0:00

You're listening to Noble Blood, a production

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of I Heart Radio and Aaron Minkey Listener

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discretion advised. In

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the summer of eighteen sixty five, an

0:11

Australian lawyer named William

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Gibbs was sitting in his office reading

0:16

the Sydney Morning Herald. His

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eyes glazed over a large advertisement.

0:21

The ad had been placed in papers for weeks,

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and by now Gibbs practically knew the words

0:26

by heart. A handsome

0:28

reward will be given to any person who

0:30

can furnish such information as

0:32

will discover the fate of Roger

0:35

Charles Tickborne. He sailed

0:37

from the port of Rio de Janeiro on

0:39

the twentieth of April eighteen fifty

0:41

four in the ship Labella, and

0:44

has never been heard of since. Roger

0:47

Tickborn ship, it seemed, had

0:49

completely wrecked, but rumor had

0:51

reached England that the survivors had

0:53

been rescued by ship headed to Australia,

0:56

and Roger's mother, Lady Tickborne,

0:59

was conveyed iNTS that her son still lived,

1:01

making him the rightful heir to the tick

1:04

Born baronetcy. Gibbs

1:06

put down the newspaper and looked at his

1:08

next client, a local butcher from

1:11

Wagga Wagga named Thomas Castro.

1:14

Castro's situation was pretty bleak. There

1:16

wasn't much Gibbs could do to help him.

1:18

Do you have any other properties that you could maybe

1:20

liquidate? He asked, any

1:23

valuable as you could sell any family

1:25

abroad. Castor was

1:27

evasive. Yes, there

1:29

was some property. He had an entitlement

1:31

back in England, but most

1:33

of his possessions and his paperwork had been

1:36

lost in a shipwreck. Castro

1:38

pulled out a beautifully carved briar

1:40

pipe and began smoking. It

1:42

was the pipe of a gentleman, and Castor had

1:45

hoped it added an air of legitimacy

1:47

to the excuses he made to his lawyer. Please,

1:50

sir, he said, I have a wife and daughter.

1:52

Isn't there something you can do for me? Gibbs

1:55

asked for a closer look at Castro's

1:57

pipe. On the side of the burn

2:00

mahogany would were three gilded

2:02

initials, almost invisible

2:04

in the surface. R. C.

2:07

T. Roger Charles

2:10

Tickborn. Gibbs

2:13

salivated. His mouth tasted

2:15

like copper. He rose to

2:17

his feet and paced to the window, then

2:20

paced back to his desk. All while the butcher

2:22

who had called himself, Thomas Castro watched

2:25

him nervously. I think,

2:27

Gibbs said, still walking, pacing

2:30

in steady circles around his small

2:32

hot office. I think

2:34

you've been lying to me. I

2:37

don't know what you're talking about. Castro answered.

2:40

I think, Gibbs said, his voice

2:43

triumphant, that your real name

2:45

is Roger Tickborne. Castro's

2:48

eyes caught the newspaper still splayed on

2:50

Gibbs's desk. He saw the

2:52

words reward, inheritance,

2:55

and air. The

2:57

man cleared his throat, he

2:59

in and exiled, and

3:02

then looked right into gives his eyes and

3:04

said two words that would send

3:06

Victorian England into a frenzy

3:09

to words that would launch the longest

3:11

trial England had seen up until

3:13

that point, Words that would

3:15

tear families and lives apart, Words

3:18

that would captivate writers like Mark

3:20

Twain and George Bernard Shaw and

3:22

ignite a populist movement. The

3:26

man, using the name Thomas Castro,

3:28

who from that day on would

3:30

most commonly be referred to as the claimant,

3:33

looked directly at his lawyer and said, you're

3:36

right. I'm

3:40

Danish Schwartz and this is

3:43

noble blood. The

3:49

story of the tick Borne claimant doesn't

3:51

actually begin in Australia. It

3:53

doesn't actually begin in England either. It

3:56

begins in France, in a cell

3:58

in eighteen o three, where

4:00

an English nobleman named Henry

4:02

Seymour was imprisoned during the

4:04

Napoleonic Wars. Also

4:07

imprisoned with him was a man named

4:09

James Tickborne, one of the sons

4:11

of an English baronet. Henry

4:14

Seymour didn't let a little thing like being a prisoner

4:16

of war stop him from enjoying himself.

4:19

While in captivity, He seduced

4:21

the daughter of the Duc de Bourbon and became

4:23

the father of a daughter whom they named

4:26

Henriette. Years passed

4:28

and Henriette still hadn't found a husband.

4:31

When she turned twenty, her father, Henry

4:33

Seymour, took matters into his own hands

4:35

and decided to arrange a match with James

4:38

Tickborne, his former brother in arms

4:40

as a prisoner of war in France. So

4:43

what if James was twice Henriette's

4:45

age, was ugly and had the conversational

4:48

abilities of a brick wall. Henriette

4:50

was twenty already an old

4:53

maid, and James, as the son

4:55

of a baronet, was a suitable match, and

4:57

so the pair got married and had a son

5:00

of their own, Roger Charles

5:02

Doughty Tickborn. James

5:04

was his father's fourth son, and so the odds

5:06

weren't in his favor when it came to him or

5:09

his son Roger inheriting the baronetcy.

5:12

But as luck would have it, his older brother

5:14

died with no male heirs, his

5:16

second eldest brother died young, also

5:18

with no children, and his third brother

5:21

only had a daughter, a girl named Catherine,

5:24

and so it was young Roger who

5:26

was raised with the knowledge that he would

5:28

one day become the baronet. As

5:31

one might have predicted, the arranged marriage

5:33

between Henriette and James Tickborne

5:36

was rocky at best. Although they

5:38

eventually had another surviving son

5:40

named Alfred, the spouses lived

5:42

almost entirely separate lives. With

5:45

her French pedigree, Henriette believed

5:47

that France would be the best place to give

5:49

her son Roger a proper education,

5:52

and so she brought little Roger with her to Paris,

5:54

where he spoke French before he spoke English.

5:57

The little heir lived there until his father

5:59

intervened and sent him to a British

6:01

boarding school, where British schoolboys.

6:03

Being British schoolboys, Roger was

6:05

endlessly mocked for his thick French

6:08

accent. His adolescence

6:10

was not a happy one. After

6:13

school, Roger joined the British Army

6:15

and during his leaves he would spend time

6:17

at Tickborne Park with his uncle Edward,

6:20

the Baronet, his aunt and his cousin

6:22

Katherine. It's there that he found

6:25

the only joy in his young life because

6:27

even though she was his cousin, Katherine

6:30

was beautiful and Edward, who was tall

6:32

and slim with dark hair and dark

6:34

eyes, was very handsome. The

6:37

two cousins became enamored with

6:39

one another. The

6:45

marriage between first cousins wasn't strictly

6:47

forbidden in the nineteenth century. Roger's

6:50

uncle, Sir Edward, was not a fan

6:53

of the idea. He forbade

6:55

Roger from seeing Katherine until their youthful

6:57

attraction diminished the planned

6:59

in work. Whenever Roger had time

7:02

away from the army, he would sneak back to see

7:04

Catherine, the two meeting in secret by

7:06

moonlight. They exchanged love

7:08

letters written in code, but Catherine's

7:11

father, Sir Edward, was never going

7:13

to agree to the match. Love

7:16

sick lonely and desperate, Roger

7:18

needed to get away. The twenty three

7:20

year old resigned his military position,

7:22

where his regiment had just been stationed in

7:24

the British Isles, and he left on

7:27

a private tour of South America. Roger's

7:30

ship landed safely in Chile, where

7:32

he received a letter informing him that his

7:34

uncle had passed away just weeks

7:36

after Roger had departed on his voyage.

7:39

Now Roger's father was the baronet.

7:43

The air continued his journey, traveling

7:45

through South America for nearly a year,

7:47

crossing the Andies, traveling to Buenos

7:50

Aires and then to Brazil. It

7:52

was from a port in Rio de jan Era that

7:54

Roger boarded a boat called Labella,

7:57

sailing for Jamaica, what would be

7:59

one of the final stops on his tour.

8:02

No one aboard Labella was ever heard

8:04

from again. Four

8:07

days later, a wreck was discovered

8:09

off the Brazilian coast, presumed

8:11

to be the ill fated Bella. By

8:14

all appearances, every passenger,

8:16

including Roger Tickborne, had perished,

8:19

but Roger's mother, Henriette now

8:21

Lady Tickborne, refused to believe

8:24

that her eldest son was dead. Roger

8:26

had been her shining boy, the beautiful

8:29

child she had raised in Paris and spent

8:31

the mornings with chattering in French. He

8:34

was the dashing soldier, well read,

8:36

quiet, always polite, and

8:38

he couldn't possibly be dead without

8:43

telling her husband. One afternoon, Lady

8:45

Tickborn snuck out to see a psychic in

8:47

London, at the type of place where

8:49

a woman of her stature would have been more

8:51

than a little embarrassed to be seen, but

8:54

Lady Tickborn didn't care. She brought

8:56

with her one of Roger's hats and a newspaper

8:59

clipping but the wreck of the Bella, and

9:01

laid her beating heart onto the psychic's

9:03

velvet covered table. The

9:06

psychic smiled and told

9:08

Lady Tickborne that, without a doubt,

9:10

her son was still alive. There

9:13

were rumors that the passengers of the Bella,

9:16

or at least some of them, had been picked up

9:18

by a ship and brought to Australia. Roger

9:21

must have been among them. That

9:24

was the conviction that Lady Tickborne carried

9:26

with her after the death of her husband.

9:28

When her indolent younger son, Alfred

9:30

became the new baronet, it was

9:32

the conviction that Lady Tickborne carried

9:35

with her when Alfred's drinking and gambling

9:37

nearly led him to bankruptcy and he

9:39

had to begin to lease out the estates

9:41

of Tickborne Park to tenants. And

9:44

it's the conviction that she carried with her

9:46

when she issued out a series of advertisements

9:48

in Australian newspapers, including

9:51

the Sydney Morning Herald, which

9:53

a lawyer in Wagga Wagga named

9:55

William Gibbs just happened to read.

10:06

The man who had been going under the alias

10:08

of Thomas Castro, whom history

10:10

would refer to as the Claimant, made

10:13

his way from Wagga Wagga to Sydney,

10:15

where he raised money from banks on the declaration

10:18

that he was Roger Tickborne, heir

10:20

to a title and a vast fortune.

10:23

The claimant said he had been on the sinking

10:25

Bella, but had been rescued by a ship and

10:28

made it to Melbourne, and with

10:30

his memories adult from the trauma of

10:32

the shipwreck, he had made up the name

10:34

Thomas Castro, taking

10:36

on the surname from a kind family he had

10:38

met in South America. The

10:40

so called Thomas Castro then

10:43

settled in Wagga Wagga, began

10:45

working as an apprentice. Butcher got

10:47

married and had a daughter. But now

10:49

the memories were flooding back. He

10:51

was actually Roger Tickborn and all

10:54

he needed was enough money to get back to England

10:56

to see his mother. In order to prove it

11:00

while in Sydney, the claimant meant a man from

11:02

Roger Tickborn's past life, a servant

11:04

named Andrew Boggle. Boggle

11:07

was born a slave in Jamaica, but had stowed

11:09

away with Roger's uncle Edward, and worked

11:11

with him as a man servant for many years

11:14

until Edward's death, when Boggle was

11:16

cast off unceremoniously into

11:18

forced retirement with a tiny

11:20

pension. Most long time servants

11:22

at the time were given a small property upon

11:25

retirement. Boggle had been given

11:27

scarcely enough to support himself, which

11:29

necessitated his move to Australia,

11:31

where living was cheaper. At

11:34

first, Boggle didn't recognize the

11:36

man calling himself Roger Tickborn. As

11:39

a youth, Roger was lean, all

11:41

angles and long legs. The

11:44

man before him was nearly two hundred

11:46

pounds, his facial features less

11:48

defined. During

11:50

his time in Sydney, the claimant would gain

11:52

twenty pounds, and he would gain another forty

11:54

pounds on the ship from Australia to England.

11:58

Sympathizers explained he was just in joining

12:00

his new found indulgent lifestyle.

12:03

Skeptics would say the man was purposely

12:05

trying to distort his appearance. But

12:07

Bogle looked closely and he made his determination.

12:11

The man was most certainly Roger

12:13

Tickborne. And so,

12:15

with the money he had raised in Australia,

12:18

he his wife, his daughter and

12:20

Boggle would all depart back in

12:22

order to claim his inheritance from his mother,

12:25

Lady Tickborne. So

12:32

the claimant made his way to England. He

12:35

stayed at a hotel in London and whispered

12:37

to the man at the front desk that his identity

12:40

was actually that of the missing Baronet,

12:42

Roger Tickborne, but that it was top

12:45

secret. Moms the word. The

12:47

receptionists promised. First

12:49

thing that the claimant set out to see Lady

12:51

Tickborne at her London residence, but

12:54

when he got there he was told that the lady was

12:56

residing in Paris. Then

12:58

the claimant went somewhere else. He went

13:00

to a rough Cockney neighborhood in East

13:02

London called Wapon and as the

13:04

first man he saw, if he knew the whereabouts

13:07

of family? Called Orton, Who's

13:09

asking? The stranger responded. The

13:12

claimant said that he was close friends with

13:14

Arthur Orton. They had worked

13:16

together in Australia on a cattle station.

13:19

Orton, the claimant said, had done

13:21

incredibly well for himself and was

13:23

now one of the wealthiest and most successful

13:26

men in Australia. The

13:28

claimant was told that the Orton family had

13:30

left the area a while back. Just

13:33

over a week later, the claimant met

13:35

Lady Tickborne at the Hotel de Lille

13:37

in Paris. Upon seeing his

13:39

face, Lady Tickborne burst

13:42

into tears. It's my son,

13:44

she cried. She embraced

13:47

him and declared for all the world

13:49

to hear that her lost son Roger,

13:51

had been found at last. Although

13:55

Lady Tickborne was fully convinced

13:57

that the claimant was the lost heir and haply

14:00

bestowed an income of a thousand pounds a year

14:02

on him, the rest of the Tickborn clan

14:04

remained less than convinced. The

14:07

claimant's physical stature aside, and

14:09

by now he was nearly four hundred

14:11

pounds, he didn't speak a word

14:13

of French, nor did he speak with a French

14:15

accent, and after all French

14:17

had been Roger's first language. The

14:20

claimant mixed up Greek and Latin, didn't

14:22

know his Virgil, couldn't identify distant

14:24

family members, but then again,

14:27

he didn't know small strange details

14:29

about Roger's life. He knew the

14:31

type of fly fishing tackle Roger had used

14:34

and the name of the dog he had adopted during his

14:36

travels in South America. On

14:38

one hand, he knew where certain paintings were

14:40

located at Tickborne Park. But

14:43

on the other hand, he had referred to his mother,

14:45

Lady Tickborn, in a letter as Hannah,

14:48

even though her name was Henriette. Still,

14:51

Lady Tickborn would hear nothing against

14:53

the miraculous return of her son, and

14:56

though the family didn't allow him to formally

14:58

claim the baronet tight after

15:01

the degenerate Alfred's death, that title went

15:03

to his infant son. The claimant

15:05

still received a thousand pounds a

15:07

year annual income from her ladyship,

15:09

and he was quite content enjoying his new

15:11

position in society as a rogue

15:14

noble, that is, until

15:16

Lady Tickborn died. To

15:19

the outrage of the Tickborne family.

15:21

The claimant took the position of chief

15:23

mourner at her funeral to them,

15:25

he was a low born impostor, an

15:27

embarrassing blight on their family name,

15:30

and he would receive no title and

15:32

no more money. Bankrupt,

15:35

the claimants set up a fundraising venture

15:37

in which he issued Tickborn bonds

15:40

that holders could purchase and then received

15:42

interest for once he had claimed his rightful

15:44

inheritance. He made a living

15:46

that way, affording enough to temporarily

15:49

maintain his posture living as a noble

15:51

born gentleman. But

15:54

if he actually wished to prove to the world

15:56

that he was Roger Tickborne, then the

15:58

claimant had only one an option. He

16:02

needed to go to court. While

16:10

the claimant was living as either a pretender

16:13

or a populist hero, depending on your perspective,

16:16

members of the Tickborne family sent

16:18

private investigators to try to look into

16:20

the story that they were told the

16:23

cleimant had mentioned that he used to work with

16:25

a man named Arthur Orton on a cattle

16:27

ranch in Australia. Maybe if

16:29

they could find Orton, they would uncover the

16:31

truth about the claimant. The

16:33

Tickborne family agent traveled down

16:36

to Australia and made it to the old

16:38

cattle station where the claimant had

16:40

claimed to work a place run

16:42

by a man named William Foster. Foster's

16:45

widow checked the old employment records.

16:48

There was an Arthur Orton listed, but no

16:50

one by the name of Thomas Castro the

16:52

claimants alias. Maybe

16:55

he had been using another alias at the time. The

16:57

agent showed the widow the photograph

17:00

of the man claiming to be Roger Tickborn.

17:02

Oh I do know him, she said, that's

17:05

Arthur Orton. Arthur

17:09

Orton, born in Wapping in England,

17:11

was the son of a butcher who had traveled

17:13

to Chile as a young man and later

17:15

moved to Australia. He worked

17:17

at the cattle station owned by William Foster,

17:20

but his paper trail ends there. It's

17:22

as if he disappeared from existence or

17:25

took up a new identity. When

17:27

the claimants civil trial came to court

17:30

in eighteen seventy one, the defense

17:32

lawyer asked about the mysterious Arthur

17:34

Orton. The claimant was evasive,

17:37

saying they had been friends in Australia, but

17:39

that saying anything else about the time they had

17:41

spent together would incriminate him.

17:44

Finally, the lawyer asked the man on the

17:46

standpoint blank, are you

17:49

Arthur Orton? No? The claimant

17:51

responded, I am not at

17:55

stake in the trial was Tickborne Park,

17:57

which consisted of over two thousand

17:59

acres manners farm

18:01

land in Hampshire and a number of other properties

18:04

in London and beyond. The baronet

18:06

title would afford whoever held it an annual

18:08

income of what to day would be several

18:11

millions of dollars. The

18:13

witnesses lined up to testify. Some

18:16

pointed out that the claimant couldn't speak French,

18:18

or claimed that the real Roger Tickborn had

18:21

had tattoos. But some

18:23

witnesses, former soldiers in Roger's

18:25

battalion, a servant that Roger had

18:27

traveled with in South America, maintained

18:30

that after spending time with the man, the

18:32

claimant was Roger Tickborne. The

18:35

defense lawyer had two hundred witnesses

18:37

ready to go to disprove that claim,

18:40

but the judge held up his hand no

18:43

more witnesses would be necessary. The

18:45

case was dismissed and the

18:47

claimant was arrested on charges

18:49

of perjury. During

18:54

that civil trial, the claimant had become

18:56

a massively popular figure of the

18:58

public imagination. Here

19:00

was a working class hero with a Cockney

19:02

accent going up against the aristocracy

19:05

and the criminal system, being denied

19:07

something that belonged to him.

19:10

I appealed to every British soul who

19:12

was inspired by a love of justice and

19:14

fair play, and is willing to defend

19:16

the weak against the strong, The claimant

19:19

wrote in an essay appealing for donations

19:21

for his upcoming criminal trial. Support

19:24

poured in his story was a

19:27

Victorian sensation. His

19:29

trial followed breathlessly. Knick

19:32

knacks were sold featuring the major players

19:34

of the story. Tickborne was recreated

19:37

in wax at Madame Tousseau's

19:39

In a political cartoon published in

19:41

Punch magazine in eighteen seventy one,

19:43

the claimants to destroy the shoulders

19:46

of a man demarcated as quote

19:48

representing the British public. The

19:50

quote British public man is sweating

19:53

and read under the significant weight

19:55

of the claimant, his cheeks puffed out with

19:57

effort. On either side of the

19:59

men are crowd holding signs Australia

20:02

police, socialism, politics. The

20:05

caption of the cartoon reads, I cannot

20:07

be expected to attend to any of you with

20:09

this interesting topic on my shoulders.

20:12

George Bernard Shaw wrote about the case

20:14

and its peculiar contradictions and

20:16

the introduction to his play Andrew

20:19

Cles and the Lion, A Shaw

20:21

wrote, the claimants attempt to pass

20:23

himself off as a baronet was supported

20:25

by an association of laborers,

20:27

on the ground that the tick Borne family, in

20:30

resisting it, were trying to do a

20:32

laborer out of his rights. Two

20:34

Shaw, the paradox was obvious, who

20:36

had to believe simultaneously that this man

20:39

was a cockney workman just like you, and

20:41

at the same time that he was a born and raised,

20:44

legitimate aristocrat. Mark

20:47

Twain also paid attention to the massively

20:50

popular trial. While in London,

20:52

the celebrated writer was at a party with

20:54

the claimant, where he noticed the way Uppercross

20:56

men and women in high society always

20:59

referred to him as Sir Roger. It

21:01

was Sir Roger, always, Sir Roger,

21:04

on all hands, no one withheld the title.

21:06

Of course, the upper Cross didn't

21:08

really believe that the man was Sir Roger. The

21:11

only reason that this man had been invited to

21:13

all these parties in the first place had been

21:15

a sort of a joke, a hilarious

21:17

little pantomime like seeing a monkey dressed

21:19

in human clothes. But the

21:22

claimant maintained that he was Roger

21:24

Tickborne, never wavering even

21:27

as lawyers and witnesses abandoned

21:29

his case. His criminal trial

21:31

for perjury lasted one hundred

21:34

and eighty eight days, one of the longest

21:36

trials in English history, but

21:39

the deliberation lasted only thirty

21:41

minutes. The jury declared

21:44

that he was not Roger Tickborn,

21:46

and he was guilty on two counts of perjury

21:49

and sentenced to fourteen years in prison.

21:53

The loss in court did nothing to quell

21:55

the groundswell of popular support

21:57

among the working class for the claimant

21:59

and his lawyer, an eccentric irishman

22:02

named Keennoy, who was ultimately disbarred

22:04

thanks to his violent and excessive performance

22:07

in court during the trial. But Kenoy

22:09

used that popularity to launch a campaign

22:12

for election to Parliament, which he won

22:14

in a landslide victory. But

22:17

if the people were hoping for a champion, they

22:19

had unfortunately chosen the wrong one. Keen

22:22

only attempted to get the House of Commons to

22:24

establish a Royal Commission to re examine

22:26

the Tickborn case, but it only

22:29

received a single gay vote. His

22:31

own popularity

22:37

and fervor over Roger Tickborne and

22:39

his mysterious disappearance and reappearance

22:42

gradually dissolved, and newspapers

22:44

moved on to covering newer and more exciting

22:47

gossip. In eighty

22:49

four, after serving a ten year sentence,

22:52

the man the public had come to know as

22:54

the Claimant was released from prison.

22:57

He had lost nearly a hundred and fifty pounds.

23:00

Ironically, his time in jail had made him

23:02

look even more like Roger Tickborn than ever

23:04

before. His old supporters attempted

23:06

to rally him into their populist political

23:09

movements, but the claimant had no interest

23:11

in any of that. Instead, he

23:13

made paid appearances at dance halls

23:15

and circuses and married a young music

23:17

hall singer he had long since

23:19

separated from his Australian wife.

23:22

When no one in England seemed to care about him

23:24

anymore, he went to America, where he thought

23:26

he still might make some money. But no

23:28

one in America cared about who he was either,

23:31

and the claimant worked as a bartender there

23:33

Before coming back to England. A

23:35

newspaper paid him a few hundred pounds

23:38

for a confession that he was Arthur Orton all

23:40

along. The claimant retracted

23:42

that confession as soon as he spent the money.

23:45

The claimant died in abject poverty

23:48

on April Fool's Day in eighteen.

23:52

His funeral was attended by nearly five

23:54

thousand people. For one last

23:56

moment, the public seemed to care about

23:58

him again. Some call it foolishness

24:01

or kindness or mercy, but

24:03

for whatever reason, the Tickborne

24:05

family permitted a card on the claimant's

24:08

coffin that said Sir

24:10

Roger Charles Doughty Tickborn.

24:14

And so it was a coffin that bared

24:17

the title of a baronet that

24:19

was laid into a pauper's grave. That's

24:27

the end of the claimant's life, but his story

24:29

doesn't end there. Stick around after a brief

24:32

sponsor break to learn more about how the Tickborn

24:34

case lives on a century later. Because

24:46

the Tickborne controversy had happened a century

24:48

before the discovery of DNA evidence,

24:51

it's impossible to determine for certain

24:53

who the claimant actually was. He

24:55

went to his grave still declaring that he

24:57

was Roger Tickborn. Years

24:59

later, the claimant's daughter would go on

25:02

to say that her father had confessed to

25:04

her that he had accidentally killed

25:06

Arthur Orton back in Australia, and

25:08

that's why he couldn't reveal the true details

25:10

of his past. The claimant's daughter

25:12

would spend a lifetime declaring that

25:15

she was Roger Tickborne's daughter. Some

25:18

believe that the claimant was Arthur Orton all

25:20

along, and that he was helped in the details

25:22

of Roger's life by the disgruntled

25:24

servant Boggle, angry at the Tickborne

25:27

family for terminating his position and

25:29

looking for revenge, Perhaps

25:31

they orchestrated the conspiracy together.

25:34

Another theory is that the real Roger Tickborn

25:37

had made it to Australia and befriended

25:39

the man who would later claim his identity. Maybe

25:42

that man had killed the real Roger Tickborn.

25:45

In his nineteen fifty seven book The Tickborne

25:47

Claimant, Douglas Woodruff argues

25:49

that it's possible the claimant actually

25:52

might have been the real Roger Tickborn all

25:54

along. After all,

25:56

what kind of lunatic would travel halfway

25:58

across the world with the wife and daughter in

26:01

tow to meet a mother and a family

26:03

he knew nothing about if he had nothing

26:05

to go on. The soap

26:07

opera saga of the Tickborn case captivated

26:10

the Victorian public, but it's a story

26:12

that continues to fascinate modern audiences.

26:15

In the Simpsons,

26:17

writer Ken Keeler Pendant episode,

26:19

he says was influenced by the Tickborn

26:22

case. In the episode Principal,

26:24

Skinner reveals that his real name is

26:26

Armand Tamsarian and that as

26:28

a soldier in the Vietnam War, he made

26:30

friends with the fellow platoon man named Skinner.

26:33

When Skinner was assumed dead, Tamsarian

26:36

went to Springfield in order to deliver

26:38

the bad news to his mother. Mrs

26:40

Skinner mistook Tamsarian for her own

26:43

son, and Tam'sarian began life

26:45

anew under a false name. It

26:47

was an episode so outlandish that some

26:49

critics consider at the end of The Simpsons

26:52

Golden Age. Ironically

26:54

enough, the episode takes its title from

26:56

a story by Mark Twain. It's

26:58

called The Principal

27:01

and the Pauper. Noble

27:06

Blood is a co production of I Heart Radio

27:08

and Aaron Mankey. The show is written

27:10

and hosted by Dana Schwartz and produced

27:13

by Aaron Mankey, Matt Frederick, Alex

27:15

Williams, and Trevor Young. Noble

27:18

Blood is on social media at Noble

27:20

Blood Tales, and you can learn more about

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the show over at Noble Blood Tales dot com.

27:25

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