Have you heard about the “Jubilee Plot”?
It was a supposed plan to assassinate Queen Victoria during her Golden Jubilee celebration at Westminster Abbey on 20 June 1887.
The perpetrators were allegedly radical Irish nationalists, but all was not what it seemed…
19th century “Black Ops”?
It was reported in various newspapers at the time that bombs planted at Westminster Abbey had been discovered. Their purpose was to blow up Queen Victoria and half the British Cabinet.
It closely followed a series of letters, supposedly from Charles Stewart Parnell, an Irish nationalist politician and leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, that were sent to The Times and outlined his support of brutal murders carried out by Irish radicals.
But the letters were a hoax. They were written by Irish journalist Richard Piggot, not Parnell.
And then there was the plot to assassinate Queen Victoria.
Well over 100 years later, Christy Campbell’s book “Fenian Fire: The British Government Plot to Assassinate Queen Victoria” detailed one of the most remarkable examples of a ‘black operation’ ever revealed.
The book outlines that Ministers were so concerned about the rise of ‘Home Rulers’ in the 1880s it used secret service agents to infiltrate and support republican terrorist organisations.
Ministers believed that the ‘plot’ to kill the Queen, revealed with great drama during Victoria’s golden jubilee, would fatally undermine Charles Stewart Parnell, the charismatic Irish nationalist leader, in Westminster and destroy the republican movement.
Campbell’s book reveals that the leader of the Jubilee Plot was a British agent who had been hired with the sanction of the Conservative leader, Lord Salisbury, the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary.
It’s not the first time such techniques have been adopted and it won’t be the last.
As it was, Queen Victoria marked her Golden Jubilee (50 years since her accession) with a banquet, to which fifty European kings and princes were invited.
She was the first British Queen to celebrate her Golden Jubilee, followed more recently by her great, great, great granddaughter Queen Elizabeth II.
If you’re interested…
Well over 100 years old, this Sovereign was issued in 1887 – the year of Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee.
The stories behind Classic coins like this are endless and that’s why they will always be in demand, but this Sovereign has the extra appeal of being issue during Victoria’s Golden Jubilee year. Today you could make one of the two we have available yours. Click here to secure yours >>