The Attempted Assassination of Queen Victoria by Roderick Maclean | Windsor and Royal Borough Museum

crowds gathered to watch Queen Victoria as she left Windsor station on her way to the castle at 5:30 p.m. a disheveled man brandishing a pistol stepped forward and fired a single shot directly at the Queen's carriage it was the second of March 1882 and Roderick Edward McLean was 28 years old the bullet missed the Queen her household and everyone present were unharmed and McLane was immediately detained by police on his way to the police station he told Chief Superintendent Hayes they had committed the crime because he was starving a letter addressed to her sister was found in his pocket it stated I should not have done this crime had you as you should have done paid the 10 shillings per week instead of offering with the insulting small sum of sex Schelling's per week and expecting me to live on it so you perceived the great good a little money would have done had you not treated me as a fool and sent me more than ever against us lot in Alistair cars laid by our old lady message back who is an actress of robbery in all senses when told he was to be detained for shooting the Queen with intent to cause grievous bodily harm MacLean remarked the Queen [Music] and apparently seemed more relieved to be in jail and have food McLean's attack was the eighth attempt on Queen Victoria's life and the first in ten years in his statement to the police he said I'm not guilty of the charge of shooting with the intention of causing actual bodily harm my object was by frightening the Queen to alarm the public with the result of having my grievances respected such is the pecuniary straits in which I have been situated all the circumstances tend to prove the statement firstly had a desire to injure the Queen I should have fired her when she was quitting the railway carriage quite on the contrary I pointed the pistol on the level with the wheels but as I felt a slight pack don't list the contents may have lodged in one of the doors [Music] the government were quick to represent McClane as mentally unstable in House of Commons William Gladstone stated whereas in other countries similar execrable attempts have at least been made by men of average sense and intelligence and whereas there the reward any rate who's supposed cause has been private grievances or public mischief in this country in the case of Her Majesty they have been wholly dissociated from grievances wholly dissociated from discontent and upon no occasion has any man of average sense and average intelligence being found to raise his hand against the life of Her Majesty his message was clear there was no rational cause of political grievance in Maclean's actions however in private the government worried that the opposite was true the previous year had seen a wave Athenian bombings across Britain and the assassinations of tsar alexander ii in Russia and President Garfield in the United States McLain though had a grievance ever since receiving a serious head injury as a teenager he had lived with severe headaches and fit while his parents were alive they supported him with employment on his father's magazine but by the time they'd both died in the late 1870s he was left practically alone his siblings sent him a few shillings every week for his erratic behavior and worsening health made it impossible to hold down a job manual labour worsened his symptoms and so he was left in poverty wandering from town to town McLain frequently entered local work houses and on one occasion after failing to be admitted to one in Somerset he deliberately smashed a window so he could spend the night in jail he often wrote to his sister in one letter sent in 1880 he expressed how disturbed he was by seeing people wearing blue he believed it was his lucky color and people were wearing it to mock him if they continued to do so he would be driven to murder his shift of contact with local authorities and had him committed to the bath and Somerset lunatic asylum where he remained for eleven months until he was released as cured after his release his sister wrote to say she could no longer support him this was a huge blow as his brothers had also refused to send him any money McClane also had political grievances as testified by his landlord in Portsmouth he would lecture her about politics and the economy he was an admirer of Gladstone and a passionate supporter of the radical politician Charles Bradlaugh an advocate of republicanism the Home Secretary William Vernon Harker ordered the head of the Metropolitan Police's Criminal Investigations Department to investigate any anarchist links McClane may have had Harcourt had received a letter claiming that McLain had connections with johan lost a german anarchist living in london who had called for Royal assassinations but no such links could be found the prosecution began looking for evidence that McLain was insane willfully ignoring how poverty and hunger had motivated his actions McLain was exasperated with how he was treated by his family a society he felt that the bloated aristocrats of which Queen Victoria was the figurehead had conspired to keep him poor and hungry a social outcast McClane lashed out McClane left Portsmouth selling his scarf and concertina to his now lady and used the money spy chief pistol and pin fire bullets he walked the 55 mile journey to Windsor and arrived on the 25th of February 1882 he secured lodgings after pleading with the landlady to be allowed to pay one shilling in advance and the rest once his sister sent his allowance an allowance that would never arrive a week later he made his way to win the station to assassinate the Queen the dock was hastily built overnight and the very next day McClane was tried at Windsor guild hall at the trial McClane cross-examined Witnesses himself pointing out that none of them had seen where his pistol was pointed a few of ever fired a pistol perhaps you'd aware that pistols jump just because you had seen my gun pointing towards the Queen after I had fired does not mean that it was possession there when I had fired none of the witnesses had seen me point the gun before firing ah it's a point in my favor McClane was tried twice at the go toll on the 3rd and 10th of March having been declared sane by a local surgeon on the night of the attempted assassination the magistrates decided there was enough evidence to charge him with treason as a third trial at the Berkshire Assizes McLane state of mind became the focus Rozlyn acknowledged the possibility the poverty hunger and Republican leanings might have motivated McLean's attack it suited the prosecution and the government is simply argued that the gunman was a mentally unstable lone wolf if the prisoner should be held to be so insane as to be entitled to an acquittal satisfaction would be felt by every subject of the Queen at the thought that it was not from the ranks of those who were saying that a hand has been raised against our gracious sovereign the defense agreed the character of the present gracious occupant of the throne was such that it was impossible to imagine that any sane person could be found so hideously vile as to commit the offense with which the prisoner stood charged a not guilty by way of insanity verdict would be received with feelings of relief by the whole nation the presiding judge Lord Chief Justice corage summed up the case by explaining if a person was insane while they could commit criminal acts they could not be found guilty of them in the earliest times the law had always distinguished between persons capable of committing offenses and persons incapable in law of committing them the latter class might commit prohibited acts yet the law in consequence of their mental incapacity refrained from a fixing to those acts criminal consequences Roderick McLane was tried at the Berkshire side on the 19th of April 1882 and found not guilty by way of insanity after jury deliberated for five minutes Queen Victoria was outraged by acquitting McLane she believed that her government had failed to protect her and she demanded that her Prime Minister William Gladstone find a way to remove not guilty on the grounds of insanity from law the Queen considered McLean sane and worried that an acquittal would encourage other attempts on her life Gladstone met with the Attorney General and Lord Chief Justice to discuss his belief that stigma of guilt would prevent dangerous miss apprehensions in morbid minds the law was quietly changed in August 1883 the trial of lunatics act changed the verdict from not guilty by way of insanity to guilty but insane the sentence was not changed and such individuals would still be detained as criminal lunatics but they would now be considered morally responsible for their actions this verdict which was not applied in Scotland remained in place for over 80 years not guilty by reason of insanity was reapplied in 1961 in Northern Ireland under the Mental Health Act in 1964 in England and Wales under the Criminal Procedure Act Roderick MacLean was transferred to Broadmoor asylum he wrote two letters to the Home Secretary petitioning for his release his pleas for mercy were unsuccessful he remained locked away until his death on the 8th of June 1921 the right honourable sir WV Harcourt MP thus as the humble petitioner re McLean incarcerated and Broadmoor asylum on a charge of high treason at Windsor I the humble petitioner Prayuth that you may be as leniently inclined as to extend mercy to the humble petition of Hari MacLean and in your wisdom see the expediency of restoring the petitioner to a society of necessary conditionally the I the petitioner agrees to leave England either flaw Australia or one of the other colonies and naught to return [Music]