In April 1817, a cobbler in Almondsbury, England, encountered a bewildered young woman wearing exotic clothes and speaking an incomprehensible language. Local gentry took her in, fascinated by her strange manners, elaborate gestures, and refusal to eat European food unless cooked in a specific manner. A Portuguese sailor named Manuel Eynesso soon claimed he could translate her language.
He revealed that she was Princess Caraboo from the island of Javanu in the Indian Ocean. According to her tale, she had been captured by pirates, escaped by jumping overboard in the Bristol Channel, and wandered ashore. For months, British aristocracy showered her with admiration, painting her portrait and publishing newspaper articles about her exotic customs, archery skills, and tree-climbing rituals.
However, the charade unravelled when a local boarding-house keeper named Mrs. Neale recognized her portrait in the newspaper. The mysterious royal was actually Mary Willcocks, a cobbler's daughter from Devon who had worked as a servant across England.
Facing unemployment and poverty, she had invented an elaborate fictional identity using invented language and gibberish. Despite the exposure, the public was so entertained by her audacity that she capitalized on her fame, touring America as Princess Caraboo and later returning to England to sell leeches to local hospitals.