Boobytrap: The Royal Pretender

One of these three people is a big time royal pretender ....

Up through history, several people have been popping up from an often quite obscure background, claiming that they are a lost prince or princess. One of the most well-known of these pretenders is Anna Anderson (1896-1984), who claimed that she was the youngest daughter of tsar Nicholas II of Russia. Her claim was that although her father, mother and all her siblings were killed by Bolsheviks on 17. July 1918, she escaped, wounded, but alive. Private investigations by the brother of the dead Tsarina Alexandra, Duke Ernest Louis, brought the truth to light: This woman, who went by the name of Anna Anderson, was no Grand Duchess, but a Polish factory worker, Franziska Schanzkowska, who had been institutionalized in a mental hospital after a suicide attempt in 1920. I don't think she ever owed up to her birth name, and after some time as a patient, she started to use the name "Anna Anderson". However, in 1922, she began claiming that she was the lost Grand Duchess Anastasia, and many believed - and supported - her. Not until the dead bodies of the tsar family were found were her lies disproved.

Grand Duchess Anastasia flanked by the pretender, Anna Anderson

Just like her parents, brother and sisters, Anastasia was dead, but the myth of the surviving Grand Duchess gave vent to movies, articles, books as well as countless theories of her survival, untill her remains were found and identified with those of her family.

Some of the most famous royal pretenders are Lambert Simnel (c. 1477-c. 1525) who claimed to be Edward Plantagenet, Earl of Warwick, i.e. the last Yorkist with a claim to the English throne. Perkin Warbeck (ca. 1474-1499) said that he was Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York, who was the younger son of Edward IV, who somehow disappeared in 1483. None of them were what - and whom - they said they were, but when James Francis Edward Stuart (1688-1766) claimed to be the legitimate son of King James II of England he was right, which has been proved by modern day genetics. He and his son fought hard to be accepted as English princes, but both were rejected as England had decided that no matter what, the days of Catholic royalties were over once and for all.

"The Old Pretender", James Francis Edward Stuart

A son and his parents? Naaaahhhh ....

Simon Charles Dorante-Day is a British-born Australian man who has been harassing King Charles III and his queen, Camilla, asking for DNA-testings of the couple to prove his assertions that he is their illegitimate son who was put up for adoption when newborn. According to him "his grandmother", the late Queen Elizabeth II, testified this "truth" to him on her deathbed, and now he wants to be recognized as a royal prince ....

"Good luck," is all, I can say - you will need it ....