14. Royal Security Was Marked by Incompetence
When a recently crowned Queen Victoria felt a chill and asked a servant for a fire, she was told that he could not do it. The man’s job was to arrange and prepare the wood and coal for a fire, while a separate department was responsible for actually lighting it. In another example, the task of keeping the palace windows clean was divided between two departments. One department’s responsibility was to keep the outside clean, while the other was responsible for the inside. Security was just as inept and inefficient, and there was no single person in overall charge of the protection of the royal residences. Buckingham Palace, for example, had low walls topped with tree branches, and lax guards.
As a result, drunks and the homeless could often be found asleep in the garden, propped up against the inner wall or laid out beneath the trees. Less innocent interlopers, such as stalkers, faced little difficulty in progressing past the garden, and into the royal residence. Outside, security was no more diligent. In 1840, a four-months-pregnant Victoria was in an open carriage near Buckingham Palace, with no escort other than two outriders, when a nutjob named Edward Oxford opened fire. He let loose with two pistols, and fortunately missed. Oxford was arrested and charged with treason but was found not guilty by reason of insanity. Instead, he was sent to a lunatic asylum, where he was kept for the next twenty-four years.
