Queen Victoria once joked that, “It is worth being shot at to see how much one is loved.” She of all people should know, as the center of eight assassination attempts. The first came in 1840, shortly after she married Prince Albert. Riding through Hyde Park, 18-year-old Edward Oxford fired a shot at the queen. At first, she did not even realize the shot had been intended for her; she simply thought it was someone hunting nearby. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert just kept riding along in the carriage.
The second and third attempts came just a day apart. On May 29, 1842, a man tried to fire a shot at the queen as she rode to Sunday services at St. James’s palace. His pistol failed to fire, and he disappeared. The following day, the same man, John Francis, attempted yet again to shoot the queen. He missed, and he was sentenced to death by hanging. Just five weeks after Francis’ attempts, a 17-year-old tried to shoot Queen Victoria on her way from Buckingham Palace to church services. The gun did not fire, and he escaped. The man was found due to a spinal deformity that left him with a hunchback. It is said that the man, John William Bean, was unhappy with his life and looking for a way out.
On the night of her birthday celebration in 1849, the queen was riding with three of her children through Hyde Park. William Hamilton, a bricklayer, fired a shot from almost the exact same spot Edward Oxford had stood nearly a decade earlier. The gun was loaded only with powder, and the queen was left unharmed. Hamilton spent seven years in prison. Robert Pate was already known for his antics around London when he harmed Queen Victoria a year later. He used a cane to hit her on the forehead. Out of all of the assassination attempts, Pate’s was the only one to physically injure the queen. She was left with a black eye and a bruise on the right side of her head.
A 17-year-old climbed over the fence at Buckingham Palace in 1872. When Queen Victoria returned from a carriage ride, the man, Arthur O’Connor, rushed and held a gun just a foot away from her. The queen’s servant immediately tackled him to the ground, and it was found that the pistol had been broken all along. O’Connor later said that he never planned to actually kill the queen, and that he simply wanted to get her to sign a document that would release political prisons from British jails.
The final assassination attempt took place in 1882, outside of Windsor Station. Crowds cheered for her as she rode past in her carriage, until she saw a crowd of people rushing and tackling a man. She later found out that what she thought was an engine explosion was actually a gunshot. The man who shot her was deemed to be mentally unstable and spent the remainder of his life in an asylum.