Wonderful book, thought provoking re security issues and the origins of the insanity plea.

A really, really refreshing victorian history. This book follows the history and evolution of Victoria's monarchy, the British government, and the British empire more broadly through the stories of the boys and men who attempted to assassinate the Queen multiple times in her reign. Against a backdrop of political uncertainty, when monarchies were tottering all over Europe and revolution after revolution turned royal families into refugees, assassination attempts were inevitable. But what made the would-be assassins of Victoria, unlike that of her contemporary king of France, shoot unloaded pistols? Why were they teenagers and not grown men, or suffering from mental illness? Murphy explains this all superbly and tracks, through diaries, letters, legal documents, and newspaper clippings, exactly what made Victoria such a strange target for a monarch and what happened as a result. This book follows, to a certain extent, royal history, social history, the history of medicine and especially of mental illness, the British empire, relationships with Ireland, and many other issues of the era. If you want something that is easy to read but extremely deep and with a unique perspective, I would highly recommend giving this book a shot.

I knew going into this that it was a work of non-fiction, which is generally not my forte, and I knew it would take me longer to get through because a lot of non-fiction becomes info dumps. This book was not an exception. It was very informative on the attempts on Victoria's life (too informative, to be honest) and explained how the British Monarchy that we know today, came to be.

I've been watching the Masterpiece show 'Victoria' and knew some of the info going into this book (the show is fairly accurate), but this included things like notes from her personal journals and letters to friends & family that give us better incite into what she was thinking and feeling.

It also gave a LOT of background on all of her attempted assassins along with almost complete court transcripts from the trial of each, which just REALLY wasn't needed and could have been drastically reduced in the amount of content included. I understand the need for the information, but most of that bore me to tears and after the first assassins trial, I barely scanned the others.

We find that with all the twists & turns that life & the world takes, that it is sort of amazing that a lot of what the British royal family does today all stems from things that began with Victoria's reign and that we see that a Queen can still be completely loved by her citizens even when they don't always like what they stand for.

I love books like this. Well written, interesting, about England...in a nutshell, this book describes each of the attempts made on Queen Victoria's life and how it affected the monachary and the public's view of the monarchy. There is also some tie in with things going on around the world at the same time. The mid-late 1800's were not easy on world leaders.

Between 1840-1882, eight men tried to strike Queen Victoria in public. Obviously, none of them succeeded, thanks to the inaccuracy of smooth bore pistols and their own incompetence, although one whacked her on the head with a walking stick. What they did succeed in moving was the social and legal system of Great Britain. In the new, less powerful and more accessible monarchy, the old treason penalties for lese majesty seemed inappropriate for pathetic stalkers, so the courts had to evolve new shaming and transportation punishments, or lock up the perpetrators as criminally or ordinarily insane (a similar attack on Peel's secretary led to the M'Naghten rule). Meanwhile, Victoria's calm bravery and refusal to stay locked up in the palaces under guard stirred protective instincts in the public and restored the tarnished reputation of the Royal Family and allowed Albert a free hand to streamline and reorganize the royal household for efficiency and security.

Interesting study of all the would-be assassins of Queen Victoria and how they shaped England's treason and criminal insanity laws. This audiobook was performed by Mark Whitten who does great voices of the assassins and Queen Victoria.
As other reviewers have commented, it has a lot of detail and many tangents. Since I was audiobooking this on my way to work to kill time, as long as the tangent was interesting (which I thought they all were), I wasn't bothered by it. I've read many historical fiction and non-fiction books set in the Victorian era, so I loved the details Murphy includes about Victoria's relationships with her children, prime ministers, gun technology, convict transportation, etc.

I appreciated approaching the Victorian era from a very different angle, that of the numerous men who tried to assassinate her. However, after five or six failed assassination attempts, things do start to sound the same.

A fascinating account of Queen Victoria's 7 attempted assassinations, delving into the life of the poor world most of the assassins came from as well as the politics of the time.

It’s astonishing to learn that during her long reign Queen Victoria endured no less than seven incidents where she was menaced with a pistol (and in one case, struck by a cane). Shooting Victoria is a fascinating, if long, book concerned with these seven incidents and how they shaped Victoria’s reign, her attitude to her people, and theirs to her.

Of these seven men who threatened the Queen’s life (on the face of it, acts of High Treason), not a single one was executed, an extraordinary circumstance in itself. Most were deemed to be insane and several subsequently spent time in asylums like Bedlam or Broadmoor, though none ended up staying there. Three of them were transported to Australia, or went there voluntarily, and made reasonable lives for themselves. For example her first assailant, Edward Oxford, travelled to Melbourne, changed his name to John Freeman, and became a pillar of the local art and literary scene, writing for The Argus newspaper, and later publishing a well-regarded book called Lights and Shadows of Melbourne Life in 1888.

Murphy uses these incidents to give a detailed description of the life and times of these assailants, and in particular, to tell the story of Queen Victoria’s reign, and how these violent assaults affected her. In many respects, the threats strengthened the love of the people for their sovereign and her consort Prince Albert.

As a say, a long book, but a really interesting and well researched one.

I found this to be a very interesting book. It's a "slice of life" view of Victoria and her times with a few attempted assassinations thrown in.