Princesses Behaving Badly

by Linda Rodriguez McRobbie

  Caraboo taught the Worralls words in her language and wrote in a script that seemed to resemble Chinese. She even showed her hosts how to dress in the Javasu style: a dress with a calf-length skirt, belted around the ribcage, and long wide sleeves. She topped it with a turban accessorized with a few peacock feathers stuck in at a jaunty angle and a pair of open sandals.

  And all of it was, of course, a load of crap.

  LIAR, LIAR

  Caraboo didn’t hail from as far away as the East Indies—Javasu isn’t even a real place. In fact, she was from barely as far away as the next county. It seems that the more her rescuers and their friends tried to uncover her history, they more they helped create it. Thinking she neither spoke nor read English, they showed her books and images of her supposed homeland and talked openly about all the exotic “Oriental” customs they knew. Caraboo used those details to furnish her fiction, and she wasn’t picky about which ones—she was equally excited about a Chinese puzzle as she was for an Eskimo soapstone carving.

  After that initial boost supplied by the Portuguese traveler, whose motivations remain unclear even today, she was off and running. It all must have been fascinating to hear, and she was very good at keeping up the pretense: “They never found her tripping or off her guard, either in her conversation or her general manners, always observing the custom of washing her tea cup, etc.,” a contemporary account claims. Even attempts at surprising her into giving herself away didn’t work. When two suspicious servants burst into her room shouting “Fire!” the princess just stared at them.

  But by early June, keeping up appearances was increasingly difficult, especially after her story became known as far away as Scotland. Caraboo fled the Worralls and made for nearby Bath, a fashionable spa town. But if she meant to lie low and wait out the sensation her story had caused, she failed. When Mrs. Worrall found her runaway charge, she was “at the very pinnacle of her glory and ambition,” ensconced in the drawing room of some notable personage, surrounded by “fashionable visitants” all trying to make her acquaintance.

  Caraboo managed to convince Mrs. Worrall that she’d only run away to try to get back to Javasu. Within days, however, her fiction began to unravel, undone by the public sensation she’d caused in Bath. At the same time her former landlady was telling Mrs. Worrall that the unfortunate princess bore a more than passing resemblance to an erstwhile and very English lodger, a young man surfaced who remembered Caraboo and added that “when in his company spirits and water were not quite so repugnant to her taste as they had been.”

  Caraboo was caught. With no alternative, she told Mrs. Worrall the truth. Or something like it …

  Caraboo of Javasu was in fact Mary Baker, née Willcocks, of Witheridge, Devonshire (now just Devon). At age 16, Mary was made a servant in a farmer’s household but left when they refused to give her a raise. After bouncing around a series of menial jobs, she found herself destitute and begging door to door. She didn’t want to return to her family in Devonshire and the tiny village where she was related to pretty much everyone. Eventually, she made her way to London, where she fell ill and spent months in the hospital before being taken in as a maid by a local family.

  After a misunderstanding caused her to leave her post, a despondent Mary entered what she thought was a nunnery in Blackfriars. Turns out that Magdalen Hospital was a home for “penitent prostitutes,” and she was kicked out when it was discovered she hadn’t ever been a lady of the night. From there, she tried to get back home to Devonshire; along the way, she cut her hair short and dressed as a man to find work. She fell in with some highwaymen who hired her as a groom and an apprentice robber. That ruse fell apart after she was unable to fire a pistol, and the brigands forced her to promise on pain of death not to betray them.

  Mary finally found her way back to her parents, who demanded that she find real work. But she lasted only a few months at everything she tried—she left the tanner’s because she was made to haul the hides out of the cart; she left her next job because she was forced to venture into a deep snow and nearly died of exposure; she left her post as a cook because “the fire did not agree with her.”

  Back in London in 1814, Mary supposedly met and married a Frenchman, who left her shortly after she became pregnant. Unable to support a baby and with no idea if her husband would ever return, she gave the boy up for adoption after his birth in 1816. When she found out the baby had died in the orphanage’s care, she left her servant position in London, wandered the countryside, and traveled with gypsies for a time. After leaving the gypsies, who’d begged her to become part of their clan, Mary began roaming the countryside trying to earn money for passage to America. Begging under the guise of a foreigner seemed a fast, easy, and exciting way to do it. And that, she said, was about when she made her way to Almondsbury and the kind ministrations of the Worralls.

  It was as close to the truth as anyone was going to get. Some of her story was corroborated by her father, a perplexed Devonshire cobbler. He was of the opinion that his daughter, though clever, “was not right in her mind” and hadn’t been since she was struck by rheumatic fever at age 15.

  THE WHY BEHIND THE LIE

  Mary was not a con artist, not exactly. All accounts of her hoax note that she never stole or took anything that didn’t belong to her. So why did she do it? Initially, at least, her reason may have been to stay out of prison—English law at the time dealt harshly with beggars and vagrants. If she was discovered to be just a broke English girl, rather than a friendless foreign princess, she could have spent more than a year in jail.

  Contemporary investigators had other theories. One craniologist (a person who examines the shape of the skull for clues about a person’s character) declared her “cold,” noting that she possessed “boundless ambition.” Surprisingly, he found that she had little “secretiveness” but exceptional “wariness” and “vanity,” indicating to him that her object in this little games was, “I, I, I, it is I, who can nose-lead you, and make fools of ye all!” Investigations into her character conducted by the indefatigable John Matthews Gutch of a local Bristol newspaper reveal a woman who had an incredible imagination and loved attention. Gutch found that everyone who knew Mary remembered her as an eccentric or a teller of tall tales “which never did harm to any body, but seemed to arise from the love of telling something extraordinary.” Gutch was clearly impressed with Mary, writing, “That the talents of such a girl should have been hitherto directed to no better purpose, every one must lament.”

  But Mary’s fantasies bordered on pathological. Even her “real” story was riddled with lies, many of them bizarre. Unlike the story she told Mrs. Worrall, she was clearly aware of the nature of Madgalen Hospital, the home for former prostitutes. She’d told the admitting officials she’d been led to a dissolute life by a gentleman who seduced her, and rather than be kicked out, she’d left of her own accord. She hadn’t been prostituting herself, so why she went to Madgalen Hospital is unclear. Whether she was ever married is another instance where her narrative detours from provable truth, though contemporary sources all agree that she did have a child and that the boy died around four months old. If anything, her stories and lies became more fanciful after her child’s death.

  Such behavior is consistent with the idea that stress can bring on a mental breakdown, especially if the person was predisposed to a manic state. Which Mary may have been—people who survive rheumatic fever also suffer a higher incidence of neuropsychiatric disorders, including manic depression. So maybe her father’s claim that she’d been a bit strange since suffering a fever wasn’t too far off the mark.

  As to why people believed her, that’s clear: she was a good actress, and they wanted to. The Romantic ideal of the “Orient” was incredibly fashionable at the time, permeating popular culture through art, poetry, picture books, even interior design. Having a Javasu princess pitch up in one’s quiet village must have seemed incredibly exotic. Who wouldn’t have wanted to believe she was the real d
eal?

  After Mary’s deception was uncovered and published in local newspapers, interest in the erstwhile princess of Javasu only increased. Curiosity seekers from all walks of life—earls, doctors, and an unceasing parade of Christian ministers hoping to save her soul—came to town to meet her.

  But in 1817, only a few months after she was found out, Mary left Bristol on a ship bound for America, her passage paid by the estimable Mrs. Worrall, whose kindness evidently knew no bounds. Tales of Mary’s hoax preceded her arrival in Philadelphia. The city’s wharves were crowded with curiosity seekers, and plans were already afoot to get her onto the stage, playing herself as the character she’d made up. “Carraboo,” as she was called in America, was a phenomenon, fueling a passion for turbans among fashionable ladies. But Mary soon became the subject of ridicule. Certainly, an element of teasing the gullible British characterized local newspaper reports of Miss Carraboo’s American exploits, including swimming up a waterfall. But there was also a good deal of moral outrage that this girl, who’d “made her self notorious” in her native country, as one editorial boomed, would show herself in America.

  By 1824, Mary was back in London, exhibiting herself at a New Bond Street public room as Princess Caraboo. Paying customers were few, and income didn’t cover the cost of renting the rooms. Fame, it seems, lasts only so long. But all did not end badly for the wannabe royalty. Mary returned to Bristol, where she started a business supplying medicinal leeches to the local hospital and pharmacies. She married Richard Baker and had a daughter, also named Mary, who kept up the business after her mother’s death. Mary the younger may have also inherited her mother’s colorful nature—she became the town’s crazy cat lady.

  Mary Baker, a.k.a. Princess Caraboo, died in Bristol on Christmas Eve 1864, at the age of 75. Her story has continued to fascinate, resurfacing periodically in popular culture in the years since her grand adventure. In the 1990s, it was made into a film starring Phoebe Cates, a play in Bristol, and a BBC television program. Mary would have been proud. After all, she sure loved a good story.

  SIX WAYS TO FAKE PRINCESSHOOD

  Princess Caraboo was by no means the only woman who ever tried to pass herself off as a princess. History is littered with royal imposters who, for reasons of love, greed, or insanity, pretended to be someone they most certainly were not.

  Most rely on a “Princess and the Pea” strategy: talk like a princess, act like a princess, make a fuss about vegetables under your mattress like a princess, and maybe everyone will believe you are a princess. Other imposters have bet on their audience’s ignorance and willingness to believe; like Caraboo, these were usually exceptional actresses gifted with an incredible imagination (and gall). And in some cases, the fiction worked because the would-be princess came to believe her own crazy story.

  So if you’re thinking of giving it a go as a royal fake, here are six notable attempts to learn from.

  1. MAKE A NAME FOR YOURSELF:

  PRINCESS TARAKANOVA

  In 1774 a young woman surfaced in Paris claiming to be the legitimate daughter of Russian tsar Peter III’s aunt, Empress Elizabeth, and her secret husband, Count Aleksy Razumovsky. Had that been true, her claim to the throne would have been greater than that of the reigning empress, Catherine the Great, who’d achieved her power through marriage rather than by blood.

  The woman bizarrely called herself Princess Tarakanova, or Princess Cockroach (tarakan means “cockroach” in Russian). She claimed it was a pet name given by her illustrious mother before she sent her to be raised in Persia. Beautiful and well educated, Tarakanova had attracted a few European aristocrats to be part of her entourage. (Note: When pretending to be a princess, it’s helpful to have some real royalty on hand to bolster your claims.)

  Her timing was bad. Catherine the Great had just had her boozy husband murdered in a bloody coup and was in no mood to entertain claimants to her throne. The self-proclaimed princess, now living on borrowed splendor in Italy, graciously offered to split the Russian empire with Catherine, noting that she didn’t want to have to resort to calling on the Turks for military support. But Catherine was not one to hesitate about squashing little bugs. Especially when evidence turned up that Princess Cockroach had been put up to the plot by Polish rebels looking to sow the seeds of revolution in Russia.

  Still, Catherine worried that the notoriety and support the girl was attracting could lead to rebellion. So she sent a former lover, Count Alexei Orlov, to Italy. The plan was to gain the princess’s trust, pretend to support her claim, seduce her, and then kidnap her.

  It worked. Orlov lured Tarakanova onto his ship with the promise of marriage, and when she was safely on board he sprang his trap. The princess was arrested and returned to Russia. She died in prison in 1776, barely a year after her capture, still awaiting trial. At the time of her death, rumors circulated that she drowned in her cell during a flood. In reality, she died of an illness no doubt exacerbated by life behind bars.

  2. DRESS THE PART:

  PRINCESS SUSANNA CAROLINE MATILDA

  In the early 1770s, the sister of Queen Charlotte—wife of England’s George III and namesake of plenty of cities, counties, roads, and pubs in the British colonies—visited the New World. Colonial gossips, starved for news of the old country, were all atwitter. Never heard of Princess Susanna Caroline Matilda? She was evicted from court after a scandal. But isn’t Queen Charlotte from Germany? Why doesn’t Princess Susanna speak German? Why, that’s because she is refusing to speak her native tongue until she’s reconciled to her most beloved sister. Royal scandal! everyone squeaked.

  For a year and a half, Princess Susanna was the social accessory in Virginia and the Carolinas, passed from house to house and put up in lavish comfort. So imagine everyone’s shock when the princess was revealed to be not a disgraced royal but an escaped convict.

  Princess Susanna was in fact Sarah Wilson, born in Staffordshire and hired in London as a maidservant to Caroline Vernon, one of the queen’s ladies-in-waiting. After a short time in Vernon’s employ, it was discovered that Wilson had managed to steal a fine dress, a miniature portrait of the queen, and some jewels, among other things. She was tried and sentenced to death; thanks to Vernon’s kind intervention, her sentence was commuted to transportation to the colonies.

  Wilson arrived in Baltimore in 1771 and was sold as an indentured servant to William Devall, a plantation owner in Maryland. Somehow she escaped and ran away to Virginia, taking with her the ill-gotten dress, jewels, and portrait (which, incredibly and inexplicably, she’d managed to hang on to throughout her trial, sentencing, and transatlantic voyage). These items would serve her well in her new identity, as would the court gossip she’d picked up as a servant.

  So furnished, Wilson became Princess Susanna for the excited locals, who put her up in their guest rooms and allowed her to hold court in their living rooms. She was, it appears, an exceptional actress: meticulous in her details, she had even embroidered little crowns with her monogram onto her linens. She adopted the attitude of an exiled aristocrat, letting it be known that she still had some influence in the royal houses of Europe and implying that kindness toward her might bring financial rewards. How long she intended to keep up the fiction is unclear, but in the meantime she was doing a brisk business in favors.

  Word in the colonies didn’t travel fast, and it wasn’t until months after Wilson’s escape that Devall heard about the exiled princess. He sent one of his men down to South Carolina, where she was then residing, to bring her back into custody. The man found Wilson happily holding court at a local worthy’s house. After unmasking her true identity, he ushered her out the door at gunpoint.

  Back in Devall’s service, Wilson spent two years as a humble servant until fate once again gave her an opportunity to escape. When another Sarah Wilson arrived in the colony, she managed to switch places with the woman. The erstwhile princess later married a British officer, and the couple set themselves up in business using the money sh
e’d amassed during her time as an exiled aristocrat. They lived happily ever after, growing a big family and enjoying life in postrevolutionary America.

  3. PUBLISH YOUR STORY:

  PRINCESS OLIVE OF CUMBERLAND

  Olivia Serres, née Wilmot, was a woman who sometimes found herself in debt. And when she did, well, the most expedient thing to do was to claim that she was not just Olivia Serres, semi-successful landscape painter and novelist, but Princess Olive of Cumberland, the sometimes-legitimate, sometimes-illegitimate daughter of the king’s brother.

  Olivia first made her claim in 1817, putting forth a petition to King George III (who was by then irretrievably mad) that she was the illegitimate daughter of the late Henry Frederick, duke of Cumberland. This, however, wasn’t enough to keep Serres out of debtors’ prison, so in 1820 she revised her claim: she was his legitimate daughter, born April 3, 1772, of his secret marriage to Olive Wilmot, which had taken place on March 4, 1767.

  Olivia wasn’t content to appeal just to the British royal family; she took her case to the court of public opinion. Repeatedly. A prolific writer, she published pamphlet after pamphlet explaining her contradictory claims; she once had London papered in posters that read “The Princess of Cumberland in Captivity!” In 1822, Olivia published her pièce de résistance, the aptly titled “Princess of Cumberland’s Statement to the English Nation.” Ridiculously long and meandering, it includes descriptions of an episode in which the young princess is rescued from drowning by a dog, and another in which she is beset by robbers in her own home.

  More to the point, Olivia claimed that her uncle, Dr. Wilmot, was in fact her grandfather, and that he’d secretly married a Polish princess. The product of that union was Olivia’s mother, who’d caught the fancy of the duke of Cumberland and married him in 1767. But their domestic bliss was tragically torn asunder. The duke abandoned his wife, who died soon after, and bizarrely abandoned his daughter into the care of a Warwick house painter with a tendency to embezzle.