Who tried to kill Queen Victoria?
After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal
History Hit
4.7 • 2.1K Ratings
🗓️ 1 June 2026
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Queen Victorian was an icon of Britain at the zenith of its power... but that didn't mean she was invulnerable to attack. In today’s episode, we’ll be exploring some of the many assassination attempts on Victoria's life. We’ll be discussing the massive changes Britain was experiencing during this time and how this might have motivated these attackers… Some of them are pretty wild.
Our guest today is Professor Kate Williams, historian and author whose new book ‘Regina: A New History of Women and Power’ is out in June! She’s also the cohost of the podcast ‘Queens, Kings and Dastardly Things’
Edited by Tim Arstall. Produced by Tomos Delargy. Senior Producer is Freddy Chick.
For tickets to see Anthony and Maddy talking about her new book, Hoax, click here: https://www.conwayhall.org.uk/whats-on/event/hoax/
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | An aging Queen Victoria steps down from her carriage. |
| 0:09.8 | A man steps forward, and then he raises a revolver. |
| 0:16.4 | The shot fires out and the crowd panics, but for Victoria, it's a moment that she's painfully familiar |
| 0:21.9 | with at this stage. This is the last of eight assassination attempts that she'd suffer in her long |
| 0:27.2 | reign. Time and again, men, and they were all men, tried to kill her. Why did Queen |
| 0:34.7 | Victoria become such a target? What motivated her assassins? And what do these attacks reveal about Victorian society? From the drastically changing world of Victorian Britain, welcome to After Dark. Hello and welcome to After Dark. I'm Anthony, of course. Maddie is away discovering a cure for boredom. She will be back once she has discovered that cure. But until then, I've been joined by a bevy of brilliant historians over the last few months. And of course, no stranger to After Dark. |
| 1:29.9 | This is her second time round. |
| 1:31.1 | We have Professor Kate Williams back. |
| 1:32.9 | Hello. |
| 1:33.5 | Hello. |
| 1:34.3 | We've been talking about your new book, Regina. |
| 1:36.2 | And in our last episode, we talked about Budica and all the great machinations she |
| 1:41.8 | had against the Roman incursions in Britain. We're skipping forward |
| 1:45.9 | quite a lot now into the 19th century and we're going to talk about the one and only Queen |
| 1:51.6 | Victoria. My first question on this on my briefing notes for you, Kate, is it's surprised |
| 1:56.9 | that maybe anybody might even need to know who this is. But for people who might not know, |
| 2:01.6 | they may exist in the world, who is Queen Victoria? Queen Victoria, the longest reigning monarch |
| 2:06.8 | after Elizabeth II, Elizabeth II pipped her at the post. She ruled throughout the 19th century, |
| 2:13.6 | and she was never really expected to become queen. She was George the 4th, seven sons, |
| 2:20.3 | six daughters. She was a daughter of one of the younger sons, not really in pole position to be queen, |
| 2:26.5 | but the elder brothers died. They didn't have children. And so she came to the throne. And |
| 2:31.2 | her name, she said, I'm the first person ever to be called Victoria. Now, |
... |
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