Queen Victoria’s Fear Of Public Attacks

The Queen's Hidden Wars: Victoria's Secret Struggle with Fear and Violence

Throughout her monumental time on the throne, Queen Victoria was targeted in at least seven separate assassination attempts. To the public, she was the picture of stoicism, an unshakeable monarch who faced down danger with regal calm. Yet behind the palace walls, her private journals told a profoundly different story. They reveal the deep and lasting psychological wounds inflicted by these repeated assaults against her person, exposing a vulnerable woman beneath the formidable crown. This hidden narrative reveals a queen perpetually at war not just with external threats, but with the internal turmoil they unleashed.

A Close Call with Mortality

A frighteningly near-fatal experience occurred for Queen Victoria on 27 June 1850. With three of her children, she went to visit her gravely ill uncle at his Piccadilly residence for the evening. As she prepared to leave, a large assembly of enthusiastic Londoners gathered outside, eager for a sighting of their sovereign. The atmosphere was one of excitement and anticipation, a typical scene for a royal outing in the heart of the capital.

However, among the well-wishers lurked a man with a violent objective. Robert Pate, a former army officer, pushed his way through the gathering. As the Queen’s open-topped carriage departed, he lunged forward, striking her over the head with his metal-pointed cane. Chaos immediately erupted. In the midst of the panic, reports suggest Victoria rose, fixed her damaged bonnet, and announced that she was uninjured, a moment of extraordinary public composure.

The Unflappable Monarch

This marked the fifth occasion she had been targeted since taking the throne in 1837. Media outlets of the time consistently portrayed her as remarkably composed. The Morning Post, for instance, noted that the Queen did not appear frightened. The newspaper praised her "complete self-possession," which she demonstrated by graciously acknowledging cheering onlookers while her carriage was returning to Buckingham Palace. This carefully constructed image of a resilient and dutiful queen resonated strongly with the public.

This perception of Victoria as unflappable and devoted to her role fits with her enduring popular image. The famous statement attributed to her about not being amused, though likely never said by her, now defines the perceived stoicism of the period. Many people perceive the nineteenth century to be an era of controlled feelings, a time celebrated for its emotional fortitude. Yet, this public persona concealed a much more complex emotional reality for the Queen herself.

A Dream of Horror

Despite the brave face she presented to the world, Victoria’s personal journals paint a starkly different picture. Writing later from the security of Buckingham Palace, she described the event as something from a bad dream. Her writings show a progression from initial shock and bewilderment to intense anger. She came to see the assault as the most dishonorable and cowardly action imaginable. The emotional impact was not hers alone; the event deeply shocked Prince Albert.

The home secretary of the day, Sir George Grey, came to the palace and was reportedly very upset and crying. For many hours afterwards, the Queen was still upset, on edge, and could not eat anything. The physical blow from Pate's cane had left a significant bruise and a scar that would remain visible for years, a constant reminder of the attack. It was the only assault that caused her actual physical injury.

A Surge of Public Affection

Despite her private turmoil, Victoria demonstrated immense resolve. That very evening, she attended a performance at the opera. Her appearance was met with a tremendous outpouring of public support. The crowds were ecstatic, throwing their hats up and spontaneously singing "God Save The Queen". Although not every Victorian was a staunch monarchist, attempts to harm the Queen consistently united the public in shows of loyalty and affection.

Victoria herself once remarked that the experience of being shot at was a price worth paying to see how beloved she was. This sentiment captured the paradoxical effect of the assassination attempts. Each assault, while terrifying, ultimately served to bolster her popularity and strengthen the bond between the monarch and her people. These displays of public adoration became a powerful counter-narrative to the violence she endured.

The First Attempt

The pattern of attacks began early in her reign. On 10 June 1840, an eighteen-year-old named Edward Oxford fired two pistols at the Queen's carriage on Constitution Hill. Victoria was four months pregnant with her first child then. Prince Albert, sitting beside her, saw Oxford aim and fire. Miraculously, both shots missed. The crowd swiftly subdued the attacker.

Oxford, a former barman, claimed his pistols were loaded only with gunpowder, a fact that could not be definitively proven. At his trial, he was found not guilty by reason of insanity and sent to the Bethlem asylum, popularly known as Bedlam. The incident, while shocking, had the immediate effect of boosting the young Queen's popularity, which had been waning due to minor political scandals. Oxford was later deported to Australia, where he lived out his life under a new name.

Bravery as a Political Tool

Two years later, Victoria faced another serious threat, this time from a teenager, John Francis. On 29 May 1842, he aimed a handgun at her coach during its journey up Constitution Hill, but the weapon failed to fire. Francis escaped into the crowd. Aware that an assassin was loose, Prime Minister Robert Peel strongly suggested that the Queen should remain within the palace. She boldly refused.

The following day, Victoria and Albert deliberately rode the same route in their open carriage, effectively daring the attacker to try again. Their gambit worked. Francis reappeared and fired his pistol, this time successfully, though he missed both Victoria and Albert. He was immediately seized by plain-clothes policemen who had been stationed in the crowd. This calculated show of fortitude was a powerful political statement, challenging the sexist notion that a woman lacked the fortitude to rule.

Crafting a Royal Image

Newspapers praised her courage after the Francis incident. A poem published in The Times praised her as a monarch with a lion's heart, possessing the courage of a king even as a queen. This kind of public praise was essential for Victoria. In an era when many, including some of her own would-be assassins, were openly hostile to living under a "petticoat government," projecting strength was a necessity.

Victoria's defiant public appearances were crucial in shaping her image as a strong and capable sovereign. She understood that her visibility and her reactions to danger were part of her political arsenal. By refusing to hide, she demonstrated a mastery of public relations that helped to secure her position and redefine the role of the monarchy in the public imagination.

A Change in Law

The repeated attacks in the early 1840s prompted a significant legal change. Following the two attempts by John Francis and a subsequent, less serious attempt by John William Bean, Prince Albert encouraged Parliament to act. At that point, any attack on the monarch, however minor, was considered high treason and was punishable by death. This severe penalty did not seem to deter the assailants, many of whom were young, desperate, or mentally unstable.

The government responded by passing the Treason Act of 1842. This new law created a lesser offence for assaulting or alarming the monarch. The maximum sentence was seven years' imprisonment with hard labour, often served in a penal colony like Tasmania. This change was intended to provide a more proportionate response to attacks that did not cause serious harm, while still treating any threat to the sovereign with the utmost seriousness.

The Anxious Queen

Despite her public courage, the constant threats took a heavy toll on Victoria's mental state. The 1840s were a particularly trying decade, and she was targeted by four individuals in separate incidents. By 1850, when the assault from Robert Pate occurred, she had developed an anxiety around large groups of people. She confessed in her personal writings that being close to crowds was a constant source of fear.

She wrote that whenever people crowded her carriage, she could not help but think about the potential for another attack. This admission reveals the hidden cost of her public role. The cheers of the crowd, which for many would be a source of comfort, had become for her a reminder of her vulnerability. This was a classic symptom of trauma, a psychological scar that remained long after the physical bruises had faded.

An Era of Unrest

The attacks on Victoria did not occur in a vacuum. The 1830s and 1840s were a period of significant social and political turmoil in Britain, often referred to as the "Hungry Forties". Industrialisation had created immense wealth for some, but it also led to widespread poverty and grim working conditions for many others. This inequality fuelled radical movements like the Chartists, who demanded political reforms, including universal male suffrage.

While the Chartists primarily used peaceful means, their mass meetings and petitions created an atmosphere of tension and unrest. The Newport Rising of 1839, where Chartist sympathisers clashed violently with troops, heightened fears of revolution. While none of Victoria's attackers were directly linked to the Chartist leadership, their actions can be seen as extreme expressions of the widespread discontent of the era.

A Catalogue of Assailants

The men who tried to kill the Queen were a varied group, often driven by a desperate quest for notoriety, political grievances, or profound mental instability. After Francis, John William Bean, a teenager with a severe spinal deformity, attempted to shoot her in 1842. His pistol, however, was loaded only with tobacco and paper. He was sentenced to 18 months of hard labour.

In 1849, an unemployed Irishman named William Hamilton fired a powder-filled pistol at her carriage, seemingly as a protest against the dire situation in famine-stricken Ireland. He was sentenced to seven years' transportation. These attackers were often troubled individuals on the margins of society, whose desperate acts briefly thrust them into the national spotlight before they disappeared back into obscurity.

The Political Dimension

While many of the attacks were attributed to personal desperation or insanity, some had clearer political motivations. In 1872, after a long period of public seclusion following Prince Albert's death, Victoria was targeted by Arthur O'Connor. The 17-year-old, a great-nephew of a prominent Chartist leader, managed to climb the fence at Buckingham Palace and confront the Queen with an unloaded pistol.

O'Connor claimed he did not intend to harm her. Instead, he wanted to frighten her into signing a document to release Irish political prisoners. His was among the most clearly political efforts to harm her. The Queen’s personal servant, John Brown, famously tackled the teenager to the ground. O'Connor was sentenced to a year in prison and was eventually exiled to Australia.

The Final Attack

The last attempt against Victoria came on 2 March 1882. Roderick Maclean, a writer who had fallen on hard times and suffered a head injury that affected his personality, fired a revolver at her as her carriage left Windsor station. Quick-acting schoolboys from nearby Eton College helped to apprehend him, pummelling him with their umbrellas. The shot missed its target.

Maclean was found not guilty by reason of insanity and spent the remainder of his life in Broadmoor Asylum. The verdict displeased the Queen. It prompted her to push for a change in the law, leading to the Trial of Lunatics Act 1883, which changed the verdict to "guilty, but insane". This final attack, late in her reign, showed that the threat of violence was a constant companion throughout her time on the throne.

The Wounds of Grief

Ultimately, the most profound emotional blows Victoria suffered did not come from would-be killers, but rather from personal bereavement. Not long after the assault from Pate, Robert Peel, who was a firm supporter of the Queen and a companion to Albert, died in a riding accident. Shortly thereafter, her ailing uncle, whom she had been visiting on the day of the attack, also passed away. She recorded in her diary a feeling of being consumed by solemnity and sadness.

These losses, however, were just a prelude to the immense grief that would define the second half of her reign. The death of her beloved husband, Prince Albert, from typhoid fever in 1861 shattered her world. This personal tragedy inflicted a wound far deeper and more lasting than any would-be assassin ever could.

The Long Seclusion

Following Albert's death, Victoria entered a profound state of depression. For over ten years, she mostly retreated from public view, earning her the moniker "the Widow of Windsor". She would later describe her sorrow as intense, admitting she wished for death every night. Her prolonged absence from public duties caused the monarchy's popularity to plummet and fuelled a rise in republican sentiment.

She kept Albert's rooms in all their shared homes exactly as he had left them, a poignant and obsessive private memorial. Although she continued to handle her governmental duties from seclusion, her refusal to perform the ceremonial aspects of her role created a constitutional crisis and strained her relationship with her ministers and the public.

A Reluctant Return

Gradually, over many years, aides eventually persuaded Victoria to resume public appearances. She made occasional appearances, but never with the enthusiasm she once had. It was during two of these reluctant forays back into public life that the final assassination attempts by O'Connor and Maclean occurred. More personal losses marked the end of her reign, which was also challenged by persistent pain and declining health.

It is suggested by her diary entries that she experienced another phase of depression as her life concluded. Although her immense privilege and position protected her from many hardships faced by her subjects, she was not insulated from the universal human experiences of grief, trauma, and sorrow.

An Enduring Legacy

Victoria endured seven murder attempts, had nine children, and discovered the resilience to continue for forty years after Albert's passing. The brave and composed image she projected to the public tells only one part of her story. Her private writings reveal the hidden anxieties and the deep emotional scars left by both violence and grief.

Her reign was a study in contradictions. She was an icon of her time, which is known for its stoicism, yet she was a woman of intense and often overwhelming emotions. She was a powerful monarch who felt deeply vulnerable. This complex and compelling figure, who faced down assassins while privately battling her own demons, left a legacy that continues to fascinate and resonate today.