All political careers, we are told, are doomed to end in failure and all prime ministers must face the wrath of their electorate eventually. But only one has been shot through the heart in Britain.
Two hundred years ago this week, Spencer Perceval became the first - and only - PM to be assassinated, gunned down on the threshold of the House of Commons chamber by a bankrupt businessman, John Bellingham, who walked towards him, drew a pistol and fired at point-blank range.
Court papers, witness statements and even a diagram of Perceval's last movements - released online this week - reveal a case of personal desperation, public anger at politicians and anonymous threats of violence and revenge that will seem all too familiar to the 21st-century inhabitants of the Westminster village.
On May 11, 1812, about 5.15pm, the Prime Minister was walking through the crowded lobby to give a speech when Bellingham approached and pulled the trigger. Documents released by the National Archive to mark the bicentenary of the event describe how Bellingham then calmly "turned round and went and seated himself on the bench".
The diagram and notes published online show how Perceval, "on being shot, staggered backward in the direction of the dotted line for a moment and said, 'Oh: Murder! Murder!' and then advancing in agony attempted to get into the House but fell at the mark X [on the diagram] from where he was carried ... a corpse ... into the secretary's room".
