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Henry Holford attempts to assassinate Queen Victoria
G. Stiff
1846
Wood engraving
Source: The Project Gutenberg version of G. W. M. Reynolds’s The Mysteries of London
This plate, which like the others in the book, has no caption. The monogram AH appears at lower left and may indicate the engraver.
Click on image to enlarge it and see commentary below.
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There was a trampling of horses; and in a few moments a low open phaeton, drawn by four bays, turned rapidly from the park into the road leading over Constitution Hill.
"They are coming!" murmured Holford to himself, as he observed the equipage from the short distance where he was standing.
Every hat was raised by the little group at the end of the road, as the vehicle dashed by—for in it were seated the Queen and her illustrious husband.
By a strange coincidence Her Majesty was sitting on the left hand of Prince Albert, and not on the right as usual: she was consequently nearest to the wall of the palace-gardens, while the Prince was nearest to the railings of the Green Park.
And now the moment so anxiously desired by Holford, was at hand:—the phaeton drew nigh.
He hesitated:—yes—he hesitated;—but it was only for a single second. "Now to avenge my expulsion from the palace!—now to make my name a subject for history!" were the thoughts that, rapid as lightning, flashed across his mind.
Not another moment did he waver; but, advancing from the railings against which he had been lounging, he drew a pistol from his breast and fired it point-blank at the royal couple as the phaeton dashed past.— Volume 2, Chapter 211, “The Deed”
Stiff’s illustration is one of his best, and the entire episode it depicts is interesting on several counts. First of all, unlike most of the portrayals of villainy and villains in The Mysteries of London, its presentation of poor Holford’s attempt to achieve fame by assassinating royalty shows Reynolds writing with a convincing grasp of psychopathology. The previous chapter, “Holford’s Studies,” shows the young man reading about the assassination of Gustavus III of Sweden and the attempt on the life of Louis XV of France, after which Reynolds complains that
Society manifests a most inordinate and pernicious curiosity in respect to criminals who perpetrate an unusual offence. This curiosity passes all legitimate bounds. The newspapers, with a natural attention to pecuniary interests, obey the cravings of that feeling by serving up the most highly-seasoned food to suit the peculiar appetite. Portraits of the guilty one are exhibited in every picture-shop. Apposite allusions are introduced into dramatic representations; and even the presiding genius of a "Punch and Judy show" mingles the subject with his humorous outpourings. . . . Thus the criminal is made into a hero!
The assassination attempt fails because Crankey Jem (aka James Cuffin), who suspects that Holford is about to harm himself or someone else, lends him pistols loaded only with powder but no shot. Holford’s older friend also knocks his arm upwards when he tries to fire the second pistol. Cuffin is recognized by the police as a “’scaped felon,” arrested, and here the story takes a strange swerve when in the following chapter the Magistrate and Home Secretary suddenly decide to “advise Her Majesty to grant him a free pardon” — strange because here we observe the demands of narrative and genre take priority over ideology. Throughout the novel Reynolds has repeatedly urged that England’s corrupt police and judicial systems intentionally crush poorer citizens. In fact, in a passage early in the novel the Home Secretary explicitly instructs the police commissioner that in cases involving a member of the nobility or the wealthier classes and someone below them in the social hierarchy, the police should always side with the wealthy against the poorer person, no matter what the evidence, in large part to enforce stability in British society. Reynolds can make such charges in his editorial passages, many of which resemble the pronouncements of the Victorian sages, but the demands of melodrama require a rescue and a happy ending.
Yet another unexpected part of the novel occurs when poor Holford is committed to Bethlem Hospital, for which Reynolds has nothing but praise. Entering the hospital, encounters his fellow inmates:
Holford cast a glance of ill-concealed terror upon their countenances, and read madness in their wild eyes. But, to his astonishment, he beheld no horrifying and revolting sights,—no wretches writhing in chains—no maniacs crowning themselves with straws—no unhappy beings raging in the fury of insanity. He had hitherto imagined that madhouses were shocking places—and Bethlem worse than all: but distressing though the spectacle of human reason dethroned and cast down must ever be, it was still a great relief to the young man to find, upon inquiry of the officer, that there were no scenes throughout the vast establishment one tittle worse than that which he now beheld.
On one side of that long passage were the cells, or rather little rooms, in which the inmates of that department of the asylum slept, each being allowed a separate chamber. The beds were comfortable and scrupulously cleanly in appearance; and the officer informed Holford that the linen was changed very frequently.
From the other side of the passage, or wide corridor, opened the rooms in which the meals were served up; and here we may observe that the food allowed the inmates of Bethlem Hospital is both excellent in quality and abundant in quantity.
There was a very tall officer,—indeed, all the male keepers throughout the institution are tall, strong, and well-built men,—walking slowly up and down the passage of which we are speaking; and when any of the unhappy lunatics addressed him, he replied to them in a kind and conciliatory manner, or else good-naturedly humoured them by listening with apparent interest and attention to the lamentable outpourings of their erratic intellects.
It is delightful to turn from those descriptions of ill-disciplined prisons and of vicious or tyrannical institutions, which it has been our duty to record in this work,—it is delightful to turn from such pictures to an establishment which, though awakening many melancholy thoughts, nevertheless excites our admiration and demands our unbounded praise, as a just tribute to the benevolence, the wisdom, and the humanity which constitute the principles of its administration. [Chapter 230, “Bethlem Hospital”]
Reynolds, George W. M. The Mysteries of London. vol 2. London: George Vickers, 1846. Project Gutenberg EBook #51294. Produced by Richard Tonsing, Chuck Greif, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. Web. 3 October 2016.
Last modified 4 October 2016