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aded with shot;[17] he also visited a shooting gallery in Leicester Square, where he practised with their guns.[18] About a week after he moved in, he hit his mother for no apparent reason and threatened her with a pistol; she returned to Birmingham shortly afterwards, leaving Oxford in Lambeth with his sister Susannah and her husband William Phelps.[13][19][f] Over the next month Oxford invented a fictional organisation, Young England, a pseudo-military revolutionary group of which he was the leader.[20][21] He drew up a document of eleven rules, signed by the fictitious A. W. Smith; the first of these was "That every member shall be provided with a brace of pistols, a sword, a rifle and a dagger; the two latter to be kept at the committee room".[22] He drew up a list of principal members—all fictitious—into ranks of president, council members, generals, captains and lieutenants, and each rank had a "mark of distinction" to signify their position, such as a black bow (for the president) or a large white cockade (for council members).[23][g] On 10 June 1840—the eleventh anniversary of George Oxford's death—Oxford walked to Constitution Hill, near Buckingham Palace, and waited for two hours; the royal couple were known to take an evening drive most days and groups of onlookers were common at that time. At around 6:00 pm Queen Victoria—four months pregnant with her first child, Victoria, the Princess Royal—and Prince Albert left the palace in their drosky, an open-topped horse-drawn carriage, accompanied by the postillions (the drivers mounted on horses) and two outriders.[24][25] The carriage passed a group of spectators by the gates to the palace and travelled along Constitution Hill; as it came withi
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