Margaret Nicholson

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Margaret Nicholson's attack on George III, contemporary print

Margaret Nicholson (* 1750 in Stockton-on-Tees , County Durham , † 14 May 1828 in London ) tried in 1786 George III. to stab. Their unsuccessful assassination attempt inspired Percy Bysshe Shelley and his friend Thomas Jefferson Hogg to write the Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson published in 1810 .

Nicholson, the daughter of a hairdresser, entered the service as a housemaid at the age of 12 and worked in wealthy houses. After a love affair with another servant, she was fired and made a living doing needlework. She didn't drink and didn't attract any further attention.

On August 2, 1786, Nicholson approached the king on the pretext of wanting to hand him a letter of appeal. When he took the letter, which was actually a blank sheet of paper, she stabbed him twice with a dessert knife, albeit half-heartedly. The attack took place when the king was getting out of a carriage in front of St James's Palace in London. George III is said to have described the assassin as a “poor madwoman” who should not be harmed because she did nothing to him either (“The poor creature is mad; do not hurt her, she has not hurt me.”). A number of confused letters were found in her apartment in which she described herself as the rightful heir to the throne.

Nicholson was brought before a commission under Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger , where they denied the intention to kill - they only wanted to scare the king. Doctor John Munro confirmed that Nicholson was insane. She was then admitted to the Bethlem Royal Hospital for life .

The king benefited greatly from his calm and measured behavior in public, which he was also aware of. However, the number of his bodyguards was increased from 4 to 11, and the king's opponents criticized the pardon without trial as a "tyrannical" act.

In 1810 Shelley and Hogg (who came from Nicholson's hometown) published the “posthumous” album of poems named after her - but in truth the assassin was still alive.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Letter from George III to Richard Grenville, August 29, 1786, British Library Add. MS 70956, cited in Black, Jeremy (2004): The Hanoverians: The History of a Dynasty , New York: Hambledon, p. 139

literature

  • The Times, Friday August 4, 1786
  • The Times, Friday, August 11, 1786
  • Steve Poole: The Politics of Regicide in England, 1760-1850: Troublesome Subjects , Manchester University Press 2000, especially pp. 70 ff ISBN 9780719050350
  • Joel Peter Eigen: Nicholson, Margaret (1750? –1828) , Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004

Web links

London Gazette . No. 12776, HMSO, London, 8 August 1786, p. 355 ( PDF , English).

personal data
SURNAME Nicholson, Margaret
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British assassin
DATE OF BIRTH 1750
PLACE OF BIRTH Stockton-on-Tees , County Durham
DATE OF DEATH May 14, 1828
Place of death London