Arthur Orton

William Shakespeare, claimant.

Arthur Orton, claimant.

Mary Baker G. Eddy, claimant, and the rest of them.

Eminent claimants, successful claimants, defeated claimants, royal claimants, pleb claimants, showy claimants, shabby claimants, revered claimants, despised claimants, twinkle star-like here and there and yonder through the mists of history and legend and tradition.

It has always been so with the human race.

There was never a claimant that couldn't get a hearing, nor one that couldn't accumulate a rapturous following, no matter how flimsy and apparently unauthentic his claim might be.

Arthur Orton's claim that he was the lost Tichborne baronet come to life again was as flimsy as Mrs. Eddy's that she wrote Science and Health from the direct dictation of the deity.

Yet in England, nearly forty years ago, Orton had a huge army of devotees and incorrigible adherents, many of whom remained stubbornly unconvinced after their fact god had been proven an imposter and jailed as a perjurer.

This is not Roger Tickborn.

He's a butcher named Arthur Orton, and he is now headed to prison for the lie.

What is the lesson? Simply declaring sonship is does not guarantee sonship.

The test is what brought light to light what is actually true.