Horsington was further connected with an incident which, had it not been nipped in the bud, might have had most serious national consequences, viz., what is known as “the Cato street conspiracy,” the leader of which was Arthur Thistlewood, a native of Horsington. His proper name was Burnett, the name of his mother, he not being born in wedlock. She was the daughter of a small shopkeeper in the village. Thistlewood, his father, was a farmer, and Burnett was brought up with the rest of Thistlewood’s family. Possibly his peculiar position may have soured his temper. The following extracts taken from a recent publication give contemporary information as to the details of this dangerous and daringly-conceived plot. {160} The Earl of Hardwick, writing to Lady Elizabeth Stuart, then in Paris, Feb. 24, 1820, states that he had, in London, just received information of a plot to assassinate ministers as they came from dinner at Lord Harrowby’s. (The Duke of Berry had been assassinated in Paris, at the door of the Opera House, on Feb. 13th, 1820, only eleven days before.) Thirty men, his lordship says, were found in a hay-loft, all armed. Notice had been privately given to the police of the plot, and the dinner had been consequently postponed. These men had probably met to consider the cause of this postponement. Nine of the party were taken, the rest escaping by a rope ladder. Lord Hardwick, writing again at 4 p.m. the same day, says, “I have just seen the leaders of the horrible plot . . . Thistlewood was taken to the Treasury, where he was about to be examined. Townshend the police officer asked if I would like to see him . . . he was sitting over the fire without his hat; it was easy to distinguish him from the rest, by the character of ferocity which marked his countenance, which had a singularly bad expression . . . Sir Charles Flint took me to another room, where there were several of the arms taken; 7 pistols and bayonets, 4 daggers, or pike heads, two feet in length; and some muskets. A sergeant of the guard was wounded in the arm by a ball which had passed through his hand; he also received three balls in the crown of his hat.” Thistlewood was taken in White Cross Street, near Finsbury Square, in his bed. The place where the conspirators were discovered by the police was the loft of a stable at the “Horse and Groom” public-house, in John Street, Portman Square, which is between the square and Edgware Road. They were to have forced themselves into the house, at Lord Harrowby’s, while dinner was going on, which they could easily have done by knocking at the door and then overpowering the footmen; or, according to another version, to have assassinated the ministers as they came away in a body.