Sidmouth being carried away in a bag. Lord Harrowby’s dinner-party was postponed, but the conspirators knew nothing of it, and those who watched his house were further encouraged in their mistake by the arrival of many carriages, bound, as it happened, to the Archbishop of York’s. Meanwhile the main body remained at their headquarters, a ruined stable in Cato Street, Edgeware Road, completing their dispositions for assuming supreme power after the blow had been struck. Here they were surprised by the police, headed by a magistrate, and supported by a strong detachment of Her Majesty’s Guards. The police were the first to arrive on the spot, the Guards having entered the street at the wrong end. The conspirators were in a loft, approached by a ladder and a trap-door, access through which could only be obtained one by one. The first constable who entered Thistlewood ran through the body with a sword, but others quickly followed, the lights were extinguished, and a desperate conflict ensued. The Guards, headed by Lord Adolphus Fitz Clarence, now reinforced the police, and the conspirators gave way. Nine of the latter were captured, with all the war material, cutlasses, pistols, hand-grenades, and ammunition. Thistlewood and fourteen more succeeded for the moment in making their escape, but most of them were subsequently taken. Thistlewood was discovered next morning in a mean house in White Street, Moorfields. He was in bed with his breeches on (in the pockets of which were found a number of cartridges), the black belt he had worn at Cato Street, and a military sash.
The trial of the conspirators came on some six weeks later, at the Old Bailey. Thistlewood made a long and rambling defence, the chief features of which were abuse of Lord Sidmouth, and the vilification of the informer Edwards. Several of the other prisoners took the same line as regards Edwards, and there seems to have been good reason for supposing that he was a greater villain than any of those arraigned. He had been in a state of abject misery, and when he first joined “the reformers,” as the Cato Street conspirators called themselves, he had neither a bed to lie upon nor a coat to his back. His sudden access to means unlimited was no doubt due to the profitable rôle he soon adopted of Government informer and spy, and it is pretty certain that for some time he served both sides; on the one inveigling silly enthusiasts to join in the plot, and denouncing them on the other. The employment of Edwards, and the manner in which the conspirators were allowed to commit themselves further and further before the law was set in motion against them, were not altogether creditable to the Government. It was asserted, not without foundation, at these trials, that Edwards repeatedly incited the associates he was betraying to commit outrage, to set fire to houses, throw hand-grenades into the carriages of ministers; that he was, to use Thistlewood’s words, “a contriver, instigator, and entrapper.” The Government were probably not proud of their agent, for Edwards, after the conviction had been assured, went abroad to enjoy, it was said, an ample pension, so long as he did not return to England.
Five of the conspirators, Thistlewood, Ings, Brunt, Davidson, and Tidd, were sentenced to death, and suffered in the usual way in front of Newgate, with the additional penalty of decapitation, as traitors, after they had been hanged. A crowd as great as any known collected in the Old Bailey to see the ceremony, about which there were some peculiar features worth recording. The reckless demeanour of all the convicts except Davidson was most marked. Thistlewood and Ings sucked oranges on the scaffold; they with Brunt and Tidd scorned the ordinary’s ministrations, but Ings said he hoped God would be more merciful to him than men had been. Ings was especially defiant. He sought to cheer Davidson, who seemed affected, crying out, “Come, old cock-of-wax, it will soon be over.” As the executioner fastened the noose, he nodded to a friend he saw in the crowd; and catching sight of the coffins ranged around the gallows, he smiled at the show with contemptuous indifference. He roared out snatches of a song about Death or Liberty, and just before he was turned off, yelled out three cheers to the populace whom he faced. He told the executioner to “do it tidy,” to pull it tight, and was in a state of hysterical exaltation up to the very last. Davidson, who was the only one who seemed to realize his awful situation, listened patiently and with thankfulness to the chaplain, and died in a manner strongly contrasting with that of his fellows. After the five bodies had hung for half-an-hour, a man in a mask came forward to complete the sentence. Contemporary reports state that from the skilful manner in which he performed the decapitation, he was generally supposed to be a surgeon. Be this as it may, the weapon used was only an ordinary axe, which rather indicates that force, not skill, was employed. This axe is still in existence, and is preserved at Newgate with various other unpleasant curiosities, but is only an ordinary commonplace tool. These were the last executions for high treason, but not the last prisoners by many who passed through Newgate charged with sedition.
Attacks upon the sovereign, as I have said, became more common after the accession of the young Queen Victoria in 1838. It was a form of high treason not unknown in earlier reigns. In 1786 a mad woman, Margaret Nicholson, tried to stab George III. as he was alighting from his carriage at the gate of St. James’s Palace. She was seized before she could do any mischief, and eventually lodged in Bethlehem Hospital, where she died after forty years’ detention, at the advanced age of one hundred. Again, a soldier, by name Hatfield, who had been wounded in the head, and discharged from the army for unsoundness of mind, fired a pistol at George III. from the pit of Drury Lane theatre in 1800. William IV. was also the victim of a murderous outrage on Ascot race-course in 1832, when John Collins, “a person in the garb of a sailor, of wretched appearance, and having a wooden leg,” threw a stone at the king, which hit him on the forehead, but did no serious injury. Collins, when charged, pleaded that he had lost his leg in action, that he had petitioned without success for a pension, and that, as he was starving, he had resolved on this desperate deed, feeling, as he said, that he might as well be shot or hanged as remain in such a state. He was eventually sentenced to death, but the plea of lunacy was allowed, and he was confined for life.
None of the foregoing attempts were, however, so dastardly or determined as that made by Oxford upon our present gracious Queen two years after she ascended the throne. The cowardly crime was probably encouraged by the fearless and confiding manner in which the Queen, secure as it seemed in the affections of her loyal people, freely appeared in public. Oxford, who was only nineteen at the time his offence was committed, had been born at Birmingham, but he came as a lad to London, and took service as a pot-boy to a publican. From this he was promoted to barman, and as such had charge of the business in various public-houses. He left his last situation in April 1840, and established himself in lodgings in Lambeth, after which he devoted himself to pistol practice in shooting-galleries, sometimes in Leicester Square, sometimes in the Strand, or the West End. His acquaintances often asked his object in this, but he kept his own counsel till the 10th June. On that day Oxford was on the watch at Buckingham Palace. He saw Prince Albert return there from a visit to Woolwich, and then passed on to Constitution Hill, where he waited till four p.m., the time at which the Queen and Prince Consort usually took an afternoon drive. About six p.m. the royal carriage, a low open vehicle drawn by four horses, ridden by postilions, left the palace. Oxford, who had been pacing backwards and forwards with his hands under the lapels of his coat, saw the carriage approach. He was on the right or north side of the road. Prince Albert occupied the same side of the carriage, the Queen the left. As the carriage came up to him Oxford turned, put his hand into his breast, drew a pistol, and fired at the Queen.
The shot missed, and as the carriage passed on, Oxford drew a second pistol and fired again. The Queen saw this second movement, and stooped to avoid the shot; the Prince too rose to shield her with his person. Again, providentially, the bullet went wide of the mark, and the royal party drove back to Clarence House, the Queen being anxious to give the first news of the outrage and of her safety to her mother, the Duchess of Kent. Meanwhile the pistol-shots had attracted the attention of the bystanders, of whom there was a fair collection, as usual, waiting to see the Queen pass. Oxford was seized by a person named Lowe, who was at first mistaken for the assailant. But Oxford at once assumed the responsibility for his crime, saying, “It was I. I did it. I’ll give myself up. There is no occasion to use violence. I will go with you.” He was taken into custody, and removed first to a police cell, thence committed to Newgate, after he had been examined before the Privy Council. Oxford expressed little anxiety or concern. He asked more than once whether the Queen was hurt, and acknowledged that the pistols were loaded with ball.
A craze for notoriety, to be achieved at any cost, was the one absorbing idea in young Oxford’s disordered brain. After his arrest he thought only of the excitement his attempt had raised, nothing of its atrocity, or of the fatal consequences which might have ensued. When brought to trial he hardly realized his position, but gazed with complacency around the crowded court, and eagerly inquired what persons of distinction were present. He smiled continually, and when the indictment was read, burst into loud and discordant fits of laughter. These antics may have been assumed to bear out the plea of insanity set up in his defence, but that there was madness in his family, and that he himself was of unsound mind, could not be well denied. His father, it was proved in evidence, had been at times quite mad; and Oxford’s mental state might be inferred from his own proceedings. Among his papers was found a curious document, purporting to be the rules of an association called “Young England,” which Oxford had evolved out of his own inflated self-conceit, and which had never any real corporeal existence. “Young England” was a secret society, with no aim or object. Its sworn members, known only to Oxford, and all of them mere shadows, were bound to provide themselves with sword, rifle, dagger, and a pair of pistols; to wear a black crape mask, to obey punctually the orders of their commander-in-chief, and to assume any disguise, if required to go into the country on the business of the association.
The officers of the society were to be known only by “factitious (sic) names.” Thus, among the presidents were those of Gowrie, Justinian, Aloman, Colsman, Kenneth, and Godfrey; Hannibal and Ethelred were on the council; Anthony, Augustus, and Frederic were among the generals; Louis and Amadeus among the captains; and Hercules, Neptune, and Mars among the lieutenants of the association. The various grades were distinguished by cockades and bows of different colours. The society was supposed to meet regularly, and its proceedings, together with the speeches made, were duly recorded. With Oxford’s other papers were found letters from the secretary, written as it seemed by Oxford to himself, after the manner of Mr. Toots, all of which declared their approval of the commander-in-chief. One expressed pleasure that Oxford improved so much in speaking, and declared that his (Oxford’s) speech the last time “was beautiful.” This letter went on to say that a new member had been introduced by Lieut. Mars, “a fine, tall, gentlemanly young man, and it is said that he is a military officer, but his name has not yet transpired. Soon after he was introduced we were alarmed by a violent knocking at the door; in an instant our faces were covered, we cocked our pistols, and with drawn swords stood waiting to receive the enemy. While one stood over the fire with the papers, another stood with lighted torch to fire the house. We then sent the old woman to open the door, and it proved to be some little boys who had knocked and ran away.” Another letter directed Oxford to attend an extraordinary meeting of “Young England” in consequence of having received some information of an important nature from Hanover. “You must attend; and if your master will not give you leave, you must come in defiance of him.”
No serious importance could be attached to these, the manifest inventions of a disordered intellect. The whole of the evidence pointed so strongly towards insanity, that the jury brought in a verdict of acquittal on that ground, and Oxford was ordered to be detained during Her Majesty’s pleasure. He went from Newgate first to Bethlehem, from which he was removed to Broadmoor on the opening of the great criminal lunatic asylum at that place. He was released from Broadmoor in 1878, and went abroad.
Within a couple of years a second attempt to assassinate the Queen was perpetrated in nearly the same spot, by a man named John Francis, who was arrested in the very act, just as he had fired one shot. His motives for thus imitating the dastardly crime of Oxford are shrouded in obscurity. He could not plead insanity like his predecessor, and no attempt was made at his trial to prove him of unsound mind. Here again probably it was partly the love of notoriety which was the incentive, backed possibly with the hope that, as in a much more recent case,[105] he would be in some way provided for, he having been for some time previously in abject circumstances. The deed was long premeditated, and would have been executed a day earlier had not his courage failed him at the last moment. A youth named Pearson had seen him present a pistol at the Queen’s carriage, but draw it back again, exclaiming presently, “I wish I had done it.” Pearson weakly allowed Francis to go off without securing his apprehension, but later he gave full information. The Queen was apprised of the danger, and begged not to go abroad; but she declared she would not remain a prisoner in her own palace, and next day drove out as usual in an open barouche. Nothing happened till Her Majesty returned to Buckingham Palace about six p.m., when, on descending Constitution Hill, with an equerry riding close on each side of her carriage, a man who had been leaning against the palace garden wall suddenly advanced, levelled a pistol at the Queen, and fired. He was so close to the carriage that the smoke of his pistol enveloped the face of Colonel Wylde, one of the equerries. The Queen was untouched, and at first, it is said, hardly realized the danger she had escaped. Francis had already been seized by a policeman named Trounce, who saw his movement with the pistol, but too late to prevent its discharge. The prisoner was conveyed without delay to the Home Office, and there examined by the Privy Council, which had been hastily summoned for the purpose. On searching him the pistol was found in his pocket, the barrel still warm; also some loose powder and a bullet. There was some doubt as to whether the pistol when fired was actually loaded with ball, but the jury brought in a verdict of guilty of the criminal intent to kill. Francis was sentenced to be hanged, decapitated, and quartered, the old traitor’s doom, but was spared, and subsequently transported for life. The enthusiasm of the people at the Queen’s escape was uproarious, and her drive next day was one long triumphal progress. At the Italian Opera in the evening the audience, on the Queen’s appearance, greeted her with loud cheers, and called for the national anthem. This was in May 1842.