The Convict Maid Who Became a Princess
Until well into the nineteenth century, Britain routinely got rid of convicted criminals via penal transportation – a system of shipping undesirables to far away colonies. Upon arrival, the convicts were sold into indentured servitude for a fixed term. During the eighteenth century, Britain’s American Colonies and the West Indies were the most popular dumping grounds for such undesirables.
That is how Sarah Wilson (circa 1754 – circa 1865) arrived in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1771. She had been a maid in Buckingham Palace to one of Queen Charlotte’s ladies in waiting. Sarah had light fingers, however, and was fired after she was caught stealing some of the queen’s jewels and gowns. She was also tried, convicted, and sentenced to hang – theft being one of the hundreds of crimes punishable by death in Britain back then. Luckily, her sentence was commuted to penal transportation.
Upon arrival in Baltimore, Sarah was taken off the convict ship and sold as an indentured servant, but escaped within a few days. She had managed to hang on to some of Queen Charlotte’s belonging, and wearing the queen’s dress, she claimed to be Queen Charlotte’s sister, “Princess Susana Caroline Matilda of Mecklenberg-Sterlitz”. She explained her presence in the American Colonies by inventing a royal family quarrel, and a scandal that required her to temporarily leave Britain until things calmed down.
During her time as a maid in Buckingham Palace, Sarah had observed royal mannerisms and aristocratic etiquette. She managed to pull off a convincing imitation that duped many Colonials into believing that she really was a princess, and parlayed that into a life of luxury. For years, “Princess Susana” traveled up and down the American Colonies, from New Hampshire in the north all the way down south to the Carolinas. She was hosted in style by many government officials, wealthy Americans, social climbers, and others eager to befriend and win the favor of a royal.
She grifted many out of considerable sums by promising royal appointments, or that she would put in a good word for them with her sister and brother in the law, the Queen and King of Britain. She also took out numerous loans and bought many luxury items on credit from merchants and shopkeepers eager for royal patronage and the custom of a princess.
The scam ended when her master finally caught her and took her back to Baltimore. In 1775, she escaped again, and made her way northwards, where she met and married a British Army officer during the American Revolution. After the war, the couple stayed in the newly independent United States, after which Sarah vanishes from the historic record.