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© Pentrich Historical Society 2000-2007

Updated Wednesday, 06 August, 2008

Web site maintained by Helen Wilson

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THE STORY OF A REVOLUTION

Retribution

Over the next few weeks, rebels hid (plaque 7) but many were nevertheless arrested. A show trial in October was a national sensation, especially when the ringleaders, Jeremiah Brandreth, Isaac Ludlam and William Turner, were sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered. They were the last men in England to receive that sentence; in the end they received ‘clemency’ and were instead hanged and beheaded. Fourteen other men were transported to Australia and six more jailed.

By this time public appetite for punishment was waning, there was debate in the press about the rights and wrongs of the “example” being made of Pentrich men. No evidence was offered against the twelve other men.

The poet Shelley famously wrote a lament after the hangings “An address &c.” often referred to as “We pity the plumage but forget the dying bird.”