Heck, in the 2010s Anna Delvey convinced many NY elites that she was a rich heiress. She kept the con going for several years before it all came crashing down in financial ruin. She was typically just one step ahead of her creditors, but managed to always find a bigger fool.
One of my favourite impostors was probably just a case of mistaken identity. Hee Sing arrived in London on the first Chinese junk to reach Western Europe, and was present at the opening of the Great Exhibition of 1851. It seems that the officials in charge of the opening ceremony thought he was more important than he was, so included him with all the archbishops, generals and ambassadors who were there in official capacities.
It seems entirely fitting that someone who has sailed clear around the world using Imperial Chinese technology should be treated with significant respect, whether he was an official ambassador or not.
The series (Netflix) is interesting. She was, however, slowly working her way into deeper and deeper doodoo. She started with latching onto a rich boyfriend, then assorted acquaintances. Then managed to con a bank executive into an advance.
then she was dancing with the stars…
And now I’ve just remembered that Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor has a minor subplot where some horse thieves (possibly disreputable buddies of Sir John Falstaff) come to town posing as servants of a German duke who is visiting the court. They get away with the local innkeeper’s horses (despite his suspicions about why he hasn’t heard anything else about this duke), and are said to have pulled this trick in several other towns as well. They don’t, however, claim to BE the duke or anyone else important, and it’s a “grab stuff and run” sort of scam rather than a sustained impersonation.
Shakespeare clearly knew Windsor and environs quite well, and it’s possible he was referencing a real incident.
…related by birth or marriage.
With an ankle monitor after being released from prison.
Beat me to it.
AS noted, there have been plenty of people in the past who passed themselves off as others, including royalty.
One of the more interesting is the fake oracle Alexander of Abonoteichus. We have several relics from him, and a wonderfully account from Lucian of Samosota who exposed him as a first century Con Man.
As opposed to all the real oracles who successfully communicated with the real Apollo and such
Something that bugged me about the movie A Knights Tale, the main character makes up the false persona “Sir Ulrich Von Liechtenstein of Gelderland”. Liechtenstein and Gelderland are real locations quite far from each other.
I figured that it’s so if they meet someone from eg. Liechtenstein, they can deflect by saying “oh my family originally come from Liechtenstein, but that’s far in the past, all our holdings are in Gelderland. Are you familiar with the province… no, what a shame, you really should, wonderful place!”. Other way around if they are from Gelderland.
Maybe a noble man came from Liechtenstein and married a noble woman in Gelderland. Their son could inherit the von Liechtenstein name, but come from Gelderland?
Is that possible? I don’t know how names worked back then.
Except that what is now the country of Liechtenstein only got its name in the early eighteenth century. That happened when Schellenberg and Vaduz were bought by the Prince of Liechtenstein, who took his name from somewhere completely different. Mind you, that other place was also nowhere near Gelderland.
German nobility had “von und zu”, approximately “of and at”. Von named the origin of the noble house, and zu named the current holding or estate the individual was from.
So “Ulrich Von Liechtenstein of Gelderland” using appropriate particles could be hypothetically be “Ulrich von Liechtenstein zu Gelderland”, meaning that the family’s noble roots were in Liechtenstein but he himself was from a family holding in Gelderland.
But of course, I rather doubt the writers of a film that uses David Bowie in a dance scene would overthink this to that degree.
Ulrich von Liechtenstein was a real historical person.
Yes, but he wasn’t named after the present-day country of Liechtenstein.
Yeah, I don’t think he was related to the princely family at all, they both just happened to be named after similar things. Just throwing that little tidbit into things, not disagreeing with anything you said.
Oh, I think they probably did. Like Monty Python and the Holy Grail, it’s a silly fun movie that was also written by someone with a deep knowledge of medieval literature and culture, and it shows. (The “Do your worst” episode is almost directly lifted from a 12th-century romance by Chretien de Troyes; female blacksmiths were a real thing and the backstory they’ve given her is plausible; they knew what else Chaucer had written besides The Canterbury Tales and when, etc.)
I agree with much of what is being said here and wanted to add that there likely was a fair amount of fraud or at least misrepresenting or lying about who you are. If you think about these types of things still happened even into the 1970s - before instant communication and computers changed everything. As technology has gotten better becoming someone else - at least in all ways that amount to anything - has become much more difficult.