A Royal Birth, an Imperial Egg, and an Assassination Attempt: The Royal Easter of 1900

The extended Danish royal family celebrated Easter in Copenhagen in April 1900, but one of the King's sons-in-law narrowly escaped death on his way to the festivities

Almost exactly 125 years ago this weekend, King Christian IX of Denmark summoned his children and grandchildren to Copenhagen for an April full of celebrations, marking both his birthday and the Easter holidays. The story unfolds today as two of his family members narrowly escape an assassin’s bullet, another gives birth to a new great-grandchild, and yet another receives a traditional holiday gift on her return home.

As the steam train hissed to life at the station in Brussels, another unexpected noise pierced the air. A shot rang out from a revolver, whistling through the open window of the royal saloon car and whizzing uncomfortably close to the Prince of Wales’s head. Before anyone had time to react, a second shot was fired. By this time, there were startled outbursts from the other passengers, including the Princess of Wales, as they slowly realized what was happening. The Prince, who had been drinking a cup of tea, froze. Just as the shooter raised his gun to fire for a third time, the station master reached out and struck him on the arm, and two more railroad employees rushed in to tackle him.

The Prince and Princess of Wales, who had been stopping just briefly in Belgium on their way from London to Copenhagen, were shocked. The train hadn’t even been able to pull away from the platform before the would-be assassin hopped on to the footboard of the royal car and aimed his gun into one of the carriage windows. Though royals across Europe were becoming uncomfortably familiar with assassination attempts, this was the first time that anyone had fired a weapon at the Prince of Wales. Later, he would acknowledge just how narrow his escape had been in a letter to one of his female confidants, the Countess of Warwick: “If he had not been so bad a shot I don’t see how he possibly could have missed me.”

Illustration of the assassination attempt on the Prince of Wales in Brussels from Le Petit Journal, April 1900 (Wikimedia Commons)

Word of the shooting quickly reached the train’s driver, who put on the breaks and blew the whistle as the train ground to a halt. As the shooter was hustled into the station inspector’s office, the Prince of Wales rummaged through the saloon car until he found a bullet embedded in a seat cushion near the place where he had been sitting. A dent, where the bullet had ricocheted, was visible on the frame of one of the car’s windows, showing that it had missed the Prince by inches. Alexandra was reportedly “considerably alarmed” by the ordeal. Bertie, with noted coolness, asked whether or not the gunman had been arrested. When authorities confirmed that the young man was in custody, the Prince smiled and asked that the boy not be treated too severely.

“Boy” was the correct description of the shooter. Fifteen-year-old Jean-Baptiste Sipido, an anarchist from Brussels, wanted the Prince to be punished for the casualties caused by British troops during the ongoing Boer War in southern Africa. He was so young that, when he was brought to trial, he was considered too immature to be held responsible for his actions, and he was released, much to the consternation of many in Britain, including the Waleses.

The royal couple, rattled but composed, did not stay long at the station to investigate the aftermath. As the train slowly began to move away from the station, members of the public who had gathered on the surrounding platforms began to cheer. Bertie and Alexandra rose, acknowledging the ovation by bowing from the windows of the carriage.

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It was a dramatic start to a family reunion that had been years in the making. The Princess of Wales’s father, the elderly King Christian IX of Denmark, had decided that he only wanted one present to mark his 82nd birthday on April 8, 1900: a gathering attended by as many members of his family as possible. Increasingly lonely after the death of his wife, Queen Louise, two years earlier, Christian was eager to have his family members around him for the celebration.