LADY MATILDA Identity Theft in the 18th Century

I believe Sara Wilson was one of the most amazing people of the 18th century. And if you've never heard of this clever woman born with jet black hair around 1754 in the west midlands of England, don't be concerned; few people have. She was the daughter of a bailiff (or superintendent) of an estate, and at 16 was recommended for employment as a maidservant to Caroline Vernon, the second Lady Grosvenor, who was a lady-in-waiting to Queen Charlotte, wife to King George III. The Lady Grosvenor was herself “…a spinster” of just 17 years of age.

Overnight this girl from the countryside, Sara Wilson,  found herself living in the Queen’s house (now Buckingham Palace) in the center of the largest city in the western world. There Sara Wilson saw royalty up close and she advanced from “…opinionated child to a stoic onlooker…” - in other words a servant.  Sara  had to care for Lady Grosvenor’s clothing, help dress and undress her, serve her meals and see to her chamber pot at night. And then, in 1771, Sara was accused of stealing jewelry from the queen.

There is a problem with this story, and his name was Henry, Duke of Cumberland, the younger brother to the King.   In 1766 Henry had secretly married a commoner (above, center) , Maria Wapole, the Lady Grosvenor. Marriage without royal permission made him a scandal. But keeping a secret was difficult as well since Henry was also “…fierce of temper, frivolous of character, and foppish in his dress…In the year 1770, the attentions of the duke to Lady Grosvenor were so marked, and so ridiculous, that everybody talked about them."

"He followed her about in disguises, often betraying himself by his fopperies and imbecility…” (pp65-66, Lives of the Queens of England; Dr. John Doran, 1855). Perhaps the Duke  was suffering from the same infirmaries which would shortly produce the “Madness of King George III”, his older brother (above).   If he had been the one caught stealing jewelry from Lady Grosvenor’s chambers,  it would have been symptomatic of his behavior, but would also have been a new scandal requiring Lady  Grosvenor  to leave court.  In 1771 the Duke was finally ordered from court himself. And while there is no evidence that he was responsible for what happened to the maidservant of Lady Grosvenor, Sara Wilson, his guilt would explain certain odd events which which followed the servant' girl's arrest.

Sara was charged with sneaking into the Queen’s private quarters, breaking into a locked cabinet and stealing a ring, a dress and a miniature portrait of Queen Charlotte. What a 17 year old servent girl, less than a year out of the countryside, with no room of her own, would have done with such items, begs reason. But guilty or not, Sara was completely at the mercy of “her betters”. And where scandal might have attached if the same items had been stolen from 18 year Lady Grosvenor, none could dare be implied of the Queen - or the King's brother.  Sara was given the option of either hanging or transportation. So, in July of 1771 she boarded a prison ship bound for the port of Baltimore in the colony of Maryland. And somehow she took with her most of the damming evidence against her; the ring, the dress and the miniature portrait of the Queen (below).

The 4-7 week trip probably came close to killing her: “…during the voyage there is on board these ships terrible misery, stench, fumes, horror, vomiting…fever, dysentery, headache, heat, constipation, boils, scurvy… The misery reaches the climax when a gale rages for 2 or 3 nights and days…Children from 1 to 7 years rarely survive the voyage…warm food is served only three times a week, the rations being very poor and very little..."

...The water which is served out of the ships is often very black, thick and full of worms, so that one cannot drink it without loathing, even with the greatest thirst." (pp 25-31 Journey to Pennsylvania in the Year 1750” Gottlieb Mittelberger) And those were conditions for persons who paid for the privilege. Felons were not so well accommodated.

Sara then had to survive her arrival. “Every day Englishmen…go on board the newly arrived ships…and select among the healthy persons such as they deem suitable for their business, and bargain with them how long they will serve for their passage money “(ibid).

But Sara had an advantage which none of the other transported felons possessed. In the cash poor American colonies the dress alone was worth a small fortune if sold. How did such valuable property miss the sharp eyes of her betrayed mistress back in London, and the servants of the Queen, and the jailers and the crew of the ship? And how did it escape the purview of Mr. William Devall, her new master?

We do not know what Mr. Devall’s occupation was,  only that he owned property along Bush Creek, which arises south west of New Market, and flows into the Monocracy River southeast of Frederick, Maryland.  If Sara had harbored any hopes of a better life in America, she must have been sadly disappointed. The life of a servant girl was not much different in either country, except in America it was harder.

Gail Collins noted in her book “America's Women: Four Hundred Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines”, that ““A study of one Maryland County showed that 20% of the women who arrived as servants…wound up in court for bearing illegitimate children. Some of them must have been raped or seduced by the master of their house, but they were still punished as if they had freely chosen….. In one remarkable case, a seven year old girl was reprimanded when she was molested by an adult male. The man that assaulted her was convicted. But the girl's mother was also ordered to punish the young victim in order to increase the child's "grief for her offense." (pp9-10).

It should have been no surprise then, that within day’s of Sara’s arrival, in October of 1771, her new master was advertising; "Run away from the subscriber, a servant maid named Sarah Wilson…she has a blemish in her right eye, black rolled hair, stoops in her shoulders, makes a common practice of writing and marking her clothes with a Crown and a B. Whoever secures the said servant woman, or takes her home, shall receive five pistols, besides all cost and charges. William Devall."

Sara had only to follow the Monocracy River south a few miles to reach the Potomac River. On that stream’s southern shore was the “Tidewater Aristocracy” of Virginia, desperately anxious to prove to all its sophistication. Englishman Edward Kimber had noted that in Virginia in 1745, “Wherever you travel . . . your ears are constantly astonished at the number of colonels, majors, and captains that you hear mentioned: In short, the whole country seems at first to you a retreat of heroes.”

Almost immediately Sara assumed her new persona; Lady Susanna Carolina Matilda: estranged by a family feud from her sister, Charlotte, Queen of England. Sara dazzled her victims with court gossip – real and invented - and in exchange for lodging and meals, the use of a carriage, monetary gifts and letters of introduction to the next plantation house, the Lady Matilda granted political positions, military appointments and even economic beneficences, none of which were worth the paper they were written on. And few seemed to notice that the lady spoke not a word of German, even though, presumably, that was her native tongue.

Over the next two years Lady Matilda traveled down the coast of Virginia and passed on to the backwaters of the Carolinas.  On 13 May, 1773, there appeared the following item in the bemused “London Magazine”: “Some time ago one Sarah Wilson…assumed the title of the Princess Susanna Carolina Matilda, pronouncing herself to be an own sister to our sovereign lady the queen…she acted her part so plausibly as to persuade the generality that she was no impostor….At length, however, an advertisement appeared, and a messenger arrived from her master, who raised a loud hue and cry for her serene highness".

Sara was returned under guard to Bush Creek. For her escape, her term of service was extended by two years. But history was on Sara’s side. In the spring of 1775 the colonists began shooting at British soldiers, and Sara's master,, William Devall,  joined the American forces.  In his absence, Sara Wilson slipped away again, this time making her way to British occupied New York City. There she married William Talbot, an officer in the Royal Light Dragoons. When the war ended, the Talbot’s chose not to return to England, where Sara would have been subject to arrest. They settled instead in the bowery of Manhattan, and quickly faded into history.

But what an amazing woman Sara was. She became a criminal to survive in normal times, and found normality in a revolution. To call her a commoner misses the point entirely.

- 30 -

THE SOUL OF A POLITICIAN

I don't say you have to be crazy to be a politician, but displaying a little screwball logic - “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice”  or  "Mexicans...they're rapists" - can solidify your base. On the other hand you don't want voters suspecting you might be completely loony - like Queen of the loonies, Michele Bachmann.  Now, navigating a path between those two alternatives can be tricky at times.

For example, in the 1980's a 5'1” tall combative fire cracker named Ruthann Aron (above) used her obsessive-compulsive drive and her pugnacious combative nature to make a fortune in real estate development.   She didn't make a lot of friends, of course. 

Her urologist husband Barry (above) admitted, “She gets in people’s faces in a very straightforward way and doesn’t tap dance too much.”  

Still the little lady had big dreams, even of becoming a United States Senator.  Ruthann's first attempt resulted in defeat, but that was not unusual. She could have recovered. But then she became the first candidate on record to actually sue her opponent for slander. Equating political mud slinging with slander - that was when Ruthann went from being odd to being out to lunch, And then she went for a full seven course banquet, even moving from erratic to homicidal. Perhaps we should review the details of her story, so any would-be politicians out there can take notes.

Our lesson begins in the “D.C.” adjacent enclave of Montgomery county, Maryland, one of the richest and best educated counties in America. Everybody here, it seems came from some place else – the county was even named for a Revolutionary War hero who never set foot in the state. This is one of those big ponds where little fish either get eaten or grow big  And it has not voted for a Republican Presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan retired. And, as Barry Rascovar noted for the Washington Post in mid-August of 1994, “...the last time there was a truly contested GOP Senate primary was in the early 1960s.” It was here that our diminutive mother of two faced her first test when, after just two years on the County Planning Board, Ruthann Aron decided to run for the United States Senate as a Republican.

It was a clever move. The dysfunctional Maryland G.O.P had little hope of beating the popular Democrat, Paul Sarbanes who had held the seat since 1976 and seemed a shoe-in for re-election. But even if she lost the primary, Ruthann could still lay a foundation for a future in politics.

The only drawback was that there were seven candidates vying for the Republican nomination, so Ruthann decided to stand out, to concentrate in attacking her best known opponent, multimillionaire candy heir and ex-Senator from Tennessee, the handsome Bill Brock III.

Ruthann spent nearly a quarter of a million dollars of her own money buying radio ads, in which two “hillbillies” laughed about the way Maryland voters were being fooled by the “tax-raising, carpetbagging, career politician”, Senator Brock.   The ex-Senator chose to not even mention Ruthann in his few radio ads. No since giving the little lady free publicity. Then, a poll released Labor Day weekend found Brock leading, as expected, with just 23% of the vote. And in second place and well within the margin of error for a tie was Ruthann, at 20%.

With just two weeks to go before the primary, Brock decided he could no longer ignore the tiny upstart, and called an afternoon press conference for Thursday, 8 September, 1994, on the Rockville courthouse square. As the Baltimore Sun noted, “The minutes preceding yesterday's news conference had the feel of a mock thriller....About 2 p.m. the (Ruthann) Aron camp entered...About 10 minutes later, Mr. Brock arrived with his contingent of sign-wavers.” The Washington Post observed, “As reporters and photographers soaked up the awkward silence, the two camps stared mutely, and the whirring of (film) cameras was all that was heard.”

According to the Post, the biggest bomb shell at the press conference was dropped by a Brock supporter, former U.S. representative Marjorie Holt, who mentioned “...the aura of fraud and breach of contract that constantly surrounds the other candidate.” Guess who that was. After that,  the press conference devolved into two competing impromptu verbal slug fests,  during which Brock built on Holt's charge. According to the Post, Brock said, “She has been convicted by a jury of fraud, more than once," The Reporters were having a ball,  bouncing "between the two candidates like pin balls.” Brock backed up the theatrical press conference with $220,000 in new radio ads, claiming that Ruthann had been convicted of fraud “more than once”, and had to pay “hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines”. Said his narrator in the ad, "Before Ruthann Aron starts attacking anybody, maybe she ought to look in the mirror.”

On Tuesday, 13 September, Ruthann lost the primary by 50,000 votes. Even worse, a poll released just before the election showed that rather than laying a foundation for her future, her campaign style had left her in a hole by raising her negatives to 16%.  Her reputation was not even helped when Block was easily beaten by the Democrat Sarbanes in the November general election. So, finding herself in a hole, Ruthann decided to keep digging.  She sued Brock for defamation of character. No politician had ever done that before.  I wonder why?

It took over a year for what the Sun called Ruthann's “frivolous lawsuit” to work its way to trial, which it did in early 1996. “Jurors have been schooled”, wrote the Sun, “in subliminal suggestion...the role of Russian composer Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky in an effective campaign commercial....harked to the tonal difference between a major chord and a slamming jail door, listened again and again to the definition of "Ronald Reagan's 11th Commandment" (Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican) and been told that staff members look at members of Congress the way undertakers look at corpses.”

Chief witness for Brock was Arthur G. Kahn, lawyer in a 1984 suit against Ruthann's real estate company, Research Incorporated. Kahn testified his clients had invested in a shopping mall Ruthann was promoting. The mall had never been built, but Ruthann sold the rights to the project to a third party for $200,000. And kept that money. The jury awarded her partners $175,000, which Ruthann paid only after Arthur Kahn agreed to request the judge wipe the verdict from the record. It had been a civil suit, and she had lost, but there was no conviction, and the verdict had been vacated, so technically there was no record, so technically what Brock had said at the press conference had been untrue ...but the jury decided that was splitting hairs, and, besides, my bet is they just did not like Ruthann very much. Who did? They found for Brock. Ruthann had lost again. And now she was really, double-dog-done in politics

And that should have been the end of Ruthann's public activities, unless she had thrown herself into charity work or earned a Nobel Peace Prize or something noble, like saving a sinking bag of kittens.

Instead, on Saturday, 7 June, 1997, Ruthann Aron was arrested for hiring a hit man to murder her old nemesis,  Arthur Kahn. And, as an afterthought, her own husband Doctor Barry Aron (above, right), as well. They had her on tape with an undercover cop spelling out the intended victim's names. They had video of her dropping the down payment off at a hotel. It was an open and shut case. Mostly shut.

Ruthann insisted at both of her trials (the first jury hung, 11-1 for conviction) that she was crazy. And it's hard to disagree with that. The why and whereof is irrelevant for purposes of this discussion. Let's just say she was nuts and let it go by saying the jury found her guilty anyway. At her sentencing Ruthann's lawyer pointed out what her career in politics had cost the little lady. "She's lost her credibility, her reputation, her family as she knew it, her dignity, her lifestyle, her husband, almost everything she had”, he said.  She still got three years in jail with a suspended sentence of ten more years hanging over her head.

Barry the urologist not only filed for divorce, he sued Ruthann for $7.5 million. And she counter-sued him for $24 million. Some people never learn. But it could have been worse. Just before her arrest, Ruthann had been considering a switch to the Democratic party.

After she got out of jail in 2001, Ruth Ann eventually moved to Florida, and changed her last name to Green.  And then she wrote her autobiography, proclaiming her innocence.  The jury didn't buy it, why should anybody else?   And that is the end of the sad story of Ruthann  Aron-Green, The lesson from our little tale of this little lady is that if you sleep with a politician, you may or may not find love, but you will defiantly get screwed. Those people are nuts.

- 30-

THE MIND OF A POLITICAN

I don't say you have to be crazy to be a politician, but displaying a little screwball logic - “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice”  or  "Mexicans...they're rapists" - can solidify your base. On the other hand you don't want voters suspecting you might be completely loony - like Queen of the loonies, Michele Bachmann.  Now, navigating a path between those two alternatives can be tricky at times.

For example, in the 1980's a 5'1” tall combative fire cracker named Ruthann Aron (above) used her obsessive-compulsive drive and her pugnacious combative nature to make a fortune in real estate development.   She didn't make a lot of friends, of course. 

Her urologist husband Barry admitted, “She gets in people’s faces in a very straightforward way and doesn’t tap dance too much.”  

Still the lady had big dreams, even of becoming a United States Senator.  Ruthann's first attempt resulted in defeat, but that was not unusual. She could have recovered. But then she became the first candidate on record to actually sue her opponent for slander. Equating political mud slinging with slander - that was when Ruthann went from being odd to being out to lunch, And then she went from erratic to homicidal. Perhaps we should review the details of her story, so any would-be politicians out there can take notes.

Our lesson begins in the “D.C.” adjacent enclave of Montgomery county, Maryland, one of the richest and best educated counties in America. Everybody here, it seems came from some place else – the county was even named for a Revolutionary War hero who never set foot in the state. This is one of those big ponds where little fish either get eaten or grow big  And it has not voted for a Republican Presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan retired. And, as Barry Rascovar noted for the Washington Post in mid-August of 1994, “...the last time there was a truly contested GOP Senate primary was in the early 1960s.” It was here that our diminutive mother of two faced her first test when, after just two years on the County Planning Board, Ruthann Aron decided to run for the United States Senate as a Republican.

It was a clever move. The dysfunctional Maryland G.O.P had little hope of beating the popular Democrat, Paul Sarbanes who had held the seat since 1976 and seemed a shoe-in for re-election. But even if she lost the primary, Ruthann could still lay a foundation for a future in politics.

The only drawback was that there were seven candidates vying for the Republican nomination, so Ruthann decided to stand out, to concentrate in attacking her best known opponent, multimillionaire candy heir and ex-Senator from Tennessee, the handsome Bill Brock III.

Ruthann spent nearly a quarter of a million dollars of her own money buying radio ads, in which two “hillbillies” laughed about the way Maryland voters were being fooled by the “tax-raising, carpetbagging, career politician”, Senator Brock.   The ex-Senator chose to not even mention Ruthann in his few radio ads. No since giving the little lady free publicity. Then, a poll released Labor Day weekend found Brock leading, as expected, with 23% of the vote. But in second place and well within the margin of error for a tie was Ruthann, at 20%.

With just two weeks to go before the primary, Brock decided he could no longer ignore the tiny upstart, and called an afternoon press conference for Thursday, September 8, 1994, on the Rockville courthouse square. As the Baltimore Sun noted, “The minutes preceding yesterday's news conference had the feel of a mock thriller....About 2 p.m. the (Ruthann) Aron camp entered...About 10 minutes later, Mr. Brock arrived with his contingent of sign-wavers.” The Washington Post observed, “As reporters and photographers soaked up the awkward silence, the two camps stared mutely, and the whirring of (film) cameras was all that was heard.”

According to the Post, the biggest bomb shell at the press conference was dropped by a Brock supporter, former U.S. representative Marjorie Holt, who mentioned “...the aura of fraud and breach of contract that constantly surrounds the other candidate.” After that,  the press conference devolved into two competing impromptu verbal slug fests,  during which Brock built on Holt's charge. According to the Post, “She has been convicted by a jury of fraud, more than once," (Brock) told reporters, who bounced between the two candidates like pin balls.” Brock backed up the theatrical press conference with $220,000 in new radio ads, claiming that Ruthann had been convicted of fraud “more than once”, and had to pay “hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines”. Said his narrator in the ad, "Before Ruthann Aron starts attacking anybody, maybe she ought to look in the mirror.”

On Tuesday, September 13, Ruthann lost the primary by 50,000 votes. Even worse, a poll released just before the election showed that rather than laying a foundation for her future, her campaign style had left her in a hole by raising her negative ratings to 16%.  Her reputation was not even helped when Block was easily beaten by the Democrat Sarbanes in the November general election. So, finding herself in a hole, Ruthann decided to keep digging.  She sued Brock for defamation of character. No politician had ever done that before.

It took over a year for what the Sun called Ruthann's “frivolous lawsuit” to work its way to trial, which it did in early 1996. “Jurors have been schooled”, wrote the Sun, “in subliminal suggestion...the role of Russian composer Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky in an effective campaign commercial....harked to the tonal difference between a major chord and a slamming jail door, listened again and again to the definition of "Ronald Reagan's 11th Commandment" (Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican) and been told that staff members look at members of Congress the way undertakers look at corpses.”

Chief witness for Brock was Arthur G. Kahn, lawyer in a 1984 suit against Ruthann's real estate company, Research Incorporated. Kahn testified his clients had invested in a shopping mall Ruthann was promoting. The mall had never been built, but Ruthann sold the rights to the project to a third party for $200,000. And kept that money. The jury awarded her partners $175,000, which Ruthann paid only after Arthur Kahn agreed to request the judge wipe the verdict from the record. It had been a civil suit, and she had lost, but there was no conviction, and the verdict had been vacated, so technically there was no record, so technically what Brock had said at the press conference had been untrue ...but the jury decided that was splitting hairs, and, besides, my bet is they just did not like Ruthann very much. Who did? They found for Brock. Ruthann had lost again. And now she was really, double-dog-done in politics

And that should have been the end of Ruthann's public activities, unless she had thrown herself into charity work or earned a Nobel Peace Prize or something.

Instead, on June 7, 1997, Ruthann Aron was arrested for hiring a hit man to murder her old nemesis Arthur Kahn. And, as an afterthought, her own husband Doctor Barry Aron (above, right), as well. They had her on tape with an undercover cop spelling out the intended victim's names. They had video of her dropping the down payment off at a hotel. It was an open and shut case.

Ruthann insisted at both of her trials (the first jury hung, 11-1 for conviction) that she was crazy. And it's hard to disagree with that. The why and whereof is irrelevant for purposes of this discussion. Let's just say she was nuts and let it go by saying the jury found her guilty anyway. At her sentencing Ruthann's lawyer pointed out what her career in politics had cost the little lady. "She's lost her credibility, her reputation, her family as she knew it, her dignity, her lifestyle, her husband, almost everything she had”, he said.  She still got three years in jail with a suspended sentence of ten more years hanging over her head.

Barry the urologist not only filed for divorce, he sued Ruthann for $7.5 million. And she counter-sued him for $24 million. Some people never learn. But it could have been worse. Just before her arrest, Ruthann had been considering a switch to the Democratic party.

The lesson from our little tale is that if you sleep with a politician, you may not find love, but you will defiantly get screwed. Those people are nuts.

- 30-