Shooting Victoria

     Sometime in the early 1840s, most likely after John Francis’s two attempts upon her life, Queen Victoria obtained this most unusual fashion accessory: a parasol two layers of silk, concealing close-linked chain mail. At three and a quarter pounds, the parasol was far too heavy for everyday use, but was, rather, likely intended for the Queen’s use when she faced a known threat, as she did on 30 May 1842, the day of Francis’s second attempt.

     The parasol was reputedly Prince Albert’s idea. There is no evidence that Victoria actually used it, and in time, she would not have, as parasols—chainmail or otherwise—pass out of style. Somehow, it is easier to imagine Victoria braving public danger unshielded than to imagine her on an outing with an unfashionable parasol….

     On the 3^rd of July 1842, exactly 170 years ago today, John William Bean—a diminutive, hunchbacked, deeply depressed 17-year old boy—pointed a flintlock pistol at Queen Victoria and pulled the trigger. His pistol misfired; he was seized by the boy standing next to him, but in the subsequent excitement, he escaped—only to be captured that evening, when the Metropolitan Police rounded up virtually every male hunchbacked dwarf in London.

     Bean’s was the third attempt upon Victoria in two years, and it was his attempt that allegedly caused the Queen’s vexed Prime Minister, Robert Peel, to burst into tears when he met the Queen soon afterwards.