10 Royal Family Assassination Close Calls

10 Royal Family Assassination Close Calls

Welcome to WatchMojoUK, and today we’ll be looking at 10 dramatic royal family assassination close calls.

For this list, we’re looking at the times criminals attempted to take the lives of members of the British royal family and FAILED.

Let us know in the comments if you think the royals are worth the money or not.

A Royal Guard

You’d think Buckingham Palace would be one of the safest places in the world, but the number of intruders it’s had is truly extraordinary. So much so that many of the Royal Guards who patrol the Palace have to be constantly alert to chancers trying to break in. A former royal guard talked to The Times in 2017 and discussed a shocking encounter HE’D had with an intruder in the Palace grounds at three o’clock in the morning, an intruder he nearly shot. But that intruder was none other than Her Majesty, who apparently liked to go for late-night strolls. The Queen promised that in future, she’d call ahead, so that she hopefully WOULDN’T get accidentally shot by one of her own guards.

Michael Fagan

When incidents like THIS have happened, however, you can start to forgive that royal guard. In 1982, ordinary, working man Michael Fagan broke into Buckingham Palace not once, but twice, and the second time he infiltrated the Queen’s bedroom. Though some accounts say they talked for ten minutes, other sources, including Fagan himself, say he was immediately removed by security. Fagan wasn’t actually trying to do any harm to Her Maj as far as anybody knows, but it’s still a close call with someone who, had they wanted to, could have very easily hurt the Queen. Following a psych evaluation, the charges against Fagan were dropped.

Henry O’Farrell

In 1868, Henry O’Farrell set a new world record: first person to try and assassinate a political figure down under. His target was Prince Alfred, fourth child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, whom he managed to shoot in the back during a picnic in Sydney. Prince Alfred survived the wound, severe as it was, though O’Farrell likely would have been successful had he caught the prince on his own. This might be the closest anybody’s really gotten to doing away with a royal since the execution of Charles I, but Prince Alfred was a comparably minor royal to some of the other famous targets.

The Gunpowder Plot

The most famous assassination close call in British history, in 1605, barrels of gunpowder were planted underneath the Houses of Parliament in an attempt to assassinate King James I. James I was another protestant monarch and the conspirators wanted to get rid of him so they could install a Catholic on the throne. Though there were a dozen of them and they were led by Robert Catesby, Guy Fawkes was the one who got caught red-handed. Under duress, he gave up his fellow plotters, and was eventually hung, drawn, and quartered for his part in the plan. To this day, Bonfire Night celebrates James I’s survival of the Gunpowder Plot.

Jean-Baptiste Sipido

He was only fifteen when he made an attempt on the life of Edward, Prince of Wales in Brussels in 1900, less than a year before Edward would go on to be King Edward VII. Sipido was Belgian, but the reason he decided to try and kill the heir presumptive to the British throne was his anarchist beliefs and outrage over the Boer War. Though attempting to assassinate a royal is high treason, Sipido wasn’t British, and he was also a minor. As nobody was harmed in the attempt despite firing two shots, Sipido was remarkably acquitted. Luckily, Sipido never tried to murder anybody else as far as we’re aware.

#5: David Kang

King Charles III has had at least one assassin come after him so far. Back in 1994, the then-Prince of Wales was shot at during a speech in Sydney – the exact same city where Prince Alfred had survived his gunshot to the back. Prince Charles didn’t so much as flinch at the two shots fired at him, while the assailant, David Kang, was quickly wrestled to the ground by a dozen people. Kang’s gun, however, was a starting pistol for races, and was only loaded with blanks. Charles was never in any real danger, though the incident was certainly dramatic. Kang said he was protesting the shoddy treatment of asylum seekers in Australia.

#4: Log on the Line

Ominously, we still have no idea who was behind this assassination attempt on Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip. Called the “Lithgow Plot”, this once again took place in New South Wales, bizarrely. While taking a train during their 1970 royal tour, a log was wedged onto the train tracks under cover of night. The train, thankfully, was travelling extremely slowly, so the log posed minimal danger – but if it had been at its normal speed, who knows what could have happened? Nobody was ever charged in connection with the incident, and it didn’t have much – if any – effect on the Queen and Prince Philip.

#3: Queen Victoria

In truth, we could have made the entire video about assassination attempts against Queen Victoria, as at least eight notable would-be assassins tried their luck. Unfortunately for them, Queen Victoria lived for a very long time, up to the age of 81, which was certainly impressive given people kept trying to get rid of her. Even just three years into her reign and a man, Edward Oxford, tried to shoot her while she was in a carriage with Prince Albert. Her last assassination attempt, on the other hand, came in 1882, still twenty years before her death, when Roderick Maclean tried to shoot her as she left Windsor Station, once again in a carriage.

#2: Masked Man

Clearly, Buckingham Palace is too easy to break into. So, this assailant in 2021 tried to break into Windsor Castle to get to the Queen, instead, perhaps looking for a challenge. The culprit released a video of himself in a mask wielding a crossbow as he threatened Her Majesty, but was quickly arrested on the Castle grounds on Christmas Day. He was only 19 at the time and was sectioned under the Mental Health Act, with his family deeply concerned for his wellbeing following the break-in, which he said was revenge for the British Empire’s Amritsar Massacre in India in 1919. However, this was the fifth intruder at Windsor Castle in less than a year, oddly.

#1: Marcus Sarjeant

Not one, but two attempts were made on the Queen’s life in 1981. The first happened in June in London, during the annual Trooping the Colour parade. The Queen and her family were riding as part of the ceremony, when shots were fired from the crowd. The gunman, Marcus Sarjeant, was arrested, and later said of his motivation that he wanted to be famous like Mark Chapman – the man who killed John Lennon. Months later and now on the other side of the world in New Zealand, and another gunman, Christopher John Lewis, also tried to take down the Queen with a rifle, and was disappointed when he missed.