Christmas Every Day

1882 An assassination attempt on Queen Victoria

P.G. Wodehouse said, “It is never difficult to distinguish between with a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine.” One such irate Hibernian, Roderick MacLean, was annoyed with English folk and Queen Victoria in particular and entered the annals of infamy with a bungled regicide.

Roderick MacLean was born in 1854 and seems to have fallen into a what we could today a state of paranoia schizophrenia, convinced that he was beset with enemies and secret watchers.  He believed that he spoke personally with God who had assured him that he would ascend the British throne someday. God also gave him the secret number four and the colour blue as his lucky signs. After stating that he was intent on killing someone — anyone — his sister had him committed to a lunatic asylum. On his release he acquired a pistol and made his way to Windsor.

On March 2, 1882, as Queen Victoria made her way from the train to her coach, MacLean raised a gun and fired on her. The shot missed and he was set upon by the crowd. He was put on trial for high treason but a jury took only 5 minutes to pronounce him not guilty by reason of insanity. He spent the rest of his days in Broadmoor Prison, dying in 1912.

This was the last of 8 assassination attempts made upon Queen Victoria. They may well have led to an increased popularity with Britons. The monarch told her daughter that she was moved by the “enthusiasm, loyalty, sympathy and affection” shown by her subjects, and added: “It is worth being shot at to see how much one is loved.”