Chapter 23

"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 a crash of headlong havoc, every angle is surrounded with desolation, and the whole is a monument of state vengeance and destruction. But here is the land--the home of my fathers--which I have been robbed of; this is a piece of the castle, and the room in which they lived, and talked, and walked, and smiled, and were cradled and watched with tender affection. You never saw this old tower nearer than from the road; the walls of it are three feet or more in some parts thick, and of rough stone inside. The floor of this room where I am writing this scrawl is verdure, and damp with the moisture from heaven. It has not even beams left for a ceiling, and the stairs up to it are scarcely passible; but I am truly thankful that all the little articles I brought are now up in this room, and no accident to my men.

"Radcliffe's flag is once more raised! and the portraits of my grandfather and great-grandfather are _here_, back again to Devilstone Castle (_alias_ Dilstone), and hung on each side of this roofless room, where both their voices once sounded. Oh! as I gaze calmly on these mute warders on the walls, I cannot paint you my feelings of the sense of injustice and wrong, a refining, a resenting sorrow--my heart bleeds at the thought of the cruel axe, and I am punished for its laws that no longer exist. I pray not to be horror-stricken at the thoughts of the past ambition and power of princes who cast destruction over our house, and made us spectacles of barbarity. But, nevertheless, many great and Christian men the Lord hath raised out of the house of Radcliffe, who have passed away; and now, oh! Father of Heaven! how wonderfully hast Thou spared the remnant of my house, a defenceless orphan, to whom no way is open but to Thy Fatherly heart. Now Thou hast brought me here, what still awaits me? 'Leave Thou me not; let me never forget Thee. Thou hast girded me with strength into the battle. I will not therefore fear what man can do unto me.'

"These are my thoughts and resolutions. But I am struggling with the associations of this lone, lone hearth--with no fire, no father, no mother, sister or brother left--the whole is heartrending. I quit you now, my kind friends; I am blind with tears, but this is womanly weakness.

"Twelve o'clock the same day. My tears of excitement have yielded to counter-excitement. I have just had an intrusive visitor, who came to inquire if it is my intention to remain here. I replied in the affirmative, adding earnestly, 'I have come to my roofless home,' and asked 'Who are you?' He answered 'I am Mr. Grey, the agent for her Majesty, and I shall have to communicate your intention.' I answered, 'Quite right, Mr. Grey. Then what _title_ have you to show that her Majesty has a right here to my freehold estates?' He replied, 'I have no _title_.' I then took out a parchment with the titles and the barony and manors, and the names of my forty-two rich estates, and held it before him and said, 'I am the Countess of Derwentwater, and my title and claim are acknowledged and substantiated by the Crown of England, morally, legally, and officially; therefore my title is the title to these forty-two estates.' He has absented himself quietly, and I do hope my lords will not leave my case now to under officials.--Yours truly, AMELIA, COUNTESS OF DERWENTWATER."

Their lordships left the case to very minor officials, indeed; namely to a person whom the countess describes as "a dusky little man" and his underlings, and they without hesitation ejected her from Dilstone Hall. The lady was very indignant, but was very far from being beaten, and she and her adherents immediately formed a roadside encampment, under a hedge, in gipsy fashion, and resolved to re-enter if possible. From her letters it appears that she was very cold and very miserable, and, moreover, very hungry at first. But the neighbouring peasantry were kind, and brought her so much food eventually, that she tells one of her friends that cases of tinned meats from Paris would be of no use to her. The worst of the encampment seems to have been that it interfered with her usual pastime of sketching, which could not be carried on in the evenings under a tarpaulin, by the light of a lantern.

But her enemies had no idea that she should be permitted to remain under the hedge any more than in the hall itself. On the 21st of October, at the quarter sessions for the county of Northumberland, the chief constable was questioned by the magistrates about the strange state of affairs in the district, and reported that the encampment was a little way from the highway, and that, therefore, the lady could not be apprehended under the Vagrant Act! A summons, however, had been taken out by the local surveyor, and would be followed by a warrant. On that summons the so-called countess was convicted; but appealed to the Court of Queen's Bench.

During the winter the encampment could not be maintained, and the weather, more powerful than the Greenwich commissioners, drove the countess from the roadside. But in the bright days of May she reappeared to resume the fight, and this time took possession of a cottage at Dilston, whence, says a newspaper report of the period, "it is expected she will be ejected; but she may do as she did before, and pitch her tent on the high-road." On the 30th of the same month, the conviction by the Northumberland magistrates "for erecting a hut on the roadside," was affirmed by the Court of Queen's Bench.

On the 17th November, 1869, while Mr. Grey was collecting the Derwentwater rents, the countess marched into the apartment, at the head of her attendants, to forbid the proceedings. She was richly apparelled, but her semi-military guise did not save herself, or those who came with her, from being somewhat rudely ejected. Her sole consolation was that the mob cheered her lustily as she drove off in her carriage.

On the 5th of January, in the following year, a great demonstration in her favour took place at Consett, in the county of Durham. A few days previously a large quantity of live stock had been seized at the instance of the countess, for rent alleged to be due to her, and an interdict had been obtained against her, prohibiting her from disposing of it. However, she defied the law, and in the midst of something very like a riot, the cattle were sold, flags were waved, speeches were made, and the moment was perhaps the proudest which the heiress of the Derwentwaters is likely to see in this country.

Such conduct could not be tolerated. The Lords of the Admiralty were roused, and formally announced that the claims of the so-called countess were frivolous. They also warned their tenants against paying their rents to her, and took out summonses against those who had assisted at the sale. On the 16th of January, the ringleaders in the disgraceful affair were committed for trial.

Notwithstanding this untoward _contretemps_, the countess made a further attempt, in February, to collect the rents of the forty-two freehold estates, which she said belonged to her. But the bailiffs were in force and resisted her successfully, being aided in their work by a severe snowstorm, which completely cowed her followers, although it did not cool her own courage. On the 11th of February, 1870, the Lords of the Admiralty applied for an injunction to prevent the so-called countess from entering on the Greenwich estates, and their application was immediately granted. Shortly afterwards the bailiff acting on behalf of the countess, and the ringleaders in the Consett affair, were sentenced to short terms of imprisonment. Thus those in possession of the property could boast a decided victory.

But the law courts are free to all, and the countess determined to take the initiative. She had jewels, and pictures, and documents which would at once prove her identity and the justice of her claim. Unfortunately they were all in Germany, and the lady was penniless. By the generosity of certain confiding gentlemen, about £2000 was advanced, on loan, to bring them to this country. They came, but their appearance was not satisfactory even to the creditors, who became clamorous for their money. There was only one way left to satisfy them, and Amelia, of Derwentwater, took it. The jewels and pictures were brought to the hammer in an auction-room in Hexham--the countess disappeared from public ken, and the newspapers ceased to chronicle her extraordinary movements.

ARTHUR ORTON--WHO CLAIMED TO BE SIR ROGER CHARLES DOUGHTY TICHBORNE, BART.

The case of Arthur Orton is too recent to need many words of introduction. We have hardly yet cooled down to a sober realization of the facts which, as they stand, mark the latest and most bulky of the claimants, as not only the greatest impostor of modern or perhaps of any days, the base calumniator who endeavoured to rob a woman of her fair fame to gratify his own selfish ends, but as a living proof of the height to which the blind credulity of the public will now and again elevate itself. Arthur Orton is in prison undergoing what all thinking men must admit to be a very lenient sentence--a sentence which in no way meets the justice of the case; for the advent of this huge carcase lumbering the earth with lies was nothing less than a misfortune to the people of England. And the word misfortune, if used even in its highest and widest sense, will in no way imply that which has happened to a peaceful family, who have been associated with their lands and titles as long as our history goes back, and who have had their privacy violated, and the sanctity of their homes invaded; who have been pilloried before a ruthless and unsympathising mob, who have had their women's names banded from one coarse mouth to another, and who--least misfortune of all--have had to expend large sums of money, and great amounts of time and trouble, to free themselves from a persecution as unparalleled as it was vicious and cruel. Those who, having neither fame nor fortune to lose, speak lightly and think not at all of the sorrows which were launched avalanche-like upon the devoted heads of the Tichbornes and their connections, would do well to ponder over what such personation as that of Arthur Orton means to its immediate victims. It means a sudden derangement of all the ties and sympathies by which life is made dear, a sudden shock which never in life will be recovered. There is no member of the community, no matter how well and how carefully he has chosen his path in life, who would not fear to have his every action published and criticised, his every motive analysed unfairly, and the most mischievous construction placed upon each deed or thought found capable of perversion. How much more terrible would it be, then, for any man to know that his wife or mother was to be subjected to such ordeal; that for no fault committed, for nothing but the delectation of an unscrupulous scoundrel and his admirers, a tender and sensitive lady was to be put to torture far worse than any physical punishment could ever have been, even in ages and countries whose only refinement was that of cruelty?

Arthur Orton is in prison, but there are still many who loudly assert their belief in his identity with the lost Sir Roger; there are others who are quite as strong in their avowals of doubt as to the name found for the huge mystery being the correct one; and there are again others who, caring little who or what the man may be, affect to credit many of his most villanous utterances. But do these people in their blind impetuosity ever give the merits of the case one thought? do they remember that Orton was detected in his every lie, and found as heinously guilty as man can be detected and found guilty, when the evidence against him admits of but circumstantial proof? They do not; and like the man who constantly avers that the earth is flat, and his congeners who deny the existence of a Being who is apparent in every one of His marvellous works, the believers in Orton must be placed in the catalogue of those who, either of malice prepense, or from mental affliction, take the wrong view of a subject as naturally as sparks fly upwards. If the man now in prison is Sir Roger Tichborne, then trial by jury, the selection of our judges, and the whole basis of our legal system--indeed, of almost every system by which calm and peaceful government is maintained, and the right of the subject duly regarded--must be radically wrong, and right is wrong also. If he is not Arthur Orton, then there never was an Arthur Orton, and Wapping is a place which has no existence out of the annals of the Tichborne trial.

The baronetcy of Tichborne, now Doughty-Tichborne, is not only old of itself, and connected with vast estates, but is held by a family well known in the history of this country, even as far as that history goes. No _parvenu_, whose rank is the result of success in cheesemongering or kindred pursuit, is the holder of the title, for, as Debrett tells us, the family of Tichborne was of great importance in Hampshire before the Conquest, and derives its name from the river Itchen, at the head of which it had estates; "hence it was called De Itchenbourne, since corrupted into Tichborne. Sir John de Tichborne, knight, sheriff of Southampton, on hearing of the death of Queen Elizabeth, immediately repaired to Winchester, and there proclaimed King James VI. (of Scotland) as King of England. In 1621, he was created a baronet, the honour of knighthood having been previously conferred upon three of his sons, while his fourth son Henry was subsequently knighted. Sir Henry, the third baronet, hazarded his life in defence of Charles I. in several enterprises, and his estates were sequestrated by the Parliamentarians. After the restoration he was successively Lieutenant of the New Forest, and Lieutenant of Ordnance." Other Tichbornes have been sufficiently prominent in their times to leave marks on the history of the country; and altogether riches and honours seemed, until comparatively recently, to be the unshadowed lot of the head of the family. That, however, large estates and long descent do not always secure perfect happiness, has been very well shown in the great trial just past, in many ways perfectly independent of the actual result, or of any question as to whether or not the claimant was he whom he professed to be.

Family differences and unpleasantnesses seem to have been the actual, even if remote, cause of the great imposition of Arthur Orton. Had matters been conducted as one might have anticipated they would among people blessed with the means of gratifying every whim and caprice, Roger Tichborne would have lived and died like other men, and his name would never have been known except as a quiet country gentleman of English origin and French tastes, which led him into more or less eccentricities, and caused him to be more or less popular among his neighbours and dependants. But this was not to be. All great families have their secret unpleasantnesses, and in these the Tichbornes were by no means behindhand. The Tichbornes generally had a knack of disagreeing, and this feeling was shown in excelsis by James, the father of Roger, and his wife, who lived abroad for many years, she being French in every sentiment, while the husband was but naturalized, and now and again exhibited a desire to return to his native land. When Roger was born there was but little chance of his ever becoming the owner of either titles or estates, and so his education was entirely foreign, his tutors being M. Chatillon, and a priest named Lefevre. As time wore on, it became evident that Mr. James Tichborne would in due course become Sir James, and he felt it his duty to secure to his son an English education. This the mother opposed most strenuously, and it was only by artifice that the boy was brought to England. Sir Henry Joseph Tichborne, who had succeeded to the baronetcy in 1821, had no son, and though time after time a child was born to him, Providence blessed him with no male heir. Again and again a child would be born at Tichborne, but it was always a girl. Sir Henry had seven children, of whom six lived, all celebrated for their good looks, and their tall and handsome proportions; but all were daughters. Still there was Sir Henry's brother, Edward Tichborne, who had taken large estates under the will of a Miss Doughty--which led to the present junction of the Doughty and Tichborne properties, and to the double surname--and with them had assumed the name of that lady, and he was after Sir Henry the next heir. Edward had a son and daughter. But one day there came the news to James and his wife in France, that Sir Edward's little boy had died, and then it was that the father perceived more clearly the error that he had made in permitting Roger to grow up ignorant of English habits and the English tongue. Edward Doughty was an old man. His brother James Tichborne himself was growing in years. The prospect of Roger one day becoming the head of the old house of Tichborne, which had once been so remote, had now become almost a certainty. It would not do for the Lord of Tichborne to be a Frenchman; sooner or later he must learn English, and receive an education fitting him to take the position which now appeared in store for him. All this was clear enough to Mr. James, but not so clear to his weak-headed and prejudiced wife. The father did, indeed, obtain her consent to take the boy over to England, and let him see his uncle and aunt, the Doughtys, at Upton, in Dorsetshire, and his uncle, Sir Henry, at the ancestral home down in Hampshire. But Roger was then but a child, and as he grew older Mrs. Tichborne became more than ever resolute in her determination that, come what might, her darling should be a Frenchman. What cared she for the old Hampshire traditions? France was to her the only land worth living in; a Frenchman's life was the only life worthy of the name. Her dear Roger might succeed to the title and estates, but she could not bear the thought of his going to England. It was in her imagination a land of cold bleak rains and unwholesome fogs. But it was worse; it was the country of a people who had been false to their ancient faith. Even the Tichbornes, though still Catholics, had not always been true to their religion. And so Mrs. Tichborne planned out for the future heir of Tichborne a life of perpetual absenteeism. He should marry into some distinguished family in France or Italy, and little short of a Princess should share his fortunes. If he went into the army it should be in some foreign service. But in no case should he go to Tichborne, or set foot in England again, if she could help it.

James Tichborne was like many other weak men who have self-willed wives. He put off the inevitable day as long as he could, but finally achieved his purpose by strategy. Roger was in his seventeenth year when the news arrived that Sir Henry had died. It was right that James Tichborne should be present at his brother's funeral, and reasonable that he should take with him the heir, as everyone regarded him to be. Accordingly Roger took leave of his mother under solemn injunctions to return quickly. But there was no intention of allowing him to return. The boy attended the funeral of his uncle at the old chapel at Tichborne, went to his grandfather's place at Knoyle, and thence, by the advice of relations and friends, and with the consent of the boy himself, he was taken down to the Jesuit College at Stonyhurst, and there placed in the seminary with the class of students known as "philosophers." When Mrs. Tichborne learnt that this step had been completed her fury knew no bounds. Roger wrote her kind and filial letters in French--ill-spelt it is true, but admirably worded, and testifying an amount of good sense which promised well for his manhood. But Mrs. Tichborne gave no reply, and for twelve months the son, though longing ardently for a letter, got no token of affection. Yet Mrs. Tichborne was not the person to see her son removed from her control without an effort. She upbraided her husband violently, and there was a renewal of the old scenes in the Tichborne household; but Roger was now far away, and the danger of Mr. Tichborne's yielding in a momentary fit of weakness was at an end. Meanwhile the mother wrote violent letters to the heads of the college, exposing family troubles in a way which called forth a remonstrance from even the lad himself. What was the precise nature of his studies at Stonyhurst, and what progress he made in them, are questions that have been much debated, but it is certain that he applied himself resolutely to the study of English, and made such progress that, although he could never speak it with so much purity and command of words as when conversing in his mother tongue, he learnt to write it with only occasional errors in spelling and construction. In Latin he made some little progress, and in mathematics more. He attended voluntary classes on chemistry, and his letters evidence an inclination for the study both of science and polite literature. At Stonyhurst Roger may be said to have passed the three happiest years of his life.