"The streets will run with blood!": the uprising that shook Victorian Britain

In 1838, a six-foot Cornishman going by the name of Sir William Courtney led an insurrection in rural Kent. Courtney claimed he was Jesus Christ, and a lot of people believed him, and when those supporters clashed with troops at Bossenden Wood, the result was carnage. In today's episode of the History Extra podcast, Ian Brecon tells Spencer Mizen about the last battle fought on English soil, and considers what it tells us about Victorian Britain. And if you're a fan of military history, don't miss the second season of our History's Greatest Battles series. This time around, we're exploring the Wars of the Roses.

All the details you need are in the description of this episode, but for now it's over to Ian and Spencer. Ian, your new book is called Mad Tom's Rising, The Revolutionary Mystic, Sir William Courtney, and the Last Battle Fought on English Soil. I wonder if you could begin by giving our listeners a quick introduction to the rising referred to in the title. What exactly happened in the spring of 1838? Well, this was the last day of May 1838 in a tract of woodland called Bosenden Wood.

which is part of the Bleenwoods between Canterbury and Faversham, a, I suppose you could call him revolutionary messiah, other people called him an imposter, a madman, a charlatan political firebrand, who called himself Sir William Courtney, gathered together a group of local labouring people, and essentially started a revolution against the state, really. Although he also claimed to be the second coming of Jesus Christ, and said that he was going to bring the millennium and the day of judgment. A lot of these laboring people that followed him did so for various reasons, but the local authorities, the local magistrates and landowners definitely regarded this as a threat to the established order and an insurrection of the laboring classes, as one local clergyman called it. They summoned a detachment of the army who came up from Canterbury. The two sides met in a clearing in the forest, and a battle followed.

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