Mary Carleton, Counterfeit Princess

Summary

About the matter of her own deceitfulness, Mary concedes a surprising amount. She claims not to be lying about the big things. She is German and she is innocent — of bigamy. She happily admits, however, to stringing the greedy Carleton family along. On her arrival at the tavern, she made her jewels and letters visible, in order to gain credit and respect. Once she spied “plain and public signs” of their plot to ensnare her, though, she hatched her own “counterplot”, insinuating a more massive estate and a nobler lineage than she, perhaps, possesses. As she tells it, greed drives their scheming, a native ingenuity and harmless love of mischief, hers. Rather than censure, she deserves applause, since “It was very difficult to personate greatness for so long a time without slips or mistakes.” On just what she does possess, back in Germany, Mary teases the reader: “Whether I have that estate they dreamt of, it is not material”, she writes, adding, “I am not much to be blamed, if I have it, and conceal it.”