took place at St Peter's Field, Manchester, Lancashire, England, on Monday 16 August 1819. Eighteen people died and 400–700 were injured when cavalry charged into a crowd of around 60,000 people who had gathered to demand the reform of parliamentary representation.
the response to that, from the general public, was general outrage, mocking of government, but no "organized military response".
The immediate effect of Peterloo was a crackdown on reform. The government instructed the police and courts to go after the journalists, presses and publication of the Manchester Observer.
For a few months following Peterloo it seemed to the authorities that the country was heading towards an armed rebellion. Encouraging them in that belief were two abortive uprisings, [..], and the discovery and foiling of [..] conspiracy to blow up the cabinet that winter.
By the end of the year, the government had introduced legislation, later known as the Six Acts, to suppress radical meetings and publications, and by the end of 1820 every significant working-class radical reformer was in jail; civil liberties had declined to an even lower level than they were before Peterloo.
The urge for reform increased, resolve stiffened, and eventually (after some time) change came about.
Events such as [ ..these.. ] all serve to indicate the breadth, diversity and widespread geographical scale of the demand for economic and political reform at the time.
Peterloo had no effect on the speed of reform, but in due course all but one of the reformers' demands, annual parliaments, were met. Following the Great Reform Act 1832 [ ... ]
I think Britain is special. It's always been about repression, Richard II said "You wretches detestable on land and sea: you who seek equality with lords are unworthy to live. Give this message to your colleagues: rustics you were, and rustics you are still; you will remain in bondage, not as before, but incomparably harsher. For as long as we live we will strive to suppress you, and your misery will be an example in the eyes of posterity" and so it has been, and Peterloo etc., are the demonstration.
The US has some stuff of this sort too, presumably at least partially inherited from British tradition.
Here in Sweden though, when we have attacked the government we have generally been successful and have obtained useful recompense. Violence, when you're organized and sensible, really works. It's terrifying to see properly organized people attack, because you know that even if you're willing to siege it out, level your own city, it's going to be like the Siege of Mariupol. If people know how to fight and have guns and mortars, there's no police force that can do anything useful, and no military force that can do anything useful without it being actual war, on your own territory.
You quote someone famously deposed by rebellion and died in prison as an example of uniquely British repression preventing revolution?
It's absurd and toxic to claim the sentiments of Richard II are uniquely British. European monarchies are better understood as an interconnected transnational class. Richard II aka Richard of Bordeaux, born in the presence of the kings of Castile, Navarre and Portugal, married the sister of the Holy Roman Emperor and then the daughter of King of France...
> Here in Sweden though, when we have attacked the government we have generally been successful
Oh? Möre uprising, Västbo peasant uprising, Värmland rebellion, Böda Uprising, Morning Star rebellion... etc. all suppressed and leaders executed.
I'm pretty sure that's not actually how power or legitimacy work anyway.