At all times and in all states, persons emerged from oblivion, assigning themselves someone else's name, someone else's rights and someone else's privileges. Any impostor is just a rogue and a deceiver, whose actions can in no way be called noble, even if they pursued noble goals. And most often these hypocrites acted in the interests of a handful of envious people …
FAKE MARGARITA
In the cold kingdom of Norway during the XIII-XIV centuries, a pretty woman of indeterminate age appeared. They would not have paid attention to her, but the lady showed up on a rich sailing ship and announced that she was the son of the Norwegian kings. And such statements were not ignored then.
The people and the royal nobles immediately became thoughtful and began to scratch their heads, because the throne at that time was occupied by Haakon V - the brother of King Eric II, who died in 1299. And Haakon became king without even claiming the throne. It just so happened. And against this background, the speech of the unknown woman intrigued many, especially since she disembarked from a ship that came to Bergen from German Lubeck.
This mysterious lady called herself Margarita and accused some high-ranking nobles of treason. Let us explain that the real Margaret, the daughter of Eric II (heir to the throne), died back in 1290 in Orkney (Scotland). But the new Margarita told the people that she did not die at all, but was sent by her parents to Germany, where she got married and was educated to better govern Norway.
Interestingly, many officials happily believed the impostor, although the facts were clearly against her. The newly minted queen was about 40, and Eric's real daughter at that time would have been only 17 years old. And the new Margarita confused Norwegian with German. Ultimately, King Haakon V ordered the Church to investigate in 1308, followed by a trial that sentenced the false Margaret to be burned at the stake. And her husband, so that he would not grieve, was immediately chopped off his head. That was the end of this senseless dispute about the crown.
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ANNA ANDERSON, OR FALSE-ANASTASIA
Perhaps the most famous impostor is Anna Anderson. In 1920, this adorable girl showed up at the appropriate institution in Berlin - in an insane asylum she was originally recorded under the name Jane Doe. The girl tried to commit suicide by throwing herself into the river from a high bridge. But a policeman saved her. Later she was transferred to a hospital in Daldorf, where the unknown person spent a year and a half. And once one of the patients of the same clinic, looking through an illustrated magazine with a large photograph of the royal family of the Romanovs, recognized the Russian princess Anastasia in the patient. In addition, on the back of the "Fraulein Unbekant", as was recorded in the girl's hospital card, there were half a dozen gunshot wounds. And the girl also suffered from severe memory loss due to an injury in the occipital region of the head, which was reminiscent of a star-shaped scar on the back of the head of false Anastasia.
The rumor of the miraculous rescue of the Russian princess swept through Europe, and former employees of the royal family, relatives of the Romanovs and officers who once entered the Russian royal court began to appear in Daldorf. But even they did not come to a consensus regarding the excellent patient of the mental hospital. But Anna Anderson herself really liked playing the role of the Russian princess. And she brilliantly played this role until 1984, when she died.
The end of this story came in 2007, when the remains of the entire royal Romanov family, shot by the Bolsheviks, were discovered in the Urals. Having performed a comparative test of Anna Anderson's (fake Anastasia's) hair with DNA samples of members of the royal family, experts came to the conclusion that Anna Anderson is a Polish citizen of Francis Shanzkowska, who once worked in a handyman's factory, but then suddenly disappeared from the field of view of relatives.
WALKING OF SWEDISH CROWNS
At the beginning of the 19th century, royal leapfrog began in Sweden. King Gustav IV lost several wars in a row, established a new unpopular tax and, in addition, slapped his military officers, for which in 1809 he lost his crown and went with his wife into exile in Germany. And his wife was the beautiful Frederica Dorothea, whom Catherine the Great herself (Tsarina of Russia) looked after as a bride to her grandson Alexander. But the engagement fell through, in this battle the Swedish king won. However, in 1812, this beautiful couple divorced, and in 1826 Frederica Dorothea died of a heart attack at the age of 45.
And in the middle of the 19th century, a certain Helga de la Brachet appeared in Sweden, who told the Swedish society a wonderful legend about the incredible rescue of the child of retired King Gustav IV and ex-Queen Frederica Dorothea. The offspring of the royal couple was, of course, Helga de la Brachet herself. She was born in 1820, after the couple secretly remarried in a convent in Germany. Then she was transferred to the education of Gustav's own aunt, Princess Sophia Albertina, but she soon died (1829). And then Helga was hidden out of sight in a mental hospital in the Swedish city of Vadsten, where the girl was completely safe. King Charles XV of Sweden himself believed in this nonsense. From the royal bounty, he wrote Helga an annual pension of 2,400 kroons and allocated decent furniture for the arrangement of her new home (also at public expense).
Helga existed at the expense of the state for many years. But then a curious journalist intervened, demanding from the government a thorough investigation of the case of Helga de la Brachet, who parasitizes on the neck of the working people of Sweden. Already the first timid steps of the investigators gave startling results. Helga turned out to be a simple servant, born into a working family in Stockholm. She worked as a servant for wealthy owners, read a lot and fantasized. The whole story of the "miraculous rescue of the royal child" she invented with the help of a friend. And when the officials of the court believed her, she was carried away. A storm of her fantasies took Helga to the local prison, where she no longer needed royal furniture. Her real name is Aurora Florentina Magnusson.
PSEUDO-NERONS
Emperor Nero died in June 68 CE. e. in the villa of his former slave Faeon. But then there were a lot of sybarites who wished to take his place. The first false Nero appeared in Greece in 68 AD. e. He disliked the Greeks and was enthusiastically received by the local population. The name of the impostor has not survived. This was a slave or freedman from Pontus. He looked like Nero in face and played kifared well. He managed to attract fugitive soldiers, vagrants and beggars to his side, he got hold of a ship and landed on the island of Citnu, where the Roman legionaries were resting. A significant part of them went over to the side of the impostor, and those who disagreed were executed. This army was joined by slaves who plundered the local population.
The first victory instilled confidence in the supporters of the false Nero. The uprising spread, lovers of easy money flocked to the island to the impostor. And the end of the fiesta was put by the arrival of the proconsul Calpurnius Asprenatus, who cruelly repaid the revelers.
Gustav IV in his youth
The second impostor was called Terence Maximus. He appeared from the eastern provinces, quickly acquired supporters, moving along the Euphrates, reached Parthia, whose king was in a quarrel with the Roman emperor Titus. The king began to actively assist the false Nero, believing to put him on the Roman throne. But the plans were not destined to come true. From Rome, they sent evidence of Terence's imposture, and the false Nero was executed.
Suetonius told us about the appearance of the third false Nero: “Even twenty years later, when I was a teenager, a man of unknown rank appeared, pretending to be Nero, and his name was so successful with the Parthians that they actively supported him and only with difficulty agreed give out."