The subject of imposture is always an interesting one, and impostors
in one shape or another are likely to flourish as long as human nature
remains what it is, and society shows itself ready to be gulled.
The histories of famous cases of imposture in this book have been
grouped together to show that the art has been practised in many
forms--impersonators, pretenders, swindlers, and humbugs of all kinds;
those who have masqueraded in order to acquire wealth, position, or
fame, and those who have done so merely for the love of the art.
So numerous are instances, indeed, that the book cannot profess to
exhaust a theme which might easily fill a dozen volumes; its purpose is
simply to collect and record a number of the best known instances. The
author, nevertheless, whose largest experience has lain in the field of
fiction, has aimed at dealing with his material as with the material
for a novel, except that all the facts given are real and authentic. He
has made no attempt to treat the subject ethically; yet from a study of
these impostors, the objects they had in view, the means they adopted,
the risks they ran, and the punishments which attended exposure, any
reader can draw his own conclusions.
Impostors of royalty are placed first on account of the fascinating
glamour of the throne which has allured so many to the attempt. Perkin
Warbeck began a life of royal imposture at the age of seventeen and
yet got an army round him and dared to make war on Harry Hotspur
before ending his short and stormy life on the gallows. With a crown
for stake, it is not surprising that men have been found willing to
run even such risks as those taken by the impostors of Sebastian
of Portugal and Louis XVII of France. That imposture, even if
unsuccessful, may be very difficult to detect, is shown in the cases of
Princess Olive and Cagliostro, and in those of Hannah Snell, Mary East,
and the many women who in military and naval, as well as in civil, life
assumed and maintained even in the din of battle the simulation of men.
One of the most extraordinary and notorious impostures ever known was
that of Arthur Orton, the Tichborne Claimant, whose ultimate exposure
necessitated the employment, at great public expense of time and
money, of the best judicial and forensic wits in a legal process of
unprecedented length.
The belief in witches, though not extinct in our country even to-day,
affords examples of the converse of imposture, for in the majority of
cases it was the superstitions of society which attributed powers of
evil to innocent persons whose subsequent mock-trials and butchery
made a public holiday for their so-called judges.
The long-continued doubt as to the true sex of the Chevalier D’Eon
shows how a belief, no matter how groundless, may persist. Many cases
of recent years may also be called in witness as to the initial
credulity of the public, and to show how obstinacy maintains a belief
so begun. The Humbert case--too fresh in the public memory to demand
treatment here--the Lemoine case, and the long roll of other fraudulent
efforts to turn the credulity of others to private gain, show how
widespread is the criminal net, and how daring and persevering are its
manipulators.
The portion of the book which deals with the tradition of the “Bisley
Boy” has had, as it demanded, more full and detailed treatment than
any other one subject in the volume. Needless to say, the author
was at first glance inclined to put the whole story aside as almost
unworthy of serious attention, or as one of those fanciful matters
which imagination has elaborated out of the records of the past. The
work which he had undertaken had, however, to be done, and almost from
the very start of earnest enquiry it became manifest that here was
a subject which could not be altogether put aside or made light of.
There were too many circumstances--matters of exact record, striking
in themselves and full of some strange mystery, all pointing to a
conclusion which one almost feared to grasp as a possibility--to allow
the question to be relegated to the region of accepted myth. A little
preliminary work amongst books and maps seemed to indicate that so far
from the matter, vague and inchoate as it was, being chimerical, it was
one for the most patient examination. It looked, indeed, as if those
concerned in making public the local tradition, which had been buried
or kept in hiding somewhere for three centuries, were on the verge of
a discovery of more than national importance. Accordingly, the author,
with the aid of some friends at Bisley and its neighbourhood, went over
the ground, and, using his eyes and ears, came to his own conclusions.
Further study being thus necessitated, the subject seemed to open
out in a natural way. One after another the initial difficulties
appeared to find their own solutions and to vanish; a more searching
investigation of the time and circumstances showed that there was
little if any difficulty in the way of the story being true in essence
if not in detail. Then, as point after point arising from others
already examined, assisted the story, probability began to take the
place of possibility; until the whole gradually took shape as a chain,
link resting in the strength of link and forming a cohesive whole. That
this story impugns the identity--and more than the identity--of Queen
Elizabeth, one of the most famous and glorious rulers whom the world
has seen, and hints at an explanation of circumstances in the life of
that monarch which have long puzzled historians, will entitle it to the
most serious consideration. In short, if it be true, its investigation
will tend to disclose the greatest imposture known to history; and to
this end no honest means should be neglected.