Famous Imposters 22

Famous Imposters 22

One can imagine how the whole atmosphere of the country--surcharged

with suspicion, fear, oppression, torture, perjury or crime--was

cleared by the execration which followed the removal of this vile

wretch.

 

 

 

 

VI. ARTHUR ORTON

 

(The Tichborne Claimant.)

 

 

In the annals of crime, Arthur Orton, the notorious claimant to the

rich estates and title of Tichborne, takes a foremost place; not only

as the originator of one of the most colossal attempts at fraud on

record, but also from his remarkable success in duping the public. It

would be difficult indeed to furnish a more striking example of the

height to which the blind credulity of people will occasionally attain.

Of pretenders, who by pertinacious and unscrupulous lying have sought

to bolster up fictitious claims, there have been many before Orton;

but he certainly surpassed all his predecessors in working out the

lie circumstantial in such a way as to divide the country for years

into two great parties--those who believed in the Claimant, and those

who did not. Over one hundred persons, drawn from every class, and

for the most part honest in their belief, swore to the identity of

this illiterate butcher’s son--this stockman, mail-rider and probably

bushranger and thief--as the long-lost son and heir of the ancient

house of Tichborne of Titchborne. To gain his own selfish ends this

individual was ready to rob a gentlewoman of her fair fame, to destroy

the peace of a great family who, to free themselves from a persecution,

as cruel as it was vicious, had to be pilloried before a ruthless and

unsympathising mob, to have the privacy of their home invaded, and

to hear their women’s names banded from one coarse mouth to another.

Thus, and through no fault of their own, they were compelled to endure

a mental torture far worse than any physical suffering, besides having

to expend vast sums of money, as well as time and labour, in order to

protect themselves from the would-be depredations of an unscrupulous

adventurer. It has been estimated that the resistance of this

fictitious claim cost the Tichborne estate not far short of one hundred

thousand pounds.

 

[Illustration:

 

_Photo. by Maull & Fox. Copyright._

 

ARTHUR ORTON]

 

The baronetcy of Tichborne, now Doughty-Tichborne, is one of the

oldest. It has been claimed that the family held possession of the

Manor of Tichborne for two hundred years before the Conquest. Be

this as it may--and, in the light of J. H. Round’s revelations, some

scepticism as to these pre-Norman pedigrees is permissible--their

ancestors may be traced back to one Walter de Tichborne who held the

manor, from which he took his name, as early as 1135. Their names too,

are interwoven with the history of the country. Sir Benjamin, the first

baronet--for the earlier de Tichbornes were knights,--as Sheriff of

Southhampton, on the death of Queen Elizabeth, repaired instantly

to Winchester and on his own initiative proclaimed the accession of

James VI of Scotland as King of England, for which service he was made

a baronet, and his four sons received the honour of knighthood. His

successor, Sir Richard, was a zealous supporter of the Royal cause

during the civil wars. Sir Henry, the third baronet, hazarded his life

in the defence of Charles I and had his estates sequestered by the

Parliamentarians though he was recompensed at the Restoration.

 

Believers in occultism might see in the trials and tribulations

brought down upon the unfortunate heads of the Tichborne family by the

machinations of the Claimant, the realisation of the doom pronounced by

a certain Dame Ticheborne away back in the days of Henry II.

 

Sir Roger de Ticheborne of those days married Mabell, the daughter and

heiress of Ralph de Lamerston, of Lamerston, in the Isle of Wight, by

whom he acquired that estate. This good wife played the part of lady

bountiful of the neighbourhood. After a life spent in acts of charity

and goodness, as her end drew nigh and she lay on her death bed, her

thoughts went out to her beloved poor. She begged her husband, that in

order to have her memory kept green the countryside round, he would

grant a bequest sufficient to ensure, once a year, a dole of bread to

all comers to the gates of Tichborne. To gratify her whim Sir Roger

promised her as much land as she could encompass while a brand plucked

from the fire should continue to burn. As the poor lady had been

bedridden for years her husband may have had no idea that she could,

even if she would, take his promise seriously. However, the venerable

dame, after being carried out upon the ground, seemed to regain her

strength in a miraculous fashion, and, to the surprise of all, managed

to crawl round several rich and goodly acres which to this day are

known as “the Crawls.”

 

Carried to her bed again after making this last supreme effort and

summoning her family to her bedside, Lady Ticheborne predicted with her

dying breath, that, as long as this annual dole was continued, so long

should the house of Tichborne prosper; but, should it be neglected,

their fortunes would fail and the family name become extinct from want

of male issue. As a sure sign by which these disasters might be looked

for, she foretold that a generation of seven sons would be immediately

followed by one of seven daughters.

 

The benevolent custom thus established was faithfully observed for

centuries. On every Lady Day crowds of humble folk came from near

and far to partake of the famous dole which consisted of hundreds of

small loaves. But ultimately the occasion degenerated into a noisy

merry-making, a sort of fair, until it was finally discontinued in

1796, owing to the complaints of the magistrates and local gentry that

the practice encouraged vagabonds, gipsies and idlers of all sorts to

swarm into the neighbourhood under pretence of receiving the dole.

 

Strangely enough Sir Henry Tichborne, the baronet of that day (the

original name of de Ticheborne had by this time been reduced to

Tichborne), had seven sons, while his eldest son who succeeded him in

1821, had seven daughters. The extinction of the family name, too,

came to pass, for in the absence of male issue, Sir Henry, the eighth

baronet, was succeeded by his brother, who had taken the surname of

Doughty on coming into the estates bequeathed to him on these terms, by

a distant relative, Miss Doughty; though, in after years, his brother,

who in turn succeeded him, obtained the royal licence to couple the

old family name with that of Doughty. Following this repeated lapse of

direct male heirs came other troubles; but it is to be hoped that the

successful defeat of the fraudulent claim of Arthur Orton set a period

to the doom pronounced long years ago by the Lady Mabell.

 

Most families, great and small, have their secret troubles and

unpleasantness, and the Tichbornes seem to have had their share of

them. To this may be traced the actual, if remote, cause of the

Claimant’s imposture. James Tichborne, afterwards the tenth baronet,

the father of the missing Roger, who was drowned in the mysterious

loss of the _Bella_, off the coast of South America, in the spring of

1854, lived abroad for many years; but, while his wife was French in

every sentiment, he himself from time to time exhibited a keen desire

to return to his native land. When Roger was born there was small

likelihood of his ever succeeding to either title or estates, and so

his education was almost entirely a foreign one.

 

Sir Henry Tichborne, who had succeeded in 1821, though blessed with

seven beautiful daughters, had no son. Still there was their uncle

Edward, who had taken the name of Doughty, and he, after Sir Henry,

was the next heir. Edward, too, had a son and daughter. But, one day,

news came to James and his wife, in France, that their little nephew

was dead; and with the possibilities which this change opened up, it

brought home to the father the error he had committed in permitting

Roger to grow up ignorant of the English tongue and habits. It was

manifest that Mr. James F. Tichborne was not unlikely to become the

next baronet, and he felt it his bounden duty to make good his previous

neglect, by providing his son with an English education, such as would

fit him for his probable position as head of the house of Tichborne.

In this praiseworthy intention he met with strong opposition from his

wife whose great aim it was to see her son grow up a Frenchman. To her,

France was the only land worth living in. She cared nought for family

traditions; her dream was that her darling boy should marry into some

distinguished family in France or Italy. If he was to enter the army,

then it should be in some foreign service. But to England he should

not go if she could prevent it.

 

James Tichborne, like many weak men with self-willed wives, put off

the inevitable day as long as he could; and in the end only achieved

his purpose by strategy. Roger was sixteen years of age when news

arrived of the death of Sir Henry. Naturally James arranged to be

present at his brother’s funeral and it was only reasonable that he

should be accompanied by his son Roger, whom everyone now regarded as

the heir. Accordingly the boy took leave of his mother, but under the

solemn injunction to return quickly. However, his father had determined

otherwise. After attending the funeral of his uncle, at the old chapel

at Tichborne, Roger was, by the advice of relatives and friends, and

with the consent of the boy himself, taken down to the Jesuit College

at Stonyhurst. When Mrs. Tichborne learned of this step, her fury knew

no bounds. She upbraided her husband violently; and there was a renewal

of the old scenes in the Tichborne establishment. Roger wrote his

mother filial, if ill-spelt, letters in French; but, for a year, the

son, though ardently looking for a letter, got no token of affection

from the incensed and indignant lady.

 

During his three years’ stay at Stonyhurst, Roger seems to have applied

himself diligently to the study of English; but, though he made fair

progress, he was never able to speak it with as much purity and

command of words as when conversing in French. In Latin, mathematics,

and chemistry, too, he contrived to make fair headway; while his

letters evidenced an inclination for the study of polite literature.

If not highly accomplished, he was of a refined and sensitive nature.

During this period he made many friends, spending his vacation with his

English relatives in turn. His great delight was to stay at Tichborne,

then in possession of his father’s brother, Sir Edward Doughty. Withal,

the shy, pale-faced boy steadily gained in favour, for he had a nature

which disarmed ill-feeling. As time wore on it became necessary to

determine on some profession for the lad; and needless to say his

father’s choice of the army added fuel to the fire of his wife’s anger.

After some delay a commission was obtained and Mr. Roger Charles

Tichborne was gazetted a coronet in the Sixth Dragoons, better known as