Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Edward Marcus Despard was hanged in 1803 for plotting to assassinate George III of England. He was an Irishman and he was a revolutionary, but was he an Irish revolutionary? The answer is not as obvious as it might seem. The public record of his life would indicate that he had little interest in Ireland. He was born into a well-to-do Irish Protestant family, but left Ireland in his early teens to join the English army and rapidly rose to the rank of colonel. He fought for England against Spain in Central America side by side with his close comrade-in-arms Horatio Nelson. Despard then served as the first colonial administrator of what was to become British Honduras and later Belize . When he left the tropics he returned not to Ireland but to London, where he did indeed gain notoriety in the late eighteenth century as a revolutionary, but in affiliation with the United Englishmen , not the United Irishmen . It would appear, then, that Colonel Despard should be remembered as an English revolutionary – an “English Jacobin” – rather than an Irish rebel. Appearances are often deceptive in the shadowy world of revolutionary politics, however, as Despard's career magnificently illustrates. A careful examination of the secret files compiled by the English and Irish governments' political police reveals that Despard's primary loyalty was to the cause of Irish separation from England, ... log in or subscribe to read full text