Written By: Nancy Britten
European history is peppered with stories of imposture and cases of fraud, which have intrigued and perplexed the public for many generations. Of course, passionately debating whether Perkin Warbeck and Lambert Simnel really were the Princes in the Tower is practically a rite of passage for most history students. However, among the most compelling narratives of deception, the trials of Roger Tichborne, ‘The Tichborne Claimant’, and Martin Guerre stand out as two remarkable examples. Emerging in distinct historical contexts, these cases not only captivated the public imagination but also ignited political movements and have been immortalised through popular literature, films and more recent works of historians. Focusing on their ability to capture entire communities, both cases illustrate the enduring allure of doubles and deception and the evolving nature of microhistory as a lens for understanding the past.
The first of these two audacious cases, that of Martin Guerre and the man who masqueraded as him, Arnaud du Tilh, unfolds against the backdrop of sixteenth-century France. Martin Guerre, a peasant, mysteriously disappeared after being accused of theft, leaving his wife Bertrande stranded for six anguishing years, unable to prove his death or dissolve their marriage. When a man claiming to be Martin reappeared, Bertrande was torn between relief and suspicion. Despite bearing resemblance and demonstrating familiarity with the community, doubts about his identity persisted.
The ensuing trial problematises concepts of memory and perception as over a hundred and fifty witnesses offered conflicting testimonies. Bertrande’s hesitant participation cast her as a protagonist, challenging conventional notions of female agency, complicity in deceit, and ideas of female innocence. For me, her testimony in support of du Tilh represents an ingenious act of manoeuvring within the patriarchal system to ensure familial security by regaining her husband. The trial climaxed with the unexpected return of the real Martin Guerre, marked by his war-induced wooden leg, which shattered Arnaud du Tilh’s façade. This revelation of fraudulence culminated in Du Tilh’s dramatic execution in 1560, leaving an indelible mark on French popular history and cultural memory.
Although there have been numerous popular French stories of imposters of this kind, such as the nobleman Louis de la Pivardière, who returned from the dead during his own murder trial, the following case of the Tichborne Claimant transports us to Victorian England.
The disappearance of Sir Roger Tichborne at Sea in 1823 left his mother, Lady Tichborne, seeking answers through newspaper adverts. A decade later, a man claiming to be Roger emerged in Wagga Wagga, Australia, as Arthur Orton, a butcher with distinctly a different background, accent, and physical stature. Despite these discrepancies, Lady Tichborne, desperate for her son’s return, embraced Orton as her lost heir and supported him financially with an allowance of £1000 a year. Overcome with greed, Orton’s attempt to claim the Tichborne estates triggered a monumental legal trial in 1873. The trials, marked by extensive investigations and testimonies, unfolded over 188 days, captivating Victorian society with sensational details. Despite Orton’s efforts to assert his identity, including physical examinations and familial connections, he crumbled under scrutiny, leading to his eventual conviction for perjury.
Admittedly, I have barely touched upon the intricacies of each case here, and I urge you to explore more detailed accounts to truly grasp the full extent of the absurdity, melodrama, and often comic elements at the heart of the court trials. However, I want to focus on the significant public aspect of these trials and the far-reaching political and social legacies that arose from them. In both instances, the line between courtroom and theatre was thin, as these were some of the most talked about court trials of their respective centuries. I can’t help but wonder: why is it that they generated such powerful and enduring public energies and fascination?
When the Tichborne trials ended, the case’s lawyer, Edward Vaughan Kenealy, galvanised a further political movement with its own gazette, public meetings, petitions and involvement of Members of Parliament. Public support for Orten’s claim to an aristocratic title became framed along class lines, serving as a rallying cry for advocates of social justice and defiance against entrenched privilege which resonated with working class communities. The political movement also aligned with other Victorian anti-establishment movements such as antivaccination, anticatholic and opposition to the Contagious Diseases Act, illustrating the case’s potential to mobilise social reform.
A further explanation for what Rohan McWilliam terms ‘Tichbornism’ is the specific historical setting of Victorian society at the dawn of new mass communications. He posits that their inclination towards sensationalism and fascination with impostors and doubles mirrored in literature like Dickens’ works of the era emanates from the Victorians’ own experience of leading double lives, torn between their public personas and private realities. However, I am sceptical over the plausibility of this latter explanation since the similarities between the case of Guerre and Tichborne hold reasonably well despite being separated by almost three centuries and transformations in the mass press, sensationalism, and melodrama.
I argue that this fixation with imposters and personal identity was not an inherently Victorian development since Guerre’s case, despite taking place in a peasant village and lacking the grandeur of its Victorian counterpart, attracted over a hundred and fifty witnesses, and laid bare the importance of communal bonds, rural life, religion, and the role of women amongst the non-elite in Early Modern Europe. Instead, it can be explained by the natural human tendency towards anxiety over identity, truth and belonging in a world defined by uncertainty and upheaval.
These anxieties over identity have persisted for centuries, manifesting themselves today in internet fraud or relationships formed via virtual apps and forums. It is unsurprising, then, that both cases continue to be immortalised by historians and lend themselves well to modern explorations through microhistory. In particular, Natalie Zemon Davis’s The Return of Martin Guerre, later adapted into a historical drama film, and Rohan McWilliam’s The Tichborne Claimant, use these cases as a window into the lives of ordinary people examining a variety of sources in great detail to reveal larger truths about society and culture at large. Most recently, Zadie Smith’s novel The Fraud fictionalises the Tichborne case, extending its reach to issues of slavery and life in Jamaican plantations and further proving the relevance and importance of the themes of identity and deception to modern audiences.
Bibliography
Andrew, Donna T. and Randall McGowen. The Perreaus and Mrs. Rudd : Forgery and Betrayal in Eighteenth-Century London. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2001.
Davis, Natelie Zemon. The Return of Martin Guerre. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1983.
Finlay, Robert. ‘The Refashioning of Martin Guerre’, The American Historical Review 93, no. 3 (1988): 553–71, https://doi.org/10.2307/1868102.
Lewis, Janet and Larry McMurtry. The Wife of Martin Guerre. Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2013.
McWilliam, Rohan. The Tichborne Claimant: A Victorian Sensation. London: Hambledon Continuum, 2007.
Mount, Ferdinand. ‘Fraud Squad.’ London Review of Books 29, no.15 (2007). https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v29/n15/ferdinand-mount/fraud-squad
Smith, Zadie, The Fraud. London: Penguin Bookd Ltd, 2023.
Sprenger, Scott. Review of Aesthetics of Fraudulence in Nineteenth-Century France. Frauds, Hoaxes and Counterfeits, by Scott Carpenter. French Forum 36, no.2/3 (2011): 257-260. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41708762
Wahrman, Dror. Review of The Tichborne Claimant: A Victorian Sensation, by Rohan McWilliam. Victorian Studies 50, no.2 (2008): 299-301. muse.jhu.edu/article/240768.
Retrospect Journal 