The Livingstone Family and the Hoax

The most plausible people to do such hoaxing would be one or more members of the livingstone family. It's hard to see how an outsider would have sufficient access to the property, in the house, to trick the family. Becoming catholic severely lowered your social standing in the eyes of most of your neighbors. The family also doesn't seem to have had any other obvious incentive to stage ahoax as they apparently didn't make money out of this.