Since the year 1748, the Trooping of the Colour has marked the state birthday of the British sovereign. However, there have been some interruptions in this annual event. The Trooping was not held in:
1811-1830, because of King George III’s illness.
1915-1918, The Great War
1940-1947, Second Great War of the Twentieth Century.
In the Twentieth century there have been two assassination attempts.
On July 16, 1936, at the top of Constitution Hill just as the king,
Edward VIII, appeared George Andrew McMahon dropped the newspaper he was holding , revealing a revolver, which he raised and leveled at the king.
Without thinking , Mrs. Lawrence grabbed his arm and cried out. Special Constable Anthony Dick took McMahon to the Hyde Park Police Station. From that point Scotland Yard and MI5 took the investigation. They learned that his real name was Jerome Bannigan, he held Nazi sympathies and said he was instructed by a “foreign power” meeting just outside the doors of the embassy. McMahon was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment. He claimed that he was followed for the rest of his life by the police. He died in 1970.
An assassination attempt on Queen Elizabeth II, occurred on June 13, 1981. a man, Marcus Simon Sargeant, fired six shots at the queen as she passed by on horseback. Quick action by Lance Corporal Galloway, Police argent John Woodcock and Ambulance personnel John Heasemen subdued Sargeant.
Marcu Simon Sargeant was prosecuted under the Treason Act, 1842. He received five years imprisonment, three of which were at the Grendon Psychiatric Prison. He was released at the end of five years. He changed his name and immigrated; his whereabouts are unknown.
King Edward VIII was proclaimed king by Heralds in January, 1936. He was never crowned King Edward VIII; he abdicated and went into voluntary exile in December, 1936.
