Roderick McLean
Roderick McLean (died June 9, 1921) attempted to assassinate Queen Victoria on March 2, 1882, at Windsor, England, with a pistol. This was the last of eight attempts by separate people to kill or assault Victoria over a period of forty years . McLean's motive was purportedly a curt reply to some poetry that he had mailed to the Queen.
Tried for high treason that April 20, the Scotsman McLean was found "not guilty, but insane" by a jury after five minutes' deliberation, and he lived out his remaining days in Broadmoor Asylum. The verdict prompted the Queen to ask for a change in English law so that those implicated in cases with similar outcomes would be considered as "guilty, but insane." This led to the Trial of Lunatics Act 1883.
A poem was later written about McLean's attempt on the Queen's life by William Topaz McGonagall,[1] considered by some the worst poet in the English language.[2]