Taking a pop at the Queen

On 10 June 1840 an 18-year-old out-of-work Londoner named Edward Oxford cocked his pistol and fired two shots at Queen Victoria as she made her daily carriage drive with Prince Albert on Constitution Hill. Oxford was mobbed by the crowd, who shouted ‘Kill him!’ He was charged with high treason. Though he claimed that his cheap flintlock pistol was loaded, no ball was ever found. Oxford, who (according to Prince Albert) was ‘a little mean-looking man’, delighted in the attention the shooting brought him. During the trial the family insisted that he was mad. He was found guilty but insane, and sentenced to confinement for life in Bethlem hospital.

Oxford was the first of seven men who attempted to kill or assault Queen Victoria. These attacks have received little attention in the history books, and they made only a fleeting impression at the time. Paul Thomas Murphy has had the inspired idea of writing the reign through the stories of Victoria’s would-be assassins.