Four men were shot on The Mall in central London on the evening of March 20, 1974, and Princess Anne was not one of them. A gunman named Ian Ball had blocked her royal limousine between Buckingham Palace and St. James’s Park, intending to hold the Queen’s only daughter for a £2 million ransom, according to the United Kingdom’s National Archives, which still holds the case file under reference DPP 2/5401. Anne’s personal bodyguard took three bullets trying to keep Ball away from the car door. He survived. So did everyone else Ball shot that night — a detail that owes more to a passing boxer and a badly matched revolver than to any security plan.

A Ransom Note Written in Advance

Ball, a 26-year-old unemployed laborer, had rented a car under a false name and packed it with handcuffs, a supply of Valium, and a ransom letter demanding the money be delivered in £5 notes inside twenty unlocked suitcases loaded onto a plane bound for Switzerland, according to Smithsonian magazine‘s account of the attack. He forced Anne’s car to stop and ordered her out, telling her he wanted her to come with him “for a day or two” because he wanted “2 million,” according to ABC News‘s account of the confrontation. Anne refused outright and stayed inside the vehicle as her husband, Captain Mark Phillips, held onto her from the other side. When Ball tried to pull her free, her dress tore.

Three Bullets and a Boxer’s Punch

Inspector James Beaton, the 31-year-old Scotland Yard officer assigned to protect Anne, was shot in the right shoulder, then in the hand as he tried to deflect a second round, and a third time as he was forced from the car, according to Smithsonian magazine. Ball also shot the princess’s chauffeur, a police constable named Michael Hills who had run toward the commotion, and a Daily Mail journalist, Brian McConnell, who tried to intervene. What actually broke the standoff was Ronald Russell, a passerby and former amateur boxer, who walked up and punched Ball through the car’s open window hard enough that Anne was able to get clear.

Caught Running Through St. James’s Park

Ball bolted on foot into St. James’s Park with police in pursuit and was tackled and arrested nearby, according to the ABC News account of the incident. He pleaded guilty to attempted kidnapping and attempted murder on April 4, 1974, and was found to be suffering from schizophrenia, according to the same report; rather than a standard prison sentence, he was sentenced under Britain’s Mental Health Act of 1959 and committed to a secure psychiatric facility, according to the National Archives case file, spending time at Broadmoor psychiatric hospital, per Smithsonian magazine’s reporting. Beaton, Hills, and Russell were all decorated for their roles — Beaton received the George Cross, Britain’s highest civilian award for bravery, while Hills and Russell each received the George Medal, according to ABC News. Beaton recovered fully enough to remain on royal protection duty, and went on to become superintendent of the Royalty Protection Branch in 1983, according to Smithsonian magazine’s account of his later career.

Back on Duty Within Two Days

Anne herself was uninjured and returned to public engagements within 48 hours, according to ABC News’s reporting on the aftermath, a detail the Royal Family treated at the time as evidence the monarchy could absorb even an armed attack on one of its own without visibly flinching. The court and prosecution file on the case still sits in the National Archives today, catalogued alongside the ransom note Ball had written and photographs of the bullet-scarred car, ordinary government paperwork documenting what was, for a few minutes on The Mall, very close to a successful abduction of the sovereign’s daughter. The incident permanently changed how closely armed protection officers stayed to royal family members in vehicles and on public routes, a shift traceable directly to how close Ball came to succeeding — he was inside arm’s reach of Anne, inside a stopped car, for several minutes before Russell’s intervention broke the standoff. Nearly every layer of royal security built in the decades since has been a direct answer to how thin that margin turned out to be on one ordinary evening on The Mall.