They say all great legends start small. This one begins with three crimson-wrapped bundles on a rainy evening in London. The year was 1900, but not much had changed to make the turn of the century overly special. Not much, that is, except for the three abandoned babies found that night.
For they were royalty, bound to a destiny that would one day change the world. But on the night of their arrival, they were merely orphans, crying with misery and about to perish in the cold.
***
A minister and his maid opened the large door of an old church to distraught screams. It was late winter and the rain had been ongoing for days.
The frail baby had been wrapped in maroon silk that bore the image of a two-headed snake embroidered through a golden crown.
Without hesitating, the minister swaddled the infant in his knitted woolen sweater, enveloping it in the warmth of his body. Having made up his mind, the minister embraced the infant as if it were his own. He took the crying baby inside the towering church while the maid shook her head behind him, closing the massive doors to shut out the miserable weather.
“What are you doing, Minister Brannon?” she asked.
“A cry for help should never be ignored, Miss Illingworth,” replied the minister, shooting a look of disappointment at the cold-hearted woman.
***
That same night, a second screaming baby appeared on a different doorstep that belonged to a wealthy couple who owned a multitude of opera houses along the city’s prestigious West End. Some would say this child had landed on his feet, but not all was what it seemed, nor did everything glitter brightly with promise in the shallow world of show business.
Puffing heavily on her cigarette, the retired theater actress rolled her eyes at her husband after they had stopped bickering about who was to answer the door first. A look of disgust crossed the woman’s face the moment she heard the whimpering sounds of an infant. Her husband stammered and gently shrugged his shoulders back at her the moment he opened the door.
“Well, you did want a baby.”
“This is not exactly what I had in mind, Viktor,” she snapped, taking another drag through her cigarette holder.
“What do you want me to do?” her husband snapped back as she walked away from the doorstep.
“You want it, you raise it.” Her voice echoed through the large hallway of the theater without a care.
Wrestling with his sense of morality, the theater owner lit a cigar as he pondered whether to keep the baby or report it. Then he noticed the two-headed snake symbol through a golden crown on the silk robe, and the businessman suddenly saw the baby as a possible financial investment. Without much persuasion, he made the choice to bring the baby inside.
***
When the rain was at its heaviest, a third baby landed in the worst place of all…the gutter.
A common cook was dumping leftovers in the alleyway when his ears perked up to the light whimpering coming from an empty waste bin. Immediately the concerned cook ran back into the restaurant to fetch his manager along with several staff who came out to have a look at the startling discovery.
That afternoon the authorities came to take the infant to a place where it would be looked after and raised—an orphanage a little outside the main city of greater London—to become another statistic easily forgotten.