Know Your 'Victoria' History: "The King Over Water"

Think you know the history of Queen Victoria's reign? Wondering how much of the history portrayed by PBS series Victoria is accurate?  We run down the truth behind the drama in the latest episode of Season 2, "The King Over Water."

Victoria & Assassination Attempts

This is the second season in a row where Victoria has been shown to be the target of failed assassination attempts. Was the Queen really so threatened in real life? Actually, yes! In fact, there were eight attempts on Victoria's life over the course of her reign. The first, as we saw last season, was in 1840, and the shooter was pronounced insane. This week actually combines the three attempts that occurred over the course of 1842. (Yes, we rolled back in time from last week. Victoria's fast and loose with the timeline that way.)  The ones we see in this episode happened back to back on May 29 and 30 of 1842. In reality, they were attempted by John Francis, but here the show assigns to John William Bean, who actually was the blame for the one that happened two months later in July of 1842.

The first attempt, as we saw, the gun failed to fire. The second, just as we saw, came the next day, when Victoria refused to give up her daily excursions. Brodie is right that the pistol wasn't loaded though. Though this is patterned after Francis' attempts, Bean's pistol was revealed to be filled with tobacco, and his sentence was, as it is here, reduced to public flogging.