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.