Sir,
Queen Victoria scarcely turned a hair when on March 2, 1882, Roderick Maclean became the seventh person to try and kill her (“ Mad poet who shot at Victoria”, Nov.27). “He had fourteen bullets on him”, she noted calmly. She much enjoyed reading, and replying individually, to the 206 telegrams that came pouring in. Two Eton schoolboys, who had set about Maclean at Windsor station with umbrellas, brought nearly 900 others with them to present an address in the castle quadrangle to which “ I read a short answer” while noting how good-looking her young champions were. She told her eldest daughter: “It is worth being shot at to see how much one is loved”.
LORD LEXDEN
House of Lords