The Pirate History Podcast · Matt Albers

Episode 342 - A Season of Severeity

·41 min·3 clips

Jacobite plotters planned to ambush King William III with forty armed men on a London road in 1696.

This episode details a failed 1696 Jacobite assassination plot against King William III and its political fallout. Host Matt Albers of the Pirate History Podcast narrates, connecting these events to the era's pirates and power brokers. The core plotters were a cell including Matthew Smith, Sir William Parkins, Robert Charnock, and the soldier John Parker. Veteran Jacobite officer George Barclay later took charge of their plan to ambush the king near Turnham Green as he returned from a hunt. The conspirators, armed with forty sets of muskets, pistols, sabres, and blunderbusses, intended to attack the king's retinue. Informants George Porter and Matthew Smith betrayed the plot to authorities like Secretary of State William Trumbull and his agent Sir Thomas Pendergrast. King William altered his travel plans, and the conspirators were arrested in raids on February 14, 1696. Most plotters were executed or died in prison, like Newgate. During investigations, Matthew Smith and the arrested Baron Fenwick implicated powerful figures, including the Earl of Shrewsbury, John Churchill (the Earl of Marlborough), and even Archbishop Thomas Tenison. A surprising claim is that the informant George Porter may have been turned while in Newgate Prison. The episode suggests high-level figures like Marlborough, who was defending England from invasion, might have been secretly contacting the exiled King James II. Host Matt speculates that Princess Anne herself might have been involved in Jacobite plotting to secure the succession, though he calls this "wild speculation." The fallout was hushed up, with King William forgiving or exonerating the accused nobles and their records destroyed. The episode connects this political intrigue to the East India Company's internal power struggle between the "Old Company" and "New Company" factions. It posits that the New Company leaders, like the Earl of Portland, may have used the plot to discredit their rivals, who had large stakes in the company. A memorable moment details the assassination tactic: using blunderbusses to create "a wall of shrapnel" to cause pandemonium before closing in with other weapons. The host notes the irony that the plot's mastermind, George Barclay, was initially in France organizing a Jacobite invasion that lacked sufficient troops. The episode concludes by suggesting these events showed King William he needed loyal, unaffiliated agents, paving the way for figures like writer Daniel Defoe. The tone is educational and narrative, delivered in a conversational, single-host style as Matt connects complex political and espionage threads. The host occasionally clarifies which details are uncertain due to the "murky" nature of spycraft and historical gaps. Listeners interested in intricate Stuart-era political conspiracies, espionage history, and the prelude to the Golden Age of Piracy would enjoy this episode. Those seeking straightforward tales of sea raids or pirate biographies might find the dense web of London plotters and nobles less engaging.

As heard by us

A royal procession becomes a study in how place and power work together.

The episode treats the movement of King William toward London as a matter of geography first and politics second. Kew, the Thames crossing, the old roads, Turnham Green, and the ring of villages around the capital are all given room to shape the argument.

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Why you'd press play

A royal route from Kew toward London, with security, road names, and politics tucked into the hedgerows.

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