but to afford an [239r] opportunity for the people to adopt a Government congenial to their feelings and the interest of their posterity it desired that measures will be adopted to form in one month from this date a convention of the presentative delegacy the right of voting in all males having attained the age of 21 years. Such of the Army who join the Ranks of their Country receive an addition or part advancement according to merit. Those who wish to return to their Families are called on to deposit their Arms for [240/] which they shall immediately be paid in the most liberal manner.' This draft then seems to have been further edited by Dr James Watson, who removed the last section respecting the military and made other changes. Thistlewood also solicited responses among the main participants, asking them to submit them in code on slips of paper, although he subsequently complained that he could not read what they had sent. A second draft read: 'Justice is at last triumphant, your Tyrants are destroyed A glorious destiny awaits your patriotic Energies - a Provisional Government is appointed to guard you from the Evils and Wrongs of a vile + wicked Oligarchy that has for more than Century enslaved + borne you down by the most partial [/244v] and oppressive manner. Obedience to the Decrees of the Prov. Government will ensure to each Individual protection of persons and property United Britains and Irishmen Civil and religious liberty is decreed. The acts of the Borough Mongering Usurpations shall from hence forward cease to have any effect. The People are called on to form that System of Government most congenial to their feelings and the best interest of Posterity.' The aim was to ensure that this was printed before the attack - but there are no printed versions in the papers of either the Home Office or the Treasury Solicitor. These declarations, if they were not in fact the product of the agent provocateur George Edwards, leave little doubt as to the group's intentions.

According to the French historians Mireille Huchon and Eric Hazan, the word 'barricade' made its first appearance in French in the Commentaries of Blaise de Monluc in the 1570s. On 13 May 1588, barricades were used in Paris for the first time after the King had summoned troops into the city, in violation of the city's privilege of not receiving soldiers within its walls (and these were mainly Swiss Guards, and thus foreign troops and doubly offensive!). So extensively were the streets blocked that the King was forced to leave the city and the troops ignominiously withdrew. Mark Traugott has, however, shown that there is evidence of earlier use, and a complex relationship between barricades and the more common (and earlier) practice of stretching metal chains across streets to prevent the passage of horses and carriages. That relationship is complicated because a chain is not a barricade, and the practices were not described using the same terminology. Nonetheless, the chain came to be used in a way that prefigures the barricade - appearing when citizens attempted to control movement in the city, especially in relation to royal attempts to impose authority - so much so that the city was deprived of its chains in the 1380s, and they returned in a bid to win popular support only after 1415. The barricade did not contribute much to the French Revolution, since there was little fighting in the streets of the city, at least until the fall of Robespierre and the rise of protest from the poorer areas about the the price of provisions (and the abandonment of the principles of the Revolution). In May 1795, the faubourgs of St Antoine and Marceau rose in revolt and invaded the National Convention on 20 May/4 prairial. When the government regained control, they sent troops to suppress the insurgents in St Antoine. As government troops entered the faubourg, the people set up barricades to prevent their retreat, and the military responded by forcing their way through and seizing the cannons of the insurgents - thirty six of whom were arrested and condemned to death. The barricade did not reappear in Paris until November 1827, when the rue St Denis was blocked, unblocked, and re-blocked over two days, in protest at a series of decrees strengthening the increasingly unpopular government and the King. Although short-lived, the events served as a model for citizen action against the crown in the Revolution of 1830. 'Entassement de matériaux et d'objets divers servant à interdire le passage et à se mettre à couvert de l'adversaire dans un combat de rues.' That is: The stacking of various materials and objects to block the passage of people and to take cover from opponents in a street fight: - or an improvised barrier erected across a street or other thoroughfare to prevent or delay the movement of opposing forces.   The foremost historian of the 'barricade', Mark Traugott, defines a barricade as: 'an improvised structure, built and defended by civilian insurgents as a means of laying claim to urban space and mobilizing against military or police forces representing the constituted authorities. In the clearest examples, contemporary observers and/or the insurgents themselves will explicitly label such a structure a barricade, though their reversion to recognizable patterns of behaviour long associated with barricade construction may also be sufficient to confirm the attribution.' Mark Traugott, The Insurgent Barricade (University of California Press, 2010)Mireille Huchon, 'Petit Historie du mot barricade' in Alain Corbin, Jean-Marie Mayeur (dir.), La barricade. (Paris, Éditions de la Sorbonne, 1997)Eric Hazan, A Hidtory of the Barricade (Paris, 20143; London, 2015)

After Peterloo and the Cato Street Conspiracy, in both of which the outbreak of substantial violence, either by the state or against it, seemed to threaten political opposition in the country suddenly coalesced around the cause of Queen Caroline, the wife of the Prince Regent, who had been estranged from him more or less from the moment she had given birth to their daughter Princess Charlotte (one of the few popular members of the royal family, who died in childbirth in 1817). Rumours surrounding Caroline's conduct abroad were widespread, fueled by the Regent and his allies. An investigation had been conducted in anticipation of divorce proceedings in 1806, but while the inquiry censured her for 'levity of conduct', the Cabinet agreed not to exclude her from court. A further fishing expedition in Italy was conducted in 1816, producing the widely caricatured and notorious 'Green Bag' of evidence to be used against her. On the death of George III in January 1820, and with the prospect of Caroline attending the coronation, an attempt was made to buy her off (for £50,000) and get her to repudiate her title. This failed, and she declared she would return. As she approached Britain, popular enthusiasm for her cause became widespread. In part, she provided an excuse for organisation and public meetings, otherwise forbidden by the 'Six Acts' but permissible because they ostensibly offered 'sympathetic addresses', which fell outside the Acts; however, the meetings were also often rambunctious and sometimes violent. London provided a major focus. The new king brought a bill of pains and penalties to be heard in the House of Lords that would dissolve the marriage and deprive Caroline of all titles and privileges. The case made its way slowly and increasingly scandalously through the House of Lords, but as it did so support for the King ebbed, and while the bill passed a third reading, it did so barely. The government abandoned it because Lord Liverpool, the Prime Minister, could not see how it would pass the Commons. Hone and other radical satirists made much mock of the King and the government - with Hone's 'toy' - the matrimonial ladder - depicting the rise and fall of the Queen through the shabby behaviour of the King. The 'toy' had an accompanying pamphlet that spelt out in detail the sordid character of the King's behaviour. Caroline was locked out of the Coronation in July 1821 and died the following month. While her popularity had declined after the trial, falling again in March as she accepted a £50,000 pay off, and still more sharply after her behaviour at the coronation, her funeral generated huge crowds, who seized the initiative and the cortege and forced it into a new route through the city. At one point the crowd were fired on by the Life Guards. The whole sequence of events remains puzzling. Some historians see it as a resurgence of eighteenth-century traditional crowd behaviour, although the political and satirical value of the movement to reformers suggests that some part of the response was a function of the closure of other avenues of protest. But it is also true the catalogue of her indiscretions at the trial discredited her cause, and correspondingly increased public sympathies for the King. And the violence associated with the crowd produced in turn something of a loyalist backlash after the funeral. Perhaps the best explanation for the furore was the opportunity the case provided to ridicule and attack a king who had done little or nothing to endear himself to his people, without fear of reprisal. What is clear is that there was much to be made fun of! The Barricades Project arranged a performance of the Trial of Queen Caroline, drawing on trial transcripts, in association with The Loft Theatre, Leamington. A recording of the production will be available on-line here: https://lofttheatrecompany.com/the-trial-of-queen-caroline/

A series of riots in agricultural districts, which took place against widespread agitation for political reform, together with political uncertainty and economic depression. The riots, which had a sense of contagion about them, began in Kent in late August with two nights of attacks on farms and the destruction of threshing machines, and they continued throughout the autumn until the end of the year, although in different forms and with different demands throughout southern and eastern England, with the most troubled counties being Wiltshire and Hampshire (although reporting was not always reliable). The destruction of labour-saving machinery, predominantly threshing machines, was the most common form of protest, but there were also instances of hayrick and barn burning. These were particular targets, but there was a deeper sense of grievance at the pauperisation of rural labour. Protests were often accompanied by the sending of threatening letters, with the signature 'Captain Swing'. Historians argue that the widespread and accelerated character of the riots were a function of the failure of the authorities to react rapidly and punitively, as they had to agricultural rioting in 1816 and 1822. But they also suggest that the rioters themselves were often implicitly appealing to ‘moral economy ‘ traditions of rural protest (that assumed a give and take between landowners and those working on the land, and counted on a degree of tolerance towards protest), and that the changing character of land ownership and agricultural employment meant that these older traditions were now breaking down, to the cost of the protesters. Initially lenient sentences might have been taken as signalling traditional sympathy for their cause, but they were followed by far more punitive measures. Agricultural rioters also seem to have been aware that growing demands across the country for political reform meant that there was some collateral sympathy for their cause.  And, faced with these demands, the government dithered, bing unsure how best to react.  Ironically, when a new Whig administration was formed at the end of November 1830, it took a much more determined stance against the rioters, and it was able to rely on wider public support in doing so, because it was willing to press for political reforms (which was very much the wider and more popular interest outside agricultural communities). The results were harsh: in Hampshire alone, 300 men were tried by a special Commission in December 1830, and 101 being sentenced to death – although all but 3 of the sentences were commuted.  117 men from Hapshire were transported to Australia (447 in total were transported to Australia and Tasmania from 21 Ccounties). A great deal is often swept under the label of Swing Riots - such as the Otmoor Riots of 1830 (q.v.). However, it is important to sift through the evidence and distinguish the eruption of long-standing local grievances from the more general contagion of anti-machinery hostility and economic distress in the south and east of the country. The image is by Cruikshank, and represents Captain Swing as the devil, indicating a turn in sympathies against the rioters.

This is a Hone/Cruickshank collaboration that appears at the end of Hone's The Right Divine of Kings to Govern Wrong (Hone, Ludgate Hill), published in March 1821. The print is a companion to the print at the front of the pamphlet depicting the Prince Regent in the coronation of a tyrant - and implicitly referencing the speech of the Bishop of London (Howley) on the divorce clause in the Bill of Pains and Penalties (7 November 1820) in which it was said: 'It was a maxim of the constitution ....that the king could do no wrong.' This end print depicts the resulting transformation of tyranny into a mechanical agent of destruction charging the tree of liberty and dealing death and destruction all around him. In the immediate aftermath of the Peterloo Massacre, the Home Secretary, Lord Sidmouth, wrote to the Manchester magistrates to convey the Prince Regent's thanks for having taken their timely action 'in the preservation of the public peace.' The government's response was unapologetic and they pursued prosecutions against those they identified as responsible for calling the meeting - notably Henry Hunt (sentenced to 30 months), Samuel Bamford, 'Dr' Joseph Healey, John Johnson (sentenced for one year) and John Knight (sentenced for two years). On 23 November 1819, the Prince Regent addressed the opening of Parliament and called for new legislation to assist in the suppression of sedition and insurrection, especially in the north of the country: 'I regret to have been under the necessity of calling you together at this period of the year; but the seditious practices so long prevalent in some of the manufacturing districts of the country have been continued with increased activity since you were last assembled in parliament. They have led to proceedings incompatible with the public tranquillity, and with the peaceful habits of the industrious classes, of the community; and a spirit is now fully manifested, utterly hostile to the constitution of this kingdom, and aiming not only at the change of those political institutions which have hitherto constituted the pride and security of this country, but at, the subversion of the rights of property and of all order in society. I have given directions that the necessary information on this subject shall be laid before you; and I feel it to be my indispensable duty, to press on your immediate attention the consideration of such measures as may be requisite for the counteraction and suppression of a system which, if not effectually checked, must bring confusion and ruin on the nation.' This copy of the print, held in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, has a pencil note below that only two impressions of the print were made. This suggests that it may have been made earlier, but was printed in 1821 as part of the aftermath of the Queen Caroline Affair - probably for fear of prosecution for sedition earlier, for while there were several caricatures of the massacre, this turned attention to the Prince Regent lashing out indiscriminately with sword and fire. Dorothy George's Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum (BMC 14134) points to references to the Naples Revolution of 1820 and then the forcible restoration of autocracy by Ferdinand, in early March 1821. In the pamphlet version the image has the following verse below A thing of no bowels ________ _____from the crown to the toe, topfull Of direst cruelty. __His Realm a slaughter-house The swords of soldiers are his teeth___ Iron for NAPLES, hid with English Gilt. Hone attributes the quotation to Shakespeare - it is a conglomerate of lines from Troilus and Cressida, King John, and Henry VI Pt III. It is certainly possible that the engraving was not originally intended to reference Ferdinand (as against satirising the Prince Regent), the gibbet in the rear left alongside an executioner does seem to be a reference to the executions of the Cato Street Conspirators, who were ordered to be hanged, drawn, and quartered, but had their sentence commuted to hanging and decapitation, which was put into effect in May 1820. The engraving could have been made at any point between then and March 1821.

This is a threatening letter addressed to Thomas Monument who gave evidence at the trial for Treason of Arthur Thistlewood and James Ings, two of the Cato Street Conspirators in their trial in April 1820. The Judge strictly limited reporting but the London Observer broke ranks on Sunday 23 April releasing details to a wider public. The Monument brothers gave evidence in the Thistlewood trial on 19 April, Ings on the 23, and Brunt on the 24. The date of this letter, according to reports in the Morning Chronicle and Morning Post, Thomas Monument actually gave very little evidence, largely corroborating that given by his brother James as to the collecting of arms by Thistlewood. Nonetheless, this letter is addressed to him and was postmarked 24 April 1820. It expresses itself in no uncertain terms: 'you Dand vilion yu have Been Swearing against those Poor men things that you know nothing of and you Shall have your Reward as you Duly Deserves and as for your hellfire brother England shall never hold him there is no place of Safety for him for we are deteremed to finish his work and Shortly If he is in England we are Deteremed to Drag him to Some please [place] and Burne, Burne him or flea [flay] him alive for there was not one amongst them that thried to Do more than he and we will finish you Both If we are hanged on the Cross of St Pauls you Damd vilions.'

There were three Spa Fields Meetings in London in the winter of 1816-17: 15 November, 2 December 1816, and 10 February 1817. They represent a major change in the strategies of the reformers, as they faced increasing government intransigence. The path to reform, prior to this, was one in which Sir Francis Burdett and Major John Cartwright provided leadership to those hoping for reform through cooperation with Whigs in Parliament, and with a rather passive form of representation from the provinces. At the 15 November meeting, Henry Hunt seized the initiative and launched a new approach of mass meetings designed to exert moral pressure on parliament through the mass platform. They faced obstacles in the form of an elite and a press that was increasingly fearful of a mass uprising and could be easily persuaded of the treasonous intentions of those marshaling the crowds both in London and the North and West, and the existence of an insurrectionist wing among the reformers, led by Thistlewood, Watson, and others, which sought to rouse people to attack the institutions of power and finance in the City. Hunt successfully steered the 15 November meeting to agree to petition the Prince Regent to enlist his sympathies and support in seeking reform and the alleviation of distress. He called for a national campaign of mass meetings as soon as Parliament was recalled, but was outflanked by the Young Watson who set the next meeting for 2 December when they anticipated receiving an answer from the Prince Regent. At the 2 December meeting, while Hunt held the main crowd to the mass platform campaign, a break-away group, led by Thistlewood and his collaborators, split off from the meeting and headed off to attack a gun-shop to secure arms, and then the Tower, where they found troops firmly on the side of the government, despite their earlier efforts to lubricate their allegiance in local pubs. Hunt, meanwhile, effectively ridiculed the Prince Regent's one response, to donate £4,000 to the Spitalfield's Soup Kitchen, and effectively swung the people behind the mass platform as a means of securing reform. The third Spa Fields meeting was held on 10 February, while the parliamentary special committees were still sifting the evidence collected from the events of 2 December, at which Hunt called for universal suffrage, annual parliaments, and the secret ballot and consolidated his position as leader of the extra-parliamentary reform movement, setting him in opposition to both the moderates, led by Burdett, and the 'enragés' led by Thistlewood and Watson. One of the documents seized in December is shown here: it comes from the extreme wing and testifies to the radicals' contemplation of armed resistance to what they perceived as government oppression. It uses a question and answer strategy to discuss the key issues - the role of soldiers is given a good deal of attention. TS 11/ 203 873 746 Found at Old Watson’s Lodgings in Hyde Street by J Vickery 2 December 1816 Questions Answers Q. How long can a Nation endure oppression A. Till distress is universal, and parents and children see each other starving Q. When interested men have caused universal distress what is the probably consequence A. Vengeance Q. Can the arm of power prevent vengeance A. No!!! Men will not obey oppressors the laws of nature forbid it Q. Is it unjust to destroy oppression A. Oppression is unnatural and ought to be destroyed Q. What can justify oppression to Men in power A. Their insolence and injustice Q. When ought men to usurp power A. When rulers by obstinacy have ruined their country and the people are starving Q. How long ought soldiers to obey their commanders A. As long as the orders of Commanders are founded in justice Q. Can any conduct of commanders tolerate disobedience of orders A. When orders are given to support tyranny oppression and increase distress contrary to the will and interest of a nation Q. Ought soldiers to be the judges of their country’s wrongs A. When they (sic) command[s] are unjust and injustice ought never to be obeyed. Soldiers are men and have feelings in common with their Brethren Q. When Rulers are oppressors and have ruined a country is it right in soldiers to disobey commands A. Soldiers ought no (sic) to be mercenaries, they are a part of the people, they ought not to add to the miseries of their starving and industrious brethren – they are paid to cherish and protect them and not to destroy them Q. Are soldiers less benevolent and just than other men A. Soldiers have feeling in common with their countrymen – they take up arms to oppose enemies they have a right to be well paid for their dangers – brave spirits always commiserate [their] brethren Q. Ought soldiers ever to join their countrymen against oppressors A. When these rulers have enslaved themselves and their nation under foreign control The soldiers and people ought to have but one feeling.

This pamphlet by William Hone, after his success in securing acquittal for his parodies in 1817, targets the government and its behaviour over Peterloo, with a parody of the nursery rhyme This is the House that Jack Built. On the front cover is a caricature of the duke of Wellington, then Home Secretary, loading the scales with a range of weapons that the government had been using against those arguing and agitating for reform - ex-officio prosecutions, bills of indemnity (protecting those who suppress popular activity) - and Wellington's own sword. Nonetheless, the scales are outweighed by a single quill pen, symbolising the freedom of the press. Press liberty was a major theme for Hone, and was seen as essential to English liberty and to political activity outside parliament. In other respects, Hone was not especially an 'organiser'; he was a printer who conceived of protest and satire as the stock in trade of the free press against the tendency of government to autocracy and despotism. The rhyme starts with This is the House that Jack built, and then adds new lines and repeats the previous verses until the final image presides over the full litany (with a Cruikshank image for each 'This is...'): This is THE WEALTH that lay in the House that Jack Built These are THE VERMIN (a picture of lawyers, priests, servants and military) that plunder the Wealth, That lay in the House, That Jack built This is THE THING (picture of Hone's printing press) that in spite of new Acts, And Attempts to restrain it, by Soldiers and Tax, Will poison the Vermin, That plunder the Wealth, That lay in the House, That Jack built This is the PUBLIC INFORMER (the Attorney General) who Would put down the Thing, that, in spite of New Acts, And attempts to restrain it, by Soldiers and Tax, Will poison the Vermin, that plunder the Wealth, That lay in the House, that Jack built. These are THE REASONS OF LAWLESS POWER, (police, bailiffs and military) that back the public informer, who would put down the Thing, That in spite of new acts… etc This is THE MAN – (the Prince Regent) all shaven and shorn, All covered in Orders – and all forlorn, THE DANDY OF SIXTY, who bows with a grace, And has taste in collars, cuirasses, and lace Who to tricksters and fools, leaves the Stae, and its treasure, And when Britain’s in tears, sails about at his pleasure, Who spurned from his presence, the Friends of his youth, And now has not one, who will tell him the truth; who took to his counsels, in evil hour, The Friends to the Reasons of lawless Power, that back the Public Informer… These are THE PEOPLE all tatter’d and torn, Who curse the day, wherein they were born, On account of Taxation too great to be borne, And pray for relief, from night to morn: Who in vain, petition in every form, Who, peaceably meeting, to ask for Reform, Were sabred by Yeomanry Cavalry, who were thanked by the Man, all shaven and shorn This is THE DOCTOR (Sidmouth) of Circular fame, A Driv’ller, a Bigot, a Knave without shame: And that’s DERRY DOWN TRIANGLE (Castlereagh) by name, From the land of mis-rule, and half-hanging, and flame: And that is THE SPOUTER OF FROTH BY THE HOUR, (Canning) the worthless colleague of their infamous power: Who dubbed him ‘the Doctor’ whom now he calls ‘brother,’ And to get his Place, took a shot at the other, Who haunts their Bad House, a base living to earn, By playing Jack-pudding and Ruffian in turn, Who bullies, for those whom he bullied before: their Flash-man, their Bravo, a son of a ______________; The hate of the people, all tattered and torn….. This WORD (Reform) is the Watchword – the talisman word, That the WATERLOO-MAN’s (Wellington) to crush with his sword; But if shielded by NORFOLK and BEDFORD alliance, it will set both his sword, and him at defiance; If FITZWILLIAM and GROSVENOR, and ALBEMARLE aid it, And assist its best Champions, who then dare invade it? ‘Tis the terrible WORD OF FEAR, night and morn, To the Guilty Trio, all cover’d with scorn, First to the Doctor of Circular fame, A Driv’ller, a Bigot, a Knave without shame: And that’s DERRY DOWN TRIANGLE by name, From the land of mis-rule, and half-hanging, and flame: And that is THE SPOUTER OF FROTH BY THE HOUR, the worthless colleague of their infamous power: Who dubbed him ‘the Doctor’ whom now he calls ‘brother,’ And to get his Place, took a shot at the other, Who haunts their Bad House, a base living to earn, By playing Jack-pudding and Ruffian in turn, Who bullies, for those whom he bullied before: their Flash-man, their Bravo, a son of a ______________; The hate of the people, all tattered and torn…..Who curse the day, wherein they were born, On account of Taxation too great to be borne, And pray for relief, from night to morn: Who in vain, petition in every form, Who, peaceably meeting, to ask for Reform, Were sabred by Yeomanry Cavalry, who were thanked by the Man, all shaven and shorn, All covered in Orders – and all forlorn, THE DANDY OF SIXTY, who bows with a grace, And has taste in collars, cuirasses, and lace Who to tricksters and fools, leaves the State, and its treasure, And , when Britain’s in tears, sails about at his pleasure, Who spurned from his presence, the Friends of his youth, And now has not one, who will tell him the truth; who took to his counsels, in evil hour, The Friends to THE REASONS OF LAWLESS POWER, that back the public informer, who would put down the Thing, That in spite of new Acts and attempts to restrain it, by Soldiers and Tax, Will poison the Vermin, that plunder the Wealth, That lay in the House, that Jack built. These are THE VERMIN that plunder the Wealth, That lay in the House, That Jack built!

Interfaith marriage of Protestants and Catholics was an ongoing issue for the Protestant Prussian administration and the largely Catholic Rhinelanders. The Catholic Church demanded children of these marriage be educated according to Catholic tradition, while the Protestant Prussian government demanded that the children adopt the religion of their fathers. Erzbischof Clemens August Droste zu Vischering openly opposed the Prussian demand in 1837 and was made to renounce his office. Huge uproar ensued, with tumults in Cologne and plenty of letters written throughout the region, especially from Koblenz which increasingly turned into a hotbed for Political Catholicism. Its locals disliked both the rising families of traders and civil servants and the 'Alt-Preußische', the Protestant soldiers and superiors. This was the case not only because of their religion, but also because of their behaviour and demeanour, which was, supposedly, cold, calculating, and imperious while the lively Rhinelanders were the direct opposite. Most considered that their political leaning coincided more with Habsburg Austria than Protestant Prussia. The Catholic writer and scholar Joseph Görres, for example, fled Koblenz and took up a professorship in Munich shortly afterwards which he held until his death in 1848. The first anonymous note was pinned to the Koblenzer Gymnasium as a protest against the Archbishop's imprisonment. It closed with the signature ‘Der nachdenkende Rheinländer’ (the thinking Rhinelander). The second note was pinned to the gate of the Catholic St. Kastor church claiming 'unsere heilige Kirche ist in Gefahr' ('our holy church is in danger') and rallying for its defence. These may allude to the fact that the Catholic Rhinelanders saw themselves - at times without foundation - as second-class citizens in comparison to the Protestant Prussian officials, an idea that fueled, among other things, oppositional thinking that fed into the growing democratic and revolutionary ferment of the region.

This oil-sketch by Benjamin Robert Haydon depicts the 'Meeting of the Unions on NewhalI Hill' on 16 May 1832. It is a record of an open-air meeting convened by the Birmingham Political Union in support of the Great Reform Bill of 1832. The site, Newhall Hill in Birmingham hosted no less than eleven meetings between 1817 and 1837. The location was perfect for the purpose due to its proximity to the centre of Birmingham, within easy walking distance from the many workshops in the town. The site was a disused rock-sand quarry which formed a perfect amphitheatre, bisected by 'Miss Caroline’s Canal', a private branch of the Birmingham and Fazeley navigation commissioned in 1809 by Caroline Colmore to facilitate the transportation of the sandstone blocks to building sites around the midlands. This particular meeting, held on 16 May 1832, served to celebrate the recall of Earl Grey as Prime Minister after a failed attempt by the Duke of Wellington to form a Tory government designed to introduce a diluted version of Parliamentary reform. Grey accepted the office on the condition that King William IV would create new peers to carry the Bill through the House of Lords. In contrast to two recent meetings on the site demanding reform, the mood this time was celebratory. The Rev. Hugh Hutton is seen opening the meeting with a prayer of thanksgiving to God for the success of Reform. The vast audience of reputedly 50,000 attendees echoed Hutton's fervent 'Amen, Amen!' Also pictured is Chairman Thomas Attwood who took over proceedings after Hutton’s introduction. Hayden was unsuccessful in obtaining sufficient £1 subscriptions from reformers to execute the final version of the oil painting, so the painting hanging in Birmingham Art Gallery remains a sketch.

Joseph Görres’ 'Koblenzer Adresse' was a privately organised address, unlike those initiated by city councils at the time. Görres started collecting signatures on 18 October 1817 to present them to the Staatskanzler in time for King Wilhelm’s visit to the Rhinelands in the winter of 1817/18. The petition states that it joins the city petitions of Trier and Cologne to appeal to the King and hold him to account for his promise given upon signing the Treaties at the congress of Vienna in 1815. The demands are the restoration of estates and of the ancient German constitution. It directly calls for the realisation of Article 13 of the Bundesakte (German Federal Act), which granted the creation of a German constitution at Vienna. Another interesting aspect is how the participants are protrayed in this petition: 'sich aber nicht bloss als Buerger der Preußischen Monarchie sondern auch als Deutsch betrachten' ('consider themselves not just citizens of the Prussian Monarchy but as Germans'). This quite clearly shows the disparity between growing German nationalism fostered through overflowing patriotism in the Rhinelands and the Prussian government. A subsequent letter (LHK 402 171 p.21) is from March 1818 expressing the Prussian King Frederick William III's disapproval of the Rhineprovince's president von Ingersleben’s inactivity surrounding the petition. It was, namely, far from a normal plea to the King, to which every subject had a right, but rather a down-right prompt for action which was seen as unseemly behaviour. Görres' and his address initiative were subject to wide criticism, which some scholars suggests established a first spark of public sphere and debate in the Rhineland. Görres published a written account about the presentation of his address to

After the defeat of Napoleon, the Dutch state transformed into a monarchy under King William I. To celebrate this event, a contest for a national anthem was organised by the Dutch admiral Jan Hendrik van Kinsbergen. Two songs were awarded the first prize on 2 April 1817, but only one of them became known as the Dutch anthem: Wien Neêrlandsch bloed in de ad’ren vloeit (whose Dutch blood is running though the veins), written by the well-known patriot poet Hendrik Tollens. The song contains eight couplets of eight verses each, which celebrate the new Dutch king and the love of the Dutch people for their fatherland. The tone is very religious: God, the fatherland, and the House of Orange are presented as an unbreakable unit. The song represents the support and loyalty of the Dutch people to their new sovereign and their relief that the French occupation has finally come to an end. Over the course of time, the second verse has caused much commotion: ‘van vreemde smetten vrij’ (free from foreign defilement) originally refers to the liberation from the French, but in later times the verse was considered racist. In 1891, the song was drastically shortened and modernised (four stanzas were deleted, including the infamous second verse), but its popularity faded. In 1932, the government decided to change the national anthem to Wilhelmus van Nassouwe. This sixteenth-century song about William of Orange and the Dutch revolt against Spain is still the Dutch anthem.

Barcelona was the capital of revolutionary activity during the Regency of General Baldomero Espartero, a period better known as the Progressive Triennium (1840-1843). In the summer of 1840, the city led demonstrations of discontent against Queen Regent Maria Cristina, who was forced into exile to France. Subsequently, Baldomero Espartero, victorious general of the First Carlist War (1833-1840), was appointed regent and he promoted the formation of governments with liberal-progressive majorities. Even so, a further revolution broke out in mid-November 1842. The revolt was carried out by the workers, organised in the trade union organisation of weavers, and the republicans. The moderate-liberal group of the city supported the revolt in order to destabilise the government, while the progressives were against it and sought a solution through negotiation between the parties. This failed revolution of workers and republicans gained admiration among European revolutionaries, such as Etienne Cabet, and confirmed the worst fears of the governmental elites and the moderate groups of the city. Less than a year later there was a new revolt that joined together progressives, republicans, and workers confronting the government. The revolt lasted for six months but its progressive radicalisation served to fracture the broad anti-government front. The revolutionaries were finally defeated and the repression was much more extensive than it had been following previous revolts. This picture shows the barricade erected by the revolutionaries of 1842 in Constitution Square (Plaza de la Constitución), where the headquarters of the revolutionary government of the city were located, in order to defend themselves against the arrival of the army. In the picture the presence of workers, militiamen, and the support of some bourgeois who represented the elites of the city can be seen.