Plot to kill Napoleon linked to British cabinet minister

Historian Andrew Roberts claims to have found first direct connection between Lord Castlereagh and 1804 conspiracy to assassinate French leader

When an officer at the battle of Waterloo told the Duke of Wellington that Napoleon was in their gun sights, the field marshal replied that it was "not the business of commanders to be firing upon one another".

What seemed dishonourable for a battlefield soldier was not for politicians, for it seems that the British government was behind an assassination attempt on Napoleon in 1804, according to historian Andrew Roberts. He has unearthed archival material that he believes directly implicates cabinet minister Lord Castlereagh in the unsuccessful 1804 Cadoudal French royalist plot to assassinate Napoleon.

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