SLIGHTLY AFTER FIVE o'clock on May 11, 1812, John Bellingham shot Spencer Perceval in the lobby of the House of Commons. As Perceval staggered forward with a single cry and fell dead, Bellingham seemed to have thrown politics back into confusion. The Times believed “the firm is entirely broken up by the death of the chief partner.” Appearances mislead. Perceval's cabinet united behind Liverpool, who saw the prospects as “doubtful, but not desperate.” After grasping for alternatives, the prince regent appointed Liverpool prime minister. Cabinet making and domestic politics soon afterwards led into the complexities of peacemaking abroad.

Perceval's assassination shocked a political elite focused on economic trouble and an acrimonious debate over the Orders in Council. Bellingham, a failed merchant driven to insanity by a grievance over his imprisonment in Russia, shot Perceval as a target of opportunity. Henry Brougham had finished examining a witness before the Commons when the shot was heard. Business continued as those present outside took Perceval's body to the speaker's apartments. Bellingham admitted his guilt. Isaac Gascoyne, a Liverpool MP, identified him and the speaker ordered the murderer taken into custody. As news reached the Lords with a cry “Mr. Perceval is shot,” peers crowded into the chamber. Eldon, who had passed Bellingham earlier on a stairwell, called them to order as witnesses confirmed the report. Tears overcame both Eldon and Castlereagh the next day when they conveyed the prince regent's wish that provision be made for Perceval's family. Not since the Duke of Buckingham's murder in 1627 had an English minister been assassinated. Plebeian crowds celebrated in Nottingham and Leicester while others at Wolverhampton exclaimed that “now the great Man in the Parliament House is dead, we shall have a big Loaf “ seemed an alarming portent. Amidst elite unease over such talk of revolution, Canning noted the difficulty loyalists had in seeing the murder as an entirely apolitical act. Bellingham's trial and execution still passed quickly without event.