They were relieved when they reached the palace.

‘It must have been a mistake,’ said the Prince.

In the afternoon Sir Robert Peel, accompanied by the head of the police, called at the palace.

‘We have some disturbing news,’ said Sir Robert to Victoria and the Prince. ‘A boy named Pearse has told the police that while he was in the crowd in the Mall he saw a man who was standing close to him lift a pistol and point it at the carriage. He did not apparently fire. The boy heard him murmur to himself that he had been a fool not to do so.’

Turning pale Victoria looked at Albert, who said: ‘I must tell you, Sir Robert, I saw this man. I mentioned it to the Queen at the time. I thought that I might have been mistaken.’

‘This is no mistake,’ replied Sir Robert, ‘and I think every precaution will have to be taken, for this man may make the attempt again.’

A long discussion followed. Victoria was very alarmed. It was not the first time she had been shot at. It was a terrifying experience even when one escaped, but at least it was unexpected and all over before one realised that it was happening. The man might decide not to act again for months. They couldn’t stay in all that time.

At length it was agreed that Victoria and Albert should take their drives as usual. The equerries, Colonel Arbuthnot and Colonel Wylde, were called in and told what had happened; they were to ride very close to the carriage and one would watch the right-hand side of the road and the other the left; the drives would be taken at a faster pace than usual.

The Queen spent a sleepless night. She was frightened, she said. ‘For Albert what if you were to be killed.’

Albert said that would be better than that she should, but he trusted Sir Robert’s thorough precautions; the police would be out in force and at the first sign of trouble he would put himself between the Queen and the gun.

‘But that is exactly what I fear, Albert,’ she cried.

It was a very uneasy pair who drove out the next day. The Queen carried a parasol which was lined with chain mail and the carriage was surrounded by guards; the colonels rode very close to the carriage and the pace was brisk.

The sun shone hotly as they drove towards Hampstead; there were crowds of people about but that did not add to their peace of mind. The drive was almost over and Victoria, relieved to see the trees of Green Park, said to Albert: ‘But imagine, it could go on like this for months before he decides to make his second attempt.’

They were approaching the palace – on one side of them the park, on the other the garden wall – when Albert saw the man again but not before he had fired. The shot went under the carriage; they heard the shouts of ‘Get him! Catch him!’ as the horses were whipped up and the carriages rumbled through the gates of Buckingham Palace.

Albert took the Queen’s trembling hand and with his arm about her led her inside.


* * *

Sir Robert Peel reported to the palace immediately. The man had been arrested. He was a certain John Francis, a joiner by trade and twenty-two years old. When arrested he was truculent but this attitude soon changed when he was sentenced to death.

Victoria was distressed.

‘You see, Albert,’ she explained, ‘I cannot bear that people should hate me so much that they want to kill me.’

‘He was a madman.’

‘Perhaps, but he did it and sometimes I wonder whether there will always be these people who want me dead. It makes me very uneasy. All the same I do not like to think that he is going to die because of this.’

‘He deserves it.’

‘I am going to ask that his life be spared in any case.’

‘I know well your tender heart,’ said Albert, ‘but examples have to be made.’

‘That’s true. All the same I am going to ask Sir Robert what can be done about sparing his life.’

Sir Robert pointed out that the royal prerogative of mercy could not be exercised except under the direction of government but since the Queen felt so strongly on the matter, he would have the case considered.

The result was that John Francis’s death sentence was commuted to transportation for life.


* * *

Albert said that had John Francis been hanged as he so richly deserved it would not have entered the head of John William Bean to follow his example. Bean was four feet tall, a hunchback and therefore easily identified.

Since Francis had attempted to kill her, the Queen had become very popular and whenever she drove out crowds congregated to see her pass by.

She and Albert were driving to the chapel in St James’s Palace, when the hunchback pointed the pistol at them. A boy of sixteen named Dassett, with the help of his brother, seized the hunchback and shouted to the police. Thinking the deformed Bean to be only a child and his captors not much more, the police believed the affair to be a game and told the brothers to let the little fellow go. But the Dassett boys kept Bean’s pistol and showed it to another policeman. There could be no doubt that it was a dangerous weapon and, thinking the Dassetts had been seen to fire it and were pretending to be innocent, he was about to arrest them when their uncle – who had brought them to see the Queen ride by – hurried over and by this time others said that they had seen what had happened. When powder was found to be in the pistol the Dassett boys were commended and it did not take long to identify the hunchback, who was an assistant in a chemist shop, and he was promptly arrested.

Sir Robert, who was in Cambridge, came hurrying back to London on hearing the news and presented himself at Buckingham Palace.

When the Queen entered the room his emotion was so great at the sight of her that tears came into his eyes and he could not control his voice.

So deeply affected was the Queen that the somewhat frigid and formal Sir Robert could feel so deeply about her safety, that from that moment every vestige of the dislike which she had fought so hard to overcome disappeared. It was the constant tears in Lord Melbourne’s eyes which had made her so devoted to him and now she had discovered without a doubt that Sir Robert was just as kind and feeling a man and none the less sincere because he was not always proclaiming his devotion.

‘My dear Sir Robert,’ she cried, ‘we are once more safe.’

‘Ma’am,’ replied Sir Robert brokenly, ‘I must ask you to excuse me. For the moment …’

‘Albert and I understand,’ said the Queen warmly.

Although Sir Robert recovered his habitual demeanour he could not altogether hide his emotion. The law must be tightened up, he said, or these attacks might continue. It so often happened that an offence was committted and accompanied by a great deal of publicity and then someone else would attempt it.

Sir Robert never prevaricated as Lord Melbourne had, the Queen noticed. A Bill was immediately introduced into Parliament which set out that any attempts on the life of the Sovereign would be punishable by seven years transportation or imprisonment of three years, the miscreant to be publicly or privately whipped.

Bean was sentenced to eighteen months imprisonment.

This, said Sir Robert, would deter people from thinking it was an afternoon’s amusement to take a shot at the Queen, for, he was convinced, this was not a serious attempt on her life. There was unrest throughout the country over the appalling social conditions but no one could blame the charming young Queen for this.


* * *

That was an eventful summer, with two attempts on her life, the imminent departure of Lehzen and so many visitors to be entertained. The Queen’s uncle Mensdorff had come over in June and had in fact been in the carriage behind the Queen’s and Albert’s at the time of the Francis affair; Uncle Leopold and Aunt Louise had paid a fleeting visit to be followed by Albert’s brother Ernest and his bride in July. In addition to all was the change in so many relationships. Lehzen was preparing to depart. ‘After so many years,’ she said sadly, ‘one collects so many belongings.’ The Queen’s presents to her – so numerous over the years – would all be taken and treasured until she died. There was a subtle understanding between them that this was goodbye. Lehzen knew that on the day she departed the palace would cease to be her home.

There was also the Queen’s changed relationship with her Prime Minister and her growing dependence upon Albert. She was now discussing everything with him and there had been scarcely any flaring up of temper, and then only over trivial things which she could very quickly laugh at with Albert.

Albert made a clean sweep in the nurseries and dismissed several of the nurses whom he said were incompetent or disrespectful. Lady Sarah Spencer Lyttleton, a lady of charm and efficiency, took charge and the Prince was pleased with her. Later he would examine the household management, but he would wait until Lehzen had left for now that he had gained his point he did not wish to be too hard on her. All he asked was that she slip quietly away and then he would begin introducing his reforms in earnest.

Albert was very happy to be with his brother. He and Victoria took the pair to Claremont but Victoria secretly believed that Ernest preferred the gaieties of London. It was an excuse to have a few balls to entertain them, but Albert was never really happy on these occasions and she supposed really they were rather superficial entertainments.

She was a little hurt by Albert’s grief when his brother departed and would have been so happy if he had not cared quite so much, but of course it did show what an affectionate nature he had and she could not expect Albert to forget his devotion to his brother – the companion of his childhood and early youth – because he had entered into the most perfect marriage with Victoria.


* * *

The Cambridges had always been antagonistic to Albert and Victoria had turned against them for this reason. Relations could be so tiresome. There was Uncle Cumberland who could not be content to be King of Hanover and was always making some criticism of his niece, simply because he thought she had what should be his, which was nonsense. There was no law in England against a woman ascending the throne and as Uncle William had said the people often preferred it. ‘Sailors will be more ready to fight for a bonny lass.’ Those were some of the last words Uncle William had spoken. But Uncle Cumberland thought differently. In fact until it had been proved that Francis and Bean were almost witless she had thought they might be agents of Uncle Cumberland, because in her youth there had been genuine scares that he was plotting against her.

It was not that she expected the Cambridges to plot against her. They would not dare do that. But they had wanted her to marry George Cambridge and they had thought they had had a good chance of bringing this about because in the old days George Cambridge (while his parents were in Germany) had lived with Aunt Adelaide and Uncle William and they had tried to make a match between George and Victoria. Being the King and Queen it might have seemed that they had a good chance of bringing this about. But, thought the Queen fondly, I had seen Albert.

They were most provoking, these Cambridges, always doing something to irritate her, mostly slighting Albert, so when she heard the scandal about George she could not help feeling a little pleased, which was very wrong of course. But they did give themselves airs.

It was whispered that the Duke of Beaufort’s daughter, Lady Augusta Somerset, was pregnant and that recently she had been very friendly with George Cambridge. As Lady Augusta was the Duchess of Cambridge’s lady-in-waiting George would see a great deal of her, and it was very likely that he was the father.

Albert, disclosing that he deplored any form of impurity, was horrified that it should exist within the family circle.

‘Your Court, my love, has been rather lax,’ he said, affectionately chiding. ‘I think that is something we shall be obliged to alter.’

‘Of course, Albert,’ she agreed.

‘You must invite the Duchess and express definite instructions that Lady Augusta is not included in the party.’

‘And what of George?’

Albert considered that it was difficult to exclude her cousin but in the circumstances necessary.

The Cambridges were furious. The Duchess demanded of the Queen why her son and lady-in-waiting should be treated in this way.