Assassination in London

[Rosella]

I remember the attack on Prince Charles using a starting pistol and a half a dozen hefty policemen and the Premier of NSW at the time, who'd played rugby in his youth, tackling him while Charles stood fiddling with his cuff links!

I believe there was an attack on King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra when they were abroad and sitting in a railway carriage, but I can't remember the details.

There was a double assassination attempt on King George III on 15th May 1800, by an ex soldier, James Hadfield. That morning a shot was fired at the King narrowly missing the Navy Secretary while George was inspecting the 1st Foot Guards in Hyde Park.

Hadfield escaped, but that evening the King, Queen and other members of the Royal family went to the Theatre Royal Drury Lane. As the Royal party entered their box the orchestra struck up 'God Save The King'. At that moment a man near the orchestra was seen to raise a pistol and shoot at the King. Fortunately he must have been a poor shot.

The King took a couple of steps back as he heard the pistol report but then came to the front of the Royal box and stood there acknowledging the audience. Apparently the theatre was in an uproar but Hadfield was dragged into a nearby Music Room to be interrogated by the Duke of York. He was taken into custody but was found to be insane.

That seems to be the pattern with British (and Australian) attempted political assassinations, actually. With rare exceptions the perpetrators have been insane (or near to it) or want a bit of publicity like our Aussie friend and the men who 'shot' at Queen Elizabeth II and at King Edward VIII during the Trooping of the Colour, or prove, thank heavens, to be terrible shots. Or all three!

This latest shooting is just awful. I have no words... Young children have been left without a mother because of this creature.

[GUT]

I'm not sure that it was exactly an assisination attempt, but there was poor old one legged Dennis, who ended up at Port Arthur.

http://lugnad.ie/dennis-collins-the-one-legged-sailor-the-king/

[Mayerling]

I'm not sure that it was exactly an assisination attempt, but there was poor old one legged Dennis, who ended up at Port Arthur.

http://lugnad.ie/dennis-collins-the-...ilor-the-king/

G'Day GUT,

Did you notice that the first ship Dennis Collins served on was H.M.S. Kangaroo?!

Several attacks were mentioned that should be commented on.

George III - poor old George, himself to end insane (presumably from porphyria) and blind, was not only attacked in 1800 by James Hatfield, a madman, but in 1780 he was attacked by Margaret Nicholson, also a madwoman. Both of these people ended up in asylums. Less fortunate was Colonel Edward Despard, a decorated soldier, who (after some serious illness) led a conspiracy to kill George in 1803. George was to be taken down with a cannon shot! Despard was caught before this occurred, and his trial was notable for a character witness of the sort that usually did not pop up in criminal cases then or for many years - Despard had (while serving his country well) impressed and befriended a rising young naval man who would testify for his character: Admiral Horatio Nelson. Usually this is never mentioned in movies or television dramas about the Admiral (which concentrate on his naval genius, his love of Emma Hamilton, and his death in the hour of victory at Trafalgar). As it was, it did not help matters for poor Despard - he was hanged.

Prince Regent/George IV - before Thistlewood's "Cato Street Plot" of 1820, the Prince Regent was riding in a carriage at night in 1817, and he felt something. As he left the carriage, a bullet fell down - it apparently hit the Prince (most likely towards his unmentionably large belly) on some thick wadding on his uniform and did not penetrate. Had it done so, Frederick, Duke of York (the fellow who "had 10,000 men" and marched them up and down a hill) would have been King Frederick I of England (1817 - 1827), and William IV would have followed from 1827 to 1837; three years longer*). Whoever fired the shot (from a woods the carriage was passing through at night) was never found.

[*It also would have changed the numericalization of the British dynasty: Edward VII would have been followed by King George IV, not V; George IV would have been followed, after Edward VIII, by George V, not VI. Also Frederick would be an additional name a future male monarch could have considered (or not, like John or Stephen).]

Prince Bertie/Edward VII: In 1900 while waiting for his train to leave some town or city in Belgium, Bertie was shot at, and the window of the train broken. The miscreant, whose name I can't recall, was caught, and ended up in an asylum like most of these others. I don't think Princess/later Queen Alexandra was there when this happened.

Edward VIII: Easy year to recall - 1936 (no other year for this one's reign). Edward was at a review on a horse, when some unemployed fellow named MacMahon (I believe) fired or tried to fire a gun at him. The assassin was grabbed, and the wisdom of the universe demonstrated by preserving the monarch's life long enough for him to first announce (when seeing the disaster of mass unemployment due to the Depression), "Something must be done!" and not doing anything (except taking trips to the Dalmatian Coast with Wallis and some friends), and then declaring (after being skillfully maneuvered into no other position by a heartily sick Prime Minister Baldwin), that "he could not carry on without...the woman i love." Movie music crescendo, and next scene Adolf and his crew welcoming David and Wallis to Germany in 1937. Gee, guessed what you missed!

I also have to add one future Prime Minister was slightly injured in an attack in 1816. The then Secretary of State for War was attacked and (I believe) shot slightly in his leg or arm, by a mad ex-soldier. The Cabinet Minister (fortunately) was the future mid-Century Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston. "Pam", who could be quite intelligent on such a matter as being attacked, pushed to have the poor miscreant checked out, and when it was shown he had a good record and was insane Palmerston arranged to have him put into a better-than-average asylum. Until the attacker died several decades later Palmerston kept tabs on how he was improving. Class act that.**

[**Also, apparently, one cool Prime Minister with a sense of humor - if the story is true. When approached in 1857 by the citizens of the town of Rugeley in Staffordshire, that they wanted to replace their town's name to avoid further identification with the recently hanged serial killer Dr. William Palmer, "Pam" smiled (supposedly) and said they could do so, but only if they named their town after himself ("Palmerston"). The town is still called Rugeley.]

Sometimes, there on connections between the criminal history of Great Britain and it's leaders. The most notable example was Henry Addington, briefly Prime Minister from 1801 - 1803 (his two main achievements was the only Anglo-French peace treaty of the Napoleonic Era, the treaty of Amiens, in 1802-03, and the creation of the British graduated income tax). Addington would be better (?) remembered for his long (if harsh) period as Home Secretary from 1812-1822, as Viscount Sidmouth, who would be one of the targets in the Cato Street Plot, and the one who punished Thistlewood and his associates by first hanging them and then having their heads cut off.

Addington had been the son of Dr. Anthony Addington, a well-to-do physician, who was able to send his son to university where Henry was a close friend to his future political friend, brief rival, William Pitt the Younger. But in 1752, Dr. Addington made forensic history, by testifying in the trial of Mary Blandy for the murder of her father Francis with arsenic. Given the raw rudimentary work on forensics in the 18th Century, Dr. Addington explained that he had to sample a minute amount of arsenic on his tongue to see the slightest effect, and then taste some from the remains of Francis Blandy for comparison - disgusting as it sounds, it worked. Mary Blandy was convicted and hanged.

Jeff

[GUT]

G'day Jeff

First came across poor Dennis when we first visited Port Arthur, made up a song about him that did a great job of driving the kids mad, still been known to sing it from time to time.

Basically he starved himself to death in protest, refusing to eat the King's bread, I've got a bit of sympathy for him, while he seems to have been the cause of his own downfall.

Pretty sure the article I linked has a few errors, one is his burial location, I'm pretty sure he's actually on the Isle of the Dead, we'll be there again at the end of the year I must remember to check.