On 11 May 1812 Spencer Perceval, the British Prime Minister, was fatally shot at close range in the lobby of the House of Commons. In the confused aftermath, his assailant, John Bellingham, made no effort to escape. A week later, before his motives could be examined, he was tried and hanged.Here, for the first time, the historian Andro Linklater looks past the conventional image of Bellingham as a 'deranged businessman' and portrays him as an individual, driven by personal anxieties and by the raw emotions that convulsed his home town of Liverpool. But as the evidence accumulates, a wider, darker picture emerges - John Bellignham was not alone in hating the prime minister.Two hundred years later, Andro Linklater examines the ecidence and brilliantly deconstructs the assassination of Spencer Perceval - the only British Prime Minister ever to have suffered that fate - to offer a fresh perspective on Britain and the Western world at a critical moment in history.

Only once in history has a British Prime Minister been assassinated. At 5.00 p.m. on Monday, 11 May 1812, John Bellingham made his way to the Houses of Parliament carrying concealed weapons. At 5.15 p.m., as the Prime Minister, the Rt Hon. Spencer Perceval, was making his way across the lobby leading to the House of Commons, Bellingham shot him dead at point-blank range. Bellingham was immediately arrested and put on trial two days later: refusing to plead insanity, he was convicted and hanged before the week was out. Bellingham was neither a revolutionary nor a religious fanatic, but a successful young entrepreneur. What had driven him to commit such a heinous crime? In a story of suspense, revenge and personal tragedy, David C. Hanrahan tells the interwoven stories of Perceval and Bellingham, detailing not just the events of May 1812, but also the two men's histories, and what led one to take the other's life.

England entered the nineteenth century having lost the American states and was at war with France. The slave trade had been halted and the country was in torment, with industrialisation throwing men and women out of work as poverty haunted their lives. As the merchants of England and America saw their businesses stagnate and profits plummet, everyone blamed the government and its policies. Those in charge were alarmed and businessmen, who were believed to be exploiting the poor, were murdered. Assassination indeed stalked the streets. The man at the centre of the storm was Prime Minister Spencer Perceval. From the higher reaches of society to the beggar looking for bread, many wanted him dead, due to policies brought about by his inflexible religious convictions and his belief that he was appointed by God. In May 1812 he entered the Lobby of the Houses of Parliament when a man stepped forward and fired a pistol at him. The lead ball entered into his heart. Within minutes he was dead. Using freshly-discovered archive material, this book explores the assassin's thoughts and actions through his own writings. Using his background in psychology, the author explores the question of the killer's sanity and the fairness of his subsequent trial. Within its pages the reader will find an account of the murder of Spencer Perceval and a well-developed portrait of his assassin.

John Pitt, 2nd Earl of Chatham is one of the most enigmatic and overlooked figures of early nineteenth century British history. The elder brother of Pitt the Younger, he has long been consigned to history as 'the late Lord Chatham', the lazy commander-in-chief of the 1809 Walcheren expedition, whose inactivity and incompetence turned what should have been an easy victory into a disaster. Chatham's poor reputation obscures a fascinating and complex man. During a twenty-year career at the heart of government, he served in several important cabinet posts such as First Lord of the Admiralty and Master-General of the Ordnance. Yet despite his closeness to the Prime Minister and friendship with the Royal Family, political rivalries and private tragedy hampered his ascendance. Paradoxically for a man of widely admired diplomatic skills, his downfall owed as much to his personal insecurities and penchant for making enemies as it did to military failure. Using a variety of manuscript sources to tease Chatham from the records, this biography peels away the myths and places him for the first time in proper familial, political, and military context. It breathes life into a much-maligned member of one of Britain's greatest political dynasties, revealing a deeply flawed man trapped in the shadow of his illustrious relatives.

This institutional history charts the development and evolution of parliament from the Scottish and Irish parliaments, through the post-Act of Union parliament and into the devolved assemblies of the 1990s. It considers all aspects of parliament as an institution, including membership, parties, constituencies and elections.

A surprising and lively history of an overlooked era that brought the modern world of art, culture, and science decisively into view. The Victorians are often credited with ushering in our current era, yet the seeds of change were planted in the years before. The Regency (1811–1820) began when the profligate Prince of Wales—the future king George IV—replaced his insane father, George III, as Britain’s ruler. Around the regent surged a society steeped in contrasts: evangelicalism and hedonism, elegance and brutality, exuberance and despair. The arts flourished at this time with a showcase of extraordinary writers and painters such as Jane Austen, Lord Byron, the Shelleys, John Constable, and J. M. W. Turner. Science burgeoned during this decade, too, giving us the steam locomotive and the blueprint for the modern computer. Yet the dark side of the era was visible in poverty, slavery, pornography, opium, and the gothic imaginings that birthed the novel Frankenstein. With the British military in foreign lands, fighting the Napoleonic Wars in Europe and the War of 1812 in the United States, the desire for empire and an expanding colonial enterprise gained unstoppable momentum. Exploring these crosscurrents, Robert Morrison illuminates the profound ways this period shaped and indelibly marked the modern world.

Over seven centuries London has changed dramatically - from walled medieval settlement to bustling modern metropolis. But throughout its history there has been one inescapable constant: murder. It winds through the heart of the capital as surely as the River Thames. Capital Crimes tells the story of crime and punishment in the city, from the killing of infamous 'questmonger' Roger Legett during the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 through to the hanging of Styllou Christofi in 1954. Along the way we encounter such shocking characters as railway murderer Franz Muller, the ‘baby farmers’ of Finchley and the notorious political assassin John Bellingham. Some are well known, some obscure; the lives and fates of all, however, have much to tell us, providing a glimpse into the workings of London’s mysterious underworld and reminding us that dark deeds are not so far removed from everyday life as we would perhaps like to believe.