All language subtitles for A New, Conflicted World- The British Regency Era (Age) (3 of 3). Dr Lucy Worsley. Subtitles- ENG

When the 19th century dawned,
Britain was a land of two nations: …

…a small, wealthy class,
ruling a large and growing population.

The Regency was
"a time between times".

It was "after absolute monarchy",
but it was "before democracy".

It was towards the end of an age of agriculture.
It was the beginning of an age of industry.

As radical voices
confronted an arrogant elite,…

…the ways of the old order
were no longer tenable.

It was a time that would set
"the many" against "the  few".

What a wonderful sight for the Regency swells,
taking part in the new craze for ballooning!

This is Bath, Queen city of the West,
celebrated for its spa waters,…

…packed full of gentile
Jane–Austen–type characters.

But…!

…Britain was a troubled land!

Years of war had wearied
and impoverished the  masses.

The country hovered
on the brink of revolution,…

…as the governing classes chose to use
violent repression, instead of enlightened reform.

Challenging Parliament, and the Cabinet,
were a new  generation…

…of thinkers,…

…and poets,…

…and novelists!

The power of the word would now take over
from the power of the sword,…

…but not without
the shedding of blood!

In the Regency,
people admired a sense of gusto!

The most dashing people of the age
were literally dashing across the countryside,…

…and the age's favourite vehicle
was this monster, the Mail Coach.

The Mail Coach was extraordinary:
it could go at an average speed of 7 miles an hour,…

…which seemed utterly amazing
to 19th century Jeremy Clarksons [Car expert].

And this meant that, instead of taking
two days to get to Cambridge,…

…you could get there
in 7 hours!

Edinburgh was only
60 hours away.

Britain was shrinking!

Hello, there!

There you are, lass(??). Right.

Stand out, please!

Aahh!

Today, I'm really excited to travel
on the Swingletree Mail Coach!

We're scoursing(??)
through the Norfolk countryside.

– Wow!
– This is John Parker, holding the reins,
and Rosie as guard.

This coach used to earn its  keep
on the London to Norwich run.

Hop, hop, hop, hop!
????

Travel by Mail Coach was expensive,
but it was also fast and safe!

Our team of horses would be changed
every 10 or so miles,…

…we'd be travelling
with an armed guard on the back,…

…and when we got to toll gates,
they'd open as if by magic!

We'd toot our horn,
and the keeper would leap out of the way,…

…because nothing was allowed
to hold up the King's Mail.

So, what could you signal with the horn?
There are things like "I'm coming!", "Get out of my way!",…

For different coaches
there was different tunes,…

For… even for different people!

– Yeah,…
– There was…  they had their favourite tunes.

Okay. So, this coach was owned by James Selby,
and I think you know his particular coaching call.

Let's hear it!

If you could afford it,
you rode on it.

If you couldn't afford this,
you tried to hook a ride on something else.

If you couldn't get a ride, you had a choice now:
you either owned a horse, and rode it, or you walked.

There's no other choices.

Yeah.

You couldn't jump on the back of carriages, because
they put little spikes there, to make sure you didn't do it.

It's the King's Mail!
If you held it up…!

…well, you,… you died!

You either were shot or hung,
one of the two!

– That's ????
– And if someone stood in front, and said,…

"Stand and deliver!",…

…these teams of horses, they're not
going to stop, they're going to flatten you!

Ha, ha, ha, ha!

For Regency people,
travel by Mail Coach was like taking Concorde!

Mail Coaches helped them to discover
their own countryside!

The Highlands, and the Lake District,
and spa towns like Bath,…

…became tourist destinations
for the first time, thanks to coach travel.

For the rich, the coach
was the only way to travel.

The Prince Regent's dirty weekends in Brighton
were all horse–drawn affairs.

But if George
had chosen to notice,…

…the countryside he was traveling through
was changing fast.

An agricultural revolution
was driving the rural workers off the land,…

…and into
the new industrial cities.

The Enclosure Acts
denied villagers access to the fields…

…where generations of peasants
had scraped out a living.

In these troubled times, the labourers
of Northamptonshire had a voice through John Clare.

He's often called
"the peasant's poet".

In Helpston, his cottage
– or "cot" – still survives.

It's now a museum,
devoted to a rare Regency imagination.

"And swathy bees about the grass,
that stops with every bloom they pass."

"And every minute, every hour,
keep teasing weeds that wear a flower."

Imagine the scene
on a dark winter's night.

John Clare is sitting on a stool,
in the corner of the room, writing a poem.

His mother's
over there, spinning.

This was their cottage.

It's just "two up, two down".
There was earth on the floor.

A ladder,
instead of stairs.

And, actually, ten people were living here.
Three generations of the Clare family shared it.

It's not quite our modern idyll
of country living, by any means.

But they were glad to have this cottage:
it was their home.

Many of John Clare's poems
celebrated all things bright and beautiful.

But, in Helpston, he witnessed the single greatest threat
to rural life for over a thousand years: …

…the enclosure
of the common lands.

"Each little tyrant,
with his little sign,…"

"…shows where man claims earth
glows no more divine."

"But paths to freedom
and to childhood dear…"

"…a board sticks up,
to notice 'no road here'."

"And birds, and trees,
and flowers without a name,…"

"…all sighed
when lawless law's enclosure came."

I talked to the curator, David Dykes,
about the changes Clare lived through.

The Enclosure Act of 1809 in this area
was the biggest single impact on his life.

Prior to that,
he was able to walk the fields,… umm,…

…anywhere he wished to go,
and he rails against that.

And, in fact,
he's lost his freedom.

Umm,…

And also lost his livelihood, because he couldn't
get to the common land, he couldn't graze the cows.

His friends were losing their jobs, and it was seen
an acceleration of people leaving the countryside.

And one
of his benefactors, Fitzwilliam,…

…was one
of the big landowners here,…

…and, indeed,…

…he supported Clare
during [doing?] his poetry.

And also was getting land off him at the same time,
and… and during the enclosure process.

Clare, through his education,
became a curiosity in his native village.

The strains of his life, and his heavy drinking,
possibly explain his drift into insanity.

And here,
is a very melancholy letter indeed.

Somebody wrote to him at the asylum,
saying, "Why no more poems?"

And his answer is heartbreaking.
He writes: "Dear Sir,…!"

"…I am in a madhouse,
I quite forget your name!"

He says, "You must excuse me, for I have nothing
to communicate. I have nothing to say."

It's a very sad end
for a poet, isn't it?

John Clare now lies
in the village churchyard.

He had asked to be buried
round the other side of the church,…

…where there was the most sun
in the morning and the evening.

This is a man
who knew about the weather, don't forget.

But, in the event,
they put him here, near to his parents.

["A poet is born,
not made."]

In the Regency, when all transport
was still horse drawn,…

…the advantages of a canal
for carrying goods were overwhelming.

A single horse could pull
50 times more weight on the water…

…than it could on a road.

Canals carried coal, and iron,
and grain, to the new cities,…

…and then they transported manufactured goods
from the factories to the ports.

Canals reached their peak with the building
of the brilliant Kennet and Avon canal.

This waterway was the supreme
civil engineering achievement of the 1810s.

The Regency is often described in terms of fashion,
and, most of all, architecture.

But the decade should really be remembered
as the point when Britain entered the modern machine age.

If you ask people to think of Regency architecture,
they're probably going to come up with Cheltenham,…

…or Brighton,
or parts of London.

But,…!

…one of the most important  buildings
from the period is actually here,…

…stuck in the middle
of the Wiltshire countryside.

You'll work out what it is…

…when you notice the chimney.

Steam power would make Britain
the most advanced nation on earth.

It drove a technological revolution
that would change the face of the country,…

…and create social tensions
that would  threaten to sweep the Monarchy away.

The Crofton steam engine is still doing its original work
of keeping the Kennet and Avon topped up with water.

And its engineer today
is Harry Willis.

So, Harry,
what have we got here then?

We've got the oldest working
steam beam engine in the world!

Is it yours?

Well, it's not mine, but I'm certainly
responsible for managing it.

And what
do you need to do to it?

Well, these levers control
the passage of steam through the engine.

– Yes…
– And you need to, uh,…

…to use them when you're starting and stopping it,
and also doing the… the running of it.

So this is
the nerve centre!

– It is the nerve centre,…
– Which is where a person controls that…
– We…

– We call this the driving platform.
– The driving… Can I drive?

You certainly can,
but you'll need to put a boiler suit on first!

Okay! I'm going to get
kitted up….

–…like you.
– Fine!

Here I am!
Ready to drive!

Right!

What needs doing?
Should we slow it down,…?

– …or speed it up?
– You can put… Excuse me,… you can…

Close that a little bit!
Move it to the left, a little bit!

– So, I'm… I'm reducing the… reducing the steam.
– Reducing the steam. Reducing the steam, that's right!

It's hard to imagine…!

…how impressive
this must have been,…!

– …for someone who hadn't seen machinery before!
– Exactly! And the impact on the local inhabitants as well,…

…who will have not… who would
have only seen horse–drawn transport,…

– …and this…
– Yeah!

This thing came here,
and began to belch smoke, and make noises.

– You can hear it…
– Mmm!

– …from some distance away. It's going: throb, throb, throb…
– Exactly, yes! The same as a heart.

–In fact, a heart is quite a good analogy, isn't it?
– Ah! That's right!

– It was keeping the blood of Britain, the canals, flowing.
– Exactly, exactly!

Just… just give it
a bit more to the right.

– A bit more steam, to the right.
– To the right, yeah.

Or else it will stop.

Come on, give it some ????!
– It's okay, that's it.

And, um,… there is
a tremendous amount  of power here.

Yeah!

– …that's, uh,… in your hands.
– ????!

Oh!

– I just want to go faster and faster!
– Ah, ha, ha!

The Crofton beam engine lifts 11 tons of water
up to the canal every minute!

There had been water wheels
and windmills before,…

…but, in the Regency, super–efficient
steam engines produced  power…

…unimaginable to previous ages.

For the first time, you could generate power
wherever you had coal for the furnace,…

…and water for the boiler.

Oohh!

The steam engine liberated
and multiplied all that was possible.

In the 1810s, this Boulton & Watt beam engine
was at the forefront of technological achievement.

The first wonder
of the New Industrial Age!

Steam power is one
of history's great leaps forward!

Manufacturing is taken out
of people's houses,…

…brought into factories!

So, we get
a concentration of machinery,…

…of manpower,
of the population itself.

We get the birth
of our industrial ????.

The Industrial Revolution of the Regent's time
was one of the great discontinuities of history,…

…where everything after
was so little like what had gone before.

I spoke to the industrial historian
Neil Cossons…

…on how it affected
those who witnessed these changes.

What do you think it felt like
to live through this period of enormous change?

There is no question in my mind
that people, through the Regency period,…

…knew that they were living
in tempestuous times.

You only have to dig
a little below the surface, I think,…

…and go into
these new industrial communities,…

…to see both sides of the coin:
immense prosperity…

…and huge social deprivation.

On the other hand, it's worth remembering
that the numbers of jobs that were created…

…as a result of industrialization,
were huge.

So, whereas
small numbers of…

…cottage…

uh,… based…

…industries…

…uh,… went into decline,…

…they were replaced by
huge numbers of jobs,…

…and mass migrations from the countryside
into the new industrial communities.

Neil, let's have a look
at your favorite picture, I understand.

This is… this is certainly one of my favourites,
largely because I… I lived,…

…perhaps…

…200 yards from where the artist
must have stood when he painted it.

Yeah!

And that's a view looking down
the valley of the river Severn, with…

…belching furnaces,…

…and the silhouette of the dwellings
and associated buildings…

…uh,… in front of it.

And this is a…
a scene painted… a theater…

…painter's view,
Philippe de Louthebourg's…

…picture of "Coalbrookdale by Night".

He's made it look awe–inspiring, and wonderful,
and sort of magical, though, hasn't he?

Yeah, sort of
Dante's Inferno view, too!

So he's saying,
"Look, isn't it great?"

"Look at all this power,
and strength,…!"

– "…and magnificence!", do you think?
– Absolutely!

And I…
that's one of the archetypal…

…images of the…

…middle Industrial Revolution.

But there is, I think,
also a statement of an entirely new world.

Mmm–Hmmm!

– And Turner, similarly, in his view of Leeds.
– Yeah!

Now, that painting shows an urban scene
which would have been impossible…

…20 years earlier.

Because you see…

…large factories,…

…and… chimneys,…

…which would be the chimneys of the steam engines
that powered the machines in those factories.

And that would have been
an entirely new vision,…

…and uniquely English, or…

…shall we say, British,…

…at that period.

I like the way you've got the contrast
of the dark satanic mills in the background,…

…and then you've got
almost a rural scene here.

You've got people
going about their business,…

…building a wall,
going on a journey, on  donkeys.

But there, they're doing something to do
with the textile industry, aren't they? They are…

Are they…?
drying, bleaching, colouring cloths?

– They might be doing any of those things.
– Okay, heh, heh, heh!

But the… but the… but the interesting aspect
of that, is, that you have, in parallel,…

…the  pre-industrial world…

– Still going on!
– …and the new industrial world!
– Hmmm!

– And that is rural…
– So, there were rural scenes,…

…and, uh,… rural  communities, that were
hardly touched by the impact of industrialization.

And, one of the things that we…

…we need to remember is, that we've… we've been
taught more about the evils of industrialization…

– …than the…– The good bits.

– …than the good bits of it,…
– Yeah!

– Yeah!
– …ah,… for… for generations,…

…and what the Industrial Revolution
has hidden, in a sense,…

…partly because
it was so all–embracing,…

…is the appalling
working living conditions…

…of  the pre–industrial rural poor…!

Mmm!

…and… and the… squalor,
and extraordinary deprivation,…

…and grindingness
of the poverty…

…of the rural… labourer.

Aahh,… was at least as bad,
and possibly much worse,…

…than the mill worker of a generation,
or two generations, later.

Textile mills gave many jobs to the men,
women, and children driven off the countryside…

…in ever greater numbers
during the decade.

But mechanisation came
at a high human cost,…

…when each fresh invention, or new machine,
could wipe out a family's livelihood at a stroke.

In the Prince Regent's lifetime,
spinning was revolutionised!

It went from being
a case of one person…

…operating one spinning wheel,
and producing just one spindle of thread,…

…to machines like this!

This one's got
714 spindles!

Still operated
by just one worker,…

…but it means that 713 spinners
have lost their jobs!

Many people reacted with fear,
and then with anger!

In the 1810s, gangs started to roam about the Midlands
and the North, smashing up the new machines,…!

…much to the fury
of the Tory Government!

These men were  called "frame–breakers",
or, more commonly, "luddites".

Although luddism
was a grassroots movement,…

…it had  an aristocratic supporter,
in the person of Lord Byron.

In 1812, Lord Byron got really upset
by the plight of the Nottinghamshire weavers.

Some of them were luddites.

And they fell foul of this new bill
that was being introduced by the Tories,…

…called "the frame–breaking bill".

Anybody caught breaking or damaging machinery
would now face the death penalty!

Byron thought
this was outrageously repressive!

Then he traveled south
to London, by coach,…

…to plead the cause of the weavers
in his maiden speech, in the House of Lords.

Byron arrived, and launched
into this passionate speech,…!

…defending the luddites.
Perhaps even went a bit over the top.

And he was arguing against
the death penalty for breaking machines.

He said, "Yes, the luddites
had committed outrages,…"

…but that this had arisen from circumstances
of the most unparalleled distress.

He was shaking
and trembling with emotion!

He said that the luddites
had not been ashamed to beg,…

…but there had been
no one  to relieve them.

He said that their excesses,
however to be deplored and condemned,…

…could hardly be subject to supplice.

Now, did Byron
get what he wanted?

No, he didn't!

This pouting and posturing
had  slightly annoyed the other lords.

And, as soon
as Byron sat down,…

…they passed
their bill anyway!

But Byron was suddenly to become
a literary superstar,…

…when his narrative poem,
called "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage",…

…was published
the following month.

The first edition sold out in 3 days,
and London was intoxicated.

There was traffic chaos,
because of all the carriages,…

…queuing up to drop off dinner invitations
at his rooms in St. James's.

It was a real
overnight success.

In Byron's own words: …

…"I awoke one morning, and found myself famous."

"Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" gave a war–locked nation
a tantalizing glimpse of mediterranean Europe.

It also marked an early stage in Byron's management
of his own mysterious, exotic, rakish image.

It was an image that consciously played up
his theatrical and seductive character,…

…one not bound by social conventions, one who flirted
with the dangerous frontiers of the acceptable.

In a very modern way,
Byron maintained strict picture approval.

He rejected
one innocent, boyish portrait,…

…but he authorised another – very camp –
canvas of himself in full Albanian costume.

But Byron's image didn't always match up
with Byron in the flesh.

I went to the London wine merchants
Bury Brothers,…

…to see some documentary evidence that Lord Byron
was not always the snake–hipped seducer of legend.

Now, in here,
I think we've got…

…Lord Byron!
There he is!

He was first weighed in 1806.
He was 18 years old.

And he was only
5 foot 8 inches tall.

He comes in
at a pretty hefty 13 stone 12.

That was wearing his boots,
but not his hat.

Now, that's borderline obese for a teenager.
He wasn't always the irresistible Adonis of legend.

And we know he took a lot of trouble
to try to reduce his weight.

We hear about him
playing cricket,…

…wearing 7 waistcoats and a great coat,
in an attempt to sweat it off,…

…and sometimes, at dinner, he would refuse all food,
except for soda water and biscuits.

This worked!

Five years later,
by 1811,…

…he's lost 4 stones!
He's gone right down…

…to 9 stone 11.

Pretty svelte!

I think I'll give it
a go myself!

Hoo!

That just about balances, but I'm not telling you
how much weight there is on the other side.

Being a dissolute poet
was scandalous enough.

But the behaviour of the bloated Prince Regent
was truly shocking to his subjects.

His affairs with his mistresses
outraged the god-fearing, respectable populace.

George was a serial adulterer,
in a way that really opened up to enormous ridicule.

Ironically, the one woman who was free
from his sexual attentions was his wife!

Caroline of Brunswick
was his German mail–order bride,…

…and when
she arrived in London,…

…George famously said,
on seeing her: …

Harris, I am not well!
Pray, bring me brandy!

And she said:
"He wasn't that fat in his portrait!"

Their wedding was a disaster.
He'd only agreed to it to help clear his debts.

He complained about her offensive smell,
and he was drunk at the ceremony.

They did manage to produce an heir,
but after the honeymoon, they were never intimate again.

George was largely indifferent to his only child and heir,
Charlotte, and chose not to see her very often,…

…much preferring the company
of one of his many mistresses.

His selfish and extravagant lifestyle
had become a national disgrace.

Maybe George's debauched behaviour annoyed the gods,
provoking them to send destruction.

In April 1815, a volcano erupted
far away, in Indonesia.

It had a dramatic effect
on the world's weather and the political climate.

Tongues of flame
leaped high into the sky,…

…explosions ripped the air,…

…and smoke and ash
swelled high above the Java Sea.

Beneath the volcano,
over 70,000 perished.

It seemed
like the end of the world!

Mount Tambora's eruption
was the largest in recorded history.

The explosion was heard
over 1200 miles away.

160 cubic kilometers of debris
were thrown into the atmosphere,…

…creating a volcanic winter,
which lasted the whole of the next year.

In Europe, crops would fail,…

…livestock die,…

…and people starve.

But the fires
and shadows of Tambora…

…had the most surprising effect
on the imagination of one young woman.

One of the greatest literary creations
of the Regency period…

…was "Frankenstein",
by Mary Godwin.

She was first the mistress, and later the wife,
of the notorious Percy Bysshe Shelley.

The original manuscript
is here at the Bodleian.

Normally,
only scholars get to see it.

This priceless manuscript is kept safe in Oxford,
high up in the tower at the Bodleian Library.

There, I'm going to meet the writer
Daisy Hay, an expert on Mary Shelley.

And she can tell me
about Mary's curious Swiss holiday,…

…a holiday that gave form
to one of fiction's enduring creations.

– Daisy, hello!
– Hello, hi!

– Thanks for having me!
– A pleasure!

What have we got?
What have we got? What have we got?

We've got the manuscript of "Frankenstein",
and some pictures of…

– …Mary, and Byron, and Shelley.
– Okay.

So, tell me about this holiday
on the banks of Lake Geneva.

Well, what happens is,
in the spring of 1816,…

…Byron leaves England for good,…

…and heads down the Rhine valley to Geneva.
London has become too hot to hold him.

And he is joined there,…

…kind of by accident,
by Shelley,…

…and by Shelley's mistress, Mary Godwin,
and by Mary's stepsister, Claire Clairmont.

This is a really complicated situation!
So we've got the two romantic poets, and we've got…

…the two sisters, and the second sister
is kind of stalking Byron.

In fact, it has been decided,…

…by this point, Claire, that she wants
a radical poet of her own.

And she writes to Byron,
offers herself to him,…

…an offer which he accepts.

And this results in a very brief affair,
just before Byron leaves London.

And, thereafter, Claire persuades Shelley and Mary
that they should follow Byron to Geneva.

So they all meet on the shores of Lake Geneva,
in the summer of 1816, having arrived by different ways.

And… Byron… takes a large villa, a grand house,
on the shores of Lake Geneva, called the Villa Diodati.

And it rains a lot! The weather
is an important part of the story, isn't it?

Yes! The weather turns.
Initially it's very beautiful, but then it turns,…

…and thunder echoes around the lake.
There are huge lightning storms,…

…and the group retreat inside,
to tell ghost stories and to read Coleridge.

The weather's bad all over the world, isn't it?
Because…  of the volcano exploding.

Yes! So, right across
the northern hemisphere, really,…

…crops fail,
and the sun disappears, and…

…there's terrible, acute distress, and…
which they will come back to in England, in 1816.

So, what they are experiencing
is part of a much wider phenomenon.

So, they're all cooped up together,
they're telling ghost stories, and…

…Mary's turns out to be
the best of the lot, is it?

It does, but initially
it doesn't happen easily for her.

Everybody else gets on with their ghost stories
quite quickly, and she can't think of one.

Until, one night, she has a nightmare;
and she called it "a waking dream".

And this vision, of the moment in which her monster,
that Frankenstein has created, comes to her.

And then she's able to say
"I have thought of a story" the following morning.

And here's the actual moment,
in her own handwriting! This is great!

This is the moment
that the monster…

…comes to life.

And the narrator says:
"In the glimmer of the half extinguished light…"

…I saw the dull yellow eye
of the creature open!…

And then, down here, um,…

…Shelley, her future husband,
he's annotated it, he's improved the writing.

Do you think he's improved it?

Well, throughout you can see Shelley's annotations
in the margin of the manuscript.

So, you can see the difference
between Shelley's handwriting and Mary's.

And he, what he did is,
he edited the manuscript…

…as she went along.

So, you can see that he's changed,
for example, handsome for beautiful,…

…and has added a description of the hair,
here, "of a lustrous black".

What's the significance of Shelley…

…changing it? What…
what do you think he was adding to the…

…to the story there?

There is something
about "lustrous black" is,…

…he's… he is sharpening
the contrast, I think.

Here we've got this creature
described in terms of color: we've got yellow, and…

…now…
and there's something…

…almost unearthly about the…
the vividness of this, I think.

And, uh,…

…the change to beautiful, rather than  handsome,
it's somehow something less…

…something more inhuman
about it, I think.

What was the atmosphere like
at the villa?

Because Byron was definitely
the most successful of them.

– Yes!
– So far, wasn't he?

Was he like a rock star,
with his groupies?

Well,…

…I think,… I would say
he was the most famous.

He's older, he's richer,
he's an established poet.

But I think that… Perhaps,
what the atmosphere is like, it always seems to me…

…to be quite…

…like those kind of conversations you have
later in the night, when you're a student.

They are all very young.

Did you practice free love late in the night,
when you were a student?

Awk,… Heh, heh!

But, you know, when you argue about things, and you stay
up till 3 in the morning, and that seems to be,… to be…

…to be quite familiar.

That what
they're talking about, it…

…the way that…
the way they are…

…to each other, is very intense,
when you are…  when you're young,…

…and you're working out
what you think about the world.

Here's another bit of Shelley,…

…inserting his views.
What does that one say?

So, this is a section
with quite a long bit of  Shelley annotation.

It starts here,
and then goes over the page.

And this is where…

…where he's talking
about the…

…virtues of a republican system,
rather than a…

…a system of… with… with monarchies,
and talking about this in terms of how you treat…

…those who are…

…more vulnerable than you, and about,
in particular, about the servant classes,…

…and about how the system
of having servants in Switzerland,…

…which is a republican country,
is preferable to…

…that in England.

So, he's saying,
"The republican institutions of our country…"

"…have produced simpler
and happier manners…

…than those which prevail
in the great monarchies that surround it."

So, this is a…
yeah, a…

…a Shelleyan manifesto, I suppose,
sneaking its way into Frankenstein.

And Shelley isn't alone, is he,
in this decade of the 1810s?

There's a lot of people,
respectable people, talking up against…

– …absolute monarchy.
– There really is. And,…

…for people like Shelley,
and those around him,…

…the…

…way in which power is concentrated
in the hands of a tiny minority…

…just seems to become untenable.
So Shelley writes: …

…a…

…"A Proposal for Putting Reform to the Vote".
He wants that to be a…

…a referendum on
universal manhood suffrage.

Um,…

…and so, there's a…
a feeling that the…

…the way in which British society
is structured cannot go on.

In 1816, Britain's small ruling elite
were facing their own nightmare.

A population suffering unemployment
and starvation demanded reform.

The pressure
from the new urban masses…

…was every bit as terrifying to the Government
as Frankenstein's monster.

The vote in Regency England
was limited to a ridiculously small number.

Lots of MPs were returned by so–called "pocket" or "rotten" boroughs.

Dunwich had all but disappeared
into the North Sea,…

…and the medieval settlement of Old Sarum
had only 15 voters!

Yet both returned 2 MPs,…!

…while the bustling cities of Birmingham,
and Liverpool, and Manchester…!

…had no MPs at all!

The clamour for fairer parliamentary representation
was becoming louder and more insistent.

The Prime Minister, Lord Liverpool, and his Cabinet,
seemed deaf to the demands of the growing urban population.

In 1816, the tension between the two
boiled over,…!

…when a gathering of leading radicals
addressed a mass meeting at Spa Fields, in North London!

Here are the two perpetrators,
or ringleaders.

One of them is Henry Hunt.
Henry "Orator" Hunt, as he's called.

He's quite a classy individual.
He's 43 years old.

He's a prosperous farmer,…

…and what he wants
is universal suffrage.

He wants an annual election
to Parliament.

He wants quite a gentle version
of reform, I suppose.

The great advantage
he has as a radical leader…

…is his voice!

He has a great pair of lungs:
he can address an enormous  crowd!

And in 1816
he'd been all over Britain,…

…addressing these huge
gatherings of reformers.

He'd spoken
to 80,000 people in Birmingham.

In Blackburn, 40,000
had turned up to hear him.

In Nottingham,
it was 20,000.

In Stockport,…

…it was 20,000 again,…

…and in Macclesfield 10,000 people.
So he was a very, very popular speaker!

The other ringleader
was Arthur Thistlewood.

He's a very different
cup of tea!

He's a little bit older,
he's 46.

He's not a farmer, he's
the illegitimate son of one, though.

And THIS should set off
alarm bells with the authorities: …

…he's spent time
in revolutionary France.

Maybe he's taken in
some Jacobin ideas!

In fact, he HAS!

He's  from a group
called the Spencian Philanthropists,…

…and what he wants is violent revolution,
followed by the total redistribution of property!

So, in November 1816,
a great crowd gathers at Spa Fields,…

…and they demand reform.
They draw up a list of things they want.

They want universal suffrage,
they want annual elections.

This is sent
to the Prince Regent,…

…but there is no reply.
He completely ignores them.

So, a month later, in December,
the crowd gathers again at Spa Fields.

And this time,
there's fighting: it's a riot!

Arthur Thistlewood is arrested,…

…but he escapes imprisonment.
He gets off on a technicality.

After Spa Fields,
the roads of these two men diverge: …

…one peaceful,
the other increasingly violent.

Thistlewood was now even more determined
to  incite the London mob into bloody revolution.

The Regent, who'd loftily ignored the petitions of his people,…

…was now to feel their wrath
at first hand!

By 1817, those voices of discontent
were growing  louder.

In January of that year,
the Prince Regent was in his coach,…

…on the way home from Parliament,
where he'd been making an address,…

…when he got surrounded
by an angry mob!

They were shouting,
"Seize him! Seize him!",…

…and throwing things,
throwing things!

And they called him names,
which were too rude to be printed in The Times.

Suddenly,
there was a loud crack!

The glass of the window
got broken.

George thought that this was
an assassination attempt,…

…and he offered a thousand pound reward
for the catching of the criminal.

But then, people started asking questions.
Nobody had actually seen a gun,…

…and nobody had smelled any smoke.
Maybe it was all in his imagination.

Heh! This turned out
to be the case!

And the thing that broke the window
wasn't a bullet at all!

It was just
an ordinary little pebble!

The Regent, at 55, was underemployed,
overdrawn, and overweight.

He was a laughingstock.

In a society jaded
by George's excesses,…

…his  subjects wished to see in
his daughter Charlotte a purer image of royalty,…

…a Princess untainted by the gluttony
and sexual incontinence of the Regent.

Aged 20 with great celebration, she married
a German Prince, Leopold of Saxe–Coburg,…

…and settled here,
at Claremont House, in Surrey.

As a child, Princess Charlotte
was neglected by her father.

But here, she found
contentment and happiness,…

…and, in 1817, Britain was delighted
with the news that she'd got pregnant!

Perhaps an heir would provide
a brighter future for the Hanoverian dynasty,…

…which her father'd brought
into such disrepute.

But, it wasn't going
to end happily.

After a 48–hour labor up there,…

…poor Charlotte's son
was born dead,…

…and she died
a few hours later.

In this one dreadful night,
the whole royal line of the Prince Regent… ended.

People said it was as though
every household had lost a favorite child.

The whole country mourned,
and drapers sold out of black cloth.

On hearing the news, her mother,
Princess Caroline, fainted with shock.

George, who'd always been
a dreadful father,…

…was crippled with grief,…

…and unable to face
his own daughter's funeral.

She was buried – her son at her feet –
in St. George's Chapel, at Windsor.

After Charlotte's death, a public subscription
was launched, to build a monument to honour her.

The response was phenomenal: …

…in 2 years,
over 12,000 pounds had been raised,…

…and the sculptor Matthew Cotes Wyatt
was commissioned to make this cenotaph.

It must be one of the most spectacular
works of art of the Regency.

Down below, Charlotte's body and the mourners
are heavily, realistically, draped with cloth.

And, up above, the angels
are carrying Charlotte and her baby…

…up to Heaven.

There's no sense of British reserve
or stiff upper lip here,…

…and rightly so because the monument
was paid for by thousands of ordinary people,…

…who wanted a record of their grief.

To them, Charlotte had been
the future of the monarchy, the future of Britain,…

…and here she is, tragically young,
being carried away by angels.

Although there was
a genuine public outpouring of emotion,…

…the bitter conflicts
of the years following  Waterloo…

…hadn't been forgotten
by one republican.

On a November day, here in Marlow,
Shelley heard about the death at Claremont.

It inspired him to write
a political pamphlet!

He called it, "An Address to the Nation
on the Death of Princess Charlotte".

But this wasn't to be
a simple eulogy.

The pamphlet also mourned the death
of 3 men who were executed…

…on the day following
Princess Charlotte's death.

These 3 were workers
from Derbyshire.

They'd been involved
in a protest march calling for reform,…

…but they'd been set up to it
by a Government spy.

Shelley was one of the few radicals
to risk open publication of his views.

"Liberty is dead", he wrote.

"Fetters heavier than iron
weigh upon us."

"Because they bind our souls."

The Government seem to have no answer to the pressure
for democratic change that was coming from below.

The morning of the 19th of August, 1819,
was hot and cloudless.

On that morning, a cloth worker,
called John Lees, left his home in Oldham.

He wanted to go
into Manchester,…

…to attend a big rally for parliamentary reform,
that was being held in St. Peter's fields.

He, and 60,000 other people,…

…wanted to hear
the famous orator Henry Hunt.

"Orator" Hunt,
the champion of Spa Fields,…

…was perhaps the best man in Britain
to inspire and lead large crowds…

…in the call
for greater freedom.

At half past one,
Henry "Orator" Hunt arrived at this spot,…

…and he climbed up onto a cart
to address the crowd.

So, he would have seen
60,000 people  watching him,…

…all crammed into this area,
that's about the size of two football pitches.

But it was quiet!
These people were unarmed,…

…they were sober,…

…they were behaving very well,
and they'd  come dressed in their Sunday best.

So, "Orator" Hunt is all ready
to go with his speech.

But the local magistrates are watching
from a house, just over there,…

…and they just can't believe
that his speech is going to go off peacefully!

And they panic:
they send in the Special Constables,…

…and the local militia, called the Yeomanry,
to arrest "Orator" Hunt.

The crowd tried to protect him
by linking their arms,…

…but the Yeomanry
– they're only volunteers –…!

…they start waving
their sabers around!

They're clearly
out of their depth!

So, the proper soldiers are called in:
two bands of Hussars are summoned,…

…and they're ordered
to clear the square.

This is Chetham's library,
in Manchester.

It was founded in 1653,
and it's the oldest public library in Britain.

It was well known
to the radicals of Regency Manchester,…

…and lots of their original documents
still survive here.

I've come to look at the contemporary evidence
with the historian Robert Poole,…

…to find out how a peaceful protest
turned into a bloody massacre.

So, what kind of a man
was he, Henry Hunt?

He was called "Orator" Hunt as well, wasn't he,
because he had enormous lungs!

Yes! Hunt was also
a powerful personality.

He said, "I'm a gentleman farmer
with a SMALL… fortune,…"

– Heh!
– "…and a friend of the people".

And he contrasted himself
to the wealthy parasites…

…who… who ran government, and finance, at the time;
the equivalent of the… the fat–cat bankers of our own age.

Yeah.

He saw himself as one of the wealth producers,
but also as a kind of aristocratic leader of the people.

But he became outraged
about the way that the people were treated,…

…and had fallen in
with the radical wigs.

So, he wasn't OF the people, he wasn't a weaver;
but he'd set himself up… as their leader.

And, on one level, he's giving them
good advice here, isn't he? He's saying,…

Behave well,
don't get drunk,…

…behave in an orderly fashion,
and we'll be fine.

But, at the same time, he's kind of hinting
that there could be trouble. He's talking about…

…"our enemies",
and "there might be bloodshed".

And he calls the authorities
"malignant and contemptible".

Yes, and accuses
the authorities of seeking…

…seeking to excite a riot,
in order to have a pretense for spilling blood.

Hunt was extremely good
at almost riding 2 horses at once.

He needed  to rouse the people,
and demonstrate the tremendous force…

…of popular resentment, but at the same time,
demonstrate that only he could control crowds.

What did he want exactly,…?

…in calling all of his associates to this meeting?
What did they hope to achieve together?

They wanted
a radical reform of Parliament.

That is, universal suffrage,
by which they meant manhood suffrage.

Annual Parliament, so that MPs regularly had to account for themselves.

And a secret ballot, to make sure that people
couldn't be influenced by their landlords or employers.

And part of the problem was that Manchester,
this great industrial city,…

…it wasn't really represented, was it?

Because the old distribution of MPs
didn't take it into account.

Oh, Manchester was a modern
industrial city in many ways,…

…but it was just a kind
of hard parish pump politics.

It was governed by its parish vestry,
and its cold elite,…

…and a lot of constables,
and dog whippers, and so forth.

Um,…
it  wasn't a modern town at all!

This is a plan
of the setup at St. Peter's Field.

Yes. On the print you can see the density of people,
in the middle all the flags, the banners, and so on,…

…around the hustings. But also, towards the edges,
quite a large number of spectators,…

…um,… it was not
just a rally of reformers there.

It was a bit of a day out,
and there were a lot of people there…

– …watching as well,…
– Uh–huh!

…which makes what happened next
all the more shocking.

And they sent in the Deputy Constable
to arrest Henry Hunt,…

…simply because they feared…

…that anybody,
making a rousing speech to a large crowd…

…of ordinary people, gathered without
a legitimate authority to keep them in order,…

…that that was like
applying a match… to a dry field.

They just felt that there HAD
to be some kind of explosion.

So, the Yeomanry… panics.

They came in,
they started slashing people, and…

It was said that they were drunk.
Is that true?

Well, if they hadn't been drinking at lunchtime, it would
have been very out of character for the Manchester Yeomanry.

A lot of them were publicans and small tradesmen,
and that's what people did at lunchtime.

Uh,… there are well-attested
reports for that.

And the fact that they had their swords sharpened
in the… in the weeks before as well.

And when they got stuck, they were
untrained, they were volunteers.

They'd only been formed
a couple of years before.

And they started slashing
around them with sabres,…

…which caused a tremendous crush
and a panic,…

…and sparked off what became known
as the Peterloo Massacre.

This book here is a list of all… well, many of the people
who did get hurt, and here we've got: …

Judith Kilner, a pregnant woman,
was much bruised.

And here we've got a lady thrown
into a cellar, with a woman who was killed.

Was pregnant
at the time.

Here we've got somebody
cut under the ear… by a sabre.

We've got people
being sabred and crushed,…

…being hit on the head with truncheons,
being crushed by the horses.

Oh, it's just horrible!
How many people actually  got killed?

Uh,…
there were 15 killed on the day,…

…uh,… but there were over 650 injured,
in only 20 minutes,…

…which is why it deserves the title,
I think, of a "massacre".

And,… over 200 of those were sabre wounds;
many of those were women,…

…and some of them were children.

And there's some research been done
on the injuries to women at Peterloo,…

…and it's… it's fairly reliably reckoned,
they were MORE likely to be sabred than the men.

The Yeomanry went for the women, because they were
the people that the authorities hated and resented most.

That's because it was felt it was improper for women
to be taking part in politics.

Yes. Female reformers, dressed in virgin or white,
in that patriotic way, simply seem to the authorities,…

…like Marianne,
the symbol of the French Revolution.

It was claimed they were deaf to…
to… to every feminine virtue,…

…and you can see this
in this satirical, um,…  picture…

…um,…
from a loyalist newspaper, here.

You've got an imaginary scene at one of the meetings
of female reformers in Manchester.

Meetings this kind
did happen.

But you can see here, these female reformers
have no idea how to conduct a meeting.

One of them
is standing on the table.

Many of them are drinking gin.
None of them are listening.

There's one of them here that's snogging.
They're all chattering,…

They don't know anything
about politics.

And it's reminiscent
of these sort of 17th century pictures…

…of the fox addressing the silly geese,
who think they know about politics, but really don't.

And, just like a proper battle, there were all sorts
of souvenirs and medals made, weren't there?

Done with satirical intent.

And there's an example here, which is modeled
on the famous Josiah Wedgwood anti-slavery medal.

The black slave kneeling, and the slogan,
"Am I not a man and brother?".

Well, here the kneeling figure
is… is a ragged weaver,…

…and he's saying,
"Am I not a man and brother?",…

…and he's speaking to a member of the Yeomanry
who has a bloodied axe raised,…

…and the reply is,
"No, you're a poor weaver!"

– "Off with your head!"
– Mmm!

And it's surrounded
by skulls and crossbones too.

– Mmm!
– It's a very…

– Mmm!
– Aww… it's…

It's bitter!
Isn't it?

It's making the point
that Britain has abolished slavery abroad,…

– …but…
– But they're still doing it at home!
– Yes!

How quickly was that connection made?
Waterloo,…

…this became known
as Peterloo, in a sort of…

…parody.

Very quickly! Well, in a way,
it was the authorities who made the connection first,…

…because one of the volunteer
Special Constables said,…

…um,… to some of the crowd,
"This is Waterloo for you!",…

…meaning, you know, "Like Napoleon,
you reformers have now met your Waterloo!"

Um,… the constables and the yeoman were
very proud of what they were doing, in averting…

…revolution, as they saw it.

And, within a week, the local radical newspaper,
"The Manchester Observer",…

…had announced that it was going to publish
all the  evidence under the title of "Peterloo Massacre",…

…with ironic reference
to Waterloo.

This was the time
when the troops,…

…uh,… who were supposed to be guarding the people,
had in fact turned on them,…

…and there were far more Waterloo veterans
amongst the crowd…

…than there were amongst the troops,
and none at all amongst the volunteer Yeomanry.

Peterloo frightens
the Government to the core.

Feeling that the growing disturbances
were threatening violent revolution,…

…they banned
all public meetings,…

…and they imposed imprisonment without trial
for some of those arrested.

This only served
further to inflame the crowds.

With the death
of George III in 1820,…

…and the accession
of the detested Prince Regent to the throne,…

…the other radical from Spa Fields,
Arthur Thistlewood, decided to act.

He plotted to murder the Cabinet
and remove the King.

One evening,
he and his small band of conspirators…

…met in a hayloft, on a narrow lane
just off London's Edgeware Road.

But, unfortunately for the conspirators,
the  Government had got wind of what was going on.

At the point when the conspirators
gathered  here,…

…– this is the scene of the crime,
it's a hay loft in Cato Street –,…

…and here we've got
exactly how it was laid out.

On the table, here, the conspirators have gathered
their weapons: their swords, their grenades, their guns.

But this is the ladder,
up which the police officers came barging in.

There was a big fight,
a confrontation,…

…and Arthur Thistlewood  himself ran through
one of the police officers with a sword.

And this is the spot, here,
where the body fell.

In the darkness and the confusion,
the conspirators ran away.

Here they are, climbing out
through holes in the building.

Some of them, it's said,
went down the hay chutes.

But, the next morning, the ringleaders
were rounded up and captured.

They included
Thistlewood, the top guy,…

…a couple of shoemakers,…

…a coffeehouse owner,…

…a failed law student
from Jamaica,…

…and this rather mysterious  character,
George Edwards, who was probably…

…a Government agent,
inciting the whole thing.

Now, this caused real problems
when it came to the trial.

Would the case collapse, because of the presence of the Government agent?

Well, no, it didn't,…

…because this conspirator,
John Monument,…

…he turned evidence
against his colleagues.

So, they were all condemned.

John Monument was let off
for being a snitch.

George Edwards was let off
for being a Government agent.

But the rest of them
were all executed.

Just at the point that the Prince Regent
was about to become King George IV.

It looked like Britain
was just on the brink of revolution.

George continued
his life of idleness and excess.

Yet, he and his Government would next face an opponent
far more  destructive than either Hunt or Thistlewood.

The opposition would come now in the form of his
estranged and reviled wife, the now Queen Caroline.

In the country, Caroline was seen
as the wronged and abused wife.

All the more so when George tried – unsuccessfully –
to divorce her by act of Parliament.

His pretext was
her rumored scandalous behaviour.

Caroline had got a bit too close
to her Italian servant, Bartolomeo Pergami.

They'd been seen kissing,
they'd even been seen undressed together,…

…and there was talk
about an illegitimate child.

The bill got
through the House of Lords,…

…but Caroline was
so amazingly popular in the  country,…

…it seemed really unlikely
it would get through the House of Commons.

So, George had to  give up:
he couldn't stop her from becoming Queen.

All he could hope for was,
that she wouldn't show up at his coronation.

Despite the distraction
of a wild and unwanted  Queen,…

…George started to plan the most extravagant,
the most expensive coronation of all time.

At Kensington Palace,
where I work as a curator,…

…we look after
the enormous coronation robe…

that George chose for the moment
he truly became King.

Right.

On "three", okay?

One, two, three,…!

He may have been King of a divided nation,
but George always knew how to put on a good show.

So, you lift first,
off the table,…

…and then,
one, two, three, up,…!

Slowly, slowly,…

Well done!
It's going through!

Okay, let's go!

Nearly there!

Heave it in!
Come on, let's open it up!

Okay!

Because of its fragile condition,
this robe rarely sees the light of day.

And this is my first full chance
to see it unwrapped.

Okay!

????

???? okay?

So, this is George III's coronation robe,
from his coronation in 1821.

The whole event
got delayed a year,…

…because they needed the extra planning time
to make it into this HUGE extravaganza.

Look how richly it's embroidered,
with all this gold, and all these sequins!

And this was purple imperial velvet.
He's trying to "outnapoleon" Napoleon here.

This is actually the one he wore
to come out, at the end!

When he arrived at the coronation,
he was wearing a RED velvet robe, very similar.

He spent 24,000 pounds
on this robe,…

…and it needed 9 people
to carry it for him.

He turned up in this huge magnificent procession,
that seemed to go on for miles!

It was led by the herb women,
strewing herbs for the King to walk over.

He appeared
with his robe bearers,…

…and then
all the peerage turned up.

And George had insisted that the peers
– many of whom were elderly men –,…

…dress up in these Tudor outfits,
wearing tights.

The peers were a bit dubious about this,
and it is true there were sniggers from their wives,…

…when they arrived in the Abbey.

But this was
the greatest show on earth!

George commissioned
a special new crown for himself!

He hired 12,000 diamonds!

It was a five–hour ceremony,…

…at several points he was seen to be sweating,
he almost fainted, he had to be revived with smelling salts.

But he kept up his spirits!
Everybody also noticed that he was…

…nodding and winking to his mistress,
who was in the audience.

But it definitely left an indelible mark
on the memories of everybody who was there.

So, 5 hours later, this is the robe in which he made
his first appearance as the crowned, anointed King.

[Handel's 1st coronation anthem, Zadok the Priest]
Zadok the Priest,…!

…and Nathan the Prophet,…

But, however meticulously George had planned
his own anointing as King,…

…there was still
one unresolved problem: …

…Caroline!

And she wasn't a woman
to take no for an answer!

This is pretty much the only view of the coronation
enjoyed by George's wife Caroline.

She'd been exiled from Court at the start of the Regency,
and she'd gone overseas.

But when he became King,
she turned back up again, wanting to be crowned!

This is despite the fact
that she'd been offered 50,000 pounds to stay away.

So, on Coronation Day,
she arrived at Westminster Abbey,…

…and she flew onto the doors,
shouting "I am the Queen! Open!"

"I am the Queen of  Britain!
Let me pass!"

But the doors
remained closed.

Long live the King!

May the King live
forever,…

The coronation was the Prince Regent's final bow.
Now the Regency was officially over.

It had been a splendid ten years for architecture,
for poetry, for painting, and for prose.

But it had also been ten years
of waste, and profligacy, and royal immorality.

Britain may have won the battle of Waterloo,
but it looked like the country was at war with itself.

Was there ever a decade of greater contrasts?
I don't think so!

And what about George IV as King?
How would he be remembered?

Well, 200 years later,
English Heritage ran a poll,…

…and he was voted
Britain's worst monarch ever.

So, the Regency,
for me, is 2 things: …

…untold elegance,
combined with squalid decadence!