Roderick Maclean and, half a world away, Arthur O’Connor lived on discontentedly while the world outside changed beyond recognition. Outside, the First World War came and went, taking with it the major monarchies of Europe—all except for the one that Victoria had done so much to preserve. The Victorian age passed; O’Connor and Maclean lived on into the age of the airplane, of radio—the age of Einstein, Eisenstein, and Gertrude Stein, of James Joyce and Virginia Woolf, jazz and surréalisme. Mussolini’s fascism was ascendant in Italy; Hitler’s fascism was slowly ascending in Germany. To both Maclean and O’Connor, the world outside would likely have seemed as mad as the world within. Roderick Maclean died on 9 May 1921, apoplexy stated as the cause. The news was reported as a sort of barely remembered bad dream. Arthur O’Connor—or George Morton, as no one called him Arthur O’Connor for the last forty-two years of his life—outlived Maclean by 4½ years, dying 6 December 1925 at the age of seventy, the cause of death listed as a painful abdominal ailment, tubercular peritonitis. O’Connor was buried in Rook-wood Anglican Cemetery in Sydney, under his false name. There would be no monument to the last of the great O’Connors.
* Moroney later married Miss Kennedy, and within a year he was implicated in what was called “the Crime of the Century” in the United States: the assassination of Dr. Patrick Henry Cronin, a Clan-na-Gael rival of his friend Alexander Sullivan.
* The attempt became the occasion for a mythic and mythical moment in the history of swearing. A multitude of sites on the Internet today state as fact that the Prince of Wales, when shot at, cried out “Fuck it, I’ve taken a bullet!” No contemporary account of the shooting, however, mentions this utterance. And the fact that the Prince of Wales did not take a bullet strongly suggests that this colorful response is apocryphal.
* Victoria lived longer than her grandfather George III by all of five days. Elizabeth II has since exceeded her great-great grandmother’s longevity.
* Perhaps his choice of name was simple symbolism; perhaps it was sentimental: the marriage register of a church in Lambeth shows that on 21 May 1833, one Hannah Oxford married a man named Edward Freeman. Oxford might have been commemorating a long-lost and short-lived stepfather by taking his surname.
* Although there is no record of a divorce (which would have been extremely difficult to obtain at the time), the marriage most certainly ended in separation and not with a death: Esther Bean lived on, dying in 1898 in Greenwich Workhouse. When Bean remarried in 1863, then, he likely became a bigamist.
* To be fair to the Pates, Robert did ask the magistrates to be lenient to the girl, and stated he had only brought her in because they had recently experienced a spate of unsolved thefts.
* One of O’Connor’s brothers was named Roderick.
The Marriage of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, 10 February 1840, by George Hayter. Three months after the wedding, as Victoria posed for this painting, Edward Oxford bought the pistols with which he shot at the royal couple. Courtesy of The Royal Collection © 2012, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
A portrait of Edward Oxford from Bell’s New Weekly Messenger, 12 July 1840. As crude as it is, the illustration well captures Oxford’s pretensions to a higher status and his desperate resolve to “make a noise” in the world by whatever means.
Buckingham Palace as it appeared in 1842. The now-familiar east façade had not yet been built, and the Marble Arch, not yet moved to the corner of Hyde Park, still served as the main gate. All but one of the attempts on the Queen took place near Buckingham Palace. From the Illustrated London News.
Oxford’s attempt, 10 June 1840, on Constitution Hill: Oxford was a “little mean looking man,” according to Prince Albert.
The execution of François Benjamin Courvoisier for the murder of Lord William Russell, 6 July 1840. While Courvoisier was hanged outside Newgate Prison, Edward Oxford occupied a cell within, awaiting his trial for treason. The print conveys some idea of the many thousands who came to watch Courvoisier die. Two years later, John Francis would stand in an even larger crowd to witness the execution of Daniel Good. From Tom Spring’s Life in London.
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert at the Bal Costumé of 12 May 1842, by Edwin Landseer. The royal couple held the ball during that impoverished year in order to ameliorate poverty, but many found their conspicuous display of wealth disturbing. Less than three weeks after the Ball, John Francis made his two attempts. Courtesy of The Royal Collection ©2012, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
John Francis’s second attempt and capture, 30 May 1842, from Illustrated London News. Grabbing him is P.C. Trounce (wearing the Metropolitan Police uniform of the day). Trounce’s decision to salute the Queen allowed Francis the opportunity to get off a shot—although whether he fired a bullet or just wadding became a central question at his trial.
The police roundup of hunchbacked dwarves in the wake of John William Bean’s attempt of 3 July 1842, as depicted in Punch magazine, in which Punch himself is among those captured.
Victoria’s first Prime Minister William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, with whom she shared a close bond at the time of Edward Oxford’s attempt. Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London
Robert Peel, Victoria’s second Prime Minister. The Queen’s initial repulsion to Peel had under Albert’s influence changed to respect and affection by 1842, the year of Francis’s and Bean’s attempts. Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London.
William Ewart Gladstone, the prime minister Victoria most despised, and the one who did the most to strengthen her monarchy. Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London.
Lord John Russell, prime minister at the time of Hamilton’s and Pate’s attempts in 1849 and 1850. Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London.
Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, who as Foreign Secretary drove Victoria and Albert to a state of distraction. Palmerston’s stunning speech in the 1850 Don Pacifico debate, given two days before Robert Pate struck the Queen, saved his career and confirmed him as the most popular politician of the day. Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London.
The Opening of the Great Exhibition by Queen Victoria on 1 May 1851, by Henry Courtney Selous. Victoria proclaimed this day the greatest of her life. She stands with Albert and her two eldest children, diplomats and dignitaries arrayed before them. Foremost in the group on the right is He-Sing, owner of a Chinese junk, and Victoria’s benign assailant on this day. Courtesy of the Victoria and Albert Museum.
William Hamilton’s attempt, 19 May 1849. Hamilton, in his bricklayer’s outfit, stood on Constitution Hill close to where Oxford and Francis had stood before him, but on the other side of the Green Park palings. He immediately faced the wrath of crowds on both sides of that fence. From the Illustrated London News.
Robert Pate’s attempt, 27 June 1850, outside the narrow gates of Cambridge House on Piccadilly, where Victoria had gone to visit her dying uncle, the Duke of Cambridge. From the Illustrated London News.
Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke, Second Baronet: his 1871 speaking tour marked the high-water mark of Victorian British Republicanism. Weeks later, the illness and recovery of the Prince of Wales and the failure of Arthur O’Connor’s attempt crushed the movement.
Benjamin Disraeli depicted in Punch in 1876 as a sorcerer offering Victoria the grand gift of the imperial crown. Disraeli’s carefully cultured dedication to serving the Queen made him the ideal prime minister in her eyes, and made his rival Gladstone that much more unpalatable to her.
Victoria and her recovering son Bertie during the thanksgiving procession of 27 February 18, 1872, as depicted in the Illustrated London News. John Brown sits on the back of the carriage, in full Highland dress. Arthur O’Connor tried and failed to make his attempt on this day; he would have better luck in confronting the Queen two days later.
Punch depicts the death of British republicanism: Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke presented as Arthur O’Connor failing in his attempt, with William Gladstone as a police
man, arresting the progress of Dilke’s republican motion.
Portrait of Roderick Maclean, from the Graphic, capturing the man’s dazed look if not his dirty and disheveled state on the day of his attack on the Queen.
Roderick Maclean’s attempt, 2 March 1882, from the Graphic. Chief Superintendent Hayes and James Burnside converge upon him from the left and behind; the Eton boys approach from the right, about to belabor Maclean with their umbrellas. Princess Beatrice is visible in the carriage: Victoria sits invisible to her right. On the back of the carriage is an ailing John Brown.
Victoria, five years after the last attempt on her life, at the time of her Golden Jubilee of 1887: the face of empire. The Jubilee dynamite plot of that year—effectively nipped in the bud by the Metropolitan Police—did little to disturb her equanimity.
CITATIONS
PART 1: YOUNG ENGLAND
Chapter 1: Wedding Portrait
3: … the “ganglion” of Southwark’s twisted streets: Dickens, Bleak House 438.
4: … gave his neighborhood an unusual air of gentility: Bowers 466.
4: … carefully structured world: Andrews et al. 449.
5: The documents showed Young England to be a highly disciplined, insurrectionary organization: Townsend 119.
5: Captain Oxford had chosen the rather transparent alias of “Oxonian”: TNA PRO MEPO 3/17.
5: … this manifesto, though signed by a fictitious secretary Smith, was in Oxford’s own handwriting: “Edward Oxford.”
6: The sword would come: TNA PRO MEPO 3/17.
7: Although dueling was technically illegal, the practice was carried on: Holland 223; Bresler 151; Rawlings 169.
7: … overpriced, according to one gunmaker, who later valued them at less than 30 shillings: Times 18 June 1840, 6.
7: … “coarsely and roughly finished,” designed more for show than effect: Times 13 June 1840, 6; Morning Chronicle 11 June 1840, 2.
7: … but they bore no maker’s mark—an obvious sign of their shoddiness: Morning Chronicle 12 June 1840, 6.
7: “Brummagem firearms”: Dickens, Letters 2:82.
7: … he bargained down the price of the pistols from 2 guineas (or £2 and 2 shillings) to £2: Morning Chronicle 16 June 1840, 3; Times 10 July 1840, 6.
8: … a baker who worked at a local soda-water factory, but was on the verge of a major career change: Morning Chronicle 11 June 1840, 2; 15 June 1840, 3.
8: … he would very soon fall into arrears: Morning Chronicle 15 June 1840, 3.
8: … the arm injury he suffered as a boy, nearly blowing himself up while playing with fire and gunpowder: Times 11 June 1840, 4.
8: “He said he would allow me half his pay”: Times 11 July 1840, 7; Townsend 129.
9: “He said nothing was stirring”: Times 10 July 1840, 7.
9: “How could you think of laying your money out in such folly!”: Townsend 129.
9: He raised one of the pistols and pointed it, cocked, at his mother’s face: Townsend 129.
11: “I write to you from here the happiest, happiest Being that ever existed”: Hibbert, ed. 64–5.
11: Albert was away, at the Royal Dockyard at Woolwich: Times 5 May 1840, 5.
12: “… my very intelligent factotum”: Woodham-Smith, Queen Victoria 49.
12: … the Duke of York resolved to remain unmarried: Woodham-Smith, Queen Victoria 57.
13: A later companion forced upon her was the Duchess’s Lady-inWaiting, Lady Flora Hastings: Woodham-Smith, Queen Victoria 97, 111.
13: … she slept in a small bed in her mother’s room, and could not walk down a flight of stairs without taking the hand of another: Woodham-Smith, Queen Victoria 57; Longford 38.
14: “Victoria has not written that letter”: Woodham-Smith, Queen Victoria 132–3.
14: … and in one case a royal salute by cannon, a practice King William quickly put a stop to: Woodham-Smith, Queen Victoria 90–1.
14: “We just passed through a town where all coal mines are”: Hibbert, ed. 11.
15: “… it is of the greatest consequence that you should be seen”: Hibbert, Queen Victoria 39.
16: William turned venomously upon the Duchess, chastising her publicly for isolating the Princess from him: Woodham-Smith, Queen Victoria 126.
16: … she did all, as she pointedly notes in her journal, “alone”: Woodham-Smith, Queen Victoria 139; Charlot 81.
16: … she had removed her bed from her mother’s room and had dismissed Conroy from her household: Longford 63–4.
17: … she looked over to him for cues about her behavior: Woodham-Smith, Queen Victoria 139
18: She drank in his adherence to laissez-faire economics: Longford 69.
18: Her popularity during this time was unparalleled: Woodham-Smith, Queen Victoria 154.
18: “It was a fine day”: Hibbert, ed. 34.
19: “… the horrid cause of all this is the Monster & Demon Incarnate”: Longford 97.
20: Sir Charles Clark “had said that though she is a virgin still that it might be possible”: Hibbert, ed. 42.
20: At the end of March, one of Lady Flora’s letters … appeared in the Examiner: Longford 103.
21: “Mrs. Melbourne”: Longford 121.
21: … she sent her empty carriage to Lady Flora’s funeral: some threw rocks at it: Longford 122.
21: Victoria was thrown into a “state of agony, grief and despair”: Hibbert, ed. 45.
21: Sir Robert Peel was “stiff” and “close,” according to Melbourne: Longford 110.
21: Melbourne … did her a great disservice: Longford 109.
22: “Sir Robert said, ‘Now, about the Ladies,’“: Hibbert, ed. 47.
23: Victoria … was cool to the idea of marriage: Longford 125.
23: “It was with some emotion that I beheld Albert—who is beautiful”: Hibbert, ed. 55.
23: … her new object in life was, as she put it, to “strive to make him feel as little as possible the great sacrifice he has made”: Hibbert, ed. 57.
23: Over the next three days, she sent encouraging messages to him: Woodham-Smith, Queen Victoria 183.
24: Albert quickly took upon himself what had been Lehzen’s task of warming the Queen’s tiny hands with his own: Longford 134.
24: “I signed some papers and warrants etc.”: Hibbert, ed. 58.
25: “Here comes the bridegroom of Victoria’s choice”: James 89.
25: “… vile, confounded, infernal Tories”: Hibbert, ed. 62.
25: Albert was far more complacent with the vote: Von Stockmar 2:31.
26: … her uncles Cambridge and Sussex at first agreed with her: Longford 136.
26: “… this wicked old foolish Duke, these confounded Tories, oh!”: Woodham-Smith, Queen Victoria 199.
26: “You forget, my dearest Love, that I am the Sovereign, and that usiness can stop and wait for nothing”: Hibbert, ed. 62.
27: “As to your wish about your gentlemen, my dear Albert”: Victoria Letters (first series) 1:254.
27: “I never saw such crowds of people”: Hibbert, ed. 63.
28: “He does look so beautiful in his shirt only”: Hibbert, ed. 64.
28: “the husband, not the master of the house”: James 104.
Chapter 2: Bravos
30: The elder Edward Oxford’s behavior: Times 17 June 1840, 6; 11 July 1840, 5–6.
31: “the best workman in Birmingham”: Townsend 127.
31: … the son or grandson of a black father: Times 11 July 1840, 6; Morning Chronicle 12 June 1840, 7; Caledonian Mercury 18 June 1840, 4.
31: “jumping about like a baboon, and imitating their grimaces”: Townsend 127.
32: The superstition is perhaps best remembered today in the celebrated case of Joseph Merrick: Wilson 14.
32: Hannah herself believed her husband’s abuse the cause of her son Edward’s eccentricity: Times 17 June 1840, 6.
32: “my customers complained of his conduct”: Morning Chronicle 15 June 1840, 3; Times 10 July 1840, 7.
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33: “He was once taken to the station house for this”: Morning Chronicle 10 July 1840, 7.
33: Sandon recalled that he constantly beat other children: Times 11 July 1840, 6.
33: Edward was “brought up to the bar”: Times 11 June 1840, 4.
34: … he could only laugh and “jeer” at the injuries the man had received: Times 11 July 1840, 6.
34: … his aunt remembered one time, when she was ill, leaving Edward to run a busy bar: Times 11 July 1840, 6.
35: “When not engaged in his business and while sitting down in front of the bar he has been observed by Mr. Minton and the barmaid …”: Morning Chronicle 15 June 1840, 3.
Shooting Victoria Page 54
