Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton

"No, sir; it was necessary to pass through the courts of the Temple. The applicant then knocked at a wicket. I answered the summons; and if I recognised the person I opened the...

Louis-Charles was the second son of Louis XVI. and his consort Marie-Antoinette, and was born at the Chateau of Versailles, on the 27th of March, at five minutes before seven in...

There are few cases in the long list of French _causes célèbres_ more remarkable than that of the alleged Martin Guerre. This individual, who was more greatly distinguished by h...

During the period just mentioned, the then last of the Tichbornes made many friends, and if he did not become what we understand as accomplished, he was refined and sensitive. D...

When affairs were in this stage the Viscountess Turpin, Bruneau's first benefactress, arrived in Rouen. M. de Pomelière, the officer of the king's guard who had suspected him fr...

Thus suddenly enriched, he set up a magnificent establishment in Paris. His horses and carriages were among the most splendid in the Champs Elysées, his banquets were equal to t...

The case for the infant was briefly as follows:--Mr. W.G. Howard, his reputed father, was married to Miss Richardson, in February, 1863. Four months after their marriage the cou...

"The purport of the document which I read repeatedly word by word, comparing the French with the English, was this: It was a solemn abdication of the crown of France in favour o...

In the third and last of the tales--"The Wolf's Den"--the "Red Eagle" reappears, and is married to an English lady named Catherine Bruce. His pretensions to royalty are even mor...

Lasné at once acquainted Gomin and Damont, the commissary on duty, with the event, and they instantly repaired to the room. The poor little royal corpse was carried from the apa...

The Abbé de l'Epée, astounded by the striking similarity between the facts and Joseph's account of himself, at once came to the conclusion that Providence had chosen him as the...

Soon after this it was rumoured in the neighbourhood of Alresford, that the Dowager Lady Tichborne had acknowledged the stranger as her lost son Roger; that she had determined t...

The idea of colonizing Nova Scotia found great favour in the eyes both of James VI. and Charles I., and the former monarch rewarded Sir William Alexander of Menstrie, who active...

One would have supposed that this remarkable display of ignorance would have sufficed to convince all reasonable men of the falsity of the story, but it was far otherwise. The r...

By this time it was well known in France that Bonaparte's word, once passed, would not be broken; and Hervagault, losing all hope, abandoned himself to drunkenness and the wilde...

Until 1806, when the claim was renewed, the pretenders to the Banbury honours had not only styled themselves earls in all legal documents, but they had been so described in the...

The chief nobles assembled when the death of the czar was made known, and proclaimed his son Feodor emperor in his stead; but the lad's reign was very brief. The greater part of...

Time rolled on, and no Roger, true or false, made his appearance. One day the Dowager happened to see in a newspaper a mention of the fact that there was in Sydney a man named C...

To Boisdale, in Australia, the Commission then repaired, and though this is many thousands of miles from South America, but here similar discoveries were made. Mr. William Foste...

This strangely assorted couple had no sooner landed upon the island than the _pseudo_ De Tarnaud asked to be directed to the house of one of the leading inhabitants, and was ref...

Towards the end of 1722, Lord Altham--who had by this time picked up a mistress named Miss Gregory--removed to Dublin, and sent for his son to join him. He seemed very fond of t...

The list of pretenders to regal honours was not even yet complete. In 1598, a Portuguese noble was accosted in the streets of Padua by a tattered pilgrim, who addressed him by n...

"All here is in a death-like repose, no living thing save a few innocent pigeons, half wild; but there has been a tremendous confusion, a wild and wilful uproar of rending, and...

This book is intended much less to gratify a temporary curiosity than to fill an empty page in our literature. In our own and in other countries Claimants have been by no means...

The picture, which had been produced on the first trial as a portrait of Sir Hugh, was proved beyond all doubt to be that of John Provis, the eldest son of the carpenter; and th...

"Olive, provided the royal family acknowledge you, keep secret all the papers which are connected with the king's first marriage; but should the family's desertion (be) manifest...

By means of his spies, Henry, after a time, succeeded in tracing the true pedigree of Warbeck, and immediately published it for the satisfaction of the nation. At the same time...

Roger went back to his regiment in Ireland soon after the date given in the foregoing extract; but the Carabineers were finally removed to Canterbury, and in the summer he again...

Thus ended the great Tichborne impersonation case, the most remarkable feature in which was, not that a rude ignorant butcher should proclaim himself a baronet, but that thousan...