Shooting Victoria

by Paul Thomas Murphy

  157: This crushing of hopes, coupled with sheer hunger, bore bitter fruit: by the time the Queen attended the ball at Her Majesty’s, riots were already erupting in the Midlands and the North: Times 5 May 1842, 6; Chase 211.

  157: … Parliament released its first report on the employment of children: Children’s Employment Commission.

  157: The popular satirical magazine Punch bitterly contrasted the “purple dress” of the reveling rich with the “cere-cloth” or shroud of the destitute: Punch 2:209.

  157: “The most detested tyrant whose deeds history hands down to posterity, set fire to Rome”: Northern Star 4 June 1842, 3.

  158: … the economic forces unleashed by the Industrial Revolution had strangled their trade nearly to the point of extinction: Veder 266.

  158: Charles Dickens a few years later described the under-and unemployed weavers of Spitalfields as “sallow” and “unshorn”: Dickens and Willis 25.

  159: … “the weavers dine for a day or two”: Dickens and Willis 25.

  159: The organizers of the ball at Her Majesty’s Theatre hoped for a more lasting support: Times 25 May 1842; Kean 44.

  159: As the Times put it, the ball at the theatre was an occasion in which the Queen associated “publicly and personally with her subjects in promoting a common object”: Times 27 May 1842, 6.

  160: … as one of his first acts as Prime Minister, Peel appointed Albert president of the Fine Arts Commission: Bolitho 121; Hurd 236.

  160: Victoria later said that Albert found a “second father” in Peel: St. Aubyn, Queen Victoria 157.

  160: He once told Victoria “all depends on the urgency of a thing. If a thing is very urgent, you can always find time for it; but if a thing can be put off, well then you put it off”: Hibbert, Queen Victoria 87.

  160: … he attended the bal masque, dressed as a figure from a van Dyck painting: Caledonian Mercury 16 May 1842, 4.

  161: It was a budget informed by his growing belief in free trade, calculated not simply to redistribute wealth—but to create wealth: Read 146.

  161: The crowd, however, watched not the dancers but the royal pavilion, as with “mute up-gazing curiosity” they observed Victoria perform the rituals of state: Morning Chronicle 27 May 1842, 6.

  162: Five years before, she was accompanied by her mother and attended to by John Conroy and Lady Flora Hastings; her uncle the Duke of Cumberland was seen to be “very constant in his attention” to his Royal niece: Times 2 June 1837, 5.

  162: Cumberland was now king in Hanover, his despotic ways finding much grater favor among the Hanoverians than among the British: Palmer.

  162: … Conroy—an exile in Berkshire: Hudson 176–77.

  162: … his power implicit in the enormous jackboots he wore: Morning Chronicle 27 May 1842, 6.

  163: By the end of 1841, she regularly used the term “we” in setting out her opinions: St. Aubyn, Queen Victoria 151.

  163: … the Prince hurried from Victoria’s side to lead the Privy Council in her stead: St. Aubyn, Queen Victoria 152.

  163: Victoria found him indispensable in dealing with government business during her confinement and recovery: Woodham-Smith, Queen Victoria 217–18.

  163: He became, according to his own secretary Anson, “in fact, tho’ not in name, Her Majesty’s Private Secretary”: Woodham-Smith, Queen Victoria 218.

  163: At both Buckingham Palace and Windsor by this time, their desks were joined so that they could work as one: St. Aubyn, Queen Victoria 152.

  164: He attended all ministerial meetings, read his wife’s correspondence, and conducted an extensive political correspondence of his own: Gill 174.

  164: … Albert confronted Lehzen, through Anson, about not reporting to him that a certain Captain Childers was stalking the Queen with “mad professions of love”: Woodham-Smith, Queen Victoria 215. Such lovelorn lunatics stalking the Queen were legion, particularly in the early years of her reign.

  164: She was to him “die Blaste”—the hag, the “Yellow Lady” (a reference to her jaundice), “a crazy, stupid intriguer, obsessed with the lust of power, who regards herself as a demi-God”: Charlot 194; St. Aubyn, Queen Victoria 168; Woodham-Smith, Queen Victoria 229.

  165: Anson noted her “pointing out and exaggerating every little fault of the Prince, constantly misrepresenting him, constantly trying to undermine him in the Queen’s affections and making herself appear a martyr”: St. Aubyn, Queen Victoria, 168.

  165: On the evening of 3 December 1840, palace servants were startled to discover an unkempt young man hiding under a sofa in the Queen’s dressing room—a sofa upon which just hours before the Queen had been sitting: Paul Thomas Murphy. Jones, after breaking into the palace three times, was forced to become a sailor; he served in the Royal Navy for at least six years, and then faded into obscurity.

  165: He claimed that he “sat upon the throne, saw the Queen, and heard the Princess Royal… squall”: Times 5 December 1840, 4.

  165: … “the absence of system, which leaves the palace without any responsible authority”: Von Stockmar 2:125. For a detailed memorandum of the household dysfunction, see Von Stockmar 2:118–25.

  166: … servants, for example, regularly sold off the day’s unused candles for their own profit: Feuchtwanger 65.

  166: Albert, in going over Palace expenditures, discovered a weekly charge of 35 shillings for guards at Windsor who hadn’t actually served since George III’s day: Jerrold, Married Life 221–22.

  166: … she “lets no opportunity of creating mischief and difficulty escape her”: Woodham-Smith, Queen Victoria 228.

  166: … Stockmar called them back; the Princess Royal was seriously ill—thin, pale, and feverish: St. Aubyn, Queen Victoria 171; Gill 182.

  167: “All the disagreeableness I suffer,” he wrote, “comes from one and the same person.” Woodham-Smith, Queen Victoria 230.

  167: He and Victoria had the worst argument of their married lives, the Queen accusing Albert of wishing to kill their children, and screaming that she wished they had never married: St. Aubyn, Queen Victoria 171; Gill 183.

  167: “Dr. Clark has mismanaged the child and poisoned her with calomel and you have starved her”: Woodham-Smith, Queen Victoria 230.

  167: “… the welfare of my children and Victoria’s existence as sovereign are too sacred for me not to die fighting rather than yield them as prey to Lehzen”: Woodham-Smith, Queen Victoria 229.

  167: One reporter empathized with the fatigue Victoria must feel, when she and her court had to rise, turn, and curtsey with the arrival of every one of her many honored guests: Morning Chronicle 27 May 1842, 6.

  168: … “amidst loud cheering and clapping of hands” the royal party returned to their carriages and to the Palace”: Morning Chronicle 27 May 1842.

  168: … he shut up shop and returned to Titchfield Street, crept up the two flights to his room, and broke open a locked box containing all of his roommate’s possessions: Times 1 June 1842, 7.

  168: “What have you been about?” Foster asked him. “I suppose you know what I have come here for?”: Times 1 June 1842, 7.

  169: … flintlocks missing flints, and with rusted screw barrels: Times 18 June 1842, 7–8.

  169: Francis chose the smaller of the two, one seven inches long: Morning Chronicle 31 May 1842, 5.

  169: “It appeared to be all he had in the world,” Street later told police: TNA PRO MEPO 3/18.

  169: The clerk told him they rarely sold flints: Times 18 June 1842, 7–8.

  170: Francis paid for the flint with two halfpennies: Morning Chronicle 18 June 1842, 7.

  170: While the police learned about all of these purchases, however, they could never prove that Francis bought a bullet for his pistol: TNA PRO MEPO 3/18.

  170: Francis found shelter at yet another coffee-house: Times 11 June 1842, 6; Post Office London Directory, 1841, 195.

  Chapter 10: A Thorough Scamp

  171: … under the shade of the magnificent elm trees: Heron 443–4
4.

  171: … Victoria and Albert attended the sermon of the Bishop of Norwich at the Chapel Royal: Times 30 May 1842, 5.

  171: Pearson had only recently arrived in London from Suffolk to work at his brother’s printing business as a wood engraver: Times 1 June 1842, 6.

  172: The youth didn’t fire: Times 18 June 1842, 7.

  172: Then John Francis crossed the Mall and disappeared through the gate and into Green Park: Times 1 June 1842, 7.

  172: … wondering whether what he had seen was a joke: Times 1 June 1842, 6.

  173: Then, he turned and slowly walked away, toward Piccadilly: Times 11 June 1842, 6.

  173: He then asked the boy for his name and address: Martin 1:121; Times 1 June 1842, 6.

  173: The gentleman, whoever he was, must have had the questionable pleasure of reading about himself in the newspapers a few days later, when he was excoriated for not raising an alarm or reporting the crime: Times 2 June 1842, 5.

  173: George’s brother, Matthew Flinders Pearson, was a good fifteen years older than he, a respectable businessman in Holborn: Morning Chronicle 28 December 1842, 2.

  174: Thomas Dousbery, a boot and shoe retailer, dabbled in radical thought and was the secretary of the Cordwainer’s benevolent fund; … he would know what to do: Morning Chronicle 2 June 1842, 6; Dousbery 2:109.

  174: Dousbery was sure that Laurie trusted in him, and would not see Pearson’s account as a “trumped up tale”: Morning Chronicle 2 June 1842, 6.

  174: He stammered so badly, Laurie wrote in his diary, “that his brother who was with him had to repeat a statement he had made to him when he was not excited or afraid”: Laurie 101. Laurie obviously knew Thomas Dousbery less than Dousbery knew him, mistakenly calling him “Dandbury” in his diary.

  174: Laurie considered that Pearson should take his account straight to Buckingham Palace: Times 1 June 1842, 6.

  174: Laurie, a man well known for his egotism: McConnell.

  174: … Murray had just sat down to dinner at the Queen’s table, and could not—“on any pretence”—be spoken with until bed time: Times 1 June 1842, 6.

  175: He wrote about the assault to his father the next day: Martin 1:121.

  175: Victoria later wrote to her Uncle Leopold “Thank God, my angel is also well; but he says that had the man fired on Sunday, he must have been hit in the head”: Victoria Letters (first series) 1:399.

  176: … all was quiet; the crowd had dispersed, “satisfied with having seen the Queen”: Martin 1:121.

  176: Albert, wishing Arbuthnot to maintain “profound secrecy,” asked him to communicate what had happened to four people only: Martin 1:121.

  176: Upon hearing of the attempt, Peel rushed to the Palace: Aubyn, Queen Victoria 162; Martin 1:121; TNA PRO MEPO 3/18. Albert claims the “Head of Police” was the man accompanying Peel, but Col. Rowan, the Commissioner most involved with the case at its early stages, did not meet with Albert directly on this day—and his account suggests that the other Commissioner, Mayne, was not there either.

  176: The Queen in the meantime would not present herself as a target by going out in her carriage until she absolutely had to: TNA PRO MEPO 3/18.

  177: Rowan thus ordered his detective (in all but name) Inspector Pearce to join the two inspectors assigned to the Palace and patrol Green and St. James’s parks in plain clothes, watching for anyone who fit the description Albert had given: TNA PRO MEPO 3/18.

  177: This time Murray saw them, and patiently listened to the boy’s excruciatingly drawn-out tale: Martin 1:121.

  177: Murray, with less of a sense imminent danger than Laurie had shown, or perhaps an awareness of Sir James’s work schedule at the Home Office, wrote the three a letter for Graham and told them to call on the Home Secretary that afternoon between two and three: Times 2 June 1842, 6.

  177: “I was present,” Rowan wrote with exasperation, “during a very long Examination of the Lad who saw the pistol presented made tediously long by the impediment in his speech”: TNA PRO MEPO 3/18.

  178: He ordered his clerks to write up “as many written descriptions of the offender to be made out as there are entrances with St. James Park”: TNA PRO MEPO 3/18.

  179: She told Albert’s secretary, George Anson, that she had had for some time a premonition that such a “mad attempt” would be made: Martin 1:122n.

  179: Albert noted that, upon confirmation of Sunday’s attempt, “we were naturally very much agitated, Victoria very nervous and unwell”: Martin 1:121.

  179: He indeed claims that a doctor recommended she deal with her agitation by going out: Martin 1:121.

  179: Victoria rode out, she informed her Uncle Leopold, because she honestly felt she had no other option: Victoria Letters (first series) 1:398.

  180: “I must expose the lives of my gentlemen,” she wrote to her uncle, “but I will not those of my ladies”: Longford 170.

  180: Her lady in waiting, Lady Portman, and her maids of honor, Matilda Paget and Georgiana Liddell, waited in vain that afternoon to be called; Liddell, thus shunned, stalked off to grumble in the palace gardens: Bloomfield 44; Longford 170.

  180: … they were on the lookout for the assailant, and, as Albert thought, “would seize him on the least imprudence or carelessness on his part”: Martin 1:122.

  180: The weather was superb that evening: Martin 1:122.

  180: Later, Victoria’s visiting Uncle Mensdorff helpfully told her “one is sure not to have been hit when one hears the report, as one never hears it when one is hit”: Martin 1:122n.

  180: “Looking out for such a man was not des plus agreables”: Victoria Letters 1:398.

  181: “You may imagine that our minds were not very easy. We looked behind every tree, and I cast my eyes round in search of the rascal’s face”: Martin 1:122.

  181: “I had seen the prisoner half an hour before this,” Trounce later told authorities: Times 11 June 1842, 6.

  181: But Arbuthnot, feeling in his gut that something was wrong as they approached Constitution Hill, rode up to the postilion and demanded he ride even faster until they reached the Palace Gates: Times 18 June 1842, 7.

  182: He was later to speculate that the speed of the carriage saved the Queen’s life: Times 18 June 1842, 6.

  182: He stood at attention and smartly saluted the Queen as she passed: TNA PRO MEPO 3/18.

  182: … a “theatrical attitude,” according to one of many witnesses: TNA PRO MEPO 3/18.

  182: “It was not as if I had seen him fire the Pistol—I could have then laid hold of him sooner, or if I had known he was going to fire it.…” he sputtered guiltily in a police report: TNA PRO MEPO 3/18.

  182: Wylde meanwhile galloped from Albert’s side toward Francis: Times 18 June 1842, 7.

  182: Allen had seen the flash from the pistol and heard the shot: Times 11 June 1842, 6.

  183: Other witnesses—Colonel Arbuthnot in particular—agreed that the pistol’s report was sharp and loud, the sign “of a pistol well loaded and rammed”: TNA PRO TS 11/80.

  183: Victoria, on the other hand, was certain that the shot was not loud at all—certainly, less loud than when Oxford had shot at her: Jerrold, Early Court 360.

  183: Albert was sure Francis aimed low, the bullet going under the carriage; others claimed it went above; one of the Queen’s grooms, riding behind her, thought Francis actually aimed not at the Queen, but at the hind wheel of her carriage: Martin 1:122; Morning Chronicle 31 May 1842, 5; “John Francis.”

  183: Trounce handed Russell the pistol; it was warm, suggesting recent discharge: Times 11 June 1842, 5.

  183: The group marched Francis to the Porter’s Lodge of the palace: Times 30 May 1842, 5.

  183: There, he was searched: a little notebook, a key or two, a penny—and a small amount of gunpowder, screwed up in a piece of paper: enough to recharge his pistol. But he did not have any bullets: Morning Chronicle 31 May 1842, 5; Times 11 June 1842, 6; 18 June 1842, 7.

  183: Wylde observed the quiver in his lips: M
orning Chronicle 18 June 1842, 7.

  183: … they led Francis across the palace to the equerries’ entrance, bundled him into a cab, drove him to the Gardiner Lane station: Times 18 June 1842, 7.

  183: Mark Russell… provided police with the whereabouts of Francis’s father: Accounts differ as to Francis’s father’s whereabouts: one account says he was found at home, another at the theatre, and a third, Deptford. Morning Chronicle 31 May 1842, 5; Times 30 May 1842, 5; 1 June 1842, 6; 18 June 1842, 7; Ipswich Journal 4 June 1842,1.

  184: Word of Francis’s capture was sent around the building to Colonel Rowan, still in the process of giving orders to find the assailant of the day before: TNA PRO MEPO 3/18.

  184: In the Lords, the news was brought to the Duke of Wellington: Times 31 May 1842, 3.

  184: In the Commons, the news could not have come at a more dramatic moment: Times 31 May 1842, 4.

  184: … in a voice in which his “excitement well nigh overpowered his utterance,” he informed the House of the attempt: “Attempt to Assassinate the Queen.”

  184: Francis’s examination was attended by members of both parties: Times 30 May 1842, 5; Morning Chronicle 31 May 1842, 5.

  185: “He is not out of his mind, but a thorough scamp”: Martin 1:122.

  185: … a coolness, calmness, and firmness that astonished the Council: Freeman’s Journal 2 June 1842, 2.

  185: To Colonel Arbuthnot, he asked “whether he thought he intended to shoot the queen, or whether it was done in a frolic”: Times 30 May 1842, 5.

  185: After the examination, Francis was bundled out the back entrance and conveyed to Tothill Fields for the night: Times 11 June 1842, 6.

  185: “Scene-shifter! No, he’s a stage carpenter”: Times 11 June 1842, 6.

  185: The next day, he was brought back to Whitehall at noon to finish his examination: Morning Chronicle 1 June 1842, 5.

  186: … the crowd assembled outside the Home Office saw him lean back in the vehicle: Morning Chronicle 1 June 1842, 5; Liverpool Mercury 3 June 1842,175.