On a late spring evening in
June, 1840, a young man could be seen loitering on a footpath at Constitution
Hill, close to Buckingham Palace.
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| Edward Oxford: on a mission |
His name was Edward Oxford,
an unemployed waiter with an unhealthy obsession with guns and target practice.
Over the previous months,
he’d spent a great deal of time at the shooting galleries in The Strand and
Leicester Square. Now, he was hoping to put his skill to good use.
It was almost 6pm - the hour
when the young Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were accustomed to take their
evening drive through London. They did so in an open phaeton - a low carriage that was pulled by two horses.
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| The queen's evening ride |
Even more enticing - from
his viewpoint - was that she was four months pregnant with her first child. If he succeeded
in killing her, he stood a near certain chance of also killing her heir (assuming the child was a boy).
A week before the
assassination attempt, Oxford had taken himself to a shop in Lambeth owned by a
former school friend named Gray. He bought fifty copper percussion caps and
asked Gray where he could buy bullets and gunpowder. Gray sold him powder and told
him where he could get hold of ammunition.
![]() |
| Two shots ring out |
At around 4pm on 10 June, Oxford took up position on Constitution Hill.
After a long wait, he heard the sound of horses’ hooves. It was the queen and
her husband: as expected, they were riding without guards.
As their phaeton swung passed Oxford’s hiding-place, he lunged
forwards and fired both pistols in rapid succession. It was not immediately
clear if the queen had been hit, for the carriage rattled off down Constitution
Hill. Horrified onlookers dragged Oxford to the ground and pulled the weapons
from his hands.
He made no effort to struggle and nor did he attempt to hide his attempt
on the queen’s life.
‘It was I, it was me that did it,’ he said, somewhat incoherently.
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| Absolute chaos as the queen rides away |
The police now began to interrogate him, and soon found him to be
unusually compliant. In fact, he appeared happy to tell them everything.
He admitted that his pistols had been loaded; he also gave them his home address so they could search the place. They found a locked casket
containing a sword and scabbard, two pistol-bags, powder, a bullet mould, five
lead balls, some of the percussion caps.
They also found details of a dangerous underground military society
called Young England, complete with a list of officers serving in this
clandestine organization.
Each member was said to be armed with a brace of pistols, a sword, rifle
and dagger. The police even unearthed correspondence between Oxford and his
fellow members.
But once they set to investigate Young England more closely, it was
found to exist only in Oxford’s imagination. The entire society, its members and
its rules were all invented.
Oxford’s Old Bailey trial was postponed for almost a month as police
undertook a thorough investigation of his motives. They also searched the crime
scene, but were unable to find the bullets that Oxford said he’d fired.
| An early policeman, c 1840 |
Now, he dramatically changed his story, saying that the guns had
contained only gunpowder.
When the trial finally opened amidst huge publicity, Oxford seemed
completely detached. Witness after witness testified that he came from long
line of alcoholics with a tendency towards mental instability. Oxford certainly
seemed to fit the family mould - a deranged individual with an eccentric streak.
The jury acquitted him, declaring him not guilty on the ground of
insanity. The queen was furious, but there was nothing she could do. She did,
however, have the satisfaction of seeing him sentenced to be detained ‘until
Her Majesty’s pleasure be known.’
Oxford spent the next 24 years in the Lunatic Asylum of Bethlem, South
London. He was a model prisoner: courteous, friendly and obliging. He taught
himself French, German and Italian, along with Spanish, Greek and Latin. He
also spent his time drawing, reading and playing the violin, and was later
employed as a painter and decorator within the asylum.
In 1864, he was transferred to Broadmoor, by which time it was clear he
was a danger to no one - not even himself. He admitted that he’d never wanted
to kill the queen; rather, he'd wanted to secure notoriety for himself.
![]() |
| The young queen |
He agreed and was shipped to Melbourne, where he married a widow with
two children and became a respectable warden at his local church. He died a virtuous citizen, his youthful act of terror all but forgotten.
But one person could never forgive him for what he’d done: Queen
Victoria was absolutely furious that he hadn’t been hanged.
When, in 1882, a second assassin, Roderick McLean, attempted to shoot
her, she ridiculed the idea that men could escape the death penalty by pleading
insanity.
In her eyes, all who lifted a finger against her - even if mad - should
be executed.
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