The Jubilee Plot was a failed assassination attempt by Irish Nationalists on Queen Victoria during her Golden Jubilee, which was held on 20 June 1887. It was intended to blow up Westminster Abbey, Queen Victoria and half the British Cabinet.
The organizer of the assassination attempt was later said to be Francis Millen of Clan na Gael. However, he had been a spy in the service of the British authorities for several years (from 1885 under Edward Jenkinson of the Home Office with the approval of the Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury), and was encouraged by them to proceed with the attempt, in order to draw in more Fenians, who could then be captured. A bombing attempt of this order could also be used to discredit the increasingly troublesome (from the British government's point of view) Irish Parliamentary Party and other Irish Nationalists.[1]
In June various newspapers reported that a plot to assassinate the Queen with bombs planted in Westminster Abbey had been discovered. In the following October a recently-deceased American, Joseph Cohen, was declared by the Assistant Commissioner of the Police, James Monro, to have been the financier of the plot. Two Irishmen who visited Cohen, Callan and Harkins, were arrested and charged with bringing dynamite into the country. In fact, both of them had been followed by the police ever since their arrival in Britain in June. At their trial, Monro exposed Millen as the organizer of the plot, but Millen was allowed to escape to the USA where he died in mysterious circumstances. Callan and Harkins were sentenced to fifteen years each in prison.
Earlier in the year The Times had begun publishing a series of features called Parnellism and Crime. The bombers were linked, by letters, to Charles Parnell and other Irish MPs who supported Irish independence. All the letters had been supplied by Dublin journalist Richard Pigott and purported to show that Charles Stewart Parnell approved of violence by Irish Nationalists. The letters were shown to be forgeries, written by Pigott and sold to The Times. The case against Parnell collapsed. Pigott committed suicide and in a subsequent libel action The Times had to pay Parnell £5,000 damages.
According to British journalist Christy Campbell, in his book Fenian Fire: The British Government Plot to Assassinate Queen Victoria, Millen had been recruited by the British government 'to stir the Fenians into bombing Britain' – a scheme designed to discredit the Home Rule movement. Campbell further claimed that Millen was hired with the approval of the Conservative leader, Lord Salisbury, the Prime Minister.[1]