Shooting Victoria (73 page)

Portrait of Roderick Maclean, from the
Graphic
, capturing the man's dazed look if not his dirty and disheveled state on the day of his attack on the Queen.

Roderick Maclean's attempt, 2 March 1882, from the
Graphic
. Chief Superintendent Hayes and James Burnside converge upon him from the left and behind; the Eton boys approach from the right, about to belabor Maclean with their umbrellas. Princess Beatrice is visible in the carriage: Victoria sits invisible to her right. On the back of the carriage is an ailing John Brown.

Victoria, five years after the last attempt on her life, at the time of her Golden Jubilee of 1887: the face of empire. The Jubilee dynamite plot of that year—effectively nipped in the bud by the Metropolitan Police—did little to disturb her equanimity.

C
ITATIONS

PART 1: YOUNG ENGLAND

Chapter 1: Wedding Portrait

3:    … the “ganglion” of Southwark's twisted streets: Dickens,
Bleak House
438.

4:    … gave his neighborhood an unusual air of gentility: Bowers 466.

4:    … carefully structured world: Andrews
et al
. 449.

5:    The documents showed Young England to be a highly disciplined, insurrectionary organization: Townsend 119.

5:    Captain Oxford had chosen the rather transparent alias of “Oxonian”: TNA PRO MEPO 3/17.

5:    … this manifesto, though signed by a fictitious secretary Smith, was in Oxford's own handwriting: “Edward Oxford.”

6:    The sword would come: TNA PRO MEPO 3/17.

7:    Although dueling was technically illegal, the practice was carried on: Holland 223; Bresler 151; Rawlings 169.

7:    … overpriced, according to one gunmaker, who later valued them at less than 30 shillings:
Times
18 June 1840, 6.

7:    … “coarsely and roughly finished,” designed more for show than effect:
Times
13 June 1840, 6;
Morning Chronicle
11 June 1840, 2.

7:    … but they bore no maker's mark—an obvious sign of their shoddiness:
Morning Chronicle
12 June 1840, 6.

7:    “Brummagem firearms”: Dickens,
Letters
2:82.

7:     … he bargained down the price of the pistols from 2 guineas (or £2 and 2 shillings) to £2:
Morning Chronicle
16 June 1840, 3;
Times
10 July 1840, 6.

8:    … a baker who worked at a local soda-water factory, but was on the verge of a major career change:
Morning Chronicle
11 June 1840, 2; 15 June 1840, 3.

8:    … he would very soon fall into arrears:
Morning Chronicle
15 June 1840, 3.

8:    … the arm injury he suffered as a boy, nearly blowing himself up while playing with fire and gunpowder:
Times
11 June 1840, 4.

8:    “He said he would allow me half his pay”:
Times
11 July 1840, 7; Townsend 129.

9:    “He said nothing was stirring”:
Times
10 July 1840, 7.

9:    “How could you think of laying your money out in such folly!”: Townsend 129.

9:    He raised one of the pistols and pointed it, cocked, at his mother's face: Townsend 129.

11:  “I write to you from here the happiest, happiest Being that ever existed”: Hibbert, ed. 64–5.

11:   Albert was away, at the Royal Dockyard at Woolwich:
Times
5 May 1840, 5.

12:   “… my very intelligent factotum”: Woodham-Smith,
Queen Victoria
49.

12:   … the Duke of York resolved to remain unmarried: Woodham-Smith,
Queen Victoria
57.

13:   A later companion forced upon her was the Duchess's Lady-inWaiting, Lady Flora Hastings: Woodham-Smith,
Queen Victoria
97, 111.

13:   … she slept in a small bed in her mother's room, and could not walk down a flight of stairs without taking the hand of another: Woodham-Smith,
Queen Victoria
57; Longford 38.

14:   “Victoria has not written that letter”: Woodham-Smith,
Queen Victoria
132–3.

14:   … and in one case a royal salute by cannon, a practice King William quickly put a stop to: Woodham-Smith,
Queen Victoria
90–1.

14:   “We just passed through a town where all coal mines are”: Hibbert, ed. 11.

15:   “… it is of the greatest consequence that you should be seen”: Hibbert,
Queen Victoria
39.

16:   William turned venomously upon the Duchess, chastising her publicly for isolating the Princess from him: Woodham-Smith,
Queen Victoria
126.

16:   … she did all, as she pointedly notes in her journal, “
alone”
: Woodham-Smith,
Queen Victoria
139; Charlot 81.

16:    … she had removed her bed from her mother's room and had dismissed Conroy from her household: Longford 63–4.

17:   … she looked over to him for cues about her behavior: Woodham-Smith,
Queen Victoria
139

18:   She drank in his adherence to
laissez-faire
economics: Longford 69.

18:   Her popularity during this time was unparalleled: Woodham-Smith,
Queen Victoria
154.

18:   “It was a fine day”: Hibbert, ed. 34.

19:   “… the horrid cause of all this is the Monster & Demon Incarnate”: Longford 97.

20:   Sir Charles Clark “had said that though she is a virgin still that it might be possible”: Hibbert, ed. 42.

20:   At the end of March, one of Lady Flora's letters … appeared in the
Examiner
: Longford 103.

21:   “Mrs. Melbourne”: Longford 121.

21:   … she sent her empty carriage to Lady Flora's funeral: some threw rocks at it: Longford 122.

21:   Victoria was thrown into a “state of agony, grief and despair”: Hibbert, ed. 45.

21:   Sir Robert Peel was “stiff” and “close,” according to Melbourne: Longford 110.

21:   Melbourne … did her a great disservice: Longford 109.

22:   “Sir Robert said, ‘Now, about the Ladies,'“: Hibbert, ed. 47.

23:   Victoria … was cool to the idea of marriage: Longford 125.

23:   “It was with some emotion that I beheld Albert—who is
beautiful”
: Hibbert, ed. 55.

23:   … her new object in life was, as she put it, to “strive to make him feel as little as possible the great sacrifice he has made”: Hibbert, ed. 57.

23:   Over the next three days, she sent encouraging messages to him: Woodham-Smith,
Queen Victoria
183.

24:   Albert quickly took upon himself what had been Lehzen's task of warming the Queen's tiny hands with his own: Longford 134.

24:   “I signed some papers and warrants etc.”: Hibbert, ed. 58.

25:   “Here comes the bridegroom of Victoria's choice”: James 89.

25:   “… vile, confounded, infernal Tories”: Hibbert, ed. 62.

25:   Albert was far more complacent with the vote: Von Stockmar 2:31.

26:   … her uncles Cambridge and Sussex at first agreed with her: Longford 136.

26:   “… this wicked old foolish Duke, these confounded Tories, oh!”: Woodham-Smith,
Queen Victoria
199.

26:   “You forget, my dearest Love, that I am the Sovereign, and that usiness can stop and wait for nothing”: Hibbert, ed. 62.

27:   “As to your wish about your gentlemen, my dear Albert”: Victoria
Letters
(first series) 1:254.

27:   “I never saw such crowds of people”: Hibbert, ed. 63.

28:   “He does look so beautiful in his shirt only”: Hibbert, ed. 64.

28:   “the husband, not the master of the house”: James 104.

Chapter 2: Bravos

30:   The elder Edward Oxford's behavior:
Times
17 June 1840, 6; 11 July 1840, 5–6.

31:   “the best workman in Birmingham”: Townsend 127.

31:   … the son or grandson of a black father:
Times
11 July 1840, 6;
Morning Chronicle 12 June 1840, 7; Caledonian Mercury
18 June 1840, 4.

31:   “jumping about like a baboon, and imitating their grimaces”: Townsend 127.

32:   The superstition is perhaps best remembered today in the celebrated case of Joseph Merrick: Wilson 14.

32:   Hannah herself believed her husband's abuse the cause of her son Edward's eccentricity:
Times
17 June 1840, 6.

32:   “my customers complained of his conduct”:
Morning Chronicle
15 June 1840, 3;
Times
10 July 1840, 7.

33:   “He was once taken to the station house for this”:
Morning Chronicle
10 July 1840, 7.

33:   Sandon recalled that he constantly beat other children:
Times
11 July 1840, 6.

33:   Edward was “brought up to the bar”:
Times
11 June 1840, 4.

34:   … he could only laugh and “jeer” at the injuries the man had received:
Times
11 July 1840, 6.

34:   … his aunt remembered one time, when she was ill, leaving Edward to run a busy bar:
Times
11 July 1840, 6.

35:   “When not engaged in his business and while sitting down in front of the bar he has been observed by Mr. Minton and the barmaid …”:
Morning Chronicle
15 June 1840, 3.

35:   Mary Ann Forman, a barwoman at the Shepherd and Flock, recalled his “strange ways”:
Times
11 July 1840, 6.

35:   Oxford thus had a suit of clothing that suggested a respectability above his station: “Edward Oxford.”

36:   “I gave him warning because he was always laughing”:
Times
11 July 1840, 6.

36:   … he is known to have threatened her with a pistol again:
Times
10 July 1840.

36:   Susanna Phelps became the primary witness to his behavior and the primary object of his torment:
Times
16 June 1840, 5.

37:   … a book that suggests Oxford's love of pedestrian sentiment and high melodrama: Zschokke.

37:   The protagonist… rises to become one of one of the “two greatest men in Venice”: Zschokke 217.

38:   … he copied, according to his sister, passages from the Bible:
Times
11 July 1840, 6.

38:   … none is postmarked:
Morning Chronicle
13 June 1840, 3.

38:   “Young England—Sir”: for the letters, see “Edward Oxford.”

40:   Victoria's Uncle Ernest, without question the most wicked, the most feared, and the most reviled of George III's sons: Fulford 230.

41:   Mrs. Packman, being extremely hard of hearing, was not disturbed by the shooting:
Morning Chronicle
15 June 1840, 3.

42:   He bought a brace of pistols in May 1800 … : Poole 122.

42:   “that serenity and firmness of character which belong to a virtuous mind”:
Times
16 May 1800, 2.

42:   … “it was not over yet—there was a great deal more and worse to be done”: Poole 121.

43:   “… the safety of the community, and of all mankind, requires that this unfortunate man should be taken care of”:
Times
27 June 1800, 3.

44:   There he grew old, “grumbling and discontented”: “Constant Observer” 161.

44:   … he asked her to recognize his sanity and his service to the nation and make him a Chelsea Pensioner: Poole 128.

44:   … having “no desire to again mix with the world”:
Weekly Chronicle
16 December 1838, 8.

45:   Upon rising that morning, Lord Russell's housemaid had discovered signs of disorder throughout the house: For the discovery of Russell's body and the initial investigation of the crime, see the
Times 7
May 1840, 5.

45:   … oddly finding the man almost fully dressed:
Times 7
May 1840, 5; 15 May 1840, 5.