The men who tried to kill Queen Victoria | UK | News | Daily Express UK The men who tried to kill Queen Victoria ON MAY 30, 1842, John Francis came close to making Queen Victoria's reign five years rather than 64. Standing on Constitution Hill with a flintlock pistol, Francis waited for Victoria and Prince Albert to return from a carriage ride through London's parks. By Paul Thomas Murphy 09:47, Sun, Dec 16, 2012 It was his second attempt on the life of the monarch. The day before he had pointed his pistol at the Queen's carriage as she and Albert had made the short trip from Buckingham Palace to the Chapel Royal at St James's Palace. He had hesitated and fled but three people, including Albert, had seen him. The police were now on the alert and so were Victoria and Albert : they boldly decided to ride this day in an attempt to flush him out. Their plan worked but not without a hitch. Half an hour before their return, PC William Trounce had spotted Francis but as the Queen's carriage rushed down the hill, Trounce was torn between his desire to show due respect to his monarch and his duty to protect her.

He opted for loyalty, turned to face the carriage and salute and was deafened as Francis fired at the Queen at close range. Related articles Jenna Coleman admits it was 'impossible' to turn down Victoria role He thrust his pistol into her face but faithful servant John Brown knocked it to the ground Such was the lax state of royal security during Victoria's reign . A detail of the Metropolitan Police followed her wherever she went and her Prime Ministers and Home Secretaries added to that detail as a response to any threat but it was she who decided when and how she would travel. The day Francis shot at her, the decision to ride was hers, as was the decision to ride the next day among a crowd of thousands clamouring to congratulate her. Between the first attempt on her life in 1840 and the last in 1882, Victoria refused to let her assailants cow her and opted to find her greatest security among her people. HULTON ROYALS COLLECTION Threats to the safety of our monarchy are sadly nothing new Though her decisions might seem to us dangerous, foolhardy even, and run counter to every tenet of royal security today they ultimately served Victoria well, as she converted seven near-tragedies into triumphs.

In the wake of each attempt on her life the public rose up to demonstrate its loyalty and affection. Edward Oxford, pictured above, was the first: an unemployed barman who dreamt of a career as an Admiral in the Royal Navy. In June 1840, frustrated that the world did not recognise his greatness he confronted Victoria and Albert on Constitution Hill armed with two flashy duelling pistols. Victoria was four months pregnant with their first child. Had either of Oxford's shots killed the Queen the German Saxe-Coburg and Gotha line would have been erased but he missed and she rode on. Queen Victoria in pictures Thu, October 13, 2016 Queen Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria) was Queen of the United Kingdom and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. Queen Elizabeth II's dresses on display at Buckingham Palace He got his wish, pleading guilty under Peel's act and suffered seven years' penal servitude and at the prison colony at Gibraltar before disappearing into obscurity in Western Australia. A year later, Victoria's fifth assailant, Robert Pate struck. He was the only one of the seven to harm the Queen.

Well-known in London for his manic perambulations about Hyde Park, he interrupted one of these when he came upon the Queen's carriage inside the gates of her uncle's mansion on Piccadilly. 'He thrust pistol her face He pushed himself to the front of the crowd, knowing that when the Queen's carriage emerged he would find himself inches from her, and slashed his cane down upon the royal forehead, blackening Victoria's eye and leaving a welt. faithful John knocked the Victoria had intended to go to the opera that night. When her ladies-inwaiting begged her to stay home, she replied "Certainly not: if I do not go, it will be thought I am seriously hurt and people will be distressed and alarmed." "But you are hurt, ma'am," her lady replied. "Then everyone shall see how little I mind it," the Queen said. Pate was sentenced to seven years' transportation. HULTON ROYALS COLLECTION Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in 1854 Victoria's sixth assailant, Arthur O'Connor, was the grand-nephew of the Chartist politician Fergus O'Connor and he had an overwhelming desire to surpass his great-uncle in fame in one stroke.

In February 1872 he wrote up an edict for the Queen to sign: an order freeing the many Irish political prisoners then in British penitentiaries. His plan was to interrupt the scheduled Thanksgiving at St Paul's cathedral and, with edict in one hand and a rusty flintlock in the other, force the Queen to sign. He knew he would then die but wrote into the edict the command that he be treated as a brave political foe, shot by a firing squad rather than hanged like a common criminal. He failed to get into the cathedral as police spotted him acting suspiciously there the night before and threw him out. Two days later he clambered over the fence at Buckingham Palace and came upon the Queen at the end of one of her carriage rides. He thrust his pistol into Victoria's face but was quickly knocked to the ground by her faithful servant John Brown. Brown got a medal for his act, O'Connor only got imprisonment and the threat of a whipping, a threat that was later negotiated into exile in Australia. HULTON ROYALS COLLECTION Queen Victoria at the christening of her great-grandson, the future King Edward VIII The last attempt on Victoria's life was the most threatening.

Roderick Maclean, the mentally disturbed scion of a wealthy family was wandering the south of England with a paranoid hatred of humanity and a fixation on the supernatural properties of the colour blue and the number four. In March 1882 he shifted his fixation to the Queen. He bought a cheap revolver with four bullets in the chamber and confronted Victoria as she rode to Windsor Castle from the railway station. Although a number of police were in the station yard, the protocol for royal security was as woefully inadequate in 1882 as it had been in 1842: Victoria's protectors kept their eyes on her and not on the crowd and Maclean was able to get off a shot. As Maclean's trial (for high treason and not high misdemeanour, since he certainly shot at her) approached, it became clear that the man was insane and the Queen's government was more than willing to accept a verdict of acquittal on the grounds of insanity, which would put Maclean in Broadmoor for the rest of his life. However, the Queen was not willing. Her security, she thought, depended upon her attackers being found guilty and given sure punishment, not acquittal and treatment.

WHEN Maclean was found not guilty Victoria was livid. He had shot at her: therefore he was guilty. If the law did not recognise this the law had to be changed. She ordered Prime Minister William Gladstone to change it and he did, seeing through an act that changed the insanity verdict from not guilty by reason of insanity to "Guilty, but insane". This curious verdict remained on the books until 1964. Seven times, then, assailants seeking something more in their lives breached security and got through to the Queen. Every time, Victoria exploited her questionable protection in order to enhance her own prestige. In the game of shooting Victoria the Queen always won. • Shooting Victoria: Madness, Mayhem And The Modernisation Of The Monarchy is published on January 10 (Head Of Zeus, £25). To order your copy with free UK delivery call 0871 988 8366 or order online at expressbookshop.com. Calls cost 10p per minute from BT landlines. Related articles Assassination attempts on Queen Victoria - Historum - History Forums Assassination attempts on Queen Victoria User Name Need help with the website? Contact Us anytime.

European History European History Forum - Western and Eastern Europe including the British Isles, Scandinavia, Russia ï¿½ Blog of the Year ï¿½ Assassination attempts on Queen Victoria "worth being shot at - to see how much one is loved" -Queen Victoria, speaking of the public outcry at Roderick MacClean's attempt on her life The 1840s was a time of political and social turmoil in Europe, republican sympathies being agitated by radical groups in Great Britain as well as the Continent. In June of 1840, an eighteen year-old Londoner named Edward Oxford fired two pistols at Queen Victoria and Prince Albert as they rode through the city, but misfired and was apprehended by a pair of bystanders. Oxford was judged insane and acquited, but there were whispers that he was a pawn in a Chartist plot to overthrow the monarchy. The summer of 1842 saw two more attacks. The first was under circumstances almost identical to the 1840 attack, and the would-be assassin, John Francis, was captured and banished. Two months later another teenager, one John William Bean, tried to shoot the Queen with a pistol he had failed to load properly.

He spent the next eighteen months of his life in prison for his troubles, but was spared the flogging that Parliament had decreed for those who attempted to strike or shoot the Queen. Revolutionary excitement reached a high-point in 1848, when the Queen and her family even made a brief flight to the Isle of Wight in fear of a Chartist revolt. The revolt did not take place, but the fears for the Queen's safety were nonetheless well-founded. In 1849, Irishman William Hamilton attacked the Queen with a pistol, but as with the previous attempt he had failed to load his weapon correctly. In July of 1850 the Queen was brutally struck in the face by Robert Pate, a discharged army officer who may have been certifiably insane. At least one more assassination attempt took place in the 1850s. In 1872 she was threatened by another Irishman, this time seven year-old Arthur O'Connor, who waved an unloaded pistol at her as her carriage passed into Buckingham Palace. He was tackled by her friend and attendant John Brown.

One of the last and most infamous attempts on Queen Victoria's life was made by Roderick MacLean, an eccentric Scottish poet who was offended at the Queen's lack of interest in one of his works. In March of 1882 he missed while firing at her with a pistol at Windsor Rail Station; several schoolboys beat him with their umbrellas until he could be apprehended. MacLean was declared "not guilty, but insane" at his trial. The Queen, indignant at this lenient verdict, called for British law to be changed so criminals could be declared "guilty and insane". All in all, Queen Victoria was subjected to no less than eight assassination attempts over the course of her 1837-1901 reign; it seems to have been the clumsiness of the would-be assassins, not God, that saved the Queen.

Queen Victoria Somehow Survived 7 Assassination Attempts - KnowledgeNuts KnowledgeNuts Queen Victoria Somehow Survived 7 Assassination Attempts By Debra Kelly on Tuesday, February 18, 2014 “Damn the queen; why should she be such an expense to the nation?” — John Francis, one of the Queen’s attackers In A Nutshell Queen Victoria is one of the longest-reigning monarchs of the British Empire, and one that has always been a figurehead for British royalty. Surprisingly, her popularity got a boost each time someone tried to kill her—and that happened at least seven times during her reign. The first came within months of her taking the throne, and others include attempts by a hunchbacked dwarf and a man who hated the number four as much as he hated the Queen. The Whole Bushel Queen Victoria was born in 1819, and took the British throne in 1837, after the passing of her uncle, William IV.

Between her ascension and her death in 1901, she had given her name to an era of British history, expanded the British empire and extolled the virtues of its imperialistic nature, and was—for better or worse—a devoted and loving wife to a man who was never truly accepted by his adopted English country. Less well known than her political and personal successes are the numerous assassination attempts that were made on her life during her reign and her refusal to give her would-be assassins any satisfaction whatsoever. The assassination attempts led to not only changes in English law but huge boosts in the Queen’s popularity as she faced death with a bravery that the people saw as unrivaled. The first few attempts on her life came only a few years after she took the throne. The first, in 1837, was perpetrated by a man who claimed to be the true heir to the British throne and the son of George IV. When trying to break into Kensington Palace to claim his “rightful” place didn’t work, he settled for charging her carriage, armed with a pistol. For his trouble, he was shipped off to an insane asylum.

In 1840, a waiter (who didn’t believe that England should be in the hands of a woman) fired several shots at both Prince Albert and a four-months-pregnant queen. He, too, ended up in an insane asylum, although he was released in 1867 and left the country. In 1842, the young royal was fired at once as she was returning from church. The shooter escaped, but returned the next day to give it another try. Using the Queen herself as bait (at her insistence), the police lured out the would-be assassin and arrested him when he tried to kill her again. He was sentenced to death for his attempt, but was eventually deported to a penal colony off the coast of Australia. Five weeks later, the Queen was attacked again while riding in an open carriage. This time, the would-be assassin was a hunchbacked teenage dwarf armed with a pistol that had been badly loaded with paper and broken pipes. It misfired, and although he initially escaped, he was captured when police simply began rounding up the city’s hunchbacked dwarfs. He received only an 18-month prison sentence.

Seven years later, an improperly loaded pistol wielded by an Irish farm laborer misfired made the next attempt on her life. And in 1850, a man named Robert Pate got close enough to the Queen to hit her. A retired army man, Pate hit the Queen with his walking stick when she was walking home after visiting an ill relative. No stranger to assault and assassination attempts by this point, the Queen’s remarks included a sadness that a man would think it acceptable to strike a woman, and that at least those who tried to shoot her showed more courage. That night, the bruised Queen went out to the opera. By the 1870s, there were numerous reports that assassination attempts were being planned by Irish groups who were trying to make a point about the treatment they were receiving from the English. The next assassination attempt came in 1872 from an Irishman wielding a non-functional pistol and a document he wanted her to sign, freeing the Irish from English rule. He, too, was ultimately deported to Australia. The final attack on her life came in 1882, when she was again shot at as she was traveling in a carriage.

This man not only hated the Queen, but also the number four. Additionally, he believed that there were supernatural powers to be found in blue things. It was this final attempt that prompted a change to the law books, enabling a person to be found guilty but insane. So common were assassination attempts on the Queen’s life that, at one point, it was thought the attempts were all about glory. In order to neutralize the imagined glory the attackers would gain from being labeled as traitors, the crime was briefly demoted to a simple misdemeanor, with the guilty party getting only a short jail sentence and a whipping. Show Me The Proof Shooting Victoria Shooting Victoria After the Storm This is the only known surviving photograph of Edmund Pook, the accused murderer of Jane Maria Clouson. This placid if not exactly happy portrait of Edmund and his mother was taken at a photographic studio in Herne Bay, Kent—the town to which Edmund exiled himself months after his 1871 trial at the Old Bailey for Clouson’s murder. Edmund’s seriousness here, and his mother’s downright somberness, might simply reflect Victorian photographic convention. Equally likely, it reflects the severe strain put on them both by the events of the past year.

∞ 11:31 am, by shootingvictoria Comments My ‘insane’ Uncle Ed tried to kill Queen Victoria – he was treated with kindness | Penny Pepper ITV’s Victoria—and its climactic recreation of Edward Oxford’s attack upon the Queen—inspires this interesting take on Oxford and his stay at Bethlem Hospital, by Oxford’s great-great-great niece, Penny Pepper. Pepper promises a biography of Oxford in the future; it will be interesting to see what she can add to Jenny Sinclair’s existing biography of him, A Walking Shadow. A discussion of the murder with Erik Rivenes on the Most Notorious podcast. ∞ 12:21 pm, by shootingvictoria Comments Julian Fellowes Regrets Julian Fellowes, creator of Downton Abbey, writer of a number of films and series including Gosford Park (2001), Vanity Fair (2004), The Tourist (2010), and Dr. Thorne (2016) and presently busy on a new project The Gilded Age, was recently interviewed by Creative Screenwriting. There he admitted to one regret in his writing career—and one regret only.

He admitted that he entirely botched the depiction of Queen Victoria’s first assailant, Edward Oxford, in his screenplay for the 2009 film The Young Victoria. As Fellowes states, …there was one scene when the Queen and Prince Albert went out for a drive, on Constitution Hill near the Palace, and Albert saw a man called Edward Oxford take a gun out and point it at the Queen. Albert pushed her into the well of the carriage and placed his body over hers with his back to the gunman. Now the gunman wasn’t very far away, and it should have been a dead cert that he’d hit Albert in the back and probably kill him. He did fire, but in real life the bullet went over Albert’s shoulder and missed him. I was worried that if I made the bullet miss him completely the audience wouldn’t understand how incredibly brave he had been in doing this. So I made the bullet graze his arm, and you then saw his arm in a sling. But afterwards, this was catnip for the critics, who said that he was never hit, this was nonsense. Of course, most of the critics thought the incident was fictional.

But the incident wasn’t fictional at all, the incident was fact, and I feel that I should have somehow made the bullet miss him, but in a way, by slowing it down, by going in close, or something, that made it significant and visually satisfactory. Then the whole incident would have been completely truthful. It was an important incident, because I believe that it was only just after it that the Queen, having excluded Albert from the day-to-day business of being the monarch, had her desk moved next to his, and from then on worked with him, so that they really ruled jointly for the rest of his life, until he died. I believe that what changed her mind was her realisation that he was actually prepared to die for her, that if the situation required that one of them died, he would choose it be him. That impressed her, because although she was in love with him and he was very handsome, and she’d chosen him and everything else, nevertheless it was an arranged marriage to a degree. I think that realisation that he had loved her, or invested in her to such a degree that he would give his life for her, changed their relationship. It was a very difficult part of the film.

But I believe now, I could have made it perform the same function without changing that detail. I agree that Fellowes’s depiction Oxford’s attempt in The Young Victoria was a ridiculous and over-the-top fictionalizing of important fact. By rewriting history—actually having Albert wounded by Oxford—Fellowes led not just many critics, but many more viewers, to a sense of confusion about what really happened during that attempt, and even to a sense of doubt that any attempt happened at all. I know that when I was first speaking in public about Shooting Victoria, I would invariably be asked about Oxford’s attempt by those who had seen the movie; setting that story straight tended to form a part of every one of my readings from and discussions of the book. Certainly, a film version that accurately tells Oxford’s story—and the stories of the six would-be assassins that followed—remains to be told, and would be well worth telling. You can read Fellowes’s entire interview at .

∞ 09:43 am, by shootingvictoria Comments The Home of the Victim—and Her Alleged Murderer As a maid-of-all-work, Jane Clouson spent all of her teen-aged years living in the various houses of her employers—living among middle-class families while never quite a part of any of them. Her last employer was Ebenezer Pook, whose printing office and stationery shop, at 3 London Street, Greenwich, was a prominent sight in the heart of town. It was prominent, that is, by location, but not by size: though the building did stretch back, it had a tiny front, and the ground floor was entirely taken up by Pook’s business. The Pooks lived in cramped quarters above—so cramped that no separate space, no garret or closet off the kitchen, was available for a servant’s quarters. And so Jane shared a room and perhaps a bed with a member of the family: Harriet Chaplin, Mrs. Pook’s cousin.

The 1871 census, taken on April 2, lists all those who slept at 3 London Street that night: Ebenezer Pook, his wife Mary, their son Edmund (later arrested for Jane’s murder), cousin Harriet Chaplin, a niece Elizabeth Pook—and Jane Clouson. Within a week, Jane abruptly and mysteriously quit and fled the house. Two weeks after that, she was attacked. Five days later, she was dead. London Street, Greenwich, no longer exists: it has become Greenwich High Street. While the buildings opposite to the site of the Pooks’ home—the Mitre Hotel and St. Alfege Church—survive, all the buildings on the Pooks’ side of the street have been razed, and a Café Rouge, an Ibis Hotel, and the Greenwich Picture House now stand in their place. ∞ 08:50 am, by shootingvictoria Comments The Eltham Murder Site—Then and Now Kidbrooke Lane, the site of Jane Clouson’s murder, was in 1871 among the remotest places of Metropolitan London.

The above illustration, from Newton Crosland’s The Eltham Tragedy Reviewed, suggests strongly that Jane’s murderer lured her to this spot to ensure there would be no witnesses to her killing. And for years—for decades—after the murder, Kidbrooke Lane remained one of London’s most desolate areas. Not until the 1920s did this area undergo development. But when that development came, it came quickly. The building of the A2 early in the 1920s altered the configuration of Kidbrooke’s roads: the Kidbrooke Lane that remains is a short stub of the original. Most of old Kidbrooke Lane—including the spot of the murder—is now a part of Rochester Way. By 1928, as the map below demonstrates, all of Rochester way below lower Kid Brook, 100 yards northeast of the spot of the attack, was densely residential. Below is a Google satellite image of the area today; the spot of the attack is at dead center. Clearly, Kidbrooke Lane is secluded no more.

∞ 11:58 am, by shootingvictoria Comments Research and Writing from Barrie Charles: John Francis John Francis John Francis was an out-of-work carpenter aged 19 when he became famous throughout the land. He was the son of a Welshman who had worked at the Theatre Royal as a stage carpenter for more than twenty years. His mother came from Somerset and, like her husband, had come to London in the difficult depression years following the end of the Napoleonic war. John had been apprenticed to his father, but fell out with his parents whilst still a journeyman and moved out to live in cheap accommodation near to Oxford Street. John grew disillusioned with his occupation, feeling the pay was not adequate for the long hours, and frequently quarrelled with his employers. He found it increasingly hard to get work and soon fell behind with his rent. Like Edward Oxford, he felt he was worth more than his lowly status, and one day arranged to rent a shop to become a tobacconist. He obtained stock on credit and opened a few days later.

To alleviate his financial difficulties he stole some money from his room mate, but his landlord soon discovered the theft and threw him out, while his supplier took away the stock after no payment was forthcoming. With his last coins he bought a pistol from a pawnbroker and followed the trail blazed by Edward Oxford. But on his first attempt the gun failed to go off, although he managed to escape. Queen Victoria bravely agreed with Sir Robert Peel that she would go out again in an open carriage the next day, whilst Peel deployed numerous plain-clothes policemen in the royal parks. Sure enough, John Francis was on station in Constitution Hill and this time the gun fired. Victoria again escaped injury, and John was taken into custody. This time the accused was poorly defended, and he was found guilty of high treason and sentenced to be drawn, hung and quartered. In medieval times the words were in a different order and involved hanging by the neck, but not until dead, and while still alive having ones intestines drawn out and being castrated, before being finished off with an axe and cut into four pieces.

The slightly more humane nineteenth century version included being drawn to the place of execution on a hurdle, hanged on a scaffold until dead, and then quartered and disposed off as Her Majesty saw fit. Port Arthur is now an open air museum to the misery John Francis anguished in solitary confinement until less than 48 hours before his public execution in front of a baying mob when, in response to impassioned petitions for mercy from his parents and others, the sentence was commuted to transportation for life. He was taken to a prison hulk at Portsmouth and then sent with 239 other convicts in the hold of a sailing ship on a four-month journey to Van Dieman's Land. There he was committed to Port Arthur convict settlement, the 'most penal' that the colony had to offer. John later described the place as an ‘abyss of wretchedness and misery’. Along with other horrors, ‘unnatural crime’ was widespread and John was a handsome boy. After 4 years he was removed from the labour camps and put out to work for various settlers in Launceston in central Tasmania, where he resumed work as a carpenter and gained skills as a general builder.

He married and prospered in his trade, and14 years after his trial received a conditional pardon. His abilities were valued in the community and in 1860 he won the contract to build the Launceston General Hospital at a cost of £10,122. But a few years later an economic depression set in and work dried up, and John decided to move to Melbourne with his wife and 9 children. Although he continued to work as a builder, he never again gained the same prosperity, and he died of TB in 1885. The 12,000-word chapter in the book provides the whole story, including the horrific details of the voyage to Australia and what life was actually like in the infamous Port Arthur labour camp.

Sources used in the full account in the book Charles Bateson, The Convict Ships 1787 – 1868, Reed, New South Wales The man who tried to kill Queen Victoria twice The man who tried to kill Queen Victoria twice Sponsored by Queen killer: John Francis's attempt on Victoria in Hyde Park, London Credit: Mary Evans 30 May 2016 • 12:00am 30 May 1842 Assassination attempt on Queen Victoria John Francis attempted to assassinate Queen Victoria as she travelled by carriage with Prince Albert down Constitution Hill in London… right after he had tried to shoot her just the previous day. The Prince had spotted Francis – whom he described as “a little, swarthy, ill-looking rascal” – pulling out a pistol, which then failed to fire. Yet they still drove the same route the following day, giving Francis a second crack. He was sentenced to death, but the Queen insisted the sentence be commuted to banishment for life. Francis’s attempt was one of several during Victoria’s long reign. In June 1840, a man took two shots at Victoria from six yards, but she ducked in time.

In May 1849, an “Irishman named Hamilton” also aimed a pistol at her – though it turned out not to be loaded. Perhaps the strangest attempt came in July 1842, when a hunchbacked man named Bean fired at the Queen – with a pistol loaded with bits of tobacco pipe. He managed to escape, putting every hunchback across London under suspicion for two weeks until his capture. Royal London has its roots in the community. Founded in 1861, it began with the aim of helping people avoid the stigma of a pauper’s grave. It became a mutual life insurance company in 1908 before growing into the UK’s largest mutual life and pensions company. Its founding principles are self-reliance, community and keeping members at the heart of all decisions. Coming up next Queen Victoria Online - Assassination Attempts on Queen Victoria Assassination Attempts on Queen Victoria Attempts on the Queen's Life It seems strange that the life of a monarch so deservedly popular should have been so often attempted, yet it is the fact that Queen Victoria has been several times shot at.

It is a comfort to think that in cases a mere mad love of most notoriety or downright Insanity has prompted the attack. Constitution Hill Incident In June, 1840, there was great distress throughout the country, the Ministry was unpopular, and severe things were being said in some of the newspapers about the Court festivities. The Queen was occasionally received by her subjects in silence, and on one or two occasions unpleasant and ominous shouts were heard. Much anxiety was being felt as regards the state of the nation, when suddenly it seemed as if a thrill of indignant horror passed through the land, as the news spread that the young Queen had been fired at, on Constitution Hill, on June 18th: It was six o'clock on that summer's evening, and the Queen, as usual, was out driving with Prince Albert. A man leaning against the Park railing suddenly drew a pistol from his coat and fired at Her Majesty as she sat in the low open phaeton about six yards from him. The 'Queen was looking another way, and did not understand for a moment what had happened. The carriage stopped, but the Prince told the postillions to drive on.

" I seized Victoria's hands," he wrote afterwards, " and asked if the fright had not shaken her, but she laughed." The Queen and Prince now both saw the man standing with a pistol in each hand, and almost immediately he fired again. Prince Albert drew the Queen down beside him, and the ball must have passed just over her head. A crowd gathered, and the man was seized; meanwhile, the Queen, after standing up once in the carriage to show that she was unhurt, drove rapidly to the house of the Duchess of Kent, to be the first to tell the news before any exaggerated reports reached her mother's ears. Then the royal pair returned to Hyde Park ; the crowds of people on the footpaths, in the carriages, and on horseback, received them with enthusiastic cheers. All the riders from Rotten Row, ladies and gentlemen, escorted the Queen and Prince that day back to Buckingham Palace. The Queen, pale, but smiling and bowing, kept up bravely till she reached her own room, and then burst into tears. For several days afterwards a similarly large volunteer body-guard escorted her from the Park to the Palace gates.

At all the theatres, " God Save the Queen " was sung with enthusiasm ; and at her first appearance at the Opera after, the incident the tempest of loyal cheering and waving of handkerchiefs was beyond all precedent. The Lords and Commons, in full dress, came up to the Palace in a procession of about two hundred carriages, and presented an address of congratulation, which the Queen received sitting on her throne in state. Edward Oxford The wretched lad, Edward Oxford, whose failure was the cause of all this joy and thankfulness, was a discharged barman. It was proved that he came of a crazy family; and though the alarmists wanted to make out that he was one of a secret society pledged to treasonable practices, he was simply treated as a madman, and confined in Bedlam. Thence he was sent to Dartmoor, and ultimately released on his promise to go to Australia, where he was working as a house-painter as lately as 1882. His conduct in prison was good, and he always declared that his attack on the Queen was done out of sheer vanity and love of notoriety.

The Boy Jones Having spoken of Oxford, we may as well refer to the other intrusions and attacks to which Her Majesty has been subjected, and so get done with the topic once for all. Our next instance is that of a very impudent, but comparatively harmless offender, known as " the boy Jones," who, in the course of two years, got four times into Buckingham Palace, and concealed himself behind furniture or-up the chimney in the daytime. At night he supplied his wants in the kitchens, and curled himself up in some bed in a spare room. Very much astonished were the Palace servants at the sooty marks found in these beds when they were required. He boasted of having heard a long conversation between the Queen and the Prince whilst he was secreted behind a sofa. He was sentenced to three months in the House of Correction as a rogue and vagabond. On being liberated he took to haunting the outside of the Palace and the Parks when the Queen was driving. At length he was induced to go to sea, and is said to have died a well-to-do man in one of the Colonies. Second Attempt On the 3oth of May, 1842, the Queen was fired at for the second time.

As she and the Prince were returning home from the Chapel Royal on the previous day (Sunday), the Prince had seen a man step out and present a pistol) which missed fire. A boy came to the Palace in the afternoon and described the same incident, which had been seen apparently by no one else. The Queen and Prince resolved to go out next day as usual, though both were much agitated, and the Queen was far from well. Her Majesty, however, would not allow any of her ladies to accompany her, as was customary. The royal pair were returning from their drive, and had nearly reached the scene of Oxford's attempt two years before, when "a little, swarthy, ill-looking rascal," whom the Prince recognised as the would-be assailant of the day before, fired at the Queen, a shot which passed harmlessly by. The man was secured by a policeman. As for the royal couple—" We felt as if a load had been taken off our hearts," wrote the Princes, " and we thanked the Almighty for having preserved us a second time from so great a danger." Hunchback named Bean Joyful shouts again greeted the Queen's public appearance after this escape from danger.

John Francis, the assailant, was sentenced to death, a sentence, however, which was commuted (in full accordance with the Queen's anxious desires) to banishment for life. On Sunday, the 3rd of July, the day after the sentence of Francis had been commuted, the Queen, whilst returning by the side of her uncle, King Leopold, from the Chapel Royal, St. James's, was again in danger from a would-be assailant. This time it was a hunchback named Bean, whose pistol missed fire, but was found to be loaded with bits of tobacco pipe. He eluded capture at the moment, and for about a fortnight all the poor hunchbacks in London had a very bad time of it. They were hooted at and accused in the public streets, and had to be very ready with alibis for the particular afternoon referred to. At length, Bean was caught and sentenced to a term of imprisonment. Hamilton For seven years the Queen enjoyed an immunity from these attacks, till on May 19th, 1849, a man standing within the railings of the Green Park, fired at her as she was driving up Constitution Hill.

Prince Albert was riding at some distance in front. The Queen did not lose her self-possession ; she stood up a moment and bade the coachman (who had stopped) drive on, and then talked to her three children, who were with her, to divert their attention. The man, an Irishman, named Hamilton, was arrested, and subsequently sentenced (as his pistol contained no bullet) to seven years' transportation. Queen Victoria Assaulted In June, 185, Her Majesty was the victim of an outrage of another character—one of the most wanton and cowardly of the whole series of attacks to which she has been subjected. She was returning from a visit to her uncle, the Duke of Cambridge, then suffering from his last illness. Beside the entrance of Cambridge House, a tall gentlemanly man was loitering as if waiting to get a sight of the Queen. As her carriage drove out of the gateway and was turning the corner into the road, this man rushed forward and struck the Queen a sharp blow on the face with a small stick. Her Majesty's bonnet was crushed by the blow, and a severe bruise and slight wound were inflicted on her forehead.

The perpetrator of this cruel act soon found himself in the police station. He was a man of thirty, a gentleman by birth and education, but evidently not of sound mind. He was well nown for conspicuous conduct in the Park, and his eccentricities had lost him his position as an officer in the army. He was now sentenced to seven years' transportation. The Queen was well enough to be at the Opera on the evening after the assault, and was joyfully received. Arthur O'Connor In February, 1872, when about to alight from her carriage after a drive, a youth rushed at the Queen with a paper in one hand and a pistol in the other. The Queen's attendant, John Brown, seized the lad, who as usual, was found to be not quite right in his mind. Arthur O'Connor (for this was his name) was an Irish boy of about seventeen who had brooded over his country's wrongs till he fancied he could do some good by making Her Majesty read a petition he had drawn up on behalf of the Fenians. He had accordingly climbed over the railings to carry out the project which John Brown so promptly interrupted. But his damaged pistol was found to have no ball in it.

Public indignation was strongly expressed on the occasion, and the culprit was soon put under care suited to his mental condition. The Queen had already been on the point of issuing medals to domestics who had served her long and faithfully, and so now John Brown had the first gold medal and an annuity of twenty-five pounds. Roderick Maclean The last of these attacks took place only four years ago (in 1882) at Royal Windsor. The Queen, accompanied by the Princess Beatrice, was entering her carriage at Windsor station, when she was fired at by a man named Roderick Maclean, who was at once arrested. The prisoner, who had formerly been respectable, but had recently fallen into want, was tried for high treason. Being found not guilty, on the ground of insanity, he was ordered to be imprisoned during Her Majesty's pleasure.

Question: Who did John Francis attempt to assassinated in 1842?
Answer: Queen Victoria