{19}
It is more than fifty years since the Tichborne case was not merely the sensation of the day, but divided both educated society and the proletariat of that period as acutely as the most controversial political problem. To anyone who peruses a résumé of the evidence it seems incredible that so obvious an impostor could have not merely put up so good a fight, but also have persuaded a number of people, many of whom were by no means hopeless fools, to find the money to pay for the prolonged litigation that took place, money they confidently expected to get back with interest when the man in whom they believed succeeded to his heritage. The true story, which explains much that has been hitherto inexplicable, has, I believe, never before been related. It was told to me by the late Mr. Llewellin, J.P., of Upton House, near Poole, who had heard it from the family lawyer when he bought the Upton estate from the Tichbornes a great many years ago. All connected with the story have now passed away, and I have the permission of Mr. W. W. Llewellin, who has succeeded to the Upton property, to make the story public.
The story of Roger Tichborne himself up to the time of his supposed death is well known. He was the elder son of James Tichborne, who was himself the third son of Sir Henry Tichborne, Bart., the head of one of the oldest Roman Catholic families in England, possessing large estates in Hampshire. The eldest son had only daughters, and the second, Edward, who took the name of Doughty on inheriting estates in Northampton and Dorset, succeeded to the title. He had only one surviving child, a daughter Kate. The third son, James, married a girl named Henriette Felicité, whose mother was French. Her father was a Mr. Henry Seymour, of Knoyle, Wiltshire. The parents had omitted to go through the marriage ceremony. James Tichborne had two sons, Roger, born in 1829, and RichardAlfred. Although the heir-presumptive to great estates, James Tichborne and his wife were not too well off. They lived mostly in Paris, where Roger was born. He was practically brought up in France until 1845, when he went to the famous Roman Catholic seminary at Stonyhurst. He was there until 1849, when he joined the Carabineers. Though barely twenty, he fell violently in love with his cousin, Kate Doughty. The feeling {20} was not entirely unreciprocated, but her parents were greatly against the marriage. For some reason, possibly because he had a collection of the novels of Paul de Kock, they conceived the idea that Roger Tichborne’s morals were not what they should have been. Also the young couple were first cousins, and the Tichbornes being staunch Roman Catholics, this was an almost insuperable barrier to their union. As his love affair was not running as smoothly as he could have wished, Roger Tichborne decided to go abroad for a time. He saw Kate Doughty and bade her farewell on June 22, 1852, and sailed for Valparaiso in 1853. Before leaving England, he left a sealed packet with his friend and legal adviser, Mr. Gosford. This packet was destined to play an important part in the trial that took place many years later, the claimant being challenged to say what was in it and being unable to do so. On April 20, 1854, Roger Tichborne embarked on the Bella, bound from ValparaisoRio de Janeiro to Kingston. The vessel was never heard of again. Wreckage bearing her name was washed ashore, and it was assumed that she had gone down with all hands. The will left by Roger Tichborne was duly proved, and leave to assume his death was granted by the courts. His father, Sir James Tichborne, who had succeeded to the title and estates in 1853, died in 1862, and was succeeded by his surviving son RichardAlfred, who was a profligate and died in 1866. His wife bore him a posthumous son. About 1863 the widow of Sir James Tichborne started advertising in the Australian papers for her son Roger, and in 1865 Arthur Orton, alias Castro, appeared on the scene. He went to a man named Gibbes, as directed in the advertisements, and said he was Roger Tichborne. His statement was accepted and he proceeded to England to prosecute his claim to the Tichborne estates, with the result that he eventually got, not the estates, but a long term of penal servitude.
To the world the claimant has always been known as Arthur Orton, the youngest son of George Orton, a butcher of Wapping. George Orton in the early part of the nineteenth century had a prosperous business, but for various reasons it decayed, and having a large family to provide for, means to augment the family exchequer had to be sought. In 1833 Mrs. Orton obtained a post as housekeeper at Upton House, near Poole, in Dorset, then owned by Sir Edward Doughty. Although she had already borne a number of children, she was still an extremely attractive woman, having married young, and James Tichborne, the younger brother of the Baronet, became enamoured of her. Morality was never a strong {21} point in the Tichborne family. Dazzled no doubt by what she regarded as the honour done her—difference in rank meant far more in those days than it does now—Mrs. Orton yielded to the importunities of her aristocratic admirer. The result was Arthur Orton, nominally the son of a Wapping butcher, really the illegitimate son of the heir-presumptive of one of the oldest baronetcies in England. Long years afterwards, when Upton had passed into other hands, the new owner was looking over papers that had been left with the property, and he came across a letter from Mrs. Orton thanking James Tichborne for a substantial douceur sent on the birth of the boy. From his earliest childhood this boy’s mother used to tell him he was not as other members of his family but was really of noble birth, a story he boastfully repeated as he grew older.
At the age of fourteen Arthur Orton went out to South America, where he remained some time. He acquired much information regarding the country and its people, knowledge which served him in good stead when many years later at the famous trial, claiming to be Roger Tichborne, he was rigorously cross-examined as to how he had spent his time in that part of the Antipodes. After a stay of some years he returned to England. Then he went out to Australia and set up as a butcher at Wagga Wagga under the name of Castro. He married a woman who was a Roman Catholic and adopted that religion. The fact that he was a Roman Catholic was considered by those who believed in him to be a strong point in his favour.
Sir James Tichborne succeeded to the estates in 1853 and died in 1862. After his death advertisements were put into the Australian papers asking for information about Roger Tichborne. It has always been said that this advertising was the act of a mother distraught with grief at the loss of a much-loved son. This was not the case, and if it were, it would not explain why eight years elapsed between the disappearance of Roger Tichborne and the appearance of the advertisements. The truth was that strong rumours reached the family that there was a man in Australia, which was then very sparsely populated by Englishmen, who was a harmless imbecile and unable to give an account of himself or say who he was, but who appeared from his talk and manners and from what he did say, to be a man of birth and breeding, and of good family. It was thought that the advertisements might result in this man either coming forward himself or being brought forward, and it would be possible to see if he were Roger Tichborne. The agent of Lady Tichborne was a man named Cubitt, and he had a sub-agent {22} named Gibbes, who did not know the cause of the advertisements but only knew that Roger Tichborne had disappeared and was being advertised for.
One day Arthur Orton, alias Castro, appeared before Gibbes at Wagga Wagga and said he had come in answer to the advertisement. He did not at first say straight out that he was Roger Tichborne, but, being encouraged by the attitude of Gibbes, he did so in the course of the interview. As a matter of fact it is practically certain that Roger Tichborne did not go down in the Bella, but was picked up clinging to some wreckage. Shock and exposure had destroyed his intellect and memory and left him a harmless imbecile, unable to remember who he was or give a reasonably coherent account as to how he came to be out in the sea, manifestly the sole survivor of an ocean tragedy. That a quantity of wreckage, undoubtedly that of the Bella, was floating about is certain, because it was the finding of this wreckage which was taken as conclusive evidence that the Bella had foundered with all on board, when probate was granted of the will of Roger Tichborne. It is not by any means improbable that there were originally several survivors clinging to the wreckage, all but one of whom were swept away and drowned. The castaway thus rescued was taken to Australia, and was for a time in the asylum at Paramatta. As he was perfectly harmless he was let out, and wandered about doing odd jobs.
After a time he met Orton, alias Castro, and the two became very friendly. Although Roger Tichborne did not know who he himself was, he had vague memories of what had happened in his past life. At times he would be extremely garrulous, telling story after story of his boyhood and youth, at times his memory seemed to go and he would say nothing. Arthur Orton, alias Castro, was a very astute gentleman. His fencing under cross-examination extorted admiration from the opposing counsel. Seeing the advertisement in the papers, and putting two and two together, he came to the conclusion that his garrulous friend of weak intellect was really Roger Tichborne.
At first his idea probably was to have taken Roger Tichborne home to his family and to have lived comfortably for the rest of his life on the pension he had no doubt would be given to him. Later on, as he became more and more acquainted with Roger Tichborne’s past, the idea occurred to him that it would be quite feasible to pass himself off as Roger Tichborne and so get the title and estates for himself. His mother had often impressed on him {23} that his true lineage was really very superior to that of a butcher. The advertisements showed that the family had reason to believe that Roger Tichborne was somewhere in Australia and would appear from there to claim his own. He accordingly went to see Mr. Gibbes, the person who, the advertisements said, should be first communicated with. It is probable that when he went to the interview he was not quite sure whether he would say that he had found Roger Tichborne or claim to be Roger Tichborne himself. So he began by producing a copy of the advertisement and saying he had come on account of it. Rather to his surprise, Gibbes at once jumped to the conclusion that he had come to say that he was Roger Tichborne, and accepted him as the long-lost heir. If Gibbes had merely listened to what he had to say and then asked him a number of questions, he would in all probability have never put forward his claim at all. But Gibbes’ action decided him. If an attorney, as Gibbes was, could be so easily persuaded to accept him, why not the whole world? The story of how he came home, and how his claim failed, and how he was sentenced to a long term of penal servitude, is well known. Two things absolutely did for him, apart from a number of minor ones. The first was that he could not speak a word of French, and Roger Tichborne had been brought up in France and spoke French more fluently than he spoke English, and the second was that he did not know what was in the sealed packet that Roger Tichborne had left with Mr. Gosford, his agent at home, when he started for America. It really concerned the disposition of certain property to the Roman Catholic Church. The claimant took a blind shot and said it was record of the fact that he had seduced his cousin Kate Doughty. This lady, who at the time of the trial had become Mrs. Radcliffe, went into the witness-box and indignantly denied the statement, which, apart from its mendacity, was an extremely foolish one and calculated to injure his claim. Roger Tichborne was a gentleman, and gentlemen do not seduce the young ladies they are going to marry. If they do happen to do so, they carry the secret to the grave.
Throughout the case the claimant knew that Roger Tichborne was alive in Australia, and the trustees who were defending the case on behalf of the infant son of RichardAlfred Tichborne had a very shrewd suspicion that this was the case, a suspicion that had been aroused partly by the rumours that had come home, and partly by the knowledge the claimant had on certain matters, which he could only have learnt from Roger Tichborne. If the evidence is {24} examined, it will be seen that much of it was to the effect that the claimant bore a strong resemblance to the Tichborne family generally, and had certain traits borne by other of its members. Officers of the Carabineers, about whose veracity and honesty there could be no question, went into the witness-box, and deposed that, while they could not say for certain that the claimant was Roger Tichborne, yet he was uncommonly like what he might have become. The claimant was a huge, fat man, but thin, slight men become fat sometimes when they are middle-aged. Some years ago I was dining at Snowdon, in Simla, and I told Sir Charles Monro, the Commander-in-Chief, the story of the case. He said that in his youthful days he had a friend in the Carabineers who met the claimant, and was so impressed with the truth of his story, corroborated as it was by knowledge of things that only Roger Tichborne could have known, and by the strong resemblance that the claimant bore to the Tichborne family, that he lent him two hundred pounds, to be repaid when the claimant succeeded to the estates.
If Arthur Orton had been properly defended in the criminal trial by a really able lawyer instead of by Dr. Kenealy, whose main idea seems to have been to insult the judge as often as possible, it is very probable he might have escaped conviction. A clever counsel would have taken the line that he had unfortunately failed to prove conclusively that he was Roger Tichborne, and the prosecution must now prove conclusively that he was not. He would have pointed out how impartial witnesses had testified to the fact that he had every appearance of being a Tichborne—and what more could be expected after all these years?—and he certainly knew things that only Roger Tichborne could have known. Counsel might very likely have raised doubts in the minds of the jury as to whether there was not a possibility, after all, of the claimant being what he claimed to be and so obtaining his acquittal. When Mr. Llewellin was told the true story, he was also told the name under which Roger Tichborne was believed to have gone in Australia, and just before the conclusion of the negotiations for the purchase of the Upton estate, he happened to see amongst a list of passengers one of this name. Being alarmed, he hastily wrote to his solicitors not to do anything further until he had satisfied himself that this was not another claimant. He was reassured, as the lawyers told him that the trustees, fearing another claimant or possibly Roger Tichborne himself, had got an Act of Parliament passed declaring the baby, Sir Henry Tichborne, to be the lawful owner of the estates.