MAXMILIAN’S HEIR

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19372, 22 December 1932, Page 14

MAXMILIAN’S HEIR

CLAIMS TREASURE SHIP Romance, mystery, and drama that outrival anything a fiction writer could devise lie behind a claim of £1,200,000 now being made by a London fishmonger. This man, Mr William. Brightwell, living at Islington, says the “Sunday Dispatch,” claims to “be “His Imperial Highness Franz Rudolph Maximilian, son of the Emperor Maximilian of Mexico.” If jewels and bullion, at present lying in the wreck of the Merida, which was sunk in 1911 in 200 ft of water, are found—a salvage ship is on its way at the moment to try to raise the treasure—and Mr Brightwell’s claim comes before the Courts, one of the most astonishing legal actions ever heard in Britain will be fought. The legal notice sent out by Mr Brightwell’s solicitors to Captain H. L. Bowdoin, of the Salvor, who is on his way to try to retrieve the treasure, reads:—

“Please take notice that our client, Franz Rudolph Maximilian, who claims to be the son and heir of the late Emperor Maximilian of Mexico, hereby formally gives you notice that he claims and will claim all or anv of the estate of his father as may be found in the wreck of the Merida, should this be salved. Our client is prepared to prove his title when the occasion arises, but you must not deal with or dispose of such property in disregard of this claim.”

The jewels and bullion are at present lying in 200 ft of water off the Virginian Capes, United States. Recently an expedition was formed by Captain Harry L. Bowdoin and Mr Charles McCambridge and others, of Cushendall, County Antrim, Ireland. They have chartered the Salvor and are engaged in preparations to salve this enormous treasure which belonged to the Emperor Maximilian of Mexico.

The unfortunate Emperor Maximilian and his still more woe-ridden wife, Carlotta, left no children. But Mr Brightwell’s story, amazing as it may sound, has many contacts with historic truth and tells of an heir (himself) smuggled away and secreted for reasons of State.

Maximilian, brother of the Emperor Franz Joseph, became Emperor of Mexico with the assistance of Napoleon 111. of France. Later, after the revolution of 1867, he was shot by court-martial in a barrack square.

When Maximilian took on his unhappy emperorship he took with him from Austria a marvellous collection of rubies, sapphires, and diamonds which one of the ancestors of “The Unhappy Hapsburgs,” Count Hermann, in the sixteenth century, had looted from the temple of Rama in Burma. These jewels were said to have been cursed by their custodian, the Priest of Rama, and certainly the history of the Hapsburgs teems with death, disaster and misfortune. When the Empress Carlotta arrived in Mexico, she acquired a number of emeralds from the old-time Aztec temple of Quetzacoytl, which were said to be priceless. It was also said that a curse had been laid upon these, should they ever pass out of the hands of Montezuma’s descendants.

Insane Empress. The Empress Carlotta made her escape to Europe; her jewels and her husband’s were confiscated and placed in the Mexican Treasury. There they remained until 1911. Then came another insurrection, and President Diaz was forced to resign. He collected the State jewels and bullion that had once belonged to Maximilian and had them sent to Europe in the doomed Merida. Although Maximilian and Carlotta are believed to have been childless, yet for nearly 50 years the man known as William Brightwell, who supplies fish and vegetables to small publichouses in the City of London and who lives in humble circumstances, has claimed to be the legitimate son of Maximilian and Carlotta, and heir to their vast treasure. It is a matter of history that Carlotta hurried to Napoleon 111. and besought him to intervene to save her husband’s life from the Mexican Revolutionists. Napoleon was powerless to act. She then went to Rome and interviewed Pope Pius IX. at the Vatican, where she broke down, became violently mad. and assaulted His Holiness. So ill did she become that she was allowed to stay in the Vatican for a week. When she was removed she was hopelessly insane, and was sent to her relative, the King of the Belgians. Carlotta was later placed in a convent near Brussels, where she lived until her death, four years ago, forgotten by the world. Mr Brightwell’s contention is that he is her and the Emperor’s son. He declares that lie was smuggled into England, where he was found at Christmas time, dressed in very expensive baby linen, on the steps of a Roman Catholic Church in Kingslqnd Road, Hackney. The claimant, according to his story was taken to a home and, a few days later, a Mr William Brightwell, a greengrocer, was visited by a mysterious foreign woman dressed in black. From her he received a very large sum to adopt the baby. When Mr Brightwell was a young man he was visited by the Archduke John Salvador (John Orth), who renounced his title to the Austrian Crown and became the master and owner of a sailing ship in which he was drowned. John Orth told Mr Brightwell that he was smuggled out of the way because of the insanity of the Empress; a scandal and a political crisis might have arisen had his birth been recognised. In appearance Mr Brightwell bears a striking resemblance to the late Emperor Francis Joseph when Francis Joseph was 65, which is Brightwelts age now.