The History of Popular Delusions might well have contained another
chapter, and that one not calculated to have been the least
interesting, devoted to a record of aspirants to the names and titles
of deceased persons. The list of claimants to the thrones of defunct
monarchs is a lengthy one, the chronicles of nearly every civilized
country affording more or less numerous instances of the appearance of
these pretenders to royalty. Human credulity has afforded a tempting
bait for such impostors: _le public_, as Petrus Borel says, _qui veut
etre dupe a tous prix, en etait fort satisfait_, for the discontented
and ambitious have always been numerous enough and willing enough to
accept, either as a leader or as a tool, any one sufficiently daring to
assert his identity with that of the dead prince.
The subject of this volume should, indeed, possess sufficient
attraction in itself, without needing the adventitious aid of any
recent _causes celebres_ to give it additional interest. The mystery
which envelopes the histories of such men as the supposititious
Voldemar of Brandenburg, Perkin Warbeck, the _soi-disant_ Sebastian of
Portugal, and other renowned claimants to royalty, invests their
romantic adventures with a glamour surpassing that of acknowledged
fiction. Whether impostors, or the persons they alleged themselves to
be, the record of their lives and fate forms one of the most
fascinating chapters of historic biography. In many instances the
materials procurable are too scanty to admit of lengthy memoirs, whilst
even in cases where that is not so, only the most remarkable features
of a claimant's story have been selected, in order to render this work
as inclusive as possible. In instances of suspicious evidence (and, it
must be premised, many of the incidents herein recorded are based upon
dubious testimony), only a bare recapitulation of an authority's
account is given, all expression of personal opinion being suppressed,
and the reader left to form his own theory as to the truth or falsity
of the aspirant's claim.
The numerous cases of claimants to royalty herein recorded constitute,
it is true, but a portion of those to be met with in history, yet it is
believed they include the most interesting. In several instances the
evidence preserved of these adventurers' careers is too scanty for
separate mention, nevertheless passing allusion may be made to the
pseudo Perseus of Macedon, to the false Ariarathes of Cappadocia, and
to the remarkable case of Agrippa's slave, who concealed his master's
death and assumed his master's position, until the inevitable detection
and execution overtook him. In the first and second centuries of the
Christian era many of these pretenders sprang up in different portions
of the Latin empire, and gave the Romans a great amount of trouble.
One of the most noteworthy, considering the long continuance of his
success, was a man claiming to be Achelaus, son of Mithridates, King of
Pontus. According to the account given by Latin writers, so skilfully
did he play his part that the King of Egypt, one of the Ptolemys,
actually gave him his daughter in marriage, and appointed him heir and
successor to the kingdom of Egypt. This claimant, however, like so
many of his class, met with an untimely end, being finally defeated and
slain on the battlefield by the Romans, under the Consul Gabrinus.
In the middle ages some curious but not very clearly chronicled
instances of these troublesome personages appear. A mysterious case
occurred in Sicily in the twelfth century. Roger the Third, dying in
1149, was succeeded by his brother, William the Fourth; and when he
expired, in 1186, a man came forward and claimed the crown, under the
pretext that he was son of the former monarch. Eventually he was
overthrown, and the throne left to the possession of Tancred, the
legitimate heir.
In 1570 there was an insurrection against the existing imperial rule in
Russia that nearly met with success, and in which one of these
pretenders to royalty played an important part. The rebels were led by
Stenko, a Cossack chief, and at one time gained such advantages that
the entire overthrow of the Romanoff dynasty appeared probable.
Alexis, the reigning Czar, had recently lost his eldest son, the
heir-apparent, towards whom his feelings were believed to have been
anything but paternal. Availing himself of these circumstances, Stenko
proclaimed that the Czarewitch was not dead, but had fled to his camp
in order to seek refuge from his father's cruelty. A young Circassian,
so it is alleged, was employed to personate the prince, whilst another
representative was found to personify Nikon, the late patriarch of the
Russian Church, who had been deposed and imprisoned by the Czar. The
imposture was immensely successful for a time, as multitudes of the
High Church party joined the rebels, whose numbers ultimately exceeded
one hundred thousand men. Their triumph, however, was but transient,
as they were entirely routed by the Imperial troops, whose taste for
blood was gratified by the massacre of several thousands of the rebels,
among whom, it is presumed, was the personator of the deceased
Czarewitch.
The nearer we approach our own time the fewer, it might be anticipated,
would be these claimants; but that they have not become an extinct
class our pages will show. Not only has there been a numerous and
apparently inexhaustible supply of candidates for the name and title of
the so-called "Louis the Seventeenth" of France, the little Dauphin who
is believed to have perished in the first French revolution, but even
quite recently instances have occurred in England of persons claiming
to be the hereditary representatives of the royal houses of Stuart and
Brunswick. A perusal of the following sketches will prove, however,
that only those pretenders have obtained any strong hold upon national
feeling who have appeared in times of general dissatisfaction or public
calamity, and when the people have been only too willing to swear
allegiance to any one having the slightest shadow of authority, and
who, at the same time, appeared disposed to rectify their grievances.
This will account, to some extent, for a curious phenomenon connected
with these claimants, and that is the fact that at certain epochs in
history they appear in clusters. In Henry the Seventh's reign it was
thus in England; Portugal beheld four Sebastians appear successively;
whilst Russia has been quite a hotbed for these mushroom monarchs,
having produced, among others, four false Demetriuses and six pseudo
Peters.
But enough has been said to prove the richness of the ground now
broken, and in leaving this book in the reader's hands, it may be
remarked that it is the result of several years' research amid "quaint
and curious volumes of forgotten lore;" amid, in some instances, old
tomes of considerable rarity. A small portion of this work it should,
moreover, be added, was published in the pages of a magazine about ten
years ago, but that portion has been thoroughly revised for the present
publication.