Roger Tichborne

“ The man himself, it was always admitted, was indeed a prodigious development, so the comparison was always led away from the person to some minute or out-of-the-way circumstances, which it was said 'none but Roger Tichborne could possibly have known.' Few considered how completely the defenses had been opened to the claimant, and that he had the run of the Tichborne annals, archives, gossip, and every thing. Every day he had opportunities of acquiring a little more of the social gloss which befitted his assumed rank ”

“ A curious factor influencing the value of evidence of personal identification is the readiness with which credulous humanity will accept any story however improbable. But for this the notorious Tichborne case, which dragged on for years, would have been settled in a few days. It is difficult now, recalling the facts, to understand how anyone could have believed in the identity of the butcher, Arthur Orton, with the missing heir to the estates, Roger Tichborne. The latter was of a slim build, while the claimant was a couple of inches taller and weighed twenty-five stones. ”

“ The real Roger Tichborne was supposed to have been lost in a vessel called the Bella, which had sailed from Rio in South America for Australia. A claim was made on the Tichborne baronetcy. The claimant's counsel, Dr Keneally, who did not get on very well with the judges, commenced a paper called the Englishman, which gave full accounts of the trial. It was widely read by enthusiasts who believed that Dr Keneally's client was the real Sir Roger. It was this trial that the coterie of commanders had gathered together to discuss. One of them, Captain Rush, was a staunch believer in the claimant. ”

“ Still there was no answer; and thereupon Mr. Gosford, declaring that the whole [293] interview "was idle," left the place. That packet, unfortunately, was no longer in existence. Some years after Roger Tichborne's death appeared to be beyond all doubt, Mr. Gosford had simply burnt it, regarding it as a document which it would be useless, and which he had no right, to keep, and yet one which, on the other hand, he should not be justified in giving up to any living person. ”

“ All Alresford may, in fact, be said to have been converted; the bells were rung on the Claimant's arrival there; and Colonel Lushington, the tenant of Tichborne house, invited the Australian stranger and his wife to stay with him there. Colonel Lushington had never seen Roger Tichborne, but he has explained that he was impressed by his visitor's knowledge of the old pictures on the walls, which, it will be remembered, Bogle had been sent by "Mr. Taylor" to reconnoitre. ”

“ At Lloyd's the unfortunate vessel was finally written down upon the "Loss Book"—the insurance was paid to the owners, and in time the "Bella" faded away from the memories of all but those who had lost friends or relatives in her. Lady Tichborne was always full of hope that her son had been saved, and could never be brought [278] to regard him as drowned; but we have now seen the last of the real Roger Tichborne, and our next business will be with the counterfeit. ”

“ There was, accordingly, a very palpable stuff of evidence in favor of the man from Australia. I have already said that the public accepted the stranger. It needs to be recorded that every new shred of similarity or circumstance that could be brought out only added to the conviction of the people. This was unquestionably Roger Tichborne and none other. Some elements asserted their opinion with a passion that was not far from violence, and the public generally regarded the hostile attitude of the Tichborne family as based on selfish motives. ”

“ The Tichbornes date their possession of the present patrimony, the manor of Tichborne, so far back as two hundred years before the Conquest. When the Lady Mabella, [135] worn out with age and infirmity, was lying on her deathbed, she besought her loving husband, Sir Roger Tichborne, as her last request, that he would grant her the means of leaving behind her a charitable bequest, in a Dole of Bread to be distributed to all who should apply for it annually on the Feast of Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. ”

“ Baigent knew perfectly well what we were going to say about the ears. At this stage of his cross-examination there was an adjournment, and when he comes back into the box he is questioned further about the other daguerreotype, and he then said neither of the pictures gave a representation of Roger Tichborne’s ears. He throws dirt, you see, on the daguerreotypes, but he asserts they show the same sort of ear that the claimant now has. But my learned friend called Colonel Stuart Wortley. We are told he is a great authority in matters of photographs. ”

“ However, he did his best to reform his error by getting married again by a Roman priest, although he made another blunder, and forgetting he was Sir Roger Tichborne, married as Arthur Orton, the son of the Wapping butcher. When his dear mother reminded him of his being a Catholic, he wrote and thanked her for the information, and hoped the Blessed Maria would take care of her for evermore, little dreaming that the "Black Maria" would one day take particularly good care of himself. ”

“ It was shown that the claimant, on arriving in England from Sydney in 1866, had first of all directed his steps to Wapping and inquired about the surviving members of his family. It was discovered, too, that Roger Tichborne was never at Melipilla, an assertion to which the claimant, transferring his own adventures in South America to the account of the man whom he impersonated, had committed himself in an affidavit. These discoveries and the deaths of Lady Tichborne and Hopkins were so discouraging that the “claimant” would gladly have “retired” from the baronetage ”

“ I should love to score off Dawson. He is an aggravating beast."
"Study his ears," said I. "He cannot alter their chief characters. The lobes of his ears are not loose, like yours or mine or those of most men and women; his are attached to the back of his cheekbones. My mother had lobes like those, so had the real Roger Tichborne; I noticed Dawson's at once. Also at the top fold of his ears he has rather a pronounced blob of flesh. This blob, more prominent in some men than in others, is, I believe, a surviving relic of the sharp point which adorned the ears of our animal ancestors. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the presence of Lord Arundell and other witnesses, this man then stated that the Claimant of the Tichborne estates was his brother Arthur, that he had been induced by him to change his name to Brand, and to remain in concealment, that in return the Claimant had allowed him £5 per month; but that, since his departure for Chili, the allowance had ceased. Letters of Charles Orton to the Claimant's wife, asking whether "Sir Roger Tichborne, before he went away, left anything for a party of the name of Brand," have been found and published ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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 the Carbineers. ”

“ The baronetcy and estates passed in 1862 to Roger’s younger brother, Sir Alfred Joseph Doughty-Tichborne, who died in 1866. The only person unconvinced of Roger’s death was his mother the dowager Lady Tichborne, from whom every tramp-sailor found a welcome at Tichborne Park. She advertised largely and injudiciously for the wanderer, and in November 1865 she learnt, through an agency in Sydney, that a man “answering to the description of her son” had been found in the guise of a small butcher at Wagga Wagga, in Queensland. ”

“ Of the Bella’s master, or the forty members of her crew, there is no surviving memory, and only a grimy hunt through the old shipping records could avail in the discovery of anything concerning them. But the lone passenger happened to be the son of a British baronet and heir to a great estate—Roger Charles Doughty Tichborne. The succession and the inheritance of the Tichborne wealth depended upon the proof of this young man’s death. ”

“ It is to be observed that, during all this time, no word had been spoken by the Claimant of his having confided to Mr. Gosford a vow to build a church. Four years later, when under examination, he was asked whether he had ever left any other private document with Mr. Gosford, and he answered, "I think not." Then it was that counsel produced the copy of the vow to build the church in Roger Tichborne's hand, which he had fortunately given to his cousin on the sorrowful day of their last parting; and finally there was found and read aloud the letter of Roger Tichborne to [294] Mr. ”

“ The time soon came when Roger had to think of a profession, and James Tichborne again gave mortal offence to his wife by determining that the young man [263] should go into the army. Among the daughters of Sir Henry, was one who had married Colonel William Greenwood of the Grenadier Guards. Their house at Brookwood was but half an hour's ride from Tichborne, and Roger was fond of visiting there. Colonel Greenwood's brother George was also in the army, and he took kindly to Roger, and determined to do his best to get him on. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Roger went to Tichborne for a long stay, but Miss Doughty returned to school at the convent at Taunton. In the Midsummer holidays, however, they once more met at the house in Hampshire, and for six weeks the young cousins saw each other daily. Then Miss Doughty went away to Scotland with her parents; and the youth took upon himself the pleasant duty of going to see the party take their departure from St. Katherine's Wharf. October found the party again assembled at Tichborne Park; and there Roger took farewell of uncle, aunt, and cousin, to go to Ireland and join his regiment ”

“ There was one house in which Roger naturally shrank from saying farewell. He had made a solemn resolution that he would go to Tichborne no more while matters remained thus, [274] and his pride was wounded by what appeared to him to be a want of confidence on the part of Lady Doughty. In a worldly point of view it is difficult to conceive any union more desirable than that of the two cousins. ”

“ They do manage to get it good there, certainly. I wish they would give out a few dozens as prizes at collections; it would do us a great deal more good than a Russia-leather book with the college arms on it. I don’t know that I shouldn’t take to reading in that case.”
“Drink a dozen of it, old fellow, if you can,” said Tichborne. “But really I am sorry we couldn’t get Russell here this evening; I think he would be rather an acquisition, if he could be drawn out. As to his not drinking wine, that’s a matter of taste ”

“ Tichborne was the fifth of the conspirators to be hanged on 20 Sept. He was ‘a goodly young gentleman,’ and his speech as well as his demeanour moved many to compassion. He spoke feelingly of his good mother, his loving wife, his four brethren and six sisters, and of his house, ‘from two hundred years before the Conquest never stained till this my misfortune.’ He suffered the full penalty of the law, being disembowelled before life was extinct. ”

“ Tichborne planned out for the future heir of Tichborne a life of perpetual absenteeism. He should [260] 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. ”