Shooting Victoria (85 page)

318:   “Certainly not: if I do not go, it will be thought I am seriously hurt, and people will be distressed and alarmed”: “The Character of Queen Victoria,” 318.

319:   “The feeling of
all
classes [is] admirable,” she wrote that night in her journal, “the lowest of the low being
most
indignant”: Rowell 31.

319:   … “one of the most magnificent demonstrations of loyalty it has ever been our fortune to witness”:
Morning Chronicle
28 June 1850, 5.

319:   … “the mark of the ruffian's violence plainly visible on her forehead”:
Times
28 June 1850, 8.

319:   “I never heard such shouting”:
Punch
19:18 (1850).

319:   When Madame Viardot reached the line “Frustrate their knavish tricks,” the crowd roared:
Morning Chronicle
28 June 1850, 5.

320:   “The small stick with which the prisoner struck the blow was not thicker than an ordinary goosequill”:
Times
28 June 1850, 8.

320:   Pate's cane—a type known as a partridge cane—was longer, heavier, and much thicker than the newspaper claimed:
Lloyd's Weekly 7
July 1850, 7;
Times
29 June 1850, 8.

320:   Victoria long remembered the injury Pate had given her: a walnut-sized welt and a scar that lasted ten years:
Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper
30 June 1850, 12; Gathorne-Hardy 1:244.

320:   “… it is very hard and very horrid that I a woman”: Geraghty 30.

320:   … the Queen until the end of her life considered this one the meanest and most ignoble—”far worse,” she wrote, “than an attempt to shoot”: Geraghty 31.

321:   “I own it makes me nervous out driving, and I start at any person coming near the carriage”: Victoria,
Letters
(first series) 2:253.

321:   At Vine Street station, Pate was searched:
Times
28 June 1850, 8.

321:   The several witnesses to the assault who came with him to the station were questioned, and Pate was charged with assaulting the Queen:
Times
28 June 1850, 8.

321:   Pate … asserted emphatically “those men cannot prove whether I struck her head or her bonnet”:
Morning Chronicle
28 June 1850, 5.

321:   … a little wire and woven horsehair: “Robert Pate.”

322:   Otway had just been promoted to Superintendent of C Division:
Times
28 June 1850, 8.

322:   Field, already a legend, was very soon to become an even greater one: Collins 204, 206–7.

322:   Field was known for his roving eye, which caught all in a glance: Dickens, Amusements 357–369.

322:   He made note of Pate's obsessive neatness. He also confiscated a number of Pate's papers:
Times
28 June 1850, 8.

322:   … he brought them to the Home Office examination the next day, but did not bring them forward:
Reynolds's Weekly News
30 June 1850,1.

322:   Pate could offer no motive for striking the Queen besides claiming “felt very low for some time past”:
Times
29 June 1850, 8.

322:   “I wish to Heaven I had been at your right hand yesterday, and then this should not have happened”:
Times
29 June 1850, 8.

322:   … he sat up and observed the comings and goings at the station house:
Times
29 June 1850, 8.

323:   At 12:15 the next day, Superintendent Otway personally escorted Pate out of the station:
Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper
30 June 1850,12.

323:   Pate Senior was not there; he would arrive from Wisbech later that afternoon:
Times
29 June 1850, 8.

323:   Richard Mayne—now senior Chief Commissioner since the retirement of Charles Rowan earlier in the year—was to read the charge:
Times
29 June 1850, 8; Emsley.

323:   … Pate sat and stared vacantly:
Reynolds's Weekly
30 June 1850, 1.

323:   Jervis brought forward just enough witnesses … to connect Pate with the attack and to justify a remand:
Times
29 June 1850, 8.

323:   John Huddleston requested more time than that, requesting a postponement until Friday 5 July:
Times
29 June 1850, 8.

324:   Pate drew up a list of books he wished transferred from his library at home to Clerkenwell:
Times
29 June 1850, 8.

324:   Otway then led Pate out the front door of the Home Office and directly into an unruly mob:
Times
29 June 1850, 8.

324:   Commissioner Hay had positioned a number of police before the Home Office to control the crowd:
Reynolds's Weekly
30 June 1850,1.

324:   … the “absorbing topic of conversation” throughout London:
Times
29 June 1850, 8.

324:   William Gladstone spoke that Thursday evening, attacking Palmerston's brutal nationalism with a visionary appeal to a brotherhood of nations:
Times
28 June 1850, 5.

324:   Gladstone was interrupted often by Palmerston's enthusiastic supporters, as were all of Palmerston's opponents: Ridley 524.

325:   Crowds crammed the avenues outside the entrances to the House:
Times
29 June 1850, 2.

325:   … “the House and country only wish to hear Peel, Lord John, and Dizzy; all others are only bores”: Roebuck 242.

325:   Cockburn deftly and with legal precision deflected Gladstone's attack, defending item by item Palmerston's actions in Greece and throughout Europe:
Times
29 June 1850, 2–3.

325:   Robert Peel… managed to chide Palmerston's policy and yet conciliate the Whig government:
Times
29 June 1850, 4–5.

325:   John Russell, speaking next, had an easy job of it:
Times
29 June 1850,5.

325:   In a speech containing little of his trademark wit, he explained why he would vote as Peel did:
Times
29 June 1850, 5–6.

326:   … 250 supporters would enthusiastically sing the national anthem and cheer vociferously the lines “Confound their politics,/Frustrate their knavish tricks”: Ridley 525.

326:   … he “would have consummated his fiendish scheme by violence had not the miraculous efforts of his victim and such assistance attracted by her screams, saved her”: Ridley 532.

326:   Albert and Victoria, with the help of Stockmar, tried again a month later, setting out in a memo for Palmerston the behavior they expected in a foreign minister: St. Aubyn,
Queen Victoria
250–1.

326:   Russell thought the memo so humiliating that Palmerston would have to resign rather than accept it: Ridley 532.

327:   “I consider that man to be the happiest in England at this moment”: Roebuck 242.

327:   His wife Julia was feeling unwell and so she remained in bed, reading a newspaper account of his speech: Gash 697.

327:   Playfair … had been appointed upon Peel's recommendation Special Commissioner for the Exhibition: Davis 71; Auerbach 70–1.

328:   They discussed the mounting opposition to the Hyde Park site, and resolved that they would hold the Exhibition there or nowhere: RC/8/A, minutes for 29 June 1850, np.

328:   “Depend upon it,” he said, “the House of Commons is a timid body”: Cole Henry 167.

328:   Joseph Paxton … approached Henry Cole with a revolutionary idea for the Exhibition building: Davis 81.

328:   Three days later, bored in the middle of a railway director's meeting in Derby, Paxton created the most famous doodle in history: Christopher Hobhouse 28; Auerbach 48; ffrench 91.

328:   On the train from Derby he had run into the engineer Robert Stevenson—of the Building Committee—and quickly gained his support: Auerbach 49; Christopher Hobhouse 32.

328:   He met with the vice-chairman of the Commission, Earl Granville, who promised to submit the plan to the Commissioners: Christopher Hobhouse 34.

328:   “I believe nothing can stand against my plans,
everybody
likes them”: Auerbach 49.

328:   He also forwarded a set of plans to Peel: ffrench 97.

329:   … they referred Paxton's plans to them: Christopher Hobhouse 35.

329:   The Commission adjourned at 1:15: according to the “Court Circular”:
Times
1 July 1850, 4; it adjourned at 3:00, according to Norman Gash: Gash 697.

329:   … he kissed his wife good-bye and set off with his groom for his customary ride around the Parks: Gash 697;
Times
1 July 1850, 5.

329:   The horse he mounted was new to him—an eight-year-old which a friend had purchased for him two months before, from Tattersall's: Gash 697;
Illustrated London News
17 (1850): 10.

329:   Peel's coachman was suspicious about the horse, and had recommended Peel not ride it: Gash 697.

329:   Peel and his groom passed through St. James's Park and stopped at Buckingham Palace: For Peel's ride, see Gash 697–701;
Times
1 July 1850, 5; Daily News 1 July 1850, 5;
Illustrated London News
17 (1850): 10.

330:   The two men who had sat him up, as well as the two doctors, now supported Peel:
Times
1 July 1850, 5. According to the
Illustrated London News
, a doctor from St. George's Hospital accompanied Peel home: 17 (1850): 10.

330:   … a patent hydraulic bed was set up in the same room:
Illustrated London News
17 (1850): 10.

330:   “Sir Robert Peel has met with a severe accident by falling from his horse”: Gash 698–99.

330:   Albert and the Prince of Prussia rushed to Whitehall Gardens as soon as they heard of his fall:
Times
1 July 1850, 5.

330:   “We have, alas! now another cause of much greater anxiety in the person of our excellent Sir Robert Peel”: Victoria
Letters
(first series) 2:253.

330:   Peel told them on the day of the accident that his injury was worse than they realized, and that he would not survive it: Gash 699.

331:   “That silent, solemn crowd betokened the unknown depth to which love and reverence for the great practical statesman had sunk in the minds of humble English men and women”:
Illustrated London
News
17 (1850): 3.

331:   He ate a little and even walked around the room with assistance: Gash 701.

331:   … he held each of his children's hands in turn, and whispered his good-byes to them, the words “God bless you!” scarcely audible: Illustrated London News 17 (1850): 10.

331:   His wife Julia, overwhelmed, was led from the room: Gash 701.

331:   Peel's death …“absorbed every other subject of interest”: Greville 2:458.

332:   “All persons agree that there has never been an instance of such general gloom and regret”: Bunsen 2:142.

332:   “He has felt, and feels, Sir Robert's loss
dreadfully”
: Victoria
Letters
(first series) 2:256.

332:   “Now our Exhibition is to be driven from London”: Albert to Ernst, 4 July 1850, qtd. in Auerbach 46.

332:   Sibthorp laid into the greatest trash, fraud, and imposition “palmed upon” the people of Britain:
Times
5 July 1850, 3.

333:   … Peel, “that eminent man, who never neglected any duty … which he considered conducive to the public good”:
Times
5 July 1850, 4.

333:   “The feeling of the house was completely altered”: Lord John Russell to Albert, qtd. in Davis 78.

333:   His iron-and-glass design had received a cold reception from the Exhibition's Building Committee, especially from Isambard Kingdom Brunel: Auerbach 49.

333:   … Paxton's “peculiar” design would cost 10% more than a variation of their own: Davis 83.

334:   “Perhaps I might take the liberty of saying that I consider the success of the Exhibition would be considerably increased by the adoption of Mr. Paxton's plan”: Cole 1:124–25.

334:   On the sixteenth, the Building Committee met with the Royal Commission:
Times
16 July 1850, 8.

334:   “In all the matters which I had in hand,” Albert was able to write Stockmar four days later from Osborne, “I had triumphant success”: Martin 2:247.

334:   … when he returned to complete his Home Office examination on Friday morning, the fifth of July, there was no large crowd outside to hoot or hiss him:
Examiner
6 July 1850, 428. (Other newspapers, however, such as
Lloyd's Weekly
—on 7 July 1850, 7—note a larger crowd.)

334:   … his health suffered from lack of walking:
Times
6 July 1850, 8;
Examiner
6 July 1850, 428.

334:   … he had instead spent most of the last week absorbed in his books: Manchester Examiner 6 July 1850, 4.

334:   … his own counsel, with whom he hadn't spoken since his arrest:
Times
6 July 1850, 8.

334:   Only the Queen's physician, James Clark, had anything new to add:
Times
6 July 1850, 8;
Examiner
6 July 1850, 428.

335:   Huddleston, Pate's attorney, said little:
Times
6 July 1850, 8.

335:   Monro visited Pate twice at Clerkenwell and three times in Newgate: “Robert Pate.”

336:   Attorney General Jervis, then, was compelled to hurry the trial along, requesting the presiding judge, Baron Alderson, to schedule Pate's trial for the next morning, 11 July:
Times
11 July 1850, 7.

336:   … the courtroom on that morning was full but not crowded:
Times
12 July 1850, 7.

336:   With perfect composure he bowed slightly to the justices:
Times 12
July 1850, 7.

336:   … Pate loudly pleaded not guilty:
Times 12
July 1850, 7.

336:   … the effect of such an acquittal “would be that he would be imprisoned for the rest of his life”:
Times 12
July 1850, 7.