6. The Intruder

In March 1868 Queen Victoria’s son Prince Alfred was at a charity event in Sydney, Australia when an Irishman named Henry O’Farrell walked up behind him and shot the young prince at point blank range in the back, just missing his spine. O’Farrell was captured, beaten, swiftly tried and found guilty of attempted murder, and then hanged. Alfred survived the attack, but the Victorian world was clearly becoming a more dangerous place for the Royal Family. Queen Victoria hadn’t encountered an assassin of her own for almost two decades, but many felt that her luck couldn’t last.

In 1872 Queen Victoria was a grieving widow who was rarely seen in public, then in January Arthur read that a thanksgiving service would be held at St Paul’s Cathedral to celebrate the recovery of the Prince of Wales from serious illness. The papers were full of the plans for the day and the news galvanised teenager Arthur O’Connor into action.

Dr Bob Nicholson explores the backstory of Victoria’s sixth attacker - Arthur O’Connor, an aspiring poet from a family of Irish nationalists. Dreaming of following in his ancestor’s footsteps, the young O’Connor concocted an audacious plan: in front of thousands of the Queen’s subjects, he would put a gun to her head and force her to sign a document releasing a group of Irish republican prisoners who had been fighting for independence. Arthur looked forward to dying a hero’s death.

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