1852: Martin Merino, Jesuit assassin
February 7th, 2010 Headsman
On this date in 1852, a 63-year-old Jesuit priest was garroted outside Madrid’s Toledo Gate for attempting to assassinate Queen Isabella II.
Only five days before, Martin Merino y Gomez (Spanish Wikipedia link) had slipped into the palace wearing his clerical robes, and planted a dagger in the Queen’s side. (Non-fatally; her corset partly shielded the blow.)
Despite some speculation that he might have been connected to some more elaborate plot, investigation found him to be a lone nut, “crazed with Liberal doctrines, disordered vanity, and bilious disease.”
Neither a clear motive nor a real link to any other actor was ever established. Merino died as a lone nut, and then his parricidal remains were burned to ashes and scattered to the winds.
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Entry Filed under: 19th Century, Assassins, Attempted Murder, Capital Punishment, Death Penalty, Execution, Garrote, History, Notable for their Victims, Public Executions, Religious Figures, Spain, Strangled, Treason
Tags: 1850s, 1852, february 7, isabel ii, isabella ii, jesuit, madrid, martin merino, toledo gate
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