How the British plotted to blow up their Queen (...and blame the Irish)

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THE BUNTING and flags were going up all over London. A carnival atmosphere held sway for one of the greatest events of Britain's Victorian age - the queen's golden jubilee celebrations.

He had had stunning success against the bombers, but was facing trouble for withholding intelligence from the police. Then came Jenkinson's coup - he took over as General Millen's controller.
General Millen was paid to discredit Parnell by bombing Queen Victoria on her Jubilee procession.

It was the year 1887, and a time of holiday fun for most English. But, for others, nerves were taut with anticipation. Word had got to the police that Irish separatists were planning to use dynamite to blow up the queen in Westminster Abbey on June 21.The fears were well founded. Dynamiters from Clann na Gael, the American wing of the Fenian Brotherhood, had been active in England for the best part of five years. All thoughts among the Irish in New York were on making the queen's jubilee go with a 'bang' or, as one Republican described it, 'celebrating Mrs Brown's very good health' - an allusion to Victoria's close relationship with her 'gillie', John Brown.

In London, on June 15, six days before the big thansgiving service in the abbey, a news agency put out a dramatic statement from an official source in Scotland Yard: 'Information has been received which leaves no doubt that dynamiters have arranged to commit an outrage in jubilee week.'For one man in particular these were desperate days. James Monro, head of the Metropolitan Police's 'secret department', hoped he had nipped the plot in the bud, but he wasn't certain.Now, on the big day, he set off by carriage in full-dress rig, eyes darting from beneath an ostrich plumed hat, his wife by his side. He could have taken his children but had left them at home, fearing for their safety.

At 11.15am the royal procession departed Buckingham Palace with an escort of Indian cavalry. Plain-clothes detectives weaved among the vast crowds, eyes peeled for Irishmen with guns and bombs.Then, at the last moment, Monro got a note that conspirators had managed to get dynamite into the vaults of Westminster Abbey. But it was too late to make inquiries.There was nothing he could do but hope and pray.

FOR MORE than a century, the Jubilee Plot has been seen as the Fenian movement's ultimate attempt at an outrage on the British establishment.But new evidence in an enthralling book by Christy Campbell, Fenian Fire, suggests a quite remarkable twist - that the real plotters were the British establishment themselves and even the prime minister, the devious Lord Salisbury, was involved.Victoria, however, was not the real target. The idea was that the dynamite gang should be discovered and foiled before Victoria was harmed. The real aim was to discredit and ruin Charles Stewart Parnell, the Irish nationalist leader in Westminster, by branding him and his supporters as fellow-travellers of terror at a time when they were trying to win Ireland's freedom by peaceful means.

Handsome, wildly superstitious and sexually-charged, Parnell had been elected to Westminster at the age of 29 in 1875, as MP for Meath on a Home Rule ticket.Parnell walked a tightrope in his peaceful quest for home rule, for he was accepting funds and support from Clann na Gael, the Irish-American bombers who had brought dynamite terror to Britain. But his campaign was proving effective, having won the support of Liberal leader William Gladstone.

That did not suit unionists like Lord Salisbury. To them, Parnell was more of a threat than the dynamiters and he needed to be stopped at all costs. If an attempt was seen to be made on the queen's life by Clann na Gael, then Parnell would be damned by association.The proof, says Christy Campbell, has been hidden away in classified files ever since. The author tells how he had to battle to obtain access to official documents of the time. After first being refused, he was finally allowed to see a partially-declassified file, much of it carefully inked over.But one name had not been excised. It was General Millen, a man publicly accused - but never tried - of being behind the Jubilee Plot. The reason Millen escaped, Campbell believes, is he was put up to it by the British themselves, and so was allowed to slip the net.

In 19th century America, Irish freedom fighters were hopelessly divided and riddled with traitors in the pay of the British. One of these was the exotic, Tyrone-born adventurer Francis Millen, who rose to the rank of general while fighting to depose the Emperor Maximilian in Mexico.While in Mexico in 1865, Millen had been recruited to the Fenian Brotherhood and, for a price - $222 a month - agreed to go to Ireland, stage an uprising in Dublin and proclaim an Irish republic. Of all the doomed attempts to stage a revolution with foreign aid, this one actually stood a chance, thanks to the backing of Irish soldiers battle-hardened by the US Civil War.

BUT THE rebellion soon turned into a shambles and Millen made his escape to America. Within a short time, he had introduced himself to the British consul in New York, Edward Archibald, and offered his services as a spy, handing over a complete breakdown of the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood's readiness for battle, numbers of men and estimates of hidden weapons.

For a price, he also gave information on the whereabouts of James Stephens, the rebel leader in Ireland. Millen always had his price. It was the start of an on-off relationship with the British secret service that would eventually place Millen at the heart of the Jubilee Plot. In 1885, he surfaced again in Mexico, offering information to British diplomat Lionel Carden. A dispatch was sent by Carden to Earl Granville, the Liberal foreign secretary. For 'a suitable remuneration' Millen said he would 'prove the name and identity of No. 1' - the notorious leader of the gang who had killed the Chief Secretary of Ireland, Lord Frederick Cavendish, and the permanent under-secretary in Dublin, Thomas Henry Burke. They had been stabbed to death while walking in Phoenix Park in 1882.

There was excitement in Whitehall, under pressure from the bombing campaign. A cable was sent back to Carden: 'Secret and urgent. Please send name and description of person referred to in your dispatch... liberal remuneration would be given for information of the kind mentioned...'The consul telegraphed back: 'Name of person General FF Millen. Age about 50. Height about five feet 10 inches, rather thin. Hair brown, somewhat curly, military visage - clean shaven except long moustache.'It seemed the breakthrough the British authorities had longed for - but there was a deep rift in the British secret services. On one side was James Monro of the Metropolitan Police, the upright and straightforward police officer. Ranged against him was civil servant Edward Jenkinson, who ran a curious, semi-official operation from Dublin Castle, set up after the Phoenix Park killings.

Jenkinson had built a network of agents answerable to him personally, something which caused huge rows with the police. He had had stunning success against the bombers, but was facing trouble for withholding intelligence from the police. Then came Jenkinson's coup - he took over as General Millen's controller. By the summer of 1885, Gladstone and his Liberals were out of office, replaced by Lord Salisbury's Conservatives. Spymaster Jenkinson began to demand details from Millen of links between Parnell and Clann na Gael.In the autumn, Millen was ready to come to Europe. Diplomat Lionel Carden cabled Lord Salisbury: 'XXX [Millen] starts tonight and will probably arrive in Paris about the 5th of November...'

It was agreed that he would be met there by Jenkinson, but first Jenkinson had a meeting with Lord Salisbury. Afterwards, Jenkinson wrote of Salisbury: 'He thinks it must come to a head in the way we most dread. I'm afraid it must be so - but it is so terrible and lamentable I do not like to think about it...'Salisbury was, in effect, saying that he would be happy to see Parnell pushed over the edge into outright hostility, fleeing to America to raise the flag of rebellion. At least then the Irish enemy might be confronted in his true colours. But how would it be 'brought to a head'?

Jenkinson caught the Newhaven boat-train to see Millen in Paris. Together they would get down to some very curious business indeed.What happened over the next year is unclear, but it seems safe to assume they met again in Paris at the beginning of 1887 when both were there. A window on Millen's Parisian dealings can be seen in a letter from Luke Dillon, who had dynamited the British Parliament two years previously, to the Kildare-born revolutionary John Devoy.

The letter makes clear that the hard-men in America wanted to start dynamiting again and that Millen would be their forward operations man in Paris. 'They claim that they intend celebrating the queen's birthday,' wrote Dillon, 'and that 150 men are prepared to work with Greek fire (an explosive).'So here we have it. Millen is definitely working for the British while at the same time being at the heart of a plot to bomb Victoria. Could this be the dreaded 'coming to a head' which prime minister Salisbury was seeking?Millen next turned up at the beginning of June 1887 - just three weeks before the jubilee - in Boulogne, on the north coast of France, with his wife. Also in the hotel taking tea with the Millens were an English couple, James and Martha Thomson, apparently there for the sea air.

But far from being a tourist, Thomson was a retired police inspector sent by Metropolitan police spymaster James Monro's department to observe Millen.MONRO HAD obviously been getting very detailed information from somewhere. Had he been tipped off about the Jubilee Plot by the very people who had fomented it in the British government to make sure it was discovered?

Whatever the plots of spymaster Jenkinson and Salisbury, the policeman seems not to have been privy to them. He had no way of knowing Millen was a British agent. All he saw was a threat - and he sent over another senior officer to warn Millen off. His man told the supposed bomber his plot was discovered and that he must abandon his mission.The Jubilee Plot might have ended then. But Monro wasn't sure whether others were involved or what had happened to a consignment of dynamite which he knew had been sent from Paris. Could it now be in England?As he made his way to Westminster Abbey on June 21, these fears preyed on Monro's mind. The queen entered the abbey, a tiny figure in diamond-sprinkled black. James Monro waited for the explosion that would kill not only himself but the whole royal family and government.

What could he do? 'I never was in a more delicate position,' he wrote. 'I prayed, and in the end resolved to do nothing, but trust that God, who had ever helped me, would do so now.'There was no explosion. There was never going to be.




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