Career
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 Acting 1883.
A poem was later written about McLean"s attempt on the Queen"s life by William Topaz McGonagall, considered by some the worst poet in the English language.
