Attempted Assassination of the Queen

God prosper long our noble Queen,
And long may she reign!
Maclean he tried to shoot her,
But it was all in vain.

For God He turned the ball aside
Maclean aimed at her head;
And he felt very angry
Because he didn't shoot her dead.

There's a divinity that hedges a king,
And so it does seem,
And my opinion is, it has hedged
Our most gracious Queen.

Maclean must be a madman,
Which is obvious to be seen,
Or else he wouldn't have tried to shoot
Our most beloved Queen.

Victoria is a good Queen,
Which all her subjects know,
And for that God has protected her
From all her deadly foes.

She is noble and generous,
Her subjects must confess;
There hasn't been her equal
Since the days of good Queen Bess.

Long may she be spared to roam
Among the bonnie Highland floral,
And spend many a happy day
In the palace of Balmoral.

Because she is very kind
To the old women there,
And allows them bread, tea, and sugar,
And each one get a share.

And when they know of her coming,
Their hearts feel overjoy'd,
Because, in general, she finds work
For men that's unemploy'd.

And she also gives the gipsies money
While at Balmoral, I've been told,
And, mind ye, seldom silver,
But very often gold.

I hope God will protect her
By night and by day,
At home and abroad,
When she's far away.

May He be as a hedge around her,
As he's been all along,
And let her live and die in peace
Is the end of my song.

Historical Note

Queen Victoria was leaving Windsor railway station when a young man stepped forward from the cheering crowd, lifted a revolver and fired into her carriage. Before a second shot could be fired, the man was overpowered by the crowd and arrested by Superintendent Hayes of the Windsor Police. Remaining calm, the Queen and her companions rode on to Windsor Castle.

This assassination attempt, which took place on the 2nd March 1882, was the last of eight such attempts made during her long reign. The would-be assassin turned out to be a scotsman called Roderick Maclean. Like McGonagall, Maclean was a budding poet who had sent a loyal address to her Majesty. Unlike McGonagall however, he saw the polite "thanks but no thanks" letter he received in reply as an affront to his poetic sensibilities and resolved to be avenged. He was tried for high treason but found "not guilty but insane" and sent to an asylum. Victoria's annoyance at this verdict caused the passing of an act the following year which changed the form of such verdicts to "guilty but insane".

McGonagall's poem is just one example of the outpouring of enthusiasm, loyalty, sympathy and affection for the Queen from her subjects. As Victoria subsequently wrote to her eldest daughter, "It is worth being shot at - to see how much one is loved".

As well as his own moral indignation, McGonagall drew on two other sources when composing this poem. The first line of the third stanza is an allusion to a line in Hamlet, Act IV, scene 5:

There's such divinity doth hedge a king,
That treason can but peep to what it would.

The details of Victoria's magnanimity towards the poor and needy are drawn almost verbatim from what he was told on his journey to Balmoral four years earlier.