Princess Liliuokalani was offered the throne several times by the Missionary Party who had forced the Bayonet Constitution on her brother, but she believed she would become a powerless figurehead like her brother and rejected the offers outright. Wilcox Rebellion of 1889 In 1887, in response to increased political tension between the legislature and the king, a group of government ministers led by Interior Minister Lorrin A. Thurston with the support of an armed militia, forced King David Kalākaua to promulgate the 1887 Constitution of the Kingdom of Hawaii. The constitution stripped Asians of their voting rights while at the same time limited suffrage to wealthy native Hawaiians, Americans and other Europeans. The king's own powers were limited substantially. A native Hawaiian officer and veteran of the Italian military, Robert William Wilcox, organized a rebellion on July 30, 1889, to revive the powers of the monarch over administration. The rebellion was thwarted by the absence of the King at ʻIolani Palace (who was needed to promulgate a new constitution), and the Honolulu Rifles. Wilcox was tried for treason, and acquitted despite his obvious guilt. Burlesque Conspiracy The Burlesque Conspiracy is also known as an event called the Sandbag Incident. The name of the conspiracy, Burlesque, was mainly to mock Marshal of the Kingdom Charles Wilson for appearing to have been tricked into putting the Kingdom on a high state of alert for no reason. Background After the rise to power by Queen Liliuokalani, members of the National Liberal Party of the Hawaiian Kingdom became frustrated with her over a feeling of neglect to removing the Bayonet Constitution. Wilcox organized another plot in 1892 by forming a group called the Hawaiian Patriotic League which included John Edward Bush, Volney V. Ashford, and J. W. "Bellowing" Bipikane. The intentions of this group were to overthrow the monarchy and establish a republic. Sandbag Incident Wilcox and Bush's speeches drew the attention of Charles Wilson. He had agents infiltrate the group and inform him of the League's activities. In March 1892 Wilson was informed of an imminent Coup d'état. In response he put the Kingdom under high alert and sandbagged ʻIolani Palace (hence the name of the incident), effectively diverting the attempt. In response by the League to the Kingdom's lockdown, they aborted the coup and no event occurred. To the public the heightened alertness appeared to have no basis, since no confrontation happened,