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Early on Friday morning, July 9, 1982 A man walked down the hallway in Buckingham Palace, looking at paintings and into rooms. Along his way, he picked up a glass ashtray and broke it, cutting his hand. He passed a palace housekeeper who said "good morning" and only a few minutes later he walked into the Queen's bedroom.

 

Queen Elizabeth II woke to find a strange man sitting at the end of her bed. The man, dressed in jeans and a dirty T-shirt, was cradling a broken ashtray and dripping blood onto the royal linens from a lacerated hand.

 

The Queen kept calm and picked up the phone from her bedside table. She asked the operator at the palace switchboard to summon the police. Though the operator did pass the message to the police, the police didn't respond.

 

The Queen attempted to summon a chambermaid by pressing a button, but no one came. The Queen and Fagan continued to talk. When Fagan asked for a cigarette, the Queen again called the palace switchboard. Still no one responded.

 

After the Queen had spent ten minutes with the mentally disturbed, bleeding intruder, a chambermaid entered the Queen's quarters and exclaimed, "Bloody hell, ma'am! What's he doing in there?" The chambermaid then ran out and woke up a footman who then seized the intruder. The police arrived twelve minutes after the Queen's first call.

 

Some reports say the intruder, 31-year-old Michael Fagan, had planned to commit suicide in the Queen's bedroom but decided it wasn't "a nice thing to do" once he was there. He wanted to talk about love but the Queen changed the subject to family matters. Fagan's mother later said, "He thinks so much of the Queen. I can imagine him just wanting to simply talk and say hello and discuss his problems."Fagan thought it a coincidence that he and the Queen both had four children.