Spy Papers: Queen Elizabeth II Survived Assassination Attempt In New Zealand

March 2, 2018

Recently released declassified intelligence documents reveal that a mentally disturbed teenager tried to assassinate Queen Elizabeth II, while she was visiting New Zealand in 1981.

gettyimages

17-year-old Christopher Lewis attempted to shoot the queen dead when she was getting out of the car on her way to the fair in Dunedin.

The papers said:

Lewis did indeed originally intend to assassinate the Queen. However he did not have a suitable vantage point from which to fire, nor a sufficiently high-powered rifle for the range from the target.

The teenager was not suspected of attempted murder, and the police tried to cover the incident in every possible way. The public who heard the gunshot sound was told that it was a sign falling over.

During the queen’s second visit to New Zealand in 1986, the police closely followed Lewis, fearing that he might try again.

gettyimages

Nearly 10 years after the attempted murder of the British monarch, Lewis was accused of murdering a woman in Oakland and kidnapping her daughter. He was put in jail where he killed himself in 1997. The release of the documents comes after the recent publication of the Stuff series called The Snowman and the Queen, which tells the story about Lewis and his attempt to kill the Queen.

Queen Elizabeth II was not the first royal to survive an assassination attack - Queen Victoria endured seven!

gettyimages

Over the course of her 63-year reign, Victoria was targeted a lot of times. The first attempt happened when she was 21 years old and four months pregnant.

gettyimages

But Queen Victoria lived through the most assassination attempts in over 3 centuries. The last monarch, who had to face such flood of attacks was George III in 1800 when he was attacked twice in the same day.