PEMBELA ALAM

1 Grigory Otrepyev




Grigory Otrepyev (born Yury Bogdanovich), according to Boris Godunov's government, was a fugitive monk who pretended to be tsarevitch Dmitry Ivanovich, the son of Ivan the Terrible and came to be known as False Dmitry  I. A son of a nobleman, Grigory was a sexton in Chudovo Monastery in the Moscow Kremlin, and once served as the secretary of patriarch Iov. Around 1582 he escaped from the monastery. When in 1604 the impostor who passed himself for tsarevitch Dmitry crossed the Russian border and started war against Boris Godunov, the government officially announced that it was an imposter, namely the fugitive monk Grishka Otrepyev, who was anathematized. Having learned about it, the False Dmitry in some towns occupied by him demonstrated to people a person who argued that he was real Grigory Otrepyev, and Dmitry was the true tsarevitch. According to some data, Otrepyev's role was played by another monk, named Leonid. In this regard Feodor Godunov's government included in the text of the oath to the tsar the statement of refusal to support  “the one who calls himself Dmitry” in April, 1605. 

After the murder of False Dmitry I the government of Vasily Shuisky IV returned to the version that the impostor was Grigory Otrepyev. The name of Grigory Otrepyev remained in the anathema list reсcited every year in the Feast of Orthodoxy Week, till the reign of Alexander II. Lots of contemporaries doubted that the False Dmitry I and Grigory Otrepyev was the same person. Historians in general supported the official version, since there was no sufficient data able to prove or disprove it. 

The famous historian Nikolay Karamzin resolutely supported the Otrepyev version. On the contrary, Nikolay Kostomarov objected to identification of the impostor with Otrepyev, specifying that the False Dmitry I with his education, skills, and behavior reminded of a Polish gentleman rather than a Kostroma nobleman very well familiar with the capital monastic and court life. Moscow boyars should have known Otrepyev by sight as a secretary of patriarch Iov, and t fugitive would have hardly decided to appear before them as tsarevitch. 

Discussions between representatives of both the viewpoints went on even in the 20th century; newly discovered data on Otrepyev's family might explain benevolent attitude of the False Dmitry I to the Romanovs, supporters of their identity surmise. Both the opinions found reflection in the drama works about Boris Godunov written in the 19th century; Karamzin's opinion was conveyed by Alexander Pushkin in his play Boris Godunov, whereas Kostomarov's opinion was followed by Alexey K. Tolstoy in his play Tsar Boris


2 .Arthur Orton

Born 1834 in Wapping, England
Best known as: The impostor who claimed to be a rich British woman's son
Arthur Orton was the subject of one of England's longest-running trials (1873-74). A butcher, he impersonated the son of Lady Henrietta Felicite Seymour Tichborne. Lady Henrietta's oldest son, Roger, had been lost at sea in 1854 and presumed dead. After her husband died, she continued to seek word of Roger, taking out an advertisement in Australian newspapers. 

Orton, then known as Thomas Castro, answered the ad, claimed to be her son and returned (with his wife) to England to live as heir to the family fortune. Lady Henrietta believed him, but others didn't. After a trial that lasted 102 days, a jury determined that the "Tichborne Claimant" was an impostor named Arthur Orton. Then followed a trial for perjury lasting 188 days, in which Arthur Orton was convicted and sentenced to 14 years in prison. He was released in 1884 and confessed in 1885.


3. Raictor


Raiktor or Raictor was an Eastern Orthodox monk who assumed the identity of Byzantine Emperor Michael VII and participated in the Norman campaigns of Robert Guiscard to overthrow the Byzantine Empire.

By 1081, the Byzantine Empire was in a state of chaos. Alexios I Komnenos had just overthrown Nikephoros III Botaneiates, and was confronted with the challenge of dealing with the imminent invasion of the Balkans by Robert Guiscard, the Norman Duke of Apulia. Guiscard had used the overthrow of Emperor Michael VII by Nikephoros III in 1078 as a pretext for launching a full-scale assault against the empire. By 1081, either by a stroke of good fortune or by some creative manipulation there was waiting for him at Salerno a man who claimed to be Robert’s son-in-law, the deposed emperor Michael VII.


It was soon clear that this monk, Raiktor, was not in fact the deposed emperor. Though Michael had indeed become a monk after he was deprived of his throne, by 1081 he had been elevated in the church hierarchy by becoming first a bishop and then an archbishop, and was currently residing at Constantinople. Nevertheless, it was too good an opportunity for Guiscard to resist. Needing a good pretext to launch a war that many of his nobles were unsure about, he accepted Raiktor’s claims to be his imperial relative by marriage. Receiving a letter from Raiktor which stated, "Your son-in-law Michael, who has been expelled from his kingdom has arrived here to solicit your assistance", he read it privately to his wife, and then in an assembly of all the Counts he showed it to them. In it, he recounted Raiktor's tale about how he’d been robbed of his wife and son and all his possessions by the usurper Botaneiates, and that against his will he had been clothed in a monk's garb instead of wearing a crown, and that he had now appeared as a suppliant. Swearing that he would no longer be held back, his nobles all agreed to launch a war against the Eastern Roman Empire.

Declaring that because of their relationship he must restore the empire to Raiktor, daily he showed honor to the monk, continuing the charade that he was the Emperor Michael, giving him the best place at table, a higher seat, and excessive respect. Inevitably, he would commiserate himself on the sad fate of his daughter, and that because of consideration for his son-in-law, he didn’t like to speak about Michael’s misfortune.

Not everyone was taken in by the deception. Guiscard's ambassador to Constantinople, Raoul, had just returned with news of the overthrow of Botaneiates. Laying eyes on Raiktor, he declared that the monk was an imposter, and that his story was a complete fabrication. He told Guiscard that he had seen the ex-emperor with his own eyes in Constantinople, apparently living in a monastery. At these words, the pseudo-emperor Michael became furious and began berating the Norman nobleman, unhappy that his deception had been uncovered. Guiscard, nevertheless, continued with his plans to replace Alexios with Raiktor.

Passing over into the Balkans, he accompanied Guiscard in the Norman’s attempt to take the important city of Dyrrachium. Robert approached the city and declared he was there to restore his son-in-law Michael to the throne of Byzantium. The city governor declared that if they were to see Michael and recognize him, they would immediately open the gates and hand the city over to him. Raiktor was paraded before the city walls in a magnificent procession, escorted by soldiers and nobles, with a band playing music to accompany him. But when the city defenders saw him, they shouted insults at Raiktor, swearing that they did not recognize him. Seeing that his ruse was not working, Guiscard settled down for a lengthy siege.

Nevertheless, word soon reached Alexios that Raiktor was deceiving a good many people, and increasing the numbers of Guiscard’s troops. He sought the aid of the Venetians, who approached Dyrrachium with all speed. When Guiscard became aware of their arrival, he sent his son Bohemund to greet them in the name of the emperor Michael and of Robert. Soon after this, Guiscard drops all mention of his son-in-law, as events in Italy soon saw him return there and Bohemund continued the campaign that Alexios eventually overcame. It is suspected that once his usefulness had passed, Raiktor was disposed of quickly and quietly.

At the time, there was much discussion as to the identity of the monk. It is certain that he was a monk at the time he approached Guiscard, but prior to his taking monastic vows, it was widely believed that Raiktor was probably the cupbearer of the Emperor Michael Ducas. It is certain that he was not the ex-emperor himself.

4 .Karl Wilhelm Naundorff

Karl Wilhelm Naundorff (1785? – August 10, 1845) was a German clock- and watch-maker who until his death claimed to be Prince Louis-Charles, or Louis XVII of France. Naundorff was one of the more stubborn of more than thirty men who claimed to be Louis XVII.

Prince Louis-Charles, the son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, was imprisoned during the French Revolution and believed to have died in prison. However, there were various rumors that monarchist sympathizers had spirited the young dauphin away from the Temple prison and that he was living elsewhere in secret.

The first records of Karl Wilhelm Naundorff are from 1810 in Spandau, Berlin, where he received the citizenship of Prussia. By 1822 he had moved to live with a family in Brandenburg-on-the-Havel where he was later accused of arson and 1824 was jailed for three years for counterfeiting.


When he was released in 1827, he moved to Crossen and wrote the first of two books of would-be-memoirs. The second he wrote in England many years later and was translated to English by Charles G. Perceval, Rector of Calverton, Buckinghamshire, and nephew of Spencer Perceval. He claimed that he had been substituted with a deaf and mute orphan who died soon afterward and that he had been hidden in a secret area of the Tower of the Temple until his escape. He also claimed that he was later recaptured by Napoleon's forces and secretly kept in several dungeons throughout Europe until finally escaping in his mid-twenties. He could present no proof of any of this.

In 1833, Naundorff travelled to Paris where another claimant to the French throne, the Duke of Richemont, was on trial. One of the witnesses for the prosecution read out his letter as a counterclaim.

Despite the fact that Naundorff did not speak French very well, he managed to convince various former members of the Louis XVI's court that he was the Dauphin. He seemed to know everything about the private life of the royal court, gave right answers to most questions and spoke to courtiers as if he had known them as a child. One of them was Agathe de Rambaud, Louis' childhood nurse who accepted him. Others who claimed to have recognized him as the prince include Étienne de Joly, King Louis XVI's Minister of Justice, and Jean Bremond, the king's personal secretary.

However, Princess Marie-Thérèse, the sister of Prince Louis, did not acknowledge him. She had seen pictures of him, claimed she did not see any resemblance to her brother and refused even to see him despite having seen other claimants who were not represented by former members of the royal court. On one occasion Agathe de Rambaud travelled to Prague by carriage to persuade her but to no avail as the princess refused to see her as well.

In 1836, Naundorff sued Marie Thérèse for property that supposedly belonged to him. Instead, the police force of king Louis-Philippe arrested him, seized all his papers and deported him to England. There he worked to develop several military inventions, including an early grenade, and a recoilless rifle which he eventually sold to the Dutch Military. He declared that he would be restored to the throne on January 1, 1840. When that date passed, he lost the majority of his supporters.

Naundorff died on August 10, 1845 in Delft, the Netherlands, possibly of poisoning. He had been living there with his family after being made Director of Pyrotechnics for the Dutch Military. He still had some supporters because the epitaph on his grave reads "Here lies Louis XVII, King of France" and in his death certificate he is named as "Charles-Louis de Bourbon, Duke of Normandy (Louis XVII), who was known under the name of Charles-Guillaume Naundorff, [...] son of His Majesty the late Louis XVI, King of France and of Her Imperial and Royal Highness Marie Antoinette, Archduchess of Austria, Queen of France, who both died in Paris".[1] France has insisted this document be set aside but the Netherlands has refused.[citation needed]

Naundorff's descendants did not give up. Some of them insisted on using the surname "de Bourbon" and they petitioned for recognition to French courts and senates all through the 19th and 20th centuries. Circus director René Charles "de Bourbon," an illegitimate son of one of Naundorff's grandchildren, lost his claim in a French court in 1954. However, some of the descendants still press the claim.

A handful of French historians insist that DNA testing finally resolved the issue of Naundorff's claim —mitochondrial DNA sequences of remains that researchers have claimed to have belonged to Naundorff were compared with sequences obtained from the remains of Marie-Antoinette and two of her sisters, as well as two living maternal relatives. They argue that differences in the nucleotide sequences make it very unlikely that Naundorff was the son of Marie-Antoinette. A group of his descendants disagree that the remains are those of Naundorff and are independently continuing the investigation.


5. Lambert Simnel

Lambert Simnel (ca. 1477 – ca. 1525) was a pretender to the throne of England. His claim to be the Earl of Warwick in 1487 threatened the newly established reign of King Henry VII (reigned 1485–1509). Simnel became the figurehead of a Yorkist rebellion organised by John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln. The rebellion was crushed in 1487. Simnel was pardoned, and was thereafter employed in the Royal kitchens as a servant.

Simnel was born around 1477. His real name is not known – contemporary records call him John, not Lambert, and even his surname is suspect. Different sources have different claims of his parentage, from a baker and tradesman to organ builder. Most definitely, he was of humble origin. At the age of about ten, he was taken as a pupil by an Oxford-trained priest named Richard Simon (or Richard Symonds / Richard Simons / William Symonds) who apparently decided to become a kingmaker. He tutored the boy in courtly manners and contemporaries described the boy as handsome. He was taught the necessary etiquettes and was educated well by Simon.[1] One contemporary described him as "a boy so learned, that, had he ruled, he would have as a learned man."

Simon noticed a striking resemblance between Lambert and the sons of Edward IV, so he initially intended to present Simnel as Richard, Duke of York, son of King Edward IV, the younger of the vanished Princes in the Tower.[1] However, when he heard rumours that the Earl of Warwick had died during his imprisonment in the Tower of London, he changed his mind. The real Warwick was a boy of about the same age and had a claim to the throne as the son of the Duke of Clarence, King Edward IV's brother.


According to James A. Williamson, Simnel was merely a figurehead for a rebellion that was already being planned by the Yorkists:

He was merely a commonplace tool to be used for important ends, and the attempt to overthrow Henry VII would have taken place had Simnel never existed. The Yorkist leaders were determined on a serious push, rising of their party in England supported by as great a force as possible from overseas.

Simon spread a rumour that Warwick had actually escaped from the Tower and was under his guardianship. He gained some support from Yorkists. He took Simnel to Ireland where there was still support for the Yorkist cause, and presented him to the head of the Irish government, the Earl of Kildare. Kildare was willing to support the story and invade England to overthrow King Henry. Simnel was paraded through the streets, carried on the shoulders of "the tallest man of the time", an individual called D'Arcy of Platten. On 24 May 1487, Simnel was crowned in Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin as "King Edward VI". He was about ten years old. Lord Kildare collected an army of Irish soldiers under the command of his younger brother, Thomas FitzGerald of Laccagh.

The Earl of Lincoln, formerly the designated successor of the late King Richard III, joined the conspiracy against Henry VII. He fled to Burgundy, where Warwick's aunt Margaret of York, the Dowager Duchess of Burgundy, kept her court. Lincoln claimed that he had taken part in young Warwick's supposed escape. He also met Viscount Lovell, who had supported a failed Yorkist uprising in 1486. Margaret collected 2,000 Flemish mercenaries and shipped them to Ireland under the command of Martin Schwartz, a noted military leader of the time. They arrived in Ireland on 5 May. King Henry was informed of this and began to gather troops.

Simnel's army — mainly Flemish and Irish troops — landed on Piel Island in the Furness area of Lancashire on 5 June 1487 and were joined by some English supporters. However, most local nobles, with the exception of Sir Thomas Broughton, did not join them. They clashed with the King's army on 16 June at the Battle of Stoke Field and were defeated. Lincoln, Thomas FitzGerald and Sir Thomas Broughton were killed. Lovell went missing; there were rumours that he had escaped and hidden to avoid retribution. Simons avoided execution due to his priestly status, but was imprisoned for life. Kildare, who had remained in Ireland, was pardoned.

King Henry pardoned young Simnel (probably because he had mostly been a puppet in the hands of adults) and gave him a job in the royal kitchen as a spit-turner. When he grew older, he became a falconer. Almost no information about his later life is known. He died some time between 1525 and 1535. He seems to have married, as he is probably the father of Richard Simnel, a canon of St Osyth's Priory in Essex during the reign of Henry VIII.

6. Claude des Armoises

Jeanne des Armoises (also Claude des Armoises; fl. 1438) was a French adventurer living in the 15th century. She was reportedly a soldier in the Pope's army in Italy.

With the help of Joan of Arc's brothers, Jean and Pierre, she claimed to be Joan of Arc alive and well in 1436.[citation needed] She spent three weeks in Marieulles with a noble family of Metz. Then – as befitted the “Pucelle de France” – she went on a pilgrimage to the shrine of the “Black Madonna” in Liesse. From there she went with the two brothers du Lys (the brothers of Joan of Arc) to Arlon, to the court of the Princess Elizabeth of Luxembourg (1390-1451). The Duchess Elisabeth von Görlitz, as she was alternatively known, had been since 1409 the wife of Prince Anton of Burgundy, who fell in the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. The deception ended in Paris in 1440, when she made a full confession to Charles VII.

She married the knight Robert des Armoises. She retired to his castle at Jaulny and had children, whose descendants survive today.

7 .Pseudo-Nero


After the emperor Nero committed suicide near the villa of his freedman Phaon in June of 68 AD, various Nero impostors appeared between the autumn of 69 AD and the reign of the emperor Domitian. Most scholars set the number of Nero impostors to two or three, although St. Augustine wrote of the popularity of the belief that Nero would return in his day, known as the Nero Redivivus legend. In addition to the three documented Pseudo-Neros, Suetonius refers to imperial edicts forged in the dead Nero's name that encouraged his followers and promised his imminent return to avenge himself on his enemies.

Belief in Nero's survival may be attributed in part to the obscure location of his death, although, according to Suetonius, Galba's freedman Icelus saw the dead emperor's body and reported back to his master. Nero was also denied the lavish burial that was accorded to popular emperors and members of the imperial family, which may have left those plebeians who loved him dissatisfied and suspicious. Furthermore, he was not buried in the Mausoleum of Augustus with the other Julio-Claudian emperors, but in a tomb on the Pincian Hill at the family burial place of the Domitii Ahenobarbi. The postmortem popularity of Nero among the Roman plebeians inspired them to lay flowers at his tomb.

Another possible source of inspiration for those who impersonated Nero was the circulation of prophecies that predicted he would regain his kingdom in the East. One version placed his resurgence at Jerusalem. These prophecies have been tied to Nero's natal chart, which has been interpreted as pointing to a loss of his patrimony and its recovery in the East. Tacitus may have been referring to such prophecies in veiled language when he wrote of the rumors that circulated about Nero after his death, which had contributed to the belief that he had survived. The return of Nero may have inspired the author of the Book of Revelation when he wrote about the eschatological opponent called the Beast, which is mortally wounded and then miraculously heals. The number of the Beast, 666 or 616, depending on the manuscript, has been identified by some as the numerical value of the letters in Nero's name. Nero also appears more explicitly in this role in the Ascension of Isaiah and some of the books of the Sibylline Oracles. Owing to these prophecies and others, Nero was long thought to be the Antichrist.

Due to the short-lived success of the Nero impostors and Nero's incorporation into eschatological literature, the belief in Nero's imminent return lasted for centuries. Lion Feuchtwanger wrote a historical novel based on the second known Pseudo-Nero, Terentius Maximus, entitled Der falsche Nero. This novel was published in 1936.

First Impostor
The first Pseudo-Nero appeared in the autumn of 68 AD or the early winter of 69 AD in the Roman province of Achaia, today modern Greece. Nero had recently visited Greece (66–67 AD) to participate in its Panhellenic Games, and this may account for some of the support the impostor received. Tacitus attributed the whole phenomenon to the gullibility and restive nature of the Greeks, whom he seems to have disliked. The impostor, according to Tacitus, was either a slave from Pontus, or a freedman from Italy. The historian does not reveal much about the early career of the impostor, except to say that the Pseudo-Nero gathered around him a group of army deserters and then set out to sea.

The impostor's group was blown by storm to the island of Kythnos, one of the lesser islands of the Cyclades, which had only one community worthy of the appellation polis in antiquity—the city of Cythnus. Here he supposedly engaged in piracy by waylaying merchants, stealing their cargo, and arming their slaves. Cythnus was long known as a popular base for pirates. The false Nero also made appeals to bring Roman soldiers en route to Italy over to his growing armed force. Nero's successor Galba probably assigned Calpurnius Asprenas with the task of hunting down the impostor on his way to take up the governorship of the province of Galatia and Pamphylia. With information provided by naval captains that the Pseudo-Nero had attempted to seduce to his side, Asprenas ordered his soldiers to storm the ship and kill the impostor. Asprenas then sent the head of the impostor on a tour of Asia and then on to Rome.

Second Impostor
The second pseudo-Nero appeared during the reign of Titus. He was an Asiatic named Terentius Maximus and also sang to the accompaniment of the lyre and looked like Nero. He gained a great number of followers across the Euphrates to Parthia. He later fled to Parthia and tried to gain their support by claiming that they owed him some requital for the return of Armenia. Artabanus III, the Parthian King, out of anger towards Titus, both received him and made preparations to restore him to Rome. He was executed when his true identity was revealed.

Third Impostor
The third pseudo-Nero appeared twenty years after Nero's death, during the reign of Domitian. Supported by the Parthians, they hardly could be persuaded to give him up and the matter almost came to war.

8. Helga de la Brache

Helga de la Brache, née Aurora Florentina Magnusson, (6 September 1817 in Stockholm – 11 January 1885 in Stockholm), was a Swedish con artist. She attained a royal pension by convincing the authorities that she was the secret daughter of King Gustav IV of Sweden and Queen Frederica of Baden.

The exiled Gustav IV and Frederica of Baden had divorced in 1812, but Helga de la Brache claimed that they had married again, secretly, "in a convent in Germany", which resulted in her birth in Lausanne in 1820. She was later sent to be raised by her alleged father's aunt, Princess Sophia Albertine of Sweden. When the Princess died in 1829, she was taken to the Vadstena asylum, so that the secret of her birth would be concealed as she would be thought to be insane. She was saved in 1834 and taken to her family in Baden, where she was placed under house arrest. In 1837, upon seeing the news of her father's death in the paper, she forgot to hide her grief. She returned to Sweden, where she was again put in an asylum to prevent the secret of her birth to be revealed. She managed to escape from the asylum, and was taken under the care of charitable people, who supported her despite persecution, and soon, she was given a pension of 6,000 § from her mother's family in Germany. In 1850, the pension had ceased coming, and she was unable to continue the standard of life to which she of birth had been accustomed - and she was also forced to support her many faithful friends, who stood by her during her years of persecution: No smaller pension than 5,000 or 6,000 would be sufficient.[1]


Her story was believed by many private people in Sweden and Finland. She received great financial support from private benefactors. Followed by her faithful companion, who was an educated and cultivated woman who supported her story, de la Brache performed with a simplicity and naivete which made people unable to suspect she was cunning enough to have made it all up, and sensible enough for people to think that she did not believe it because she was mad. Eventually, even the skeptics had to admit that the story was at least theoretically possible. One of the reasons to why such a story could be believed, was that all contact with the deposed former dynasty was forbidden in 19th-century Sweden, which made it hard to verify and examine what would be likely regarding their family relations.

She convinced the salon hostess Frances Lewin-von Koch (1804–1888), the British born spouse of the minister of justice, Nils von Koch, who housed her and provided her with a lawyer, and through her also her husband; the parliamentary Anders Uhr and the royal court chaplain Carl Norrby, but was seen as a fraud by Prime minister Louis De Geer and foreign minister Ludvig Manderström. The queen mother Josefina took an interest in her, and provided her with an allowance. The king did not take much interest but wanted to get the whole affair over and done with. She was granted a meeting with Charles XV who, afterward, remarked to the parliamentarians: "Why, she is just as sane as you or me".

In March 1861, the king allowed her an annual pension from the foreign department of 2,400 Swedish riksdaler a year, (the amount, from the beginning 1.200, was made larger in December 1869). He also promised to get her the furniture of a princess. She managed to continue this for years.

In 1870, however, an article in a newspaper by C. Norrby, one of her benefactors, appeared, resulting in an investigation.

In 1876–77, it was proved that she was born in Stockholm as Aurora Florentina Magnusson to the custom caretaker Anders Magnusson (died 1826). Her mother was left a poor widow with five children, and Magnusson only received one year of school education. At the confirmation of Aurora Magnusson, her mother was overheard saying, that Aurora was not her biological daughter, but a foster child. She named her biological parents and both belonging to the upper classes: her father as Count De Geer, and her mother as a "Förnäm fröken" (Unmarried noblewoman). This may have been either true or false, as no information has been confirmed one way or the other. True or false, it is nevertheless believed to have affected Aurora Magnusson greatly.

In 1835, she was a maid to a book-keeper named Hedman, where the family said that she always had the mind to "rise above her status". In 1838, she was employed by the wealthy merchant Henrik Aspegren on Västerlånggatan 78, whose daughter, Henrika, became deeply devoted to her, dressed her in elegant clothes and left her family for her. She was originally hired as a sewing help for the daughter's of the Aspegren family to prepare for a ball. When the Aspegren's was about to leave for the ball, Magnusson burst into tears and told them that she was homeless and had nowhere to sleep for the night, and she was thereby invited to stay. It was Henrika Aspegren who later became her companion and accomplice in the fraud.

When the two women moved to Finland in 1844, Aurora Florentina had the name de la Brache on her passport, and when she returned to Sweden in 1845, she changed her name to Anna Florentina de la Brache. She was named : "De la Brache, Anna Florentina, Miss, formerly known by the name Aurora Magnusson". She managed to have her name changed from her birth certificate to Helga. Aurora Magnusson was reported drowned. The two women can be traced to have moved around from one city to another in both Sweden and Finland - Helga was often supported by her friend, who worked as a teacher. In 1846 they were in Turku, where they managed a girl's school advertised by the noble name of de la Brache, and where Helga, as it was said, mastered the art of fainting upon uncomfortable questions from parents. In 1848, they lived in Örebro, in 1857–59 in Sala, where they tried to start a fashion shop, before they arrived in Stockholm in the 1860s to commence their fraud.

The trial in 1876–77 draw much attention both from the public and the royal family and was much reported in the papers. It led to the loss of the pension of Helga/Florentina. On 2 March 1877 Helga de la Brache was judged guilty of having registered herself under a false name, year of birth and for not tax-registered herself for the year of 1877, and sentenced to fines [2]

"Princess Helga de la Brache" spent her last years in an apartment in Klara norra with her companion, seemingly paid for by a supporter. The two women lived a quiet life, walked in the park and ordered home food and rarely talked to other people, although Helga was described as a nice old woman. In 1884, however, the two women were observed in the gardens of Drottningholm Palace by King Oscar II, who ordered them to be escorted from the park. Soon after, they moved from their apartment to another one in Djurgården, because they were afraid that they were going to be arrested.

During her last years, she was described as dignified and sad. According to the artist Georg von Rosen, who was present at her death bed, she was genuinely convinced about her royal birth. She died in Djurgården 1885.

In 1909, the politician Per August Johansson tried to clear her name, but the process led to nothing. The later process of the 1910s was centered around the fact, that Frederica of Baden had named the Russian czar as the guardian of her children after her divorce, and because of this, Helga de la Brache was to have been entitled to economic compensation from the Russian czar. This process ended with the Russian revolution of 1917.

Several books have been written about her.

9. Anna Anderson

In July 1918, Bolshevik revolutionaries marched the Russian royal family — Czar Nicholas II, his empress and their five children — and their staff down to the cellar of the house in Yekaterinburg where they were living in exile and shot them dead. 


Two years later, a woman appeared claiming to be the csar's youngest daughter, Anastasia, and heiress to the Romanov line. Two brothers named Tchiakovsky, she insisted, had carried her out of the bloodied basement and into Romania and safety. Romanov relatives rebuffed the woman, Anna Anderson, as an impostor; a German journalist speculated that she was really Franziska Schanzkowsky, a Polish girl who had disappeared from a Berlin boarding house shortly before "Anastasia" had first turned up in a nearby canal. But Anderson found some supporters, including Maria Rasputin, daughter of the "mad monk" Grigori Rasputin, a close adviser of Nicholas II and his wife. Anderson's tale—which has inspired many books and, most famously, the 1956 film Anastasia starring Ingrid Bergman—was finally debunked in the 1990s, when posthumous DNA evidence proved she was not related to the royal family.


10. False Margaret

False Margaret (or Margareth or Margareta) (c. 1260 – 1301) was a Norwegian woman who impersonated Margaret, Maid of Norway.

The real Margaret had died in 1290 in Orkney, and her father King Eirik II of Norway died in 1299, succeeded by his brother Haakon V of Norway. The following year a woman arrived at Bergen, Norway, off a ship from Lübeck in Germany, claiming to be Margaret, and accused several people of treason. She claimed that she had not died in Orkney, but had been sent to Germany, where she had married. The city people and some of the clergy supported her claim, even though the late King Eirik had identified his dead daughter's body, and even though the woman appeared to be about 40 years old, whereas the real Margaret would have been 17.

The false Margaret and her husband were convicted for fraud: he was beheaded and she was burnt at the stake in 1301. The story of the betrayed Princess was spread through a popular ballad. Some years later a small St. Margaret Church (Margaretaskirk) was built in Bergen near the place of execution, although this was frowned on by the authorities, and it became the centre of a local martyr cult. The eventual fate of the church is uncertain, but it was probably demolished around the time of the Protestant Reformation.