On the 10th of June, 1840, upon Constitution Hill, two loud detonations shattered the afternoon drive of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. The Sovereign sat in an open carriage; a youth discharged two pistols in rapid succession as the royal cortege advanced. Apprehended almost instantly, he made no effort to flee. At his trial, this apparent simplicity was to dissolve into three distinct questions: toward whom were the weapons directed, were the pistols loaded with ball, and what understanding could the marksman have possessed of his own deed?
The contemporary record places the trial of Edward Oxford at the Central Criminal Court on the 9th and 10th of July. Its title-page styles the proceeding the “Trial of Edward Oxford” and states that he stood indicted for shooting at the Queen in St. James’s Park. The chronicler depicts a crowded courtroom, the precincts of the court thronged with onlookers, and an audience comprising persons of distinction and many ladies. He observes, too, that Oxford smiled as he surveyed the spectators, affecting an air of unconcern. This description belongs to the journalist’s pen; it cannot, of itself, resolve whether the prisoner grasped the gravity of his predicament or what emotions stirred within him. In the courtroom, the Attorney-General, Sir John Campbell, opened the indictment as one of high treason: a direct attempt upon the life of the Sovereign. The bill contained two counts, one for each pistol; the Crown maintained that the overt act was sufficient to establish the murderous intent contemplated by the law of treason. Oxford pleaded not guilty. The defence, conducted by Sidney Taylor and Mr. Bodkin, did not deny that the youth had discharged the weapons; it contested the legal import of the act, submitting that he was not responsible by reason of unsoundness of mind. This division did not reduce the trial to an abstract inquiry into madness: the jury was bound first to examine the material elements of the act imputed to him before pronouncing upon the moral capacity of its author.
The witnesses of the 10th of June did not all describe the same geometry. Samuel Peekes deposed that he saw Oxford walking near the railings, discharge a first pistol, shift hands, and fire a second time. He heard a whizzing sound and placed the young man but a few paces from the carriage. Joshua Lowe, who ran toward him, confirmed the two discharges and the immediate confession: “It was me.” Yet William Clayton, hastening up after the report, seized Albert Lowe by mistake and charged him with the shooting. In the tumult, the identity of the marksman was swiftly righted; the distances, angles, and movements remained far less clear. The accounts diverged no less regarding the words spoken thereafter. Certain witnesses recollected that Oxford affirmed the presence of balls; others attributed to him a more equivocal phrase, to the effect that had anyone stood before the muzzle, they would have known well enough what was inside it. The court thus heard recollections formulated in the aftermath of a fleeting scene, instantaneously engulfed by an excited crowd and followed by a conveyance to the station-house.
A further point divided the depositions: the intended mark. Certain bystanders believed the weapons were levelled directly at Victoria; others described the second shot as having been aimed toward the wall, or almost behind the carriage. The Queen was said to have started upright between the two discharges, whereupon the Prince drew her down. The defence remarked that Albert was positioned nearer to Oxford, and that one could not elevate every gesture observed from an angle into a certainty of purpose. The Crown replied that the prisoner had deliberately waited for the carriage to pass and had inquired whether the Queen was hurt. Both narratives proceeded from the selfsame seconds, yet deduced from them wholly opposite conclusions.
As for the balls, they were never found. One witness pointed to a mark upon the brickwork; certain observers deemed it consistent with the impact of a projectile. Further searches, including the careful sweeping of the dust at the foot of the wall, yielded nothing. The Prince was said to have heard a whizzing sound, and several persons declared they had perceived the passage of a projectile through the air. For the prosecution, the young man had purchased leaden balls, possessed a mould, and spoken of projectiles. For the defence, had a ball been discharged at so close a range, its absence demanded an explanation, and the court must distinguish between an actual whizzing and the mere acoustic impression left by a loud detonation.
The material preparations occupied a prominent place in the evidence. Frederick Garrick, a shopman, identified Oxford as the purchaser of a pair of pistols and a powder-flask, bought for the sum of two pounds. John Ray testified that he had sold him some fifty percussion caps and answered his inquiries as to where leaden balls might be procured. A former companion, John Linton, recollected having accompanied Oxford to a shooting gallery. These circumstances demonstrated premeditation and a familiarity with firearms; yet, taken alone, they could not prove whether the barrels were loaded on the 10th of June, nor what precise design Oxford had formed in his mind.
In his lodgings, the police discovered a box containing, amongst other articles, a sword, a black crape mask, a powder-flask, a bullet-mould, some projectiles, and various papers. Among the latter were the “rules and regulations” of an association styled “Young England,” together with letters referring to the society. The defence suggested that Oxford had fancied himself a member of a secret brotherhood that possessed no real existence; the Crown saw in these documents no evidence that he had acted on behalf of an organized body. The printed record does not indicate that any other confederate was ever brought to light. These sheets of paper thus stood as both material exhibits and the ground of rival interpretations: a political conspiracy, a boyish chimera, or the symptom of a disordered intellect.
The most protracted debate concerned the prisoner’s mental condition. Oxford’s mother recounted a childhood marked, according to her recollection, by fits of violent passion, uncontrollable bursts of laughter, abrupt motions, and an inability to retain employment. She spoke also of her husband, whom she characterized as violent and eccentric. Other witnesses told of a grandfather subject to maniacal seizures and at times placed under restraint; the rehearsal of these occurrences rested upon their own recollections and those of family members. Former employers presented a more measured portrait: the youth had tended the bar, drawn beer, and given correct change, even though one of them had occasionally found him unmanageable or singular in his conduct.
The medical experts did not apply a uniform standard to his incapacity. Dr. Hodgkin spoke of a “lesion of the will,” or a morbid propensity; Dr. John Conolly, physician to the Hanwell Asylum, pronounced Oxford of unsound mind after a conversation he considered wholly unsatisfactory. Other practitioners likewise delivered an unfavourable opinion regarding his mental state. Yet the prosecution reminded the court that mere singularity of demeanour was not enough. The Solicitor-General urged the jury to distinguish long-standing eccentricities from an absolute incapacity at the precise moment of the shooting. He laid stress upon those actions which appeared calculated: the purchase of the weapons, the waiting for the carriage, the firing of the shots, and the coherence of his answers upon arrest.
This conflict was not merely medical; it touched the rule of law to be laid down by the bench. The report relates that Lord Denman instructed the jury first to determine whether Oxford had fired in the direction of the Queen, and whether the pistols contained balls. The question of insanity, his Lordship explained, arose second: the jury was to decide whether, at the instant the act was committed, Oxford was conscious of what he was doing and of the nature of the deed. He observed further that the commission of a dreadful crime was not, in and of itself, sufficient proof of insanity.
Following his Lordship’s summing-up, the jury returned with a two-fold verdict: they found the prisoner guilty of discharging two pistols at the Queen, but declared that whether they contained balls had not been satisfactorily proved; they found further that he was of unsound mind at the time of committing the deed. The record attributes to Mr. Taylor the submission that such an answer was equivalent to a verdict of not guilty; it records that the Attorney-General characterized it as an acquittal on the ground of insanity. Lord Denman thereupon explained to the jury the proper legal form of their finding, and they retired once more. Their final verdict, as printed in the report, was: “Guilty, but Insane.”
This finding did not lay every doubt to rest. It supplied a judicial termination, yet it could not transform the trajectory of the balls nor the intent of the marksman into facts observed without contradiction. Neither did it elevate each domestic recollection into a medical diagnosis. The chronicle ends upon this verdict, accompanied by an editorial note stating that the account was abridged from the evening newspaper The Globe. It leaves us upon the threshold of the decision: a deed committed in the full light of day, firearms whose charge remained in dispute, and a jury drawing a line between the material guilt it recorded and the mental infirmity it acknowledged. The text makes mention of neither sentence nor subsequent disposal; it concludes with the words delivered in the hall of justice.