CHAPTER XVI.
Death passes by—Life comes.
On the 10th of June, 1840, occurred the first mad attempt to assassinate Queen Victoria—made as she and Prince Albert were driving up Constitution Hill, near Buckingham Palace, in a small open phaeton. Prince Albert, in a letter to his grandmamma, gives the clearest account of it. He says: "We had hardly proceeded a hundred yards from the Palace, when I noticed, on the foot-path on my side, a little, mean-looking man, holding something toward us, and, before I could distinguish what it was, a shot was fired, which almost stunned us both, it was so loud—barely six paces from us. … The horses started, and the carriage stopped. I seized Victoria's hands and asked if the fright, had not shaken her, but she laughed."
Almost immediately the fellow fired a second shot, from which the Queen was saved probably by the presence of mind of the Prince, who drew her down beside him. He states that the ball must have passed just over her head. The wretch was at once arrested and taken away, and soon after committed for trial, on the charge of high treason. The Queen was seen to be very pale, but calm. She rose in the carriage to show the excited people that she was not hurt, and then ordered the postilions to drive at once to Ingestrie House, that the Duchess of Kent might hear of the startling incident first from her and not be frightened by wild rumors. It was a thoughtful and filial act, and brave, moreover, for there were those about her who suspected that there might be a revolutionary conspiracy, and that Oxford was only one of many banded assassins. These alarmists advised her and her husband to show themselves abroad as little as possible. How they heeded this advice is shown in another passage of Prince Albert's letter: "We arrived safely at Aunt Kent's. From thence we took a drive through the Park, to give Victoria a little air,—also to show the people that we had not, on account of what had happened, lost confidence in them."
The Prince does not mention a very pretty incident which I find recorded elsewhere. As the Queen's carriage reached the Park, it was received with enthusiastic cheers, smiles, and tears by crowds of people, equestrians and pedestrians, and the gay world on wheels; and as they neared the Marble Arch, the gentlemen and ladies on horseback followed them as with one impulse—all Rotton Row turned out, and escorted them to Buckingham Palace. It is said, too, that for several days this was repeated—that whenever the Queen and Prince drove out they were escorted by this singular volunteer body-guard.
Of course, the whole country was excited, and the Queen, whose life had been menaced, was more popular than ever. They say that her first visit to the opera after this shocking attempt was a most memorable occasion. Her reception was something almost overwhelming. The audience were all on their feet, cheering and shouting, and waving handkerchiefs and hats, and there was no quieting them till the National Anthem was sung—and even then, they broke in with wild cheers at the close of every verse. Her Majesty stood throughout these demonstrations, bowing and smiling, her heart melted within her, I doubt not.
Of course there was no conspiracy, and Oxford the pot-boy, "a pot-boy was, and, nothing more." He was acquitted on the ground of insanity, but ordered to be confined "during Her Majesty's pleasure," which he was in Bedlam for some years. Then he was sent to Australia as cured, and where he went into better business than shooting Queens, and earned an honest living, they say. He always declared that he was not insane, except from a mad passion for notoriety—which he got.
The five or six successors of Oxford who have shot at Her Majesty, and that wretched retired officer, Robert Pate, who waylaid her in 1850, and struck her a cruel blow across the face with a walking-stick, were pronounced insane, and confined in mad-houses merely. The English are too proud and politic to admit that a sane man can lift his hand against the Constitutional Sovereign of England. When there arrived in London the news of the shooting of President Garfield, a distinguished English gentleman said to me, "I think we will not be annexed to the United States while you shoot your Presidents."
I replied by reminding him of the many attempts on the life of his beloved Queen, adding, "I believe the homicidal mania is a Monarchical as well as a Republican affliction,—the difference only is that, unhappily for us, our madmen are the better shots."
It must be that for monarchists born and bred, an anointed head, whether covered by a silk hat or a straw bonnet, is circled by a simulacrum of a crown, which dazzles the aim of the would-be regicide, they are so almost certain to miss, at long or short range. Alas there is no halo of sovereignty or "hedge of divinity" about our poor Presidents! It is, perhaps, because of this unsteadiness of nerve and aim, that Continental regicides are taking to sterner and surer means—believing that no thrice blessed crown can dazzle off dynamite, and that no most imperial "divinity" is bomb-proof.