0:00:02 > 0:00:06When the 19th century dawned, Britain was a land of two nations.
0:00:06 > 0:00:10A small wealthy class ruling a large and growing population.
0:00:10 > 0:00:14The Regency was a time between times.
0:00:14 > 0:00:17It was after absolute monarchy, but it was before democracy.
0:00:17 > 0:00:20It was towards the end of an age of agriculture.
0:00:20 > 0:00:24It was the beginning of an age of industry.
0:00:24 > 0:00:28As radical voices confronted an arrogant elite,
0:00:28 > 0:00:31the ways of the old order were no longer tenable.
0:00:31 > 0:00:35It was a time that would set the many against the few.
0:00:45 > 0:00:48What a wonderful sight for the Regency swells
0:00:48 > 0:00:51taking part in the new craze for ballooning.
0:00:51 > 0:00:55This is Bath, queen city of the west. Celebrated for its spa waters.
0:00:55 > 0:00:59Packed full of genteel Jane Austen-type characters.
0:00:59 > 0:01:02But Britain was a troubled land.
0:01:03 > 0:01:07Years of war had wearied and impoverished the masses.
0:01:07 > 0:01:10The country hovered on the brink of revolution,
0:01:10 > 0:01:14as the governing classes chose to use violent repression
0:01:14 > 0:01:16instead of enlightened reform.
0:01:17 > 0:01:19Challenging Parliament and the Cabinet
0:01:19 > 0:01:21were a new generation
0:01:21 > 0:01:22of thinkers
0:01:22 > 0:01:24and poets
0:01:24 > 0:01:26and novelists.
0:01:26 > 0:01:30The power of the word would now take over from the power of the sword
0:01:30 > 0:01:32but not without the shedding of blood.
0:01:53 > 0:01:58In the Regency, people admired a sense of gusto.
0:01:58 > 0:02:00The most dashing people of the age
0:02:00 > 0:02:02were literally dashing across the countryside,
0:02:02 > 0:02:07and the age's favourite vehicle was this monster, the mail coach.
0:02:07 > 0:02:09The mail coach was extraordinary.
0:02:09 > 0:02:12It could go at an average speed of seven miles an hour,
0:02:12 > 0:02:16which seemed utterly amazing to 19th-century Jeremy Clarksons.
0:02:16 > 0:02:19This meant that, instead of taking two days to get to Cambridge,
0:02:19 > 0:02:21you could get there in seven hours.
0:02:21 > 0:02:25Edinburgh was only 60 hours away. Britain was shrinking.
0:02:27 > 0:02:31- Hello, there.- All right, love? Right. Stand out, please.
0:02:35 > 0:02:40Today, I'm really excited to travel on the Swingletree mail coach.
0:02:40 > 0:02:43We're scorching through the Norfolk countryside.
0:02:43 > 0:02:48This is John Parker holding the reins and Rosie as guard.
0:02:48 > 0:02:53This coach used to earn its keep on the London to Norwich run.
0:03:02 > 0:03:04HORN FANFARE
0:03:08 > 0:03:11Travel by mail coach was expensive,
0:03:11 > 0:03:14but it was also fast and safe.
0:03:14 > 0:03:18Our team of horses would be changed every ten or so miles.
0:03:18 > 0:03:21We'd be travelling with an armed guard on the back.
0:03:21 > 0:03:24And when we got to tollgates they'd open as if by magic.
0:03:24 > 0:03:27We'd toot our horn and the keeper would leap out of the way.
0:03:27 > 0:03:31Because nothing was allowed to hold up the king's mail.
0:03:32 > 0:03:34So what could you signal with the horn?
0:03:34 > 0:03:37Are there things like "I'm coming"? "Get out of the way"?
0:03:37 > 0:03:40For different coaches, there was different tunes.
0:03:40 > 0:03:44- Even for different people. They had their favourite tunes.- Yeah.
0:03:44 > 0:03:46OK. So this coach was owned by James Selby
0:03:46 > 0:03:49and I think you know his particular coaching call.
0:03:49 > 0:03:53Let's hear it. HORN FANFARE
0:04:06 > 0:04:08If you could afford it, you rode on it.
0:04:08 > 0:04:11If you couldn't afford this, you tried to hook a ride
0:04:11 > 0:04:15on something else. If you couldn't get a ride, you had a choice.
0:04:15 > 0:04:18You either owned a horse and rode it or you walked.
0:04:18 > 0:04:20- There's no other choices.- Yeah.
0:04:20 > 0:04:24You couldn't jump on the back of carriages, because they had spikes
0:04:24 > 0:04:25to make sure you didn't do it.
0:04:25 > 0:04:28It's the king's mail. If you held it up,
0:04:28 > 0:04:32you died. You were either shot or hung, one of the two.
0:04:32 > 0:04:36- That's a big draconian. - If you stood in front and said, "Stand and deliver,"
0:04:36 > 0:04:39these teams of horses, they won't stop. They'll flatten you.
0:04:44 > 0:04:47For Regency people, travel by mail coach was
0:04:47 > 0:04:49like taking Concorde.
0:04:49 > 0:04:52Mail coaches helped them to discover their own countryside.
0:04:52 > 0:04:56The Highlands, the Lake District and Spa towns like Bath
0:04:56 > 0:04:59became tourist destinations for the first time
0:04:59 > 0:05:02thanks to coach travel.
0:05:02 > 0:05:05For the rich, the coach was the only way to travel.
0:05:05 > 0:05:08The Prince Regent's dirty weekends in Brighton
0:05:08 > 0:05:11were all horse-drawn affairs.
0:05:11 > 0:05:12But, if George had chosen to notice,
0:05:12 > 0:05:17the countryside he was travelling through was changing fast.
0:05:17 > 0:05:22An agricultural revolution was driving the rural workers
0:05:22 > 0:05:26off the land and into the new industrial cities.
0:05:26 > 0:05:29The Enclosure Acts denied villagers access to the fields
0:05:29 > 0:05:33where generations of peasants had scraped out a living.
0:05:37 > 0:05:41In these troubled times, the labourers of Northamptonshire
0:05:41 > 0:05:44had a voice through John Clare.
0:05:44 > 0:05:47He's often called the Peasant Poet.
0:05:47 > 0:05:51In Helpston, his cottage, or cot, still survives. It's now a museum,
0:05:51 > 0:05:54devoted to a rare Regency imagination.
0:05:56 > 0:06:01And swathy bees about the grass That stops wi' every bloom they pass
0:06:01 > 0:06:04And every minute every hour
0:06:04 > 0:06:08Keep teazing weeds that wear a flower.
0:06:11 > 0:06:14Imagine the scene on a dark winter's night.
0:06:14 > 0:06:18John Clare is sitting on a stool in the corner of the room,
0:06:18 > 0:06:19writing a poem.
0:06:19 > 0:06:21His mother, over there, spinning.
0:06:21 > 0:06:25This was their cottage. It's just two up, two down.
0:06:25 > 0:06:28There was earth on the floor, a ladder instead of stairs,
0:06:28 > 0:06:32and actually ten people were living here. Three generations
0:06:32 > 0:06:33of the Clare family shared it.
0:06:33 > 0:06:37It's not quite our modern idyll of country living by any means,
0:06:37 > 0:06:41but they were glad to have this cottage, it was their home.
0:06:43 > 0:06:48Many of John Clare's poems celebrated all things bright and beautiful.
0:06:48 > 0:06:51But in Helpston he witnessed the single greatest threat
0:06:51 > 0:06:54to rural life for over a thousand years.
0:06:54 > 0:06:57The enclosure of the common lands.
0:07:00 > 0:07:03Each little tyrant with his little sign
0:07:03 > 0:07:07Shows where man claims earth glows no more divine
0:07:07 > 0:07:12But paths to freedom and to childhood dear
0:07:12 > 0:07:15A board sticks up to notice "No road here"
0:07:15 > 0:07:19And birds and trees and flowers without a name
0:07:19 > 0:07:24All sighed when lawless law's enclosure came.
0:07:25 > 0:07:30'I talked to the curator David Dykes about the changes Clare lived through.'
0:07:30 > 0:07:33The Enclosure Act of 1809 in this area
0:07:33 > 0:07:35was the biggest single impact on his life.
0:07:35 > 0:07:39Prior to that he was able to walk the fields, anywhere he wished to go,
0:07:39 > 0:07:41and he rails against that,
0:07:41 > 0:07:44in the fact he's lost his freedom
0:07:44 > 0:07:46and also lost a livelihood,
0:07:46 > 0:07:50because he couldn't get to the common land.
0:07:50 > 0:07:51He couldn't graze the cows.
0:07:51 > 0:07:55His friends where losing their jobs and he was seeing an acceleration
0:07:55 > 0:07:58of people leaving the countryside.
0:07:58 > 0:08:00One of his benefactors, the Fitzwilliams,
0:08:00 > 0:08:03were the big landowners here.
0:08:03 > 0:08:06And indeed they supported Clare during his poetry
0:08:06 > 0:08:09and also were getting land off him at the same time
0:08:09 > 0:08:10during the enclosure process.
0:08:13 > 0:08:18Clare, through his education, became a curiosity in his native village.
0:08:18 > 0:08:22The strains of his life and his heavy drinking possibly explained
0:08:22 > 0:08:26his drift into insanity.
0:08:26 > 0:08:29And here is a very melancholy letter indeed.
0:08:29 > 0:08:33Somebody wrote to him at the asylum, saying, "Why no more poems?"
0:08:33 > 0:08:36and this answer is heart-breaking. He writes, "Dear Sir.
0:08:36 > 0:08:41"I am in a madhouse. I quite forget your name."
0:08:41 > 0:08:45He says, "You must excuse me, for I have nothing to communicate.
0:08:45 > 0:08:46"I have nothing to say."
0:08:46 > 0:08:49It's a very sad end for a poet, isn't it?
0:08:54 > 0:08:58John Clare now lies in the village churchyard.
0:09:00 > 0:09:04He had asked to be buried round the other side of the church
0:09:04 > 0:09:07where there was most sun in the morning and the evening.
0:09:07 > 0:09:10This is a man who knew about the weather, don't forget.
0:09:10 > 0:09:14But in the event they put him here, near to his parents.
0:09:26 > 0:09:30In the Regency, when all transport was still horse-drawn,
0:09:30 > 0:09:34the advantages of the canal for carrying goods were overwhelming.
0:09:37 > 0:09:40A single horse could pull 50 times more weight
0:09:40 > 0:09:42on the water than it could on a road.
0:09:42 > 0:09:46Canals carried coal, iron and grain to the new cities
0:09:46 > 0:09:49and then transported manufactured goods
0:09:49 > 0:09:52from the factories to the ports.
0:09:52 > 0:09:54Canals reached their peak with the building
0:09:54 > 0:09:57of the brilliant Kennet and Avon Canal.
0:09:57 > 0:10:01This waterway was the supreme civil engineering achievement of the 1810s.
0:10:03 > 0:10:06The Regency is often described
0:10:06 > 0:10:09in terms of fashion and, most of all, architecture.
0:10:09 > 0:10:11But the decade should really be remembered as the point
0:10:11 > 0:10:15when Britain entered the modern machine age.
0:10:15 > 0:10:19If you ask people to think of Regency architecture,
0:10:19 > 0:10:22they're probably going to come up with Cheltenham, or Brighton,
0:10:22 > 0:10:26or parts of London. But one of the most important buildings
0:10:26 > 0:10:30from the period is here, in the middle of the Wiltshire countryside.
0:10:30 > 0:10:33You'll work out what it is when you notice the chimney.
0:10:38 > 0:10:41Steam power would make Britain the most advanced nation on earth.
0:10:41 > 0:10:44It drove a technological revolution that would change
0:10:44 > 0:10:46the face of the country
0:10:46 > 0:10:48and create social tensions
0:10:48 > 0:10:51that would threaten to sweep the monarchy away.
0:10:53 > 0:10:57The Crofton steam engine is still doing its original work
0:10:57 > 0:11:00of keeping the Kennet and Avon topped up with water.
0:11:00 > 0:11:03And its engineer today is Harry Willis.
0:11:05 > 0:11:09- So, Harry. What have we got here? - We've got the oldest working steam engine in the world.
0:11:09 > 0:11:14- Is it yours?- Well, it's not mine, but I'm certainly responsible for managing it.
0:11:14 > 0:11:18- What do you need to do to it? - These levers control the passage of steam through the engine.
0:11:18 > 0:11:21You need to use them when you're starting or stopping it
0:11:21 > 0:11:24and also during the running of it.
0:11:24 > 0:11:26- So this is the nerve centre? - This is the nerve centre.
0:11:26 > 0:11:29This is the driving platform.
0:11:29 > 0:11:30- Can I drive?- You certainly can,
0:11:30 > 0:11:33but you'll need to put a boiler suit on first.
0:11:33 > 0:11:35OK, I'm going to get kitted up like you.
0:11:42 > 0:11:46- Here I am, ready to drive. - Right.
0:11:46 > 0:11:48What need's doing? Shall we slow it down?
0:11:48 > 0:11:53You can close that a little bit. Move it to the left a little bit.
0:11:53 > 0:11:57- I'm reducing the... - Reducing the steam, that's right.
0:11:57 > 0:12:01It's hard to imagine how impressive this must have been to someone
0:12:01 > 0:12:03who hadn't seen machinery before.
0:12:03 > 0:12:07Exactly, and the impact on the local inhabitants as well,
0:12:07 > 0:12:09who'd have only seen horse-drawn transport.
0:12:09 > 0:12:11Then this thing came and began to belch smoke
0:12:11 > 0:12:15- and make noises.- You can hear it from some distance away, can't you?
0:12:15 > 0:12:18- Going, "Throb! Throb! Throb!"- Yeah.
0:12:18 > 0:12:21- In fact, a heart is quite a good analogy.- That's right.
0:12:21 > 0:12:24- It was keeping the blood of Britain, the canal, flowing.- Exactly.
0:12:24 > 0:12:26Give it a bit more to the right.
0:12:26 > 0:12:28A bit more steam to the right or else it will stop.
0:12:28 > 0:12:31Come on, give it some welly.
0:12:31 > 0:12:33That's it, it's OK.
0:12:33 > 0:12:36- There is a tremendous amount of power here in your hands.- Yeah.
0:12:38 > 0:12:41I just want to go faster and faster.
0:12:48 > 0:12:51The Crofton beam engine lifts 11 tons of water
0:12:51 > 0:12:53up to the canal every minute
0:12:53 > 0:12:57There had been waterwheels and windmills before, but in the Regency
0:12:57 > 0:13:00super-efficient steam engines produced power unimaginable
0:13:00 > 0:13:03to previous ages.
0:13:05 > 0:13:07For the first time, you could generate power
0:13:07 > 0:13:11wherever you had coal for the furnace and water for the boiler.
0:13:14 > 0:13:18The steam engine liberated and multiplied all that was possible.
0:13:18 > 0:13:21In the 1810s, this Boulton & Watt beam engine
0:13:21 > 0:13:24was at the forefront of technological achievement.
0:13:24 > 0:13:28The first wonder of the new industrial age.
0:13:29 > 0:13:34Steam power is one of history's great leaps forward.
0:13:34 > 0:13:38Manufacturing is taken out of people's houses
0:13:38 > 0:13:39and put into factories.
0:13:39 > 0:13:44So we get a concentration of machinery, of manpower,
0:13:44 > 0:13:46of the population itself.
0:13:46 > 0:13:49We get the birth of our industrial cities.
0:13:53 > 0:13:56The Industrial Revolution of the Regent's time
0:13:56 > 0:13:59was one of the great discontinuities of history,
0:13:59 > 0:14:02where everything after was so little like what had gone before.
0:14:02 > 0:14:06'I spoke to the industrial historian Neil Cossons
0:14:06 > 0:14:10'on how it affected those who witnessed these changes.'
0:14:10 > 0:14:13What do you think it felt like to live through this period?
0:14:13 > 0:14:18There is no question in my mind that people through the Regency period
0:14:18 > 0:14:20knew that they were living in tempestuous times.
0:14:20 > 0:14:24You only have to dig a little below the surface, I think,
0:14:24 > 0:14:27and go into these new industrial communities
0:14:27 > 0:14:30to see both sides of the coin. Immense prosperity
0:14:30 > 0:14:34and huge social deprivation.
0:14:34 > 0:14:37On the other hand, it's worth remembering that the numbers of jobs
0:14:37 > 0:14:40that were created as a result of industrialisation were huge.
0:14:40 > 0:14:47So whereas small numbers of cottage-based industries
0:14:47 > 0:14:51went into decline, they were replaced by huge numbers of jobs
0:14:51 > 0:14:54and mass migrations from the countryside
0:14:54 > 0:14:57into the new industrial communities.
0:14:57 > 0:15:00Let's have a look at your favourite picture.
0:15:00 > 0:15:02This is certainly one of my favourites,
0:15:02 > 0:15:06largely because I lived perhaps 200 yards
0:15:06 > 0:15:09- from where the artist stood when he painted it.- Yeah.
0:15:09 > 0:15:11That's a view looking down the valley
0:15:11 > 0:15:14of the River Severn, with bedlam furnaces
0:15:14 > 0:15:17and the silhouette of the dwellings
0:15:17 > 0:15:20and associated buildings in front of it.
0:15:20 > 0:15:24This is a scene painter's, a theatre painter's view.
0:15:24 > 0:15:29Philip de Loutherbourg's picture of Coalbrookdale By Night.
0:15:29 > 0:15:33He's made it look awe-inspiring and wonderful and sort of magical.
0:15:33 > 0:15:35- Hasn't he? - A sort of Dante's Inferno view, too.
0:15:35 > 0:15:37So he's saying, "Isn't it great?
0:15:37 > 0:15:41- "Look at this power, strength, magnificence." Do you think? - Absolutely.
0:15:41 > 0:15:44That's one of the archetypal images
0:15:44 > 0:15:47of the middle industrial revolution.
0:15:47 > 0:15:51But there is also, I think, a statement of an entirely new world.
0:15:51 > 0:15:54- Mm-hm.- And Turner, similarly, and his view of Leeds.- Yeah.
0:15:54 > 0:15:59Now, that painting shows an urban scene
0:15:59 > 0:16:02which would have been impossible
0:16:02 > 0:16:0420 years earlier.
0:16:04 > 0:16:07Because you see large factories and chimneys,
0:16:07 > 0:16:10which would be the chimneys of the steam engines
0:16:10 > 0:16:12that powered the machines in those factories.
0:16:12 > 0:16:16And that would have been an entirely new vision.
0:16:16 > 0:16:20And uniquely English, or shall we say British, at that period.
0:16:20 > 0:16:23I like the way you've got the contrast
0:16:23 > 0:16:25of the dark satanic mills in the background,
0:16:25 > 0:16:28and then you've got almost a rural scene here.
0:16:28 > 0:16:32You've got people going about their business, building a wall,
0:16:32 > 0:16:33going on a journey on donkeys.
0:16:33 > 0:16:36They're doing something to do with the textile industry.
0:16:36 > 0:16:39Are they drying, bleaching, colouring cloths?
0:16:40 > 0:16:42- They might be doing any of those things.- OK!
0:16:42 > 0:16:47But the interesting aspect of that is you have, in parallel,
0:16:47 > 0:16:49- the pre-industrial world. - Still going on.
0:16:49 > 0:16:52- And the new industrial world. - And that's a paradox?
0:16:52 > 0:16:55So there were rural scenes and rural communities
0:16:55 > 0:16:58that were hardly touched by the impact of industrialisation.
0:16:58 > 0:17:01One of the things that we need to remember
0:17:01 > 0:17:05is that we've been taught more about the evils of industrialisation
0:17:05 > 0:17:09than the good bits of it, for generations.
0:17:09 > 0:17:12And what the industrial revolution has hidden, in a sense,
0:17:12 > 0:17:15partly because it was so all-embracing,
0:17:15 > 0:17:18is the appalling working and living conditions
0:17:18 > 0:17:21- of the pre-industrial rural poor. - Mm-hm.
0:17:21 > 0:17:25And the squalor and extraordinary deprivation
0:17:25 > 0:17:28and grindingness of the poverty
0:17:28 > 0:17:31of the rural labourer
0:17:31 > 0:17:35was at least as bad and possibly much worse
0:17:35 > 0:17:38than the mill worker of a generation
0:17:38 > 0:17:40or two generations later.
0:17:43 > 0:17:47Textile mills gave many jobs to the men, women and children
0:17:47 > 0:17:52driven off the countryside in ever greater numbers during the decade.
0:17:54 > 0:17:58But mechanisation came at a high human cost, when each fresh invention
0:17:58 > 0:18:03or new machine could wipe out a family's livelihood at a stroke.
0:18:06 > 0:18:09In the Prince Regent's lifetime,
0:18:09 > 0:18:11spinning was revolutionised.
0:18:11 > 0:18:16It went from being a case of one person operating one spinning wheel
0:18:16 > 0:18:21and producing just one spindle of thread, to machines like this.
0:18:21 > 0:18:23This one's got 714 spindles.
0:18:23 > 0:18:26Still operated by just one worker,
0:18:26 > 0:18:29but it means that 713 spinners
0:18:29 > 0:18:32have lost their jobs.
0:18:33 > 0:18:36Many people reacted with fear, and then with anger.
0:18:36 > 0:18:40In the 1810s, gangs started to roam about the Midlands and the North
0:18:40 > 0:18:45smashing up the new machines, much to the fury of the Tory government.
0:18:45 > 0:18:49These men were called frame-breakers or, more commonly, Luddites.
0:18:51 > 0:18:55Although Luddism was a grassroots movement,
0:18:55 > 0:19:00it had an aristocratic supporter in the person of Lord Byron.
0:19:00 > 0:19:02In 1812, Lord Byron got really upset
0:19:02 > 0:19:05by the plight of the Nottinghamshire weavers.
0:19:05 > 0:19:09Some of them were Luddites and they fell foul of this new bill
0:19:09 > 0:19:13being introduced by the Tories called The Frame-Breaking Bill.
0:19:13 > 0:19:16Anybody caught breaking or damaging machinery
0:19:16 > 0:19:17would now face the death penalty.
0:19:17 > 0:19:21Byron thought this was outrageously repressive
0:19:21 > 0:19:23and he travelled south to London by coach
0:19:23 > 0:19:27to plead the cause of the weavers in his maiden speech
0:19:27 > 0:19:29in the House of Lords.
0:19:33 > 0:19:37Byron arrived and launched into this passionate speech,
0:19:37 > 0:19:41defending the Luddites. Perhaps even went a bit over the top.
0:19:41 > 0:19:45He was arguing against the death penalty for breaking machines.
0:19:45 > 0:19:48He said, yes, the Luddites had committed outrages,
0:19:48 > 0:19:51but that this had arisen from circumstances
0:19:51 > 0:19:53of the most unparalleled distress.
0:19:53 > 0:19:56He was shaking and trembling with emotion.
0:19:56 > 0:19:59He said that the Luddites had not been ashamed to beg,
0:19:59 > 0:20:01but there had been no-one to relieve them.
0:20:01 > 0:20:06He said that their excesses, however to be deplored and condemned,
0:20:06 > 0:20:09could hardly be subject to surprise.
0:20:09 > 0:20:12Now, did Byron get what he wanted?
0:20:12 > 0:20:17No, he didn't. This pouting and posturing had slightly annoyed the other lords.
0:20:17 > 0:20:22As soon as Byron sat down, they passed their bill anyway.
0:20:22 > 0:20:26But Byron was suddenly to become a literary superstar,
0:20:26 > 0:20:29when his narrative poem called Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
0:20:29 > 0:20:32was published the following month.
0:20:32 > 0:20:37The first edition sold out in three days and London was intoxicated.
0:20:37 > 0:20:40There was traffic chaos as carriages queued up to drop off
0:20:40 > 0:20:43dinner invitations at his rooms in St James's.
0:20:43 > 0:20:46It was a real overnight success.
0:20:46 > 0:20:53In Byron's own words, I awoke one morning and found myself famous.
0:20:53 > 0:20:56Childe Harold's Pilgrimage gave a war-locked nation
0:20:56 > 0:21:00a tantalising glimpse of Mediterranean Europe.
0:21:00 > 0:21:02It also marked an early stage
0:21:02 > 0:21:07in Byron's management of his own mysterious, exotic, rakish image.
0:21:07 > 0:21:12An image that consciously played up his theatrical, seductive character.
0:21:12 > 0:21:15One not bound by social conventions,
0:21:15 > 0:21:19one who flirted with the dangerous frontiers of the acceptable.
0:21:19 > 0:21:24In a very modern way Byron maintained strict picture approval.
0:21:24 > 0:21:29He rejected one innocent boyish portrait but authorised
0:21:29 > 0:21:32another very camp canvas of himself in full Albanian costume.
0:21:39 > 0:21:44But Byron's image didn't always match with Byron in the flesh.
0:21:44 > 0:21:47I went to the London wine merchants, Berry Brothers,
0:21:47 > 0:21:48to see some documentary evidence
0:21:48 > 0:21:53that Lord Byron was not always the snake-hipped seducer of legend.
0:21:56 > 0:21:59Now in here I think we've got
0:21:59 > 0:22:03Lord Byron, there he is, he was first weighed in 1806,
0:22:03 > 0:22:09he was 18 years old and he was only 5'8'' tall.
0:22:09 > 0:22:13He comes in at a pretty hefty 13 stone 12.
0:22:13 > 0:22:15That was wearing his boots, but not his hat.
0:22:15 > 0:22:18That's borderline obese for a teenager.
0:22:18 > 0:22:21He wasn't always the irresistible Adonis of legend
0:22:21 > 0:22:25and we know he took a lot of trouble to try to reduce his weight.
0:22:25 > 0:22:27We hear about him playing cricket,
0:22:27 > 0:22:31wearing seven waistcoats and a great coat in an attempt to sweat it off
0:22:31 > 0:22:34and sometimes at dinner he would refuse all food
0:22:34 > 0:22:36except for soda water and biscuits.
0:22:36 > 0:22:41This worked - five years later, by 1811 he's lost four stone,
0:22:41 > 0:22:46he's gone right down to nine stone 11, pretty svelte.
0:22:51 > 0:22:53I think I'll give it a go myself.
0:22:57 > 0:22:59That just about balances,
0:22:59 > 0:23:03but I'm not telling you how much weight there is on the other side.
0:23:05 > 0:23:09Being a dissolute poet was scandalous enough, but the behaviour
0:23:09 > 0:23:13of the bloated Prince Regent was truly shocking to his subjects.
0:23:13 > 0:23:15His affairs with his mistresses
0:23:15 > 0:23:19outraged the God-fearing, respectable, populace.
0:23:20 > 0:23:22George was a serial adulterer
0:23:22 > 0:23:26in a way that opened up to enormous ridicule.
0:23:26 > 0:23:27Ironically, the one woman
0:23:27 > 0:23:31who was free from his sexual attentions was his wife.
0:23:31 > 0:23:35Caroline of Brunswick was his German mail-order bride
0:23:35 > 0:23:39and when she arrived in London George famously said on seeing her,
0:23:39 > 0:23:43"Harris, I am not well, pray bring the brandy."
0:23:43 > 0:23:48And she said, "He wasn't that fat in his portrait!"
0:23:48 > 0:23:50Their wedding was a disaster.
0:23:50 > 0:23:54He'd only agreed to it to help clear his debts, he complained
0:23:54 > 0:23:58about her offensive smell and he was drunk at the ceremony.
0:23:58 > 0:24:00They did manage to produce an heir,
0:24:00 > 0:24:03but after the honeymoon they were never intimate again.
0:24:05 > 0:24:09George was largely indifferent to his only child and heir, Charlotte,
0:24:09 > 0:24:11and chose not see her very often,
0:24:11 > 0:24:15much preferring the company of one of his many mistresses.
0:24:15 > 0:24:21His selfish and extravagant lifestyle had become a national disgrace.
0:24:25 > 0:24:28Maybe George's debauched behaviour
0:24:28 > 0:24:32annoyed the gods, provoking them to send destruction.
0:24:32 > 0:24:38In April 1815, a volcano erupted far away in Indonesia.
0:24:38 > 0:24:43It had a dramatic effect on the world's weather
0:24:43 > 0:24:44and the political climate.
0:24:44 > 0:24:47Tongues of flame leaped high into the sky.
0:24:47 > 0:24:49Explosions ripped the air
0:24:49 > 0:24:52and smoke and ash swirled high above the Java sea.
0:24:52 > 0:24:57Beneath the volcano over 70,000 perished.
0:24:57 > 0:25:01It seemed like the end of the world.
0:25:01 > 0:25:06Mount Tambora's eruption was the largest in recorded history.
0:25:06 > 0:25:10The explosion was heard over 1200 miles away.
0:25:10 > 0:25:16160 cubic kilometres of debris were thrown into the atmosphere
0:25:16 > 0:25:21creating a volcanic winter which lasted the whole of the next year.
0:25:21 > 0:25:24In Europe crops would fail,
0:25:24 > 0:25:29livestock die, and people starve.
0:25:33 > 0:25:35But the fires and shadows of Tambora
0:25:35 > 0:25:42had the most surprising effect on the imagination of one young woman.
0:25:42 > 0:25:46One of the greatest literary creations of the regency period
0:25:46 > 0:25:50was Frankenstein, by Mary Godwin, she was first the mistress
0:25:50 > 0:25:54and later the wife of the notorious Percy Shelley.
0:25:54 > 0:25:57The original manuscript is here at the Bodleian,
0:25:57 > 0:26:00normally only scholars get to see it.
0:26:04 > 0:26:06This priceless manuscript is kept safe in Oxford,
0:26:06 > 0:26:08high up in the tower of the Bodliean library.
0:26:08 > 0:26:14There I am going to meet writer Daisy Hay, an expert on Mary Shelley.
0:26:14 > 0:26:16And she can tell me about Mary's curious Swiss holiday.
0:26:16 > 0:26:21A holiday that gave form to one of fiction's enduring creations.
0:26:21 > 0:26:25Daisy, Hello, thanks for having me.
0:26:25 > 0:26:27- Pleasure.- What have we got?
0:26:27 > 0:26:29We've got the manuscript of Frankenstein
0:26:29 > 0:26:33and some pictures of Mary and Byron and Shelley.
0:26:33 > 0:26:38OK. So tell me about this holiday on the banks of Lake Geneva.
0:26:38 > 0:26:43In the spring of 1816 Byron leaves England for good
0:26:43 > 0:26:49and heads down the Rhine Valley to Geneva, London has become too hot.
0:26:49 > 0:26:54He is joined there kind of by accident by Shelley and by
0:26:54 > 0:26:58Shelley's mistress, Mary Godwin, and Mary's stepsister Claire Claremont.
0:26:58 > 0:27:01This is a really complicated situation.
0:27:01 > 0:27:05So we've got the two Romantic poets and we've got the two sisters
0:27:05 > 0:27:08and the second sister is kind of stalking Byron.
0:27:08 > 0:27:13The second one has decided she wants a radical poet of her own
0:27:13 > 0:27:16and she writes to Byron and offers herself to him.
0:27:16 > 0:27:20An offer which he accepts, and this results in a very brief affair
0:27:20 > 0:27:22just before Byron leaves London.
0:27:22 > 0:27:25Thereafter Claire persuades Shelley and Mary
0:27:25 > 0:27:27that they should follow Byron to Geneva.
0:27:27 > 0:27:31So they all meet on the shores of Lake Geneva in the summer of 1816,
0:27:31 > 0:27:33having arrived by different ways.
0:27:33 > 0:27:36And Byron takes a large villa,
0:27:36 > 0:27:40a grand house on the shores of Lake Geneva called the Villa Diodati.
0:27:40 > 0:27:41And it rains a lot.
0:27:41 > 0:27:45The weather was an important part of distorted, isn't it?
0:27:45 > 0:27:46Yes, the weather turns.
0:27:46 > 0:27:48Thunder echoes round the lake.
0:27:48 > 0:27:51There are huge lightning storms
0:27:51 > 0:27:56and the group retreat inside to tell ghost stories and to read Coleridge.
0:27:56 > 0:27:59The weather is bad all over the world, isn't it?
0:27:59 > 0:28:00Because of the volcano.
0:28:00 > 0:28:04Yes, so right across the northern hemisphere
0:28:04 > 0:28:07crops fail and the sun disappears.
0:28:07 > 0:28:09There was terrible distress
0:28:09 > 0:28:13which they all come back to in England in 1816.
0:28:13 > 0:28:16So what they are experiencing is part of a much wider phenomenon.
0:28:16 > 0:28:20So they're all cooped up together telling ghost stories and
0:28:20 > 0:28:23Mary's turns out be the best of the lot, doesn't it?
0:28:23 > 0:28:25It does but initially it doesn't happen easily for her.
0:28:25 > 0:28:28Everybody us get on with their ghost story quite quickly
0:28:28 > 0:28:29and she can't think of one.
0:28:29 > 0:28:32Until one night she has a nightmare,
0:28:32 > 0:28:34she called it a waking dream, and this vision
0:28:34 > 0:28:39of the moment in which her monster Frankenstein is created comes to her
0:28:39 > 0:28:40and then she's able to say,
0:28:40 > 0:28:43"I have thought of a story", the following morning.
0:28:43 > 0:28:47And here's the actual moment in her own handwriting. This is great.
0:28:47 > 0:28:50This is the moment the monster
0:28:50 > 0:28:55comes to life and the narrator says in the glimmer of the half
0:28:55 > 0:29:00extinguished light I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open.
0:29:00 > 0:29:03And then down here
0:29:03 > 0:29:05Shelley, her future husband, he's annotated it,
0:29:05 > 0:29:07he's improve the writing.
0:29:07 > 0:29:09Do you think he's improved it?
0:29:09 > 0:29:13Throughout you can see Shelley's annotations in the margin.
0:29:13 > 0:29:16You can see the difference between Shelley's handwriting and Mary's.
0:29:16 > 0:29:18He edited the manuscript as
0:29:18 > 0:29:20she went along so you can see that he's changed,
0:29:20 > 0:29:24for example, handsome for beautiful
0:29:24 > 0:29:28and has added a description of the hair here as lustrous black.
0:29:28 > 0:29:32What's the significance of Shelley changing it?
0:29:32 > 0:29:35What do you think he's added to the story?
0:29:35 > 0:29:37There's something about lustrous black,
0:29:37 > 0:29:39he's sharpened the contrast, I think.
0:29:39 > 0:29:42We've got this creature described in terms of colour, yellow,
0:29:42 > 0:29:46but now there's something almost unearthly
0:29:46 > 0:29:48about the vividness of this, I think.
0:29:48 > 0:29:51The change to beautiful rather than handsome,
0:29:51 > 0:29:55there's somehow something more inhuman about it, I think.
0:29:55 > 0:29:59What was the atmosphere like at the villa?
0:29:59 > 0:30:02Because Byron was definitely the most successful of them so far.
0:30:02 > 0:30:05Was it like a rock star with his groupies?
0:30:06 > 0:30:08Well, I think, as you say, he was the most famous, he's older,
0:30:08 > 0:30:12he's richer, an established poet, but I think that perhaps
0:30:12 > 0:30:14what the atmosphere was like, it always seems to me
0:30:14 > 0:30:16to be quite like those conversations
0:30:16 > 0:30:18you have late into the night when you're a student.
0:30:18 > 0:30:20They are all very young.
0:30:20 > 0:30:23Did you practise free love late in the night when you were a student?
0:30:23 > 0:30:27Ah, no! But you know when you argue about things and stay up to 3am
0:30:27 > 0:30:29and that seems to me to be quite familiar,
0:30:29 > 0:30:34the way they are to each other, that very intense way you are
0:30:34 > 0:30:37when you're young and working out what you think about the world.
0:30:37 > 0:30:40Here's another bit of Shelley inserting his views.
0:30:40 > 0:30:42What does that one say?
0:30:42 > 0:30:45This is a section with quite a long bit of Shelley annotation,
0:30:45 > 0:30:48it starts here and goes over the page.
0:30:48 > 0:30:52This is where he's talking about the virtues of a republican system
0:30:52 > 0:30:55rather than a system with monarchies,
0:30:55 > 0:30:57and talking about this in terms of how you treat those
0:30:57 > 0:31:01who are more vulnerable than you, particularly about servant classes
0:31:01 > 0:31:04and how the system of having servants in Switzerland,
0:31:04 > 0:31:08which is a republican country, is preferable to that in England.
0:31:08 > 0:31:11He's saying, "The republican institutions of our country
0:31:11 > 0:31:14"have produced simpler and happier manners than those
0:31:14 > 0:31:18"which prevail in the great monarchies that surround it."
0:31:18 > 0:31:21So, this is a Shelleyian manifesto, I suppose,
0:31:21 > 0:31:23sneaking its way into Frankenstein.
0:31:23 > 0:31:27And Shelley isn't alone, is he, in this decade, the 1810's?
0:31:27 > 0:31:32There's a lot of respectable people talking up against absolute monarchy.
0:31:32 > 0:31:33There really is,
0:31:33 > 0:31:36and for people like Shelley and those around him,
0:31:36 > 0:31:39the way in which power is concentrated in the hands
0:31:39 > 0:31:42of a tiny minority seems to become untenable,
0:31:42 > 0:31:46so Shelley writes a proposal for putting reform to the vote,
0:31:46 > 0:31:51he wants there to be a referendum on universal manhood suffrage,
0:31:51 > 0:31:53so there is a feeling that
0:31:53 > 0:31:57the way in which British society is structured cannot go on.
0:32:01 > 0:32:07In 1816, Britain's small ruling elite were facing their own nightmare -
0:32:07 > 0:32:11a population suffering unemployment and starvation demanded reform.
0:32:11 > 0:32:14The pressure from the new urban masses
0:32:14 > 0:32:16was every bit as terrifying to the government
0:32:16 > 0:32:18as Frankenstein's monster.
0:32:18 > 0:32:21The vote in Regency England
0:32:21 > 0:32:24was limited to a ridiculously small number.
0:32:24 > 0:32:28Lots of MPs were returned by so-called pocket or rotten boroughs.
0:32:28 > 0:32:31Dunwich had all but disappeared into the North Sea,
0:32:31 > 0:32:35and the medieval settlement of Old Sarum had only 15 voters,
0:32:35 > 0:32:38yet both returned two MPs,
0:32:38 > 0:32:39while the bustling cities
0:32:39 > 0:32:43of Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester had no MPs at all.
0:32:43 > 0:32:48The clamour for fairer parliamentary representation
0:32:48 > 0:32:51was becoming louder and more insistent.
0:32:54 > 0:32:58The Prime Minister, Lord Liverpool, and his cabinet,
0:32:58 > 0:33:02seemed deaf to the demands of the growing urban population.
0:33:02 > 0:33:06In 1816, the tension between the two boiled over,
0:33:06 > 0:33:09when a gathering of leading radicals addressed a mass meeting
0:33:09 > 0:33:12at Spa Fields in north London.
0:33:14 > 0:33:17Here are the two perpetrators or ringleaders -
0:33:17 > 0:33:20one of them is Henry Hunt, Henry 'Orator' Hunt, as he's called.
0:33:20 > 0:33:24He's quite a classy individual, he's 43 years old,
0:33:24 > 0:33:28he's a prosperous farmer, and what he wants his universal suffrage.
0:33:28 > 0:33:31He wants an annual election to Parliament,
0:33:31 > 0:33:34he wants quite a gentle version of reform, I suppose.
0:33:34 > 0:33:38The great advantage he has as a radical leader is his voice -
0:33:38 > 0:33:41he has a great pair of lungs, he can address an enormous crowd,
0:33:41 > 0:33:44and in 1816 he'd been all over Britain
0:33:44 > 0:33:47addressing these huge gatherings of reformers.
0:33:47 > 0:33:50He'd spoken to 80,000 people in Birmingham,
0:33:50 > 0:33:53in Blackburn, 40,000 had turned up to hear him.
0:33:53 > 0:33:55In Nottingham, it was 20,000,
0:33:55 > 0:33:57in Stockport it was 20,000 again,
0:33:57 > 0:34:00and in Macclesfield, 10,000 people,
0:34:00 > 0:34:03so he was a very, very popular speaker.
0:34:03 > 0:34:06The other ringleader was Arthur Thistlewood,
0:34:06 > 0:34:08he's a very different cup of tea.
0:34:08 > 0:34:11He's a little bit older, he's 46, he's not a farmer,
0:34:11 > 0:34:13but is the illegitimate son of one,
0:34:13 > 0:34:16and this should set off alarm bells with the authorities -
0:34:16 > 0:34:19he spent time in revolutionary France.
0:34:19 > 0:34:21Maybe he's taken in some Jacobean ideas.
0:34:21 > 0:34:26In fact, he has. He's from a group called the Spencean Philanthropists
0:34:26 > 0:34:28and what he wants is violent revolution
0:34:28 > 0:34:32followed by the total redistribution of property.
0:34:32 > 0:34:37So, in November 1816, a great crowd gathers at Spa Fields
0:34:37 > 0:34:39and they demand reform.
0:34:39 > 0:34:41They draw up a list of things they want -
0:34:41 > 0:34:43universal suffrage and annual elections.
0:34:43 > 0:34:48This is sent to the Prince Regent, but there is no reply,
0:34:48 > 0:34:51he completely ignores them.
0:34:51 > 0:34:53So, a month later, in December,
0:34:53 > 0:34:57the crowd gathers again at Spa Fields,
0:34:57 > 0:34:59and this time there's fighting, it's a riot.
0:34:59 > 0:35:03Arthur Thistlewood is arrested, but he escapes imprisonment,
0:35:03 > 0:35:05he gets off on a technicality.
0:35:05 > 0:35:10After Spa Fields, the roads of these two men diverge,
0:35:10 > 0:35:13one peaceful, the other increasingly violent.
0:35:15 > 0:35:17Thistlewood was now even more determined
0:35:17 > 0:35:21to incite the London mob into bloody revolution.
0:35:21 > 0:35:26The Regent, who'd loftily ignored the petitions of his people,
0:35:26 > 0:35:29was now to feel their wrath at first hand.
0:35:29 > 0:35:34By 1817, those voices of discontent were growing louder.
0:35:34 > 0:35:37In January of that year, the Prince Regent in his coach
0:35:37 > 0:35:41on the way home from Parliament, where he'd been making an address,
0:35:41 > 0:35:44when he got surrounded by an angry mob.
0:35:44 > 0:35:47They were shouting, "Seize him! Seize him!"
0:35:47 > 0:35:49and, "Throw things! Throw things!"
0:35:49 > 0:35:52And they called him names too rude to be printed in the Times.
0:35:52 > 0:35:54Suddenly, there was a loud crack...
0:35:54 > 0:35:57HORSE WHINNIES ..the glass of the windows got broken,
0:35:57 > 0:36:01George thought that this was an assassination attempt.
0:36:01 > 0:36:04He offered a £1,000 reward for the catching of the criminal.
0:36:04 > 0:36:07But then people started asking questions -
0:36:07 > 0:36:11nobody had actually seen a gun, and nobody had smelt any smoke,
0:36:11 > 0:36:14maybe it was all in his imagination.
0:36:14 > 0:36:16This turned out to be the case.
0:36:16 > 0:36:19The thing that probed the window wasn't a bullet at all.
0:36:19 > 0:36:22It was just an ordinary little pebble.
0:36:22 > 0:36:26The Regent, at 55, was under-employed,
0:36:26 > 0:36:29overdrawn and overweight.
0:36:29 > 0:36:30He was a laughing stock.
0:36:30 > 0:36:34In a society jaded by George's excesses,
0:36:34 > 0:36:38his subjects wished to see in his daughter, Charlotte,
0:36:38 > 0:36:40a purer image of royalty.
0:36:40 > 0:36:42A princess untainted by the gluttony
0:36:42 > 0:36:45and sexual incontinence of the Regent.
0:36:45 > 0:36:50Aged 20, with great celebration, she married a German prince,
0:36:50 > 0:36:52Leopold of Saxe-Coburg,
0:36:52 > 0:36:57and settled here at Claremont House in Surrey.
0:37:00 > 0:37:04As a child, Princess Charlotte was neglected by her father.
0:37:04 > 0:37:07But here, she found contentment and happiness,
0:37:07 > 0:37:10and, in 1817, Britain was delighted with the news
0:37:10 > 0:37:12that she'd got pregnant.
0:37:12 > 0:37:15Perhaps an heir would provide a brighter future
0:37:15 > 0:37:19for the Hanoverian dynasty which her father brought into such disrepute.
0:37:19 > 0:37:22But, it wasn't going to end happily.
0:37:22 > 0:37:25After a 48 hour labour up there,
0:37:25 > 0:37:28poor Charlotte's son was born dead
0:37:28 > 0:37:30and she died a few hours later.
0:37:30 > 0:37:32In this one dreadful night,
0:37:32 > 0:37:36the whole royal line of the Prince Regent ended.
0:37:43 > 0:37:48People said it was as though every household had lost a favourite child.
0:37:48 > 0:37:52The whole country mourned, and drapers sold out of black cloth.
0:37:52 > 0:37:54On hearing the news, her mother,
0:37:54 > 0:37:56Princess Caroline, fainted with shock.
0:38:00 > 0:38:03George, who'd always been a dreadful father,
0:38:03 > 0:38:08was crippled with grief, and unable to face his own daughter's funeral.
0:38:08 > 0:38:13She was buried, her son at her feet, in St George's Chapel at Windsor.
0:38:15 > 0:38:17After Charlotte's death,
0:38:17 > 0:38:22a public subscription was launched to build a monument to honour her.
0:38:22 > 0:38:24The response was phenomenal -
0:38:24 > 0:38:27in two years, over £12,000 had been raised,
0:38:27 > 0:38:29and the sculptor Matthew Cotes Wyatt
0:38:29 > 0:38:32was commissioned to make this Cenotaph.
0:38:32 > 0:38:35It must be one of the most spectacular works of art
0:38:35 > 0:38:36of the Regency.
0:38:36 > 0:38:40Down below Charlotte's body the mourners are heavily,
0:38:40 > 0:38:42realistically draped with cloth,
0:38:44 > 0:38:46And up above, the angels
0:38:46 > 0:38:49are carrying Charlotte and her baby up to heaven.
0:38:55 > 0:38:59There's no sense of British reserve or stiff upper lip here,
0:38:59 > 0:39:05and rightly so, because the monument was paid for by thousands of ordinary people
0:39:05 > 0:39:07who wanted a record of their grief.
0:39:10 > 0:39:13To them, Charlotte had been the future of the monarchy,
0:39:13 > 0:39:16the future of Britain, and here she is,
0:39:16 > 0:39:20tragically young, being carried away by angels.
0:39:27 > 0:39:31Although there was a genuine public outpouring of emotion,
0:39:31 > 0:39:34the bitter conflicts of the years following Waterloo
0:39:34 > 0:39:37hadn't been forgotten by one Republican.
0:39:43 > 0:39:45On a November day here in Marlowe,
0:39:45 > 0:39:48Shelley heard about the death at Claremont.
0:39:48 > 0:39:51It inspired him to write a political pamphlet.
0:39:51 > 0:39:56He called it, An Address To The Nation On The Death Of Princess Charlotte.
0:39:58 > 0:40:02But this wasn't to be a simple eulogy.
0:40:02 > 0:40:06The pamphlet also mourned the death of three men who were executed
0:40:06 > 0:40:09on the day following Princess Charlotte's death.
0:40:09 > 0:40:12These three were workers from Derbyshire.
0:40:12 > 0:40:15They'd been involved in a protest march calling for reform,
0:40:15 > 0:40:19but they'd been set up to it by a government spy.
0:40:22 > 0:40:27Shelley was one of the few radicals to risk open publication of his views.
0:40:27 > 0:40:29"Liberty is dead," he wrote.
0:40:29 > 0:40:32"Fetters heavier than iron weigh upon us,
0:40:32 > 0:40:35because they bind our souls."
0:40:35 > 0:40:38The government seemed to have no answer
0:40:38 > 0:40:42to the pressure for democratic change that was coming from below.
0:40:43 > 0:40:49The morning of the 19th August, 1819, was hot and cloudless.
0:40:49 > 0:40:53On that morning, a cloth worker called John Lees left his home in Oldham.
0:40:53 > 0:40:57He wanted to go into Manchester to attend a big rally
0:40:57 > 0:41:00for parliamentary reform that was being held in St Peter's Fields.
0:41:00 > 0:41:06He and 60,000 other people wanted to hear the famous orator, Henry Hunt.
0:41:07 > 0:41:11Orator Hunt, the champion of Spa Fields,
0:41:11 > 0:41:13was perhaps the best man in Britain to inspire
0:41:13 > 0:41:17and lead large crowds in the call for greater freedom.
0:41:17 > 0:41:22At half-past one, Henry 'Orator' Hunt arrived at this spot
0:41:22 > 0:41:26and he climbed up on to a cart to address the crowd.
0:41:26 > 0:41:30He would have seen 60,000 people watching him,
0:41:30 > 0:41:34all crammed into this area about the size of two football pitches.
0:41:34 > 0:41:37But it was quiet, these people were unarmed,
0:41:37 > 0:41:39they were sober, they were behaving very well
0:41:39 > 0:41:42and they'd come dressed in their Sunday best.
0:41:44 > 0:41:47So, Orator Hunt is all ready to go with his speech,
0:41:47 > 0:41:51but the local magistrates are watching from a house just over there,
0:41:51 > 0:41:54and they just can't believe that his speech is going to go off peacefully,
0:41:54 > 0:41:56and they panic.
0:41:56 > 0:41:59They send in the special constables and the local militia,
0:41:59 > 0:42:02called the Yeomanry, to arrest Orator Hunt.
0:42:02 > 0:42:05The crowd tried to protect him by linking their arms,
0:42:05 > 0:42:08but the Yeomanry are only volunteers,
0:42:08 > 0:42:10they start waving their sabres around.
0:42:10 > 0:42:14They're clearly out of their depth, so the proper soldiers are called in.
0:42:14 > 0:42:19Two bands of Hussars are summoned and ordered to clear the square.
0:42:29 > 0:42:33This is Chetham's Library in Manchester.
0:42:33 > 0:42:38It was founded in 1653 and it's the oldest public library in Britain.
0:42:38 > 0:42:41It was well known to the radicals of Regency Manchester,
0:42:41 > 0:42:44and lots of their original documents still survive here.
0:42:49 > 0:42:52I've come to look at the contemporary evidence
0:42:52 > 0:42:54with the historian Robert Poole
0:42:54 > 0:42:58to find out how a peaceful protest turned into a bloody massacre.
0:42:59 > 0:43:03So, what kind of a man was he, Henry Hunt?
0:43:03 > 0:43:06He was called Orator Hunt as well, wasn't he, because he had enormous lungs?
0:43:06 > 0:43:10Yes, Hunt was also a powerful personality.
0:43:10 > 0:43:13He said, "I'm a gentleman farmer with a small fortune
0:43:13 > 0:43:16"and a friend of the people," and he contrasted himself
0:43:16 > 0:43:20to the wealthy parasites who ran government and finance at the time,
0:43:20 > 0:43:22the equivalent of the fat-cat bankers of our own age.
0:43:22 > 0:43:26He saw himself as one of the wealth producers, but also as a kind of
0:43:26 > 0:43:30aristocratic leader of the people, but he'd become outraged at the way people were treated
0:43:30 > 0:43:33and had fallen in with the radical Whigs.
0:43:33 > 0:43:36So he wasn't of the people, he wasn't a weaver,
0:43:36 > 0:43:39but he'd set himself up as their leader,
0:43:39 > 0:43:42and on one level he's giving them good advice here.
0:43:42 > 0:43:44He's saying, behave well, don't get drunk,
0:43:44 > 0:43:47behave in an orderly fashion and we'll be fine,
0:43:47 > 0:43:51but at the same time he's hinting that there could be trouble.
0:43:51 > 0:43:55He's talking about "our enemies" and, "there might be bloodshed,"
0:43:55 > 0:43:59and he calls the authorities "malignant and contemptible."
0:43:59 > 0:44:02Yes, and accuses the authorities of seeking to excite a riot
0:44:02 > 0:44:04in order of a pretence for spilling blood.
0:44:04 > 0:44:07Hunt was extremely good at almost riding two horses at once.
0:44:07 > 0:44:09He needed to rouse the people
0:44:09 > 0:44:12and demonstrate the tremendous force of popular resentment,
0:44:12 > 0:44:15but at the same time demonstrate only he could control crowds.
0:44:15 > 0:44:17What did he want, exactly,
0:44:17 > 0:44:20in calling all of his associates to this meeting?
0:44:20 > 0:44:22What did they hope to achieve together?
0:44:22 > 0:44:24They wanted a radical reform of Parliament,
0:44:24 > 0:44:28that is universal suffrage, by which they meant manhood suffrage,
0:44:28 > 0:44:32annual parliaments, so that MPs regularly had to account for themselves,
0:44:32 > 0:44:33and a secret ballot,
0:44:33 > 0:44:36to make sure people couldn't be influenced by landlords or employers.
0:44:36 > 0:44:39And part of the problem was that Manchester,
0:44:39 > 0:44:43this great industrial city, wasn't really represented, was it?
0:44:43 > 0:44:47Because the old distribution of MPs didn't take it into account?
0:44:47 > 0:44:50No, Manchester was a modern industrial city in many ways,
0:44:50 > 0:44:52but it just kind of had parish pump politics,
0:44:52 > 0:44:55it was governed by its parish vestry and its court leets,
0:44:55 > 0:44:57and a lot of constables and dog whippers and so forth,
0:44:57 > 0:44:59and it wasn't a modern town at all.
0:44:59 > 0:45:03This is a plan of the set-up at St Peter's Field.
0:45:03 > 0:45:06On print, you can see the density of people,
0:45:06 > 0:45:08all the flags, the banners, around the hustings.
0:45:08 > 0:45:12But also towards the edges, quite a large number of spectators.
0:45:12 > 0:45:16It wasn't just a rally of reformers. It was a bit of a day out.
0:45:16 > 0:45:20There were a lot of people watching, which makes what happened all the more shocking.
0:45:20 > 0:45:24They sent in the Deputy Constable to arrest Henry Hunt simply because they feared
0:45:24 > 0:45:31that anybody making a rousing speech to a large crowd of ordinary people
0:45:31 > 0:45:34gathered without the legitimate authority to keep them in order,
0:45:34 > 0:45:37that was like applying a match to a dry field.
0:45:37 > 0:45:39They just felt there had to be some kind of explosion.
0:45:39 > 0:45:45So the Yeomanry panicked? They came in and started slashing people.
0:45:45 > 0:45:47It was said they were drunk, is that true?
0:45:47 > 0:45:51If they hadn't been drinking, it would've been out of character for the Yeomanry.
0:45:51 > 0:45:55A lot were publicans and small tradesmen. That's what people did at lunchtime.
0:45:55 > 0:46:01There are reports of that and the fact that they had their swords sharpened in the weeks before.
0:46:01 > 0:46:04When they got stuck, they were untrained. They were volunteers.
0:46:04 > 0:46:07They'd only been formed a couple of years before.
0:46:07 > 0:46:11They started slashing around them with sabres, which caused a crush and a panic
0:46:11 > 0:46:13and sparked what became the Peterloo Massacre.
0:46:13 > 0:46:18This book here is a list of many of the people who did get hurt.
0:46:18 > 0:46:24We've got Judith Kilner, "a pregnant woman was much bruised"
0:46:24 > 0:46:29and we've got a lady thrown into a cellar with a woman who was killed, "was pregnant at the time."
0:46:29 > 0:46:32We've got somebody cut under the ear by a sabre.
0:46:32 > 0:46:35We've got people being sabred and crushed,
0:46:35 > 0:46:40being hit on head with truncheons, being crushed by the horses.
0:46:40 > 0:46:44It's just horrible. How many people actually got killed?
0:46:44 > 0:46:46There were 15 killed on the day.
0:46:46 > 0:46:50But there were over 650 injured in only 20 minutes,
0:46:50 > 0:46:54which is why it deserves the title, I think, of a massacre.
0:46:54 > 0:46:56Over 200 of those were sabre wounds.
0:46:56 > 0:47:00Many of those were women, and some of them were children.
0:47:00 > 0:47:05There's some research been done on the injuries to women at Peterloo.
0:47:05 > 0:47:12It's fairly reliably reckoned they were more likely to be sabred than the men.
0:47:12 > 0:47:17The Yeomanry went for the women, because they were the people the authorities hated and resented most.
0:47:17 > 0:47:21That's because it was felt it was improper for women to be taking part in politics?
0:47:21 > 0:47:26Yes. Female reformers dressed in virginal white, in that patriotic way,
0:47:26 > 0:47:30seemed to the authorities like Marianne, the symbol of the French Revolution.
0:47:30 > 0:47:34It was claimed they were deaf to every feminine virtue.
0:47:34 > 0:47:39You can see this in this satirical picture from a loyalist newspaper.
0:47:39 > 0:47:44You've got an imaginary scene at one of the meetings of female reformers in Manchester.
0:47:44 > 0:47:47Meetings of this kind did happen.
0:47:47 > 0:47:50The female reformers had no idea how to conduct a meeting.
0:47:50 > 0:47:53One is standing on the table, many are drinking gin.
0:47:53 > 0:47:57None of them are listening. There is one here snogging. They're all chatting.
0:47:57 > 0:47:59They don't know anything about politics.
0:47:59 > 0:48:03It's reminiscent of 17th century pictures of a fox addressing the silly geese
0:48:03 > 0:48:06who think they know about politics, but really don't.
0:48:06 > 0:48:11And just like a proper battle, there were souvenirs and medals made.
0:48:11 > 0:48:14Planned with satirical intent.
0:48:14 > 0:48:20There's an example here modelled on the famous Josiah Wedgwood anti-slavery medal.
0:48:20 > 0:48:23The black slave kneeling, and the slogan,
0:48:23 > 0:48:25"Am I not a man and brother"?
0:48:25 > 0:48:29Here, the kneeling figure is a ragged weaver and he's saying,
0:48:29 > 0:48:31"Am I not a man and brother?"
0:48:31 > 0:48:33And he's speaking to a member of the Yeomanry,
0:48:33 > 0:48:35who has a bloodied axed raised.
0:48:35 > 0:48:39- His reply is, "No, you're a poor weaver."- "Off with your head."- Mmm.
0:48:39 > 0:48:42It's surrounded by skulls and crossbones.
0:48:42 > 0:48:46It's very... It's bitter, isn't it?
0:48:46 > 0:48:50It's making the point that Britain has abolished slavery abroad.
0:48:50 > 0:48:53- But still doing it at home. - Yes.
0:48:53 > 0:48:56How quickly was that connection made? Waterloo.
0:48:56 > 0:49:00This became known as Peterloo in sort of parody.
0:49:00 > 0:49:03Very quickly. In a way, the authorities made the connection first
0:49:03 > 0:49:08because one volunteer special constable said to some of the crowd, "This is Waterloo for you."
0:49:08 > 0:49:12Meaning like Napoleon. "You reformers have now met your Waterloo."
0:49:12 > 0:49:15The constables and the Yeomanry were proud of what they were doing
0:49:15 > 0:49:19in averting revolution, as they saw it.
0:49:19 > 0:49:21Within a week, the local radical newspaper,
0:49:21 > 0:49:24the Manchester Observer, announced it was going to publish
0:49:24 > 0:49:27the evidence under the title "Peterloo Massacre"
0:49:27 > 0:49:29with ironic reference to Waterloo.
0:49:29 > 0:49:33This was the time when the troops, who were supposed to be guarding the people,
0:49:33 > 0:49:37had turned on them and there were more Waterloo veterans amongst the crowd
0:49:37 > 0:49:41than there were amongst troops and none among the volunteer Yeomanry.
0:49:42 > 0:49:46Peterloo frightens the Government to the core.
0:49:46 > 0:49:50Feeling that the growing disturbances were threatening violent revolution,
0:49:50 > 0:49:55they banned all public meetings and imposed imprisonment without trial for some of those arrested.
0:49:55 > 0:49:59This only served further to inflame the crowds.
0:50:01 > 0:50:04With the death of George III in 1820,
0:50:04 > 0:50:07and the accession of the detested Prince Regent to the throne,
0:50:07 > 0:50:12the other radical from Spa Fields, Arthur Thistlewood, decided to act.
0:50:15 > 0:50:20He plotted to murder the Cabinet and remove the King.
0:50:20 > 0:50:24One evening, he and his small band of conspirators met in a hayloft
0:50:24 > 0:50:27on a narrow lane just off London's Edgware Road.
0:50:29 > 0:50:34But, unfortunately for the conspirators, the government got wind of what was going on
0:50:34 > 0:50:37at the point when the conspirators gathered here.
0:50:37 > 0:50:41This is the scene of the crime. It's a hayloft in Cato Street.
0:50:41 > 0:50:44Here we've got exactly how it was laid out.
0:50:44 > 0:50:47On the table here, the conspirators had gathered their weapons,
0:50:47 > 0:50:50their swords, their grenades, their guns.
0:50:50 > 0:50:54But this is the ladder up which the police officers came barging in.
0:50:54 > 0:50:57There was a big fight, a confrontation.
0:50:57 > 0:51:02And Arthur Thistlewood himself ran through one of the police officers with a sword.
0:51:02 > 0:51:05This is the spot here where the body fell.
0:51:05 > 0:51:09In the darkness and confusion, the conspirators ran away.
0:51:09 > 0:51:13They are climbing out through holes in the building, some, it's said, went down the hay chutes.
0:51:13 > 0:51:18But, the next morning, the ringleaders were rounded up and captured.
0:51:18 > 0:51:23They included the Thistlewood, a couple of shoemakers,
0:51:23 > 0:51:28a coffee-house owner, a failed law student from Jamaica
0:51:28 > 0:51:31and this rather mysterious character, George Edwards,
0:51:31 > 0:51:35who was probably a government agent inciting the whole thing.
0:51:35 > 0:51:38Now this caused problems when it came to the trial.
0:51:38 > 0:51:41Would the case collapse because of the presence of the government agent?
0:51:41 > 0:51:46Well, it didn't because this conspirator, John Monument,
0:51:46 > 0:51:49he turned evidence against his colleagues.
0:51:49 > 0:51:53So they were condemned. John Monument was let off for being a snitch.
0:51:53 > 0:51:56George Edwards was let off for being a government agent.
0:51:56 > 0:51:59But the rest were all executed.
0:51:59 > 0:52:04Just at the point that the Prince Regent was about to become King George IV,
0:52:04 > 0:52:08it looks like Britain was just on the brink of revolution.
0:52:09 > 0:52:13George continued his life of idleness and excess.
0:52:13 > 0:52:17Yet he and his government would next face an opponent far more destructive
0:52:17 > 0:52:19than either Hunt of Thistlewood.
0:52:19 > 0:52:23The opposition would come now in the form of his estranged and reviled wife,
0:52:23 > 0:52:25the now Queen Caroline.
0:52:28 > 0:52:33In the country, Caroline was seen as the wronged and abused wife.
0:52:33 > 0:52:35All the more so when George tried, unsuccessfully,
0:52:35 > 0:52:38to divorce her by act of Parliament.
0:52:38 > 0:52:42His pretext was her rumoured scandalous behaviour.
0:52:42 > 0:52:47Caroline had got a bit too close to her Italian servant, Bartolomeo Pergami.
0:52:47 > 0:52:50They'd been seen kissing, they'd even been seen undressed together
0:52:50 > 0:52:52and there was talk about an illegitimate child.
0:52:52 > 0:52:55The Bill got through the House of Lords,
0:52:55 > 0:52:58but Caroline was so amazingly popular in the country,
0:52:58 > 0:53:00it seemed unlikely it would get through the House of Commons.
0:53:00 > 0:53:04So George had to give up. He could not stop her from becoming Queen.
0:53:04 > 0:53:08All he could hope was that she wouldn't show up at his coronation.
0:53:11 > 0:53:16Despite the distraction of a wild and unwanted Queen, George started to plan
0:53:16 > 0:53:21the most extravagant and expensive coronation of all time.
0:53:21 > 0:53:24At Kensington Palace, where I work as a curator,
0:53:24 > 0:53:27we look after the enormous coronation robe
0:53:27 > 0:53:31that George chose for the moment he truly became King.
0:53:31 > 0:53:35On three, OK? One, two, three.
0:53:35 > 0:53:37He may have been King of a divided nation,
0:53:37 > 0:53:42but George always knew how to put on a good show.
0:53:42 > 0:53:47You lift first off the table and then one, two, three, up.
0:53:49 > 0:53:50Slowly, slowly.
0:53:52 > 0:53:54Well done. It's gone through.
0:53:56 > 0:53:58OK, let's go. Nearly there.
0:53:58 > 0:54:02- Here it is, come on, let's open it up.- OK.
0:54:02 > 0:54:06Because of its fragile condition, this robe rarely sees the light of day
0:54:06 > 0:54:10and this is my first full chance to see it unwrapped.
0:54:12 > 0:54:15OK. One, two, three.
0:54:26 > 0:54:31This is George IV's coronation robe from his coronation in 1821.
0:54:31 > 0:54:35The whole event got delayed a year because they needed extra planning time
0:54:35 > 0:54:38to make it into this huge extravaganza.
0:54:38 > 0:54:43Look how richly it's embroidered with all this gold and all these sequins.
0:54:43 > 0:54:50And this was purple, imperial velvet. He's trying to out-Napoleon Napoleon here.
0:54:50 > 0:54:54This is the one he wore to come out at the end.
0:54:54 > 0:54:59When he arrived at the coronation, he was wearing a red velvet robe, very similar.
0:54:59 > 0:55:01He spent £24,000 on these robes.
0:55:01 > 0:55:04It needed nine people to carry it for him.
0:55:04 > 0:55:09He turned up in this huge, magnificent procession that seemed to go on for miles.
0:55:09 > 0:55:14It was led by the herb women, strewing herbs for the King to walk over.
0:55:14 > 0:55:19He appeared with his robe bearers and then all the peerage turned up
0:55:19 > 0:55:22and George had insisted the Peers, many of whom were elderly men,
0:55:22 > 0:55:25dress up in Tudor outfits, wearing tights.
0:55:25 > 0:55:27The peers were dubious about this.
0:55:27 > 0:55:31It is true there were sniggers from their wives when they arrived in the Abbey.
0:55:31 > 0:55:34But this was the greatest show on Earth.
0:55:34 > 0:55:37George commissioned a special new crown for himself.
0:55:37 > 0:55:40He hired 12,000 diamonds.
0:55:40 > 0:55:41It was a five-hour ceremony
0:55:41 > 0:55:44and at several points he was seen to be sweating,
0:55:44 > 0:55:47he almost fainted and had to be revived with smelling salts.
0:55:47 > 0:55:52But he kept up his spirits. Everybody also noticed he was nodding and winking to his mistress,
0:55:52 > 0:55:53who was in the audience.
0:55:53 > 0:55:56But it definitely left an indelible mark
0:55:56 > 0:55:59on the memories of everybody who was there.
0:55:59 > 0:56:02So five hours later, this is the robe
0:56:02 > 0:56:07in which he made his first appearance as the crowned anointed King.
0:56:07 > 0:56:10MUSIC: "Zadok The Priest" by Handel
0:56:18 > 0:56:23But however meticulously George had planned his own anointing as King,
0:56:23 > 0:56:26there was still one unresolved problem -
0:56:26 > 0:56:30Caroline, and she wasn't a woman to take no for an answer.
0:56:35 > 0:56:41This is pretty much the only view of the coronation enjoyed by George's wife Caroline.
0:56:41 > 0:56:44She had been exiled from court at the start of the Regency
0:56:44 > 0:56:46and she'd gone overseas.
0:56:46 > 0:56:50But when he became King, she turned back up again, wanting to be crowned.
0:56:50 > 0:56:55This is despite the fact she had been offered £50,000 to stay away.
0:56:55 > 0:56:59So, on Coronation Day, she arrived at Westminster Abbey
0:56:59 > 0:57:04and she flew at the doors shouting, "I am the Queen, open!"
0:57:04 > 0:57:07"I am the Queen of Britain, let me pass!"
0:57:07 > 0:57:09But the doors remained closed.
0:57:36 > 0:57:40The coronation was the Prince Regent's final bow.
0:57:40 > 0:57:42Now the Regency was officially over.
0:57:42 > 0:57:47It had been a splendid ten years for architecture, for poetry,
0:57:47 > 0:57:50for painting and for prose.
0:57:50 > 0:57:55But it had also been ten years of waste and profligacy
0:57:55 > 0:57:57and Royal immorality.
0:57:57 > 0:57:59Britain may have won the Battle of Waterloo,
0:57:59 > 0:58:04but it looked like the country was at war with itself.
0:58:04 > 0:58:08Was there ever a decade of greater contrasts? I don't think so.
0:58:08 > 0:58:13And what about and George IV as King, how would he be remembered?
0:58:13 > 0:58:16Well, 200 years later, English Heritage ran a poll
0:58:16 > 0:58:20and he was voted Britain's worst monarch ever.
0:58:20 > 0:58:24So the Regency, for me, is two things -
0:58:24 > 0:58:28untold elegance combined with squalid decadence.
0:58:32 > 0:58:34Subtitling by Red Bee Media Ltd
0:58:34 > 0:58:37E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk.