In my last Victorian post, we looked at Queen Victoria's wedding to Prince Albert and her famous white wedding dress. The couple had married on the 10th of February 1840, and by June they were expecting their first child. Victoria was just 21 years old, and although she had been Queen for three years, she was about to experience something that would remain with her for the rest of her life.
On the evening of the 10th of June 1840, Victoria and Albert left Buckingham Palace in an open carriage for their usual drive. As they travelled along Constitution Hill, a young man standing beside the road suddenly fired a pistol towards them. Victoria initially struggled to understand what had happened, but when the man raised a second pistol, she ducked. Another shot rang out, although neither she nor Albert was injured.
The gunman was Edward Oxford, an 18-year-old who had previously worked in London public houses. Members of the public quickly seized him, and he was taken into custody. Rather than returning to Buckingham Palace, Victoria and Albert continued to the home of her mother, the Duchess of Kent, so she could see for herself that her daughter was unharmed.
They then carried on with their drive through Hyde Park. By this time, news of the shooting had spread, and crowds gathered to cheer the young Queen. Victoria's decision to appear in public so soon after the attack was widely admired.
Meanwhile, the authorities were trying to understand why Oxford had done it. A search of his belongings uncovered papers describing a supposed secret organisation called Young England, complete with military ranks and elaborate rules. However, investigators found no convincing evidence that the organisation actually existed.
There was another mystery. Although Oxford had fired both pistols, no bullets were ever recovered, and he maintained that they had contained only gunpowder. Whether he had genuinely intended to kill the Queen remained uncertain.
Oxford went on trial for high treason in July 1840. The jury accepted that he had fired the pistols but found that he was insane at the time. He was detained at Bethlem Hospital and later transferred to Broadmoor.
After 27 years in confinement, Oxford was released in 1867 on condition that he left Britain permanently. He settled in Australia, where he lived under the name John Freeman until his death in 1900.
This was the first of several attempts on Queen Victoria's life during her long reign. But one question about that June evening was never satisfactorily answered: had Edward Oxford actually fired bullets at the Queen?
Image info: G. H. Miles, Edward Oxford’s assassination attempt on Queen Victoria, 1840. British Museum / Wikimedia Commons. Public domain
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