In at least one instance the violence of the rioters rose to
the height of treason. Assassins fired at the Regent in the Park as he
was returning from the House of Lords, whither he had been to open
Parliament; and when it was found that they had missed their aim, the
mob attacked the royal carriage, pelting it with large stones, and
breaking the windows; nor was it without some difficulty that the escort
of troops cleared a path for him through the mob, and enabled him to
reach Carlton House in safety.
The first effect of these outrages was to damage the cause of Reform
itself, even such uncompromising reformers as Lord Grey denouncing
"meetings at which extensive schemes of Reform were submitted to
individuals incapable of judging of their propriety." The second
consequence was to compel the ministers to take steps to prevent a
recurrence of such tumults and crimes. At first they were contented with
a temporary suspension of the _Habeas Corpus_ Act; but, even while that
suspension was in force, it did not entirely prevent meetings, at some
of which the language of the speakers certainly bordered on sedition;
and when the suspension was taken off, fresh meetings on a larger scale,
and of a more tumultuous character than ever, were held in more than one
rural district; finally, in July of 1819, the whole kingdom was thrown
into a violent state of excitement by a meeting held at Birmingham, at
which the leaders, assuming the newly-invented party name of Radicals,
not only demanded the remodelling of the whole system of government,
but, because Birmingham as yet sent no members to the House of Commons,
took it upon themselves to elect Sir Charles Wolseley, a baronet of
respectable family, as their representative to the Parliament, and
charged him to claim a place in the House of Commons in the next
session, by the side of those elected in obedience to the royal writs.
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