Elizabeth II s date with destiny inside Westminster Abbey on June 2, 1953, came 400 years almost to the day since King Henry VIII s second wife Anne Boleyn was crowned in the same place.
When she died in 1901, Queen Victoria had reigned for longer than any other British monarch. But things have been very different if any of the seven men who tried to kill her had been successful.
During her historic reign from 1837 to 1901, Queen Victoria was the target of assassination attempts by seven men, from a teenage wannabe revolutionary to a deeply troubled failed writer. Bob Nicholson considers what drove the multiple attempts to murder the monarch, and whether any of the attempts got close to achieving their aim.