Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Zaren Yes, Oh ellsbit done. What are you doing girl, I'm.
Just hanging out here. Listen. You know what's ridiculous?
Oh my god? Do I So? I was talking to the entrance before you got here, and I was like looking at different headlines looking for something. I was just like, I couldn't remember what I was looking for. I was going through old tabs and I didn't have time to read the stories. But they were laughing about my tabs. Anyway. One of the tabs, this was a headline elephant killed a woman, then attended her funeral and smashed her corpse. I was like, why did you want to see that one?
Then another one I had was Catholic bishop resigns after falling in love with satanic erotic fiction novelist. I couldn't explain myself to these people, so I just was like, I just threw my hands up and walked away. I was like, where's my yogurt and walked away. There you go, that's ridiculous.
Tabs are ridiculous.
I love that.
I like that elephant story.
Yeah, I knew we couldn't do it because you know, there's the murder. But other than that, it's hilarious.
Absolutely amazing. Do you want to know what else is ridiculous?
I'm here for it. I love it.
Go for it, Secret Princesses. Oh no, this is ridiculous Crime A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists and cons. It's always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous.
You damn right? Who had to run from the stairs? Good?
You're fat?
I made it anything from the basement. No, okay, let's do.
This smells so bad down there? Oh? Yeah, hello Sweden?
Oh that they here?
Yeah, I'm Elizabeth Thutton and I'm here to lovingly butcher the pronunciations of your beautiful language.
Ah yes, leave it to me. I'll get in too.
Well.
Here's okay, here's what I know of Sweden beyond Ikea, H and M, Volvo, puppet chefs, and gummy fish. Also ps, did you know that Spotify is a Swedish company? Shout out to anyone?
I did not know that. Yeah, I thought it was Danish or Dutch Swedish.
And did you know the Swedes invented the three point seatbelt?
I did know that because of Volvo yeah, most of it. And also I think headlights, the running daytime running headlights and all that. I imagine, Well, they're all safety. Yeah, you know, you can flip a Volvo and it'll hold the weight of the car on its roof because of the snowy roads. So that's part of their design of the car. And you can flip it and I love. That's why I got one. I was like, I need one of these car and flipping it anyway, go on.
Most of what I know about Sweden comes from like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and television.
Yes, actually, I have to admit I liked to those books.
Yeah, the books are amazing.
I read them on the beach in Florida. Perfect place to read those kind of books.
And like, now that I've come out as a television watch I can tell you I really love PBS.
Yes, actually I love local.
PBS like k q D here in the Bay area and their local show check please.
By area area. You do talk about that.
I'm a donor to k q D. I have PBS passport that lets me watch all the cool shows.
Yeah.
And then when broad Church at the end.
Of any masterpiece show, they give a shout out to Darlene Shyley and donors to PBS stations, Viewers like you, Viewers.
Like us, Yeah, talking about Darling me, Yeah, you not me.
Yeah. A lot of Masterpiece mystery shows, which are my favorite, are British.
Production and sponsored by you and sponsored.
By me, viewers like me. There's a lot of BBC stuff on there. There are so many that I love and I'm not going to start listing them off that teas Grandchester Unforgotten Murders. You know there's a new Magpie Murders coming out in September.
I didn't know there was an old Magpie murder.
Grace yourself. It's it's called something else.
Okay, what is it?
I don't remember, but it's something something like with a bird in It's okay. But one thing about.
These betis pitch persons so good.
Yeah.
One thing about these British productions is that they sometimes set them in other countries, like everyone's suspiciously British.
Yes, no, I've watched The Three Musketeers, The Musketeers right, yeah, and everybody's British and you're like, it's French. I bet the French hate this. I love it.
I tried watching this one show, Hotel port Afino. It's like a period drama about life and a resort hotel in nineteen twenties Italy. It's so me and like, I think the hotel in the show is owned by some English people, so whatever, but even the locals are so English that its just I couldn't do it. I watched like maybe like the first ten minutes, and then I dipped out. And I don't think anyone gets killed. So that's the other thing. There's also Wallander as they pronounce it,
and that's set in Sweden and stars Kenneth Brenno. Oh, it's a great show. It's really good. But I found out that it's a remake of an actual Swedish show where Vallander is pronounced correctly.
Okay, and then that one's better is that woman?
No?
No, what's the Swedish woman detective? Everyone was watching like a little while ago. I don't know anyway, there apparently it was a big hit.
Now what I've learned from television is that I think I would really like to visit the Nordic countries. Oh, I can see that Denmark, Norway, Sweden. Norway is who gave us the Beforeigners, which is probably one of the best television shows ever.
That I do love that show.
If you haven't seen Beforeigners.
So crazyly good. It's so surprising, as like a time travel show. You don't even see it coming.
But that's Nordic.
Let's talk Sweden, please, let's talk Sweden.
The more people, the more I read and learn about Sweden, the more I would love to go.
And there, welcome to my country.
The caater affinity I have for the people. And I'm not saying this to butter up any Swedes who may be listening to us talking today. I know I'm going to disappoint them no matter what I do. And you, you and I have talked about this. We practice saying names and words that are like unfamiliar to us, over and over and over yes, and then you get in front of the mic, and at least.
For me, it negates at all.
Oh my mouth drops like fifty IQ points and suffers from a palsy. I can't it's a crying shame.
Yeah, I suffer the exact same affliction.
And there are also words that I know well and I usually say without incident, and then I'm recorded and suddenly I'm new to this language.
There's English words. I mess up all the time.
Yeah, why does this happen?
How did you mispronounce is?
I don't know. Let's let's talk. Sweden said, this is your.
People, Yes, my people, Elizabeth. You know that I have Swedish relatives, like like way back, not like they married into the family. I'm talking like ancestors. I got like Swedish blood. So like back when I be playing like hockey games, I'm like, let me play Team Sweden. Like if I'm playing like World Hoick games, like I get people, I'm like, let me play Team Sweden. These are my people. Just to mess with people.
You love Vikings, but take in a white supremacist way.
But like he's like, you mean like the show or the idea of Vikings everything.
Via shows you love the the actual Viking, the.
Historic grouping and also the verb to go Viking. I just love that. I'm going to go raid. Lindis farness amazing big.
That's for Sweden. Stockholm's the capital city.
Oh yeah, hey, they have a great stock great.
Quality life, great education, healthcare, civil liberties, gender equality.
Great fast drivers. I watched their videos on YouTube and they drive around really fast at Night.
They basically prove it can be done, all of it.
Yeah, gender equality and fast Driver.
We lay down a little history. I can go way back with Sweden, but let's take it to the beginning of the nineteenth century.
Okay.
That's and this is going to be important in understanding the story that I'm going to tell you.
Is this involved upsala. There's no oa.
This is all comes together. There's a reason for this.
I'm here.
So Gustav the fourth was king of Sweden from seventeen ninety two until he was deposed in a coup in eighteen oh nine.
Rough stuff.
Yeah.
He was also the last Swedish monarch to be the ruler of Finland.
Was he deposed for supporting Napoleon eighteen oh nine? Seems like that might be going in anyway.
Go on, Yeah, So yeah, this the coup is when the Russians occupied Sweden, Aha, and they tossed him out. They tossed Gustav out, he abdicated, and then they had this new instrument of government that was like that seriously limited the powers of the monarchy.
Okay, okay, And so that was.
Adopted June sixth, eighteen oh nine. And that's now National Day of Sweden.
Oh interesting.
Gustav's uncle, Charles the thirteenth he took possession of the title of King of Sweden, and Gustav he'd wanted it to go to his son upon abdication, but the Russians were like, no, way, bo, that's not happening. Yeah, we don't want your line in here entered Charles. Gustav and his family. They get exiled to Germany, which isn't so bad. And then he and his I mean, it's not like sit on this gross island.
Oh yeah, totally. It wasn't like bird go to Devil's Island.
Yeah, no, this is like go to Germany. He's like, all right, I can do that. But then he and his wife divorced in eighteen twelve.
She's like, I can't do it.
Was their own private War of eighteen twelve. Oh so, a while in exile, like Gustov, he tried on a bunch of titles like Count Gothorp and Duke of Holstein Euten.
Okay, yeah.
Then he settled on count, calling himself Colonel Gustafson, and he went to live in Switzerland and he lived in this small hotel. Who's penniless. He was lonely.
Oh man. Yeah, so he's got a big name.
Yeah, he's a big name, small guy. So while Gustov was in exile in eighteen ten, this French Marshal Jean Baptiste Benedette, he was chosen as the heir presumptive to Charles the thirteenth.
He had no kids of his own, and.
Then he eventually this guy, Jean Baptiste. He's like, guess what look at me, Charles the fourteenth. Hey. So in eighteen thirteen Sweden they joined up with sar Alexander the First and Company to whoop on Napoleon as you brought up. So like, Sweden is one of the big dogs after.
That total war. We got you and the They were big into European politics at that time nineteenth century.
And that victory made it possible for Sweden to force Denmark Norway, which was an ally of France at the time, to cede Norway to the King of Sweden in exchange for the northern German provinces.
I'mteresting, and a bet family is still uner Russian Empire.
Rules was born. Yeah, in Sweden and Norway they went at it, and this is eighteen fourteen. This is actually the last time Sweden was at war and they settled it with a treaty. Yeah, they're like, well, and so around this time eighteen seventeen, a girl was born.
Okay, this girl special.
Yeah, are you distracting me again, closet, We're going to watch the birth Aurora. Breathe, Aurora Florentina Magnuson.
Okay, Florentina Magnison.
And when she when she was asked about her parents, she would demurur later in life and say that her father was Count Carl de Gear and that her mother was a Fornham Froken, unmarried noble woman.
Ah.
And you know, as you can guess, that was not true.
Ah.
Yes, her dad was a caretaker who died when she was young. She was raised in poverty by a single mom. But she knew in her heart, Zarin, that she was fancy.
She felt it.
Oh yeah, she knew that she had noble blood. That's a shout out to your buddy, Danas Swartz.
There you go.
When she was about twenty, Aurora got a job from a fellow named Henrik Aspagan, and she was hired to help his daughters sew and prep these dresses for an upcoming ball, and as she looked around at this lavish, opulent life that they lived, she knew in her bones that this is where she belonged. Yes, she's not like, look, I'm not going to I shouldn't be a seamstress assisting these gals with their glad.
I'm in the wrong place.
Yeah, I need to be wearing this finery. I need this drip, as the kids say, because.
These girls should be working for me.
Yeah.
And then this very like Cinderella type of vibe going on.
I love it go on.
The night that the Aspergrands were about to leave for the ball, they hear Aurora crying and the little delicate noble tears. They asked her, like, what's wrong. You know, we gotta go, but like, why are you crying? She's like, you, guys, I'm homeless. I have no where to go nor to sleep. They're like, oh, that sucks. But they're like the Aspergans are really lovely people, okay, And so they're like, you can you can live here in the bar. Yeah, you stay here. We're going to the ball, but you know,
help yourself. There's there's you know, sunny day in the fridge and like it was a good choice though, Like she blended right into the family and so she never came right out and told them about her royal lineage, but she managed to like inadvertently drop hints in just her everyday conversation, and so it was like undeniable.
Everyone could have guessed.
Yeah, one of the daughters, Henrika, doated on Aurora something fierce. She's like, this is my new doll. She bought her fashionable clothes, she took her around to like posh events, and she was able to kind of piece together Aurora's lineage, and she became dedicated to follow this noble woman, this young girl who outranks her and is so charming and unassuming. M So, in eighteen forty four, the two women they picked up stakes and moved to Finland together.
Bye, so Henrika out.
Yeah she Henrika totally ditches the family for Aurora.
That's bold.
Yeah. It's during this move that Aurora changed her name on her passport. Okay, she had the new passport read de la broch Comma Anna Florentina Comma miss Comma, formerly known by the name Aurora Magnuson. So she's now miss Anna Florentina de la broch Okay, and the next move was to get her name changed on her birth certificate from Aurora to Helga. Why Helga? Why not?
Why not Elizabeth?
So then she waited and she reported Aurora as drowned. So she doesn't exist anymore. She's just Anna Akalla, eighty six year old lie completely. So Helga and Henrika they moved all around Sweden and Finland. Henrika got teaching gigs to support the two of them. In eighteen forty six, they were living in Turku, Finland.
Do we think that they're like romantic?
You know, I don't know. I'm gonna guess, like based on the time and the fact that it's I would guess where they were, but it's never even.
Because it could be like a Spengali and creation.
I think that, I mean, honestly, I think I'm gonna be honest. There's very little information about like their day to day and so I wonder if they were like, you know, romancing guys. Who knows anyway, Honestly, it's just sort of like a blank slate. So they're living in Turku, Finland, and they managed a girls school there called dilabrach.
Okay, okay.
When the parents asked questions of Helga that she didn't care to answer, she would faint.
It's like she she got so rock.
She got so good at it that she taught the students themselves how to fake fainting in order to avoid quote unpleasant questions.
Oh my gosh, which is my new thing? Aren't you?
Oh yeah, just like eyes roll back in, kind of wobbly. So there was a cholera epidemic in eighteen forty eight, so they had to close the school. Okay, So they returned to Stockholm, and there they managed to connect up with Chancellor of Justice Nils von Coach.
Neils von Coach.
It was like a friend of a friend's situation.
So Neils, he's German. I'm taking it. Ko h there, it's Neil whatever whatever.
Neils he's just a he's a citizen of the earth.
He bounces around. Who knows where he's from.
Helda tells him, guess what, I'm nobility?
Did you know that secret?
And actually I'm more than that. He's like, oh what, She's like, I'm royalty. No, come on now, He's like, actually, I'll tell you. I am the daughter of exiled King Gustav the.
Fourth straight claim on the crown.
Yes. So she goes from like I'm from some random note like no, I'm the daughter of the last daughter of the Big Dog, and he totally believes her.
Of course.
He's like, I can neither confirm or deny this claim. This is not something I can prove or disprove. But Helga's like, you know, I'm telling you this because I want something. He's like, oh, that's a surprise. This isn't just like a fun fact. She's like, I want a pension for being the secret legitimate daughter of Gustav the fourth of Sweden.
Oh, back my play for the rest of my life and I'll stay quiet.
Yeah. So he goes on to convince a member of Parliament of this story, and then he gets the Royal Court Chaplain Carl Norby on board. Helga Mania is spreading.
Record.
It seems I could be pretty easy to be able to confirm.
So she's this lost princess. It's crazy and it's ridiculous. So Prime Minister Louis de gear and four and Minister Ludwig Manderstrom, they didn't buy it.
Okay, I'm with Louis.
But the Queen Mother Josephina, she's intrigued. She's like, hmmm, was this her granddaughter?
Oh, she's like maybe I got ken. I don't know about the queen before me.
Let me look at her as She's like, let's give her an allowance and see how this plays. So she mainly like and the king, King Charles the fifteenth, now.
Oh wow, he just wants the hub of to Yeah, money is distracted from him.
This isn't the best story to be circulating, you know. So Parliament asks him about her claims of being the lost princess, and the King said he'd met with her and quote by she's just as sane as you or me, which, like, that's maybe not a ringing endorsement, depending on everyone's self image exactly.
So it's also a very low bar declaring this question of like did you father this child? Yeah, I'm telling you, she's talking. I'm telling you.
So the King he grants the pension quote without being able to prove the claims of miss de Labroch to be truthful or merely claimed as a consequence of a confused imagination.
So it's either I could have done it or she could have made it up that then the door.
Opened like she could be a fraud, But hey, this is fun, why not? Why ruin it?
You know the parlor games.
Remember how Gustav was exiled to Germany and then divorced his wife.
Yes, I do remember that.
So the story that Helga told the king was that Gustav the fourth and Frederica of Baden remarried in secret in a convent in Germany.
Best place to get married and see.
And then Helga gets born in eighteen twenty, after which she was sent in secret, of course, to Sweden to be raised by her aunt, Princess Sophia Albertine of Sweden. All of this secrecy was to keep her from being named heir to the throne, and apparently Alexander the First of Russia, who was Helda's uncle, had to pay money from the estate of his mother to the children of Gustav the fourth, So Alexander deposited three million reeks dollar
to cover the cost of raising and educating Helga. Really now, a Russian naval squadron did show up in Stockholm's harbor in eighteen thirty eight, and some say Alexander was on board. In disguise to bring another three million weeks dollar for Helga. Let's pause, let's gather our thoughts.
I'm so on the edge of my Helga, and when we.
Return, we'll hear more of Helga's story. Zaren Elizabeth Helga de la Brosh Yes, yeah, aka Aurora Magduson. They're both fantastic names.
Oh.
I love her name, especially the Magnuson one Magdison.
Yeah, yeah, that's like tough.
I like it.
She said she was the secret legitimate child of King Gustav the fourth of Sweden, and that she'd been raised by her aunt, Princess Sophia Albertine of Sweden. We know this wasn't true, and others at the time suspected it wasn't true, but a lot of people believed her story.
They want to. It's a fun story.
So what about Princess Sophia, That's what I'm going to could they ask her? Yeah, well, the princess she passed away in eighteen twenty nine, and we're in eighteen sixty when this is all going down. Oh, Hellga's in her forties, so.
It's not even like a lady in waiting or a nurse maid who could likely be drawn out all deed. Yea.
So Helga said that when Princess Sophia died that she she Helga was taken to an insane asylum and a child.
Well yeah, because she would have been pretty young.
Right nine years old, and then if she tried to tell people who she really was, they just say she was crazyow so that.
She was like the woman in the Iron Mask, but the Iron Mask was in insane asylum.
So she's like fourteen, eighteen thirty four, She's like, I got out of the asylum. But then they sent her to Baden to live under house arrest with her family there. And then in eighteen thirty seven she read about the death of her father the hang in the paper and she lost it. This is her story, Yeah, this is her story. She's just overcome with grief. She's so torn up about it that she gets tossed in an insane asylum again. Yeah. And then this is, of course, according
to her, a way to keep her identity secret. Everyone's like, oh, she's going to talk. Put her in the insane asylum.
Who's under our course?
And who's they in this?
I don't know, Shadowliabeth.
It was well, I mean she's saying, it's like the family in Baden, like, I guess her mom's folks who want this all hush.
Hush, but whatever, the powers that be will say yeah, exactly.
So she said she was able to escape from the asylum and she was on her own, surviving on the kindness of others, those who believed her story. Her grandma's family in Germany gave her a yearly pension, according to her, but that all stopped in eighteen fifty.
Huh did they run out of money? Someone die, I'm not carrying an She's like, the stop.
Cashing exactly, and then there she was. She owed people all this money that they'd fronted her over the years, and she was forced to live like a pauper, which is just gross.
I mean, have you seen the food.
Yeah, So she's begging the government for a pension and like, but she's like, I really need a pension, but it can't be smaller than five thousand or six thousand Swedish Rick Stoller.
I've become accustomed to a start and oh completely, anything else would be insulting.
So people throughout Sweden and Finland believed her story and people gave her money aside from any government assistance. They're like, oh, here, please take.
Just Swedish kickstarter. Yeah, okay, and so.
Plus her best pal, Henrika. She was from a rich family and she's well educated, and so that gave her credibility. Yeah, so she's like, oh she's hanging around.
Yeah, she's got a good friend. Of course they would know each other exactly, private school or whatever.
Yeah.
So Helga, she's a great actress. She's all wide eyed and like blink, blank eyes, I'm new here, disarming. Yeah, she's just telling her simple story. She came across as really pure naive. People didn't think she had it in her to tell this sort of wap, and she didn't seem insane, something like it had to be true. Yeah, but like, why couldn't this just be verified with Gustav.
That's what I'm saying. Well, there's anyone in the family close.
Anyone in the family. Okay, so Gustav's dead, but all contact with the deposed former dynasty in Excite was forbidden after the coup of eighteen oh nine.
Talk to him.
There was no way the pres could get in touch and ask the right questions. They'd be breaking the lawn. Apparently, no one wanted to do that. In March of eighteen sixty one, the king awarded Helga an annual pension of twenty four hundred Swedish ricks dollar per year.
Wow, I have no Ideama lowballing her.
Remember she wanted five to six k, but they're like, we'll give you twenty four hundred. But they also gave her a house and like furnishings befitting a princess. Well, then come on, now, I imagine like a very nineteen eighties four poster bed with like frilly lace canopy and a dresser with like super cheap gold ornate detailing and a Garfield pillow, and then like a Pikachu squish.
In a day bet on the sidewall, and a poster of.
A Korean boy band, whichever was the most popular in the eighteen sixties for a forty year old woman. Eighteen sixty eight, the author Auguste Blanche and then Captain Julius Mancow. For whatever reason, these two got together and they petitioned for her pension to be increased. What yeah, and it was, why is she like? I don't know, They're like, she's awesome, give her more money?
They come on, she deserves better than this. Was she like working them?
Well, she was really good at spending money.
I bet you won.
So the pension was raised the next year in order to bail out some of her money troubles. She's like, you, guys, I just don't there's not I really wish that spending habits were what dictated your salary.
How would that work? And that's what's going on with her. Yes, but it will not work, I know.
But like, let's just say, wouldn't that be amazing.
That's kind of incentivizing people to spend as much as they can, right? You just know, you just let them live like on their like just so you see how they want to live.
Live like you want for a and then we'll give you whatever salary accommodates that.
I will say that you're onto something there because we found a lot of people need a lot less to be happy, and there is a certain amount or whatever. It's always moving around, but it's like you get to a certain amount and you really don't need any more money and you're happy because of all the conditions that allow you to be out.
I think that's a good way. I think spend like you can and then we'll see how much that is.
I do believe in a universal basic income. I don't know if a universal basic credit card.
Will work, but I do like you're the shot, so hell go. Well her story couldn't be verified for a time by anyone, it was still a really great story.
I'm loving it.
People loved it, especially other like nobility and rich folks.
Oh yeah, it makes them all sound more interesting.
And they saw her pension is like proof of her story. So she's she's in the government wouldn't give her money for being royal if she wasn't a royal right there? And then so the swells they kicked her down a lot of cash too. It was like this ongoing gofund me where she's just like, I just you guys, have you given the mon I'm a princess, Like, oh, here's you're right, you're right here. So remember Charles the thirteenth, the one who came after Gustav.
The fourth, yes, two before the fifteenth.
After him was Charles the fourteenth, and Charles the fourteenth reign from eighteen eighteen to eighteen forty four.
Wow, good rain.
And then after him, not Charles the sixteenth, Oscar the.
First imagining a short reign.
Yeah. So he was king from eighteen forty four to eighteen fifty nine, and then he died.
But then I thought he died, that's what happens for kings.
So then Charles the fifteenth took the throne and he was king when all of this is going down.
Okay, he's the king on the scene.
Yeah, but then there's Oscar the First's wife.
She's just still in the scene, Okay.
Josephine of Luxemburg, she was still alive, and that made her the Queen Dowager. Okay, So Josephine. She became one of Helga's benefactors, and Josephine sent money, like a lot of money to Helga.
Was she like an agent of chaos where she can kind of knew and she's wanted to her keep it going? Or do you think she actually liked her? No, I think she really liked it.
She's like, she's one of us here, how's a marcash? And so she sent it via this agent of hers, mister Norby, tens of thousands given to Helga, and Norby did what Josephine asked, but he was like starting to doubt Helga's stories and he wanted the truth. He didn't hire a private eye. He became one. Oh yes, Saren, closed eyes. I want you to picture it. You are a maid at the home of Henrika Aspriggan's sister Sissy, in Turku, Finland. She's a lovely woman and a great boss.
Super chill. The other day she got a letter from a guy in Stockholm who said he was an agent of the Queen Dowager of Sweden. He said he had a delicate matter to discuss and wanted to pay her a visit. She sent back word that she'd loved to meet with him, but she had no idea what he must want. It was the early afternoon when the butler let the gentleman into the house. The weather is delightful.
It's sunny and unseasonably warm. You have the windows open and you can hear the old lady next door playing the piano. Sissy looks at you with raised eyebrows when he enters the room. You put a plate of ham and cucumber sandwiches on the sideboard, wink at Sissy and adjust the lush tea setting. On your way out of the room, you go around the corner to the hallway to the kitchen. You'd take a seat leaning toward the parlor to try and get a listen to the conversation.
The man introduces himself and says he has some questions about Henrika. Ah, Henrika, you've heard all the stories about her. This is going to be good. What does an agent of the Dowager Queen want with her? He asks Sissy if she knows anything about Henrika's companion Helga. You mean Aurora, asks Cissy. The man's eyes widen. A cuckoo clock on the wall chimes two. Sissy proceeds to tell him all about Aurora and that she expected that one day she'd have to tell this story. Rora was born poor and
always tried to say she was royalty. Sissy saw right through her. Her sister Henrika did not. She fell for the story. The man takes copious notes as Cissy gets them all the details. No, she hasn't really followed the stories about Helga and ney Aurora. It just seemed too silly. No, she hadn't talked to Henrika in ages. The man stands to see himself out and thanks Sissy for her time. His knee catches the corner of the tea tray and sends it crashed into the ground. No worries, says sissy.
She shows him out and then comes around the corner to ask if you caught it all and dish about how wild this all is. You laugh and go get some rags him up up the tea and fragments of China. What a day. So, with this interview of Henrika's sister out of the way, Norby went even closer to the source. He made contact with Prince Vasa of Germany. This is Gustav the fourth son.
Ah.
Yeah, so I don't know if this is legal or not for him to reach.
Out to the guys, and it would make it his sister if it was legit.
Yeah, okay, so he did, he reaches out.
I don't know, I don't care. Yeah, I want the truth.
So the Prince says, there's absolutely no chance that this is his sister, or his half sister or anything else. His parents never reunited and his dad died alone.
And he knows that for a thund knows he got weird. Trust me, no one wanted to be around that guy.
I was like, so Norby, he's like very interesting and adds it to his little dossier. Then he scours the church records with all these new leads until he's able to complete a full dossier on how Helga is a big phony.
I love the church records gallery.
Yeah, everything. So then he takes his little manifesto to the government and an investigation is open. I mean, like Norby did all the heavy lifting, but whatever. They're like, oh, an investigation. Here, we have this report. February seventh, eighteen seventy the results of the investigation were published and Helga was publicly exposed as a fraud. Six weeks later, the government stopped her pension.
Six weeks that.
They noted that quote all uncertainty regarding the birth of the so called Helga dela Broch is now raced, and Helga de la Broch officially declared to be identical to Aurora Florentina.
Magnuson, Oh, Helga, boom, all went up in her face.
Let's take a break. When we come back, we're gonna see how this all shakes.
Out totally, Zarenbarren.
All right, So we have Helga de la Brosch.
Yes, Helga Helga, who.
Has now been exposed as Aurora Florentina Magnuson, a very much non royal person, but a great name, great name. Helga was not charged with fraud for the whole pension thing. Really, they just cut her off.
They wanted the newspaper no more, no more embarrassing the crown.
After she's she goes to the Foreign Office and at one point she said, quote you think then that I am an impostor, And the general at the Foreign Office said, quote, I don't think so, I'm sure of it.
I'm imagining all this outing like the Swedish chef.
And then they said that she left quote looking more like a bad tempered woman found out than an offended princess.
So the dewey eyed girl is now suddenly hard as feelia.
Yeah, she's like, what would give.
Me my money? And where's my money? Money?
I got you?
So I'm not sure what happened between eighteen seventy and eighteen seventy six.
Uh huh.
Here's my speculation. I think that the pension was cut quietly in order to save face for a lot of people. Sure, and like she stayed mum about it. How she was living, who knows. But in eighteen seventy six, six years after the government learned who she was and stopped paying her for being nobility, like the public at large found out about it.
Wait, so it didn't hit the newspapers at first, No, no, no, I was comically exposed, but it was like the y in the royal courts, but not in the newspaper.
Years. Then the public really finds out whoa and they go nuts and so how the call on that way? She gets arrested and she gets charged not with defrauding the government of all that money?
Do you think she doubled in the secrety like shadowy area of the royal courts, Like she's still hanging around somehow trying to and then she messes up the wrong person. They're like, oh, you know, I know someone at the paper. Yeah, we're getting rid of this for good.
I totally think.
So.
Oh interesting.
So she gets arrested and charged with Like they didn't charge her with defrauding the government.
Huh.
She's charged with registering herself under a false name and year of birth and charged with not paying taxes in her real.
Oh the compone style.
The trial is a corker. Yes, it came out that Helga had taken on the name of a girl about her age, who had died or was otherwise like missing.
She did the classic I doesn't.
Say, classic move, Wow, classic move. According to a testimony in eighteen seventy seven by a member of parliament av Ure, Helga's two actual sisters told him that their sister had drowned on purpose, and they'd written to their mother asking
her not to tell anyone how their sister died. And they believed this, and they said it happened on June ninth, eighteen forty two, when the body of an unknown woman was taken to the local mortuary having drowned, and Helga made it seem like it was her, and she fooled her sisters and her mom into thinking the very same. Now, Norby went and interviewed one of the sisters and she was like, well, let me tell you the whole story.
We didn't quite fully believe it.
So, but that was not one of Helga's sisters. That was one of Henrika's sisters.
Oh, okay, keep that in mind.
So her, but Helga's family thinks she's taken her own this gone. Yeah, And so the problem is that here's the problem. So she makes it look like she drowned and with an insinuation that she did it to herself. The problem is that Aurora Florentine and Magnuson wrote a church book note on September twenty second, eighteen ten forty four, when she was supposed to have died June ninth, eighteen
forty two. So she writes in there and then remember eighteen forty four, that's when she applied for the passport in her new name. But it's said that she used to be a roar.
Yeah, so she waited to way too long, way too long, so she got the order backwards that you get the passport.
Then you go and yeah, so Helga, well, I mean, why do you even have to say what you're I mean, I guess you have to say that you changed some paperwork. I don't know. Helga had this like convoluted explanation for this in court, that the church book note was falsified and there was like some intrigue about a priest protecting.
The king, oh good, and always throwing dir covering things up. But oh, I love this.
I don't understand what she was talking about. And I'm not even going to give you the quote because the quote is like, you know, you think that your brain starts circuiting. On March second, eighteen seventy seven, Helda gets found guilty of registering herself under a false name, a false year of birth, and for not tax registering herself for the year of eighteen seventy seven year. They gave her a fine, but she didn't have to do anything, okay.
So she and Henrika they lived together in this little apartment that some supporter was paying for. So she still had people who believed in her, and they kept to themselves. They didn't go out much. They had a very sort of proto COVID lockdown thing going, okay, Like when they left the apartment it was to go for a walk in a big park. They had all their food delivered in huh. So then on November twenty did just to.
Avoid the public as anyone recognized her.
Yeah. Yeah, And November twentieth, eighteen seventy eight, Helga brought an action against the Fiscal Office and King Oscar. She said that they owed her money.
Where's my check?
Yeah, In fact, they owed her all the money she should have gotten since eighteen seventy when they cut her off.
Okay, of course, why not?
Yeah, eight years worth of pension all of my background, and her lawyers asked the court to order that the Fiscal Office and then King King Oscar, under pain of execution, pay Helga.
Under pain of execution. Terrence Howard trying to get honey he's owed by his old agency. You only one hundred and thirty million dollars I cut a made. You're like, what do you do?
You understand how she wants the whole thing.
I'm going to kill the king. I don't get my money.
Twenty twenty seven thousand, and I don't know if they put interest on that or it's just interest. Obviously, the Crown and the government told him to kick Rocks because it was proven that Hellgo wasn't who she said she.
Was, and no one had forgotten.
Case gets thrown out eighteen eighty four. King Oscar the Second saw Helga and Henrika. He's like looks out the window and he sees him walking in the gardens of Drotting Home palace.
So there's like walking back and forth inro front of his window.
They're like walking around like do to do as if they own the place.
Oh like that, uh huh oh, it's not even like public garden.
No, no, no, this is the palace garden. Yeah, he looks at his bedroom windows.
They are in his garden basically.
Sniffing flowers and cutting them, and oh isn't this lovely?
And he's like, oh, hell no, uh, set them girls away from my roses.
He's like, she's not going to pull this again and go for like squatters rights or something. That he's getting nervous, so he has the guards like rush out there and escort them out. And like this brush with authorities really spooked the ladies. So they moved to a new apartment and tried to lay low again. It was like they got a little too much confidence.
Do you think they got ruffed up?
I think so, yeah. I think they were, like, you know, they raised a fist at them. So the thing is like, at this point, Helga believes her story. She doesn't even think she's conning anymore at this point. Yeah, And so in fact, I'm not really sure when it became her reality and not a con but at this point she believes the story one hundred percent. She's like positive that she's the king's daughter. She carried herself like a princess, like one who had to face in dignities and soldier on.
It could put upon princess.
Totally, and she was sad. There was like this paul about her. But she held her head up and she didn't waver in her belief about her identity.
The quiet dignity of the world.
She carried that on all the way until the end of her life eighteen eighty five. She died at the age of sixty seven. So fourteen years.
Later, I'm not done, Zarin, Are you kidding?
Not done? Fourteen years later, on the cuspand of a New Century July ninth, eighteen ninety nine, the run socker end I said that wrong, political weekly published in Uppsala. Oh yeah, there, I told you, I told you it said. Quote. Gustaf the fourth Adolph, the last King of Sweden of the House of Wassa Vasa, who was dethroned May tenth, eighteen oh nine, was married October thirty first, seventeen ninety
seven to Princess Fredrika of Baden. Three children resulted from the wedlock, Prince Gustav, who died as Field Marshal of the Austrian Army, Sophie Wilhelmina, Grand Duchess of Baden, who died July seventh, eighteen sixty five, and Cecilia, Grand Duchess of Oldenburg, who died January twenty seventh, eighteen forty four. The dethroned king was divorced from Frederica in eighteen twelve, and here begins what is either a romance or a dangerous state seeker?
Great, this is official, this is in the paper.
Yeah, and so then the article goes on to say that the then Swedish Crown Prince, who became Oscar the First told this guy named Professor Tornos to free Helga quote and the latter remained since then and until the death of her protector July eighth, eighteen fifty nine, unmolested in Stockholm and part of the time in Finland. So they're making this canon. They're like, this is this state secret and everyone covered it up, and here's the truth
why they said that. Charles the fifteenth, Yeah, a successor you know of Charles the fourteenth, also paid Helga's pension until he got sick in eighteen seventy and that's why the payments ceased. So they're like, none of this thing with the research and the dossier. They wait, you know, no, that's all and.
The investigation and then the courts and all that's out.
Yeah, and they said that Swedish politicians made it look like Helga was a swindler who was under Russian protection.
They blame the Russians.
They blamed the Russian and then so they in the paper they're claiming that the Russians were asking for their money back and wanted payment for damages for the insults against Helga for not taking her at her word. What And they said that it was Sweden who caught her up in this web of espionage, not them, Like this is all coming out of left field.
Is I'm assuming this is tied to imperial politics of the area.
Yes, yes, okay, and so like this has not been brought up during her life exactly. So in nineteen oh nine, this politician, Pere August Johansen, he tries to clear Helga's name. He like wants the whole thing settled. No one does anything. So then the next year, the next year he comes out and he's like, Okay, the reason I want to do this, I'm Helga's grandson.
No, we have another grifter.
Well, and that's pretty amazing since it looks like she never had children.
Yes, I don't remember anything.
There are okay, there are some documents in Swedish. There was one document that I found that mentioned a pregnancy in her early years, but the context in the translation led me to believe that it meant her birth, not the birth of a child. Ah and like, because you know how translation goes gets at times. Yeah, and this is the only time I saw anything with like a close mention of it.
Yeah.
There were no men in her life, you know, So I think this is just a fellow grifter. And so Johansen said he wanted one point two five million krona from the Swedish royal family.
He's going big, don't we all?
He said, The royal family also had to fork over four letters that Helga gave the royal family in eighteen forty two.
How did you know about that?
Well, it's his grandmother. So what's with the one point twenty five Yeah, Johansen said, Helga never got the millions of reeks doaller that Czar Alexander the first brought for her. And apparently the letters, those four letters proved Johansen's title to the money.
Okay, and that was the Russian money part. And maybe showedown my.
Grandson and someday he's going to come out the woodwork and ask for this money.
Give him his money, run him his check.
Jo Hansen said the Russians paid the money to the Swedish royal family and that's where the pension money came from up until eighteen seventy and we want interest, but we have the whole other investigation that proved this sort of thing fault exactly. So there's this guy, Count von Rosen. He testified at the trial that he believed Helga to be sincere, stating, quote, if she did deceive, it was
because she herself had been deceived. She had from her earliest childhood heard statements from which sprang the conviction till her dying hour that she was, in truth, the daughter of the king. So he's making it out like there were outside forces. Yeah, that she's part and she's not just from other like cons but like she's told this story, King Ostricar the second and others didn't believe there were any letters ever. They're just like, get out of here.
Helga's landlady Maria Charlotte Nyberg said that during the last years of her life, Helga often talked about all the drama around her royal life, and that she once told Nyberg that of a meeting that she had with her father with Gustas around eighteen thirty on the island of Then in the Sound, during which she received from him letters regarding that one point twenty five million that was deposited in her interest with the Swedish royal family by
the Russians. So whether the Landlady Nyberg was talking to Johansen, who's say so. The officials, they all continued to reject the claims of royal lineage. They brushed off Johansen. However, one member of the government testified that in nineteen oh one he spent three months in Stockholm interviewing high officials and members of parliament, including the Premier, Baron von Auter. Everyone he talked to assured him that Helga was who
she claimed to be. The guy found out that Helga had been to the Royal Palace a bunch of times and that while she was there she was privately acknowledged to be of royal blood, and that oh the Russians also had given the royal family money and then it had been deposited and that was used to pay the pension. Sure.
Yeah.
So then in nineteen twenty four, Professor Karl Hollendorf he published a study where he said the whole thing had to be put in historical context. Apparently there were similar nineteenth century claims to royalty, and he said they were a product mainly of quote adventurous over excited imagination, which has hardened around a fixed idea.
Oh interesting, I know there's a lot of stuff with the French and the Germans, where like all those little German baronies, and then obviously the French Revolution claim buddy and lost and faked, and then they're like, oh I found the paperwork and the right Wait a.
Minute, exactly. So I mean humans do love royalty?
Oh god do we some reasons?
And you know we love a good story. Yeah, so, Zaren was your ridiculous takeaway.
I don't love royalty, so all this stuff. I'm just like, I've never my sister, she's a royal watcher. She loves the stuff. A shout out mags. But you know, I know, not me. I don't even like it, like in my stories, Like if I'm watching a movie, I'm like, oh no, down with the king. I don't know why what about me? But I'm so much a proletariat of the people, like I just want them to I don't so all these stories I root for them, like any of these con
artists to try to weasel their way in. I'm like, yeah, go on, Aurora, bilk them. I don't care, you know, Like I'm a little weird about how I root for these con artists. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. It all comes down to really who their targets are and these people they're getting their entertainment. It seems like a fair exchange. They want to feel exciting and they want to feel like, oh people want to be in our circle. Boom, everyone's happy. I don't see a victim.
I agree.
Weezom girl, I agree. I'm with thers, Elizabeth.
That's my takeaway. I say, you know, when it comes to like the royal families, they didn't they didn't earn that money.
No, there's always there's always a great crime story totally.
So you know what I do need?
Though?
What do you need? Elizabeth? Can I can I get it? Can I lift it? I need a talk bag's? Oh my god, I love.
You, Hey, guys, just another rude dude here, just wanted to let you know that Horsey sauce is a mayonnaise based horse radish sauce. Not that good kind of spicy if you're into that kind of thing.
How is that that's the.
Oh it's a hmm okay, a horse radish.
Yeah, I got that horse and then the mayonnaise. I guess it's just the bas sauce in this case. I like that I can get you to.
Thank you for that.
Thank you very much.
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