Frank Gardner Who Do You Think You Are?

BBC journalist Frank Gardner has been

reporting on international terrorism for nearly 20 years.

So far, Al-Qaeda has never managed

to attack any sensitive oil installations.

Journalism. You get driven. You want answers.

You want to know about things.

But on the 6th of June, 2004, Frank became the news.

A BBC team has come under fire

from gunmen in a suburb of the Saudi capital Riyadh.

A BBC cameraman, Simon Cumbers, has been killed.

The BBC security correspondent, Frank Gardner, has been injured.

Frank was shot six times and left for dead.

I just thought, "I've got to get word, I've got to get help

"cos I've got to survive for the sake of my family."

Frank did survive and, after several operations,

returned home to his wife and two daughters.

Right, this is the blind leading the blind here, isn't it?

Now, Frank wants to investigate his family history.

Daughter Sasha has dug out some old family slides.

We've got to turn it on first. So, I reckon it's that.

-Yeah! Oh, my God!

-Is that you?!

-Who is that pathetic, weedy little guy?!

-That's you!

-Yeah.

My mum and dad. That must have been their wedding.

-I've not seen any of these pictures.

-They look quite shy.

It's really sweet.

Frank's father died in 2010.

His mother passed away only recently.

Frank knows very little about her side of the family.

Such a lovely one of my mum.

She looks so happy.

Wow!

I was really close to my mum.

She only died a few months ago.

So, that's a little bit raw.

She was a hero to me.

She was only the third woman to get into the Foreign Office

and she had to fight a lot of sexism and prejudice.

Oh, cool!

Her maiden name was Grace Rolleston

and she always told me that the Rollestons

came over with the Normans in 1066.

I have no idea if that is true.

Also, I would love to discover bravery or stoicism

that extends beyond my mum,

because my mum was both.

Isn't that beautiful?

I just wish my mum was still alive.

Mum, you're going to have to trust me on this one.

The Rollestons are going to come out of this OK.

I don't know what's in it, but let's just...

It'll be fine!

Although I've lived in a lot of different places around the world,

every time I come down here to Hampshire,

it does feel like coming home.

Frank's returning to his old family home where his mother lived

until days before her death.

My mother, Grace Rolleston, was a massive inspiration to me -

right up to the last minute.

Her spirit is very much still here.

Ah...

That smell.

That is the smell of coming home.

This is what my mum called the breakfast room.

And right up until last year, I'd sit here and she'd say,

"So, tell me, what's happening?"

She was always seeing if there was anything she could do to help.

The really shameful thing is that my mum

did used to speak about her ancestry when I was much younger

and you know what? I used to switch off.

Now, I want to know

who WERE my ancestors?

Were they good people or not?

But I can't ask her these things now, cos she's gone.

Frank's asked his maternal cousin, Teresa,

to come and share her knowledge of their family history.

-Hey, Teresa.

-Hello.

Thanks so much for coming. I don't see enough of you.

-Where have you got to?

-Er, not very far.

This is as far as I've got.

-Our grandparents, Dr John Davy Rolleston.

-Yeah.

-And Mary Edith Waring. So, you know...

-Yeah.

-..there is room for...

-There's quite a lot, yes.

We can go right back to the Domesday Book here,

cos this is one of the things I want to find out.

Did you ever get told this myth that we came over with the Normans?

With William the Conqueror, yes.

I've always heard we are originally Norman French.

How it went after that, I simply don't know.

Shall we kind of rein in our ambitions?

There's rather a large gap between then and now, yeah!

-What have you brought?

-I've got three things.

Because, you see, I've been digging a bit.

-Oh, my goodness!

-Now that...

-That is lovely.

-That's our grandfather, John.

Actually, he looks quite happy in that in that photograph,

but I just have a thing in the back of my mind

-that he didn't have a happy childhood.

-I wonder why.

And didn't speak about his parents.

That's odd.

So, what do we actually know about our grandfather's parents?

Well, not very much.

What I have got is something about them

-in this obituary of our grandfather.

-Wow!

"Dr John Davy Rolleston was born in 1873

"at Oxford where his father..."

Here we go. "..his father George Rolleston, MD..."

OK, so, we've got the name of our great-grandfather.

"..was Linacre professor of anatomy and physiology."

If he was a professor at Oxford, he's quite illustrious...

-It's really odd...

-..so you'd think...and ALSO a doctor,

so you would kind of think that he would speak about his parents.

But I don't know anything about him. Do you?

-Um... I've got something else to show you.

-OK.

That is a photograph of Professor George.

Oh, that's brilliant. He looks a right sort of bounder, actually.

-A bit rakish.

-Yes, definitely!

And then here...

this is Professor George's wife

and your great-grandmother, Grace.

Look at that. Isn't it a great photograph?

-So, Grace is presumably after whom your mother was called.

-Yeah.

But I... This woman who is...

knitting a chicken here,

I'd love to know what, you know, what she did.

She'd knit chickens and be a good...

-goodly wife to Professor George!

-Yeah.

So, it seems to me,

cousin, that, um, the mystery here in our family history

is...our grandfather.

Yes.

Why did he never ever talk about his parents?

-It could be so many things, like, you know...

-Maybe he was mean.

-Maybe...

-..he beat the children or his wife.

-I won't speculate,

I'm going to get to the bottom of this!

I'm a hard-nosed working journalist,

-I'm going to have to go to Oxford to find this out.

-You are. You are.

Frank has discovered that his mother, Grace,

was named after his great-grandmother,

wife of Oxford professor, George Rolleston.

Frank has come to the Oxford University

Museum of Natural History.

He's meeting an expert on George Rolleston's career, Dr Megan Price.

-Dr Price.

-Hello.

-Thank you for coming.

-Good to meet you.

-You, too.

-Yes.

-What a great office you've got!

Isn't it wonderful, yes. It's a cathedral to science.

And here's somebody else you might like to meet.

Oh, my God! There he is!

-It's my great-grandfather!

-Isn't he wonderful?

Oh, my goodness! Wow!

That is fantastic!

It's an absolutely amazing bust.

You can see the sort of... No, you can't see it at all!

-You can, you can see...

-No, no, I'm joking! I look nothing like him!

-He's kind of...

-Oh, I don't know.

-I mean he's got a Heathcliff look about him, yes.

-Yeah.

Linacre Professor of Physiology.

What is physiology?

The study of the human body.

But not just physiology, anatomy and zoology.

He had professorships in three different disciplines.

-Here at Oxford University.

-Here in the Museum, in the Museum.

-The post was created for him to work in this museum.

-Wow!

Oxford University was at the forefront of scientific

thought in Victorian Britain.

George Rolleston was one of its leading lights.

I want to show you a picture here.

-Er, there he is.

-Oh, my God!

You see he's got a skull there.

He is taking an anatomy class.

Wow! Oh, I'm so chuffed. That is brilliant.

George Rolleston was at the cutting edge of science

at one of the most controversial moments in history.

In November 1859, Charles Darwin published On The Origin Of Species

which suggested that humans and apes shared common ancestry.

Darwin's radical theory scandalised those parts of Victorian society

that still believed mankind was descended from Adam and Eve.

It even divided the country's greatest scientific minds.

Here's a letter from one of Rolleston's friends.

Oh, my God!

"Yours sincerely, Charles Darwin."

Wow!

This is a letter from Charles Darwin?

This is a letter from Charles... And one of many.

-To my great-grandfather?

-Yes.

"My dear sir, you are very kind in telling me not to write.

"It is a pleasure for me to do this.

"Your note is a real gold mine of facts and suggestions...

"all..." underlined "..new to me."

How wonderful!

"With hearty thanks from favours past and to come,

"yours sincerely, Charles Darwin."

What do you think were these favours

that my grandfather gave Charles Darwin?

-They were exchanging knowledge.

-Right.

-They were exchanging...

He wasn't fixing him up on blind dates or anything?! Right.

I'll tell you what's slightly baffling me here,

is that he was this really charismatic,

popular, impressive guy, and yet, his son, my grandfather,

Dr John Rolleston, never spoke about him.

-Why do you think that was?

-I have no idea.

I mean it may be, like many Victorian fathers,

-his work was his life and perhaps...

-And probably never saw his children.

..and perhaps he didn't see his children.

You'd think he'd have been proud of him

and talked about him, but he never did.

To get to the bottom of why his grandfather

never talked about his parents,

Frank wants to find out about George and Grace Rolleston's family life.

So, I'm going to start by looking at the census of 1871,

the last census before my grandfather was born.

OK.

So, George Rolleston was head of the house.

So, then there's the wife, Grace.

Then it looks like there are several children here -

George, William, Margaret, Rosmund.

He and his wife were absolutely banging out the kids here!

One after another.

Heavens!

But my grandfather wasn't born yet then.

So, I'm going to go on now to the 1881 census, the next one.

Oxford...

Ah... John D Rolleston, aged eight.

There he is.

That's my grandfather.

Ah...

OK.

The really key thing here

is that in 1881 Grace Rolleston is listed as the head of the family.

It says, "Wife of Professor of Anatomy"

and that's crossed out. But it doesn't say "widow".

So, that's really odd.

My great-grandfather's family seems to have fallen apart.

Did he do a runner?

Wow. Maybe he did.

Maybe that's why my grandfather never talked about him.

Like somebody going to the doctor's and getting bad news,

I want a second opinion.

I'm tending to think my great-grandfather was still alive,

but he ran out on the family.

He's just vanished.

To try and uncover the truth, Frank is meeting Oxford genealogist

and local historian Olivia Robinson.

Right. I'm not going to beat around the bush here.

So, Olivia, the gap that I'm really hoping

you're going to fill in for me is this mystery,

-why my great-grandfather disappeared from the census.

-OK.

We're going to start with a copy of that census.

-So, Grace Rolleston is mentioned as the head of the household.

-Mm-hm.

And it doesn't say "widow",

-it says, "Wife of Professor of Anatomy," crossed out.

-Crossed out.

In this particular instance,

if you look a little further down the page,

you'll see somebody else has put her occupation

as "Barrister's wife", crossed out.

The enumerators used to discount "wife of somebody"

-as being an occupation.

-The crossing out doesn't mean

-that she was separated or abandoned...

-No...

..but it still doesn't explain why Professor George

is completely absent from the 1881 census.

-Let me show you a letter...

-OK.

-..see what you make of this.

-It's from Grace...

-Wow!

..to her sister-in-law.

So, this is March, 1881.

So, a whisker, just weeks before the census. Right.

-I'm going to use the... Your...

-Please do.

-..typed sheet.

"My dear Mary, perhaps by this time you have heard

"that George has been sent away by his doctors

"for complete change and rest to Italy."

So 1881,

the census had been and gone,

so he's not mentioned because he's convalescing in Italy.

-Absolutely. Shall we have a look at another letter?

-Yes.

-This is a transcript of a letter that was sent by George...

-Yeah.

..to his wife, Grace.

"May 26th, 1881.

"Dearest Grace, it is only today and just now

"that I've heard of your being laid up.

"We intend to start for Paris which is only nine hours from London,

"and if I can do you any good by my coming, so much the better.

"Your very loving George Rolleston."

He's travelling back because Grace, his wife, is not well.

"It's only today and just now that I've heard of your being laid up,"

cos this poor woman is running this huge household without him.

-Absolutely.

-It's so full of love, this.

OK.

Four days later, this is George dictating a letter to his sister.

"My dear Marianne, they've put me upon oxygen to inhale

"and they're putting a blister over my heart

"which hope may do something for me."

And then there's all these doctors,

"..who think that I might alarm and disturb Grace..."

His wife. "..by coming home sooner than I had intended."

So, really quite a different picture being painted.

One to reassure his wife perhaps,

and one to explain to his sister really how he's feeling.

It's almost like a tragic love story,

because he clearly loves his wife still.

They are a family.

He is, I suspect, dying somewhere in Europe,

trying to get back to her

before the illness overtakes him.

So, this is from...

George's sister. And she's writing to George's brother.

"George returned last Thursday..."

To Oxford, presumably.

"The complaint has now developed into heart disease.

"I need not tell you

"who has so fully always valued his love and returned it...

"..what we're losing."

-VOICE BREAKING:

-This is so sad!

I said I wasn't going to cry on this bloody programme! OK. Agh!

-"I...I..."

-HE SIGHS

It's just... It's just so sad cos he's dying.

"The world is a room... room of sickness, indeed to us.

"For in another room lies his poor, dear little wife,

"unconscious of the terrible sorrow awaiting her

"if she lives even to realise it."

Jeez, they're dying side-by-side

in rooms next to each other!

My grand...great-grandmother and great-grandfather.

HE EXHALES

I don't know why I'm so upset by this. It's... I mean,

it's just so sad him racing back to be beside her.

But he's dying and she's...

Looks like she's dying in the next-door room.

Well, just put me out of my agony here.

Well, I have here a certificate of death for...

Oh, God! Right.

"George Rolleston, 51 years, contracted kidney,

"one year, fibroid degeneration of arteries."

Crikey...

Imagine the determination

if you have suffered a year of kidney failure

to cross Europe...

..to get home in some considerable pain.

OK. Well, I really... I just... I really want to know about the...

I'm desperate to know now about Grace.

For that, you may want to have a look in an archive

that's held in Oxford called the Oxfordshire Health Archives.

But your serious face is not filling me with optimism here.

I was really looking to see

if I could discover this incredible stoicism that my mother had.

And I've absolutely found it, I think,

in my great-grandfather, Professor George Rolleston,

because he came back dying to be with Grace, his wife.

So, leave aside the whole professor of anatomy thing,

you know, the bust to him in the museum, great,

but what an amazing person to do that...

and how tragic for his seven children

that they were left without a father so young.

To find out what happened to Grace after George's death in 1881,

Frank has come to the Oxfordshire Health Archives.

Don't I have to fill out masses of forms in triplicate?

-No, not for that, it's just an index.

-OK. I'm looking under

the very first hospital I'm coming to,

Warneford Hospital Admissions between 1826 and 1895.

So, certainly in 1881,

there is no mention of her here.

Ah, here she is.

Admitted on the 18th June, 1884.

So, three years after this, this weird illness. OK.

What more can I learn about her?

There'll be some case notes to go with the admissions

which I can find for you.

-Oh, can you? Brilliant.

-OK. Just be a moment.

This is really perplexing.

It's another three years before she's admitted to hospital.

So, what was wrong with her?

OK, here we are. Case notes. There's an index at the front.

-This is the original 19th century case notes?

-Yes.

Wow! I'm going to go for R for Rolleston. OK.

Oh, wow, they were very organised!

Here we go.

"Rolleston, Mrs Grace.

"Small, slight woman, about 5'2"...

"Stubbly complexion"? Surely not!

"Oh, ruddy complexion.

"Hair, dark streaked with grey..." I'm not surprised.

"History.

"Has been a healthy woman

"but has had previous attacks of insanity."

Wow!

"The first being three years ago...

"..when she was aged 50 years on her husband's death."

Crikey!

This is absolutely... This is shocking. I...I had no idea.

This poor woman, she's gone to pieces without him.

"Since then, as each June has come round on the 16th,

"the day of her husband's death,

"she is described as having become lost, refused all food.

"In the evening, she was conveyed..." Something?

"..to the asylum." Crikey.

And I mean she still had...

She had seven children,

no father and their mother was having bouts of madness.

Can you imagine what a woman's asylum...

or anybody's asylum must have been like in Victorian Britain?

I think, I'm going to have to go there.

Right, that's where I'm going next.

Warneford Mental Hospital, East of Oxford.

Well, here it is.

Today, it's an NHS hospital,

but 135 years ago, something a bit different.

Frank is meeting Dr Richard Barnett.

-Richard.

-Frank. Hello. Welcome to Warneford.

-Thank you very much.

-Do come inside.

-Thanks.

Richard, so what would conditions have been like

for my great-grandmother coming here?

Grace was being treated at a time when the dominant model

was so-called "moral therapy" or "non-restraint".

We have a very good source for this, in fact.

We found in the archives here

the Warneford Asylum Rules and Regulations

for the period in which Grace was here.

Page 50 has some interesting points on it.

Page 50, let's have a look.

"If you are called upon to use main force, never strike.

"If you are a striker, you're not fit for your situation.

"Striking a patient is forbidden in this house." Well, that's good.

Well, this is not about violence.

This is not about beating the madness out of patients, certainly.

Did anybody actually give her any proper therapeutic counselling?

No. Absolutely not. Nobody is trying to understand the story behind her.

She's been given drugs like chloral hydrate, potassium bromide,

very simple sedatives to be submissive, essentially.

So, what happens to her?

Well, I've checked the records here at Warneford

-and she isn't readmitted here.

-That's good.

-But we've found some evidence of her elsewhere.

-That's bad.

If you follow me through to the library, I'll tell you about that.

I was rather hoping that that was it,

and she then lived happily ever after.

In the archives, Richard has discovered that in 1885,

Grace was admitted to another asylum in Chiswick.

So, we can learn more about her stay at Chiswick

by looking at the case notes relating to her time there.

-Here we are.

-I don't know if I can read this. Again, it's... Um...

"Today refused food almost entirely.

"Was fed by stomach tube.

"Beef, milk, eggs and brandy."

-Her condition is worsening.

-Mm.

It says here, "Delusions that she is covered in dynamite."

Oh, my God.

"She fears sitting by the fire."

-Understandably, if you're covered in dynamite.

-Yeah...

Oh, this is interesting.

"Was visited yesterday by her son, a boy at school."

-That must have been my grandfather, John.

-Ah.

Because he would have been 13.

"This was without Dr Tuke's sanction or approval."

Good heavens.

So, he decided he was just going to come and see her.

"She told the nurse she was a dog and a monster." Good heavens!

Can you imagine what that would have been like

for my 13-year-old grandfather,

to make the journey on his own from Oxford to Chiswick,

only to find that she's so mad, she thinks she's a dog?

Oh, my God, no wonder!

-I mean, this explains why he never talked about his family.

-Mm. Mm.

It's just... It's so tragic, it really is.

Oh, my goodness!

-"Is today transferred to private care at Sevenoaks."

-Mm.

What happens to her there?

She stayed there until 1914.

She lasted 28 years.

Another 28 years and she died in private care in Sevenoaks

-at the age of 83.

-Good God!

Wow!

I'm...I'm staggered.

Crikey...

Before he leaves Oxford, Frank has come to the cemetery

to try and find the grave of his great-grandfather, George Rolleston.

Oh, my goodness.

I was expecting to see...

George...

George's grave here.

But it's his, AND Grace.

They're buried together.

My gosh!

I'm so happy that they're reunited.

It's a tale of both triumph and tragedy, really.

I've definitely found the stoicism

that I really hoped one of my ancestors would have,

in George Rolleston.

I'm very sad that his wife suffered as much as she did.

So, these are my great-grandparents?

So sad for their children.

My grandfather really didn't have much of an upbringing.

But he must have loved his mother,

despite her insanity,

so much that he named his only daughter Grace, my mother.

Frank still wants to know

if his mother's line can be traced back to the Normans.

This is looking promising.

He's received a letter from his cousin, Teresa.

"When I got home, I dug out some other family papers

"and came across this photograph of a portrait of Dorothy Burdett,

"who was the wife of the Reverend John Rolleston

"and our grandfather's great-great-grandmother.

"This puts it in the mid-18th century

"but I thought it might interest you."

Just a little, yeah! OK.

I'm still a long way from 1066, but that is a leap back.

Oh, wow!

My four times great-grandmother.

I'm going to try the internet again.

Let's have a look.

So, I'm going to look in births, deaths and marriages

and see what I can find.

Dorothy Burdett...

OK, search.

OK, here we go.

So, there's no picture of the marriage certificate.

But it does give a place.

So, they were married in 1736 in Foremark, Derby.

Spouse, John Rolleston.

I'd better go to Foremark in Derby.

Frank has taken his family tree back another 150 years.

He's discovered that Dorothy Burdett and the Reverend John Rolleston

are his four times great-grandparents.

Dorothy and John married in a place called Foremark.

There's only one building there today -

Foremarke Hall.

Wow!

This is something out of Brideshead Revisited!

I have no idea what my family connection is with this place.

Downstairs? Upstairs? Lord of it or doing the...

you know, maintaining the herbaceous border, I've no idea.

Foremarke Hall is now a school

and Frank is meeting its Headmaster, Richard Merriman.

-Headmaster.

-What a great pleasure to welcome you here to Foremarke!

-Great to have you here, Frank.

-Thanks very much.

Let's go and sit over this way. Perhaps we can...

Richard is an historian

and has spent years researching family histories

linked to Foremarke Hall.

So, Richard,

what is my connection here?

This is where your great-great-great-great-grandmother,

Dorothy Burdett was born,

but not in this house.

Dorothy lived in the previous house, a Jacobean manor

which was equally impressive,

and it was considered to be large and convenient.

-That's a bit of an understatement!

-Absolutely.

Richard has a surprise for Frank.

Using records from the school's archives,

-he's traced Frank's family back even further.

-And here we have...

Oh, this is brilliant! This is amazing.

-It... It is fascinating.

-Yeah!

-And, let's look down here at the bottom here...

-Yeah.

-..is your John Rolleston...

-Yeah...

-..and...

-Dorothy Burdett.

-And her parents, Robert Burdett and Elizabeth Tracy.

-Fantastic.

And this takes you back to a name

which is particularly important in Nottinghamshire -

a very significant name -

and that is the name of Stanhope.

Mm-mm. And when would this have been? What kind of period?

We are now back into the time and reign of Henry VIII.

No way!

-Marrying Ann Rawson.

-Rawson.

Crikey! Tudor times.

-Absolutely.

-This is very Wolf Hall. This is great. I'm loving this.

OK, so, we've gone back to my ten times great-grandparents now...

-Yes...

-In the 1500s.

-Absolutely.

Fantastic! And where would he have lived and why is he a "Sir"?

-Why is knighted?

-I have no knowledge of the reason behind his knighthood.

But the Stanhopes were a very big landowning family

up in north Nottinghamshire.

Ah! So, you reckon that's where I've go to go next, Nottinghamshire?

Next county along, across the River Trent.

-I've got to go and find out who he was, this guy.

-Good luck.

-Yeah!

Frank has pushed his family tree back another 200 years,

to Sir Michael Stanhope.

Sir Michael lived during the reign of Henry VIII

at a time when knighthoods had to be earned.

Michael Stanhope was here in Nottinghamshire

and I'm really curious to know how did he become "Sir"?

How did he get knighted?

Frank has come to Rufford Abbey

where he's hoping Dr Jonathan Healey can provide some answers.

-Jonathan.

-Hi, Frank.

-Thanks for doing this.

-Pleasure.

So, what would Michael Stanhope have been doing

here in Nottinghamshire, to make his mark?

Well, Stanhope, he's a relatively new man.

He's someone who is not amongst the richest in Tudor society,

but he's someone who is kind of on the make a little bit.

And this landscape here is where he made his name.

It's a place which had a pivotal role in one

-of the most contentious decades in English history, the 1530s.

-Wow!

And Henry VIII has just broken with Rome

and he wants to do a massive land grab on the English Church, so he...

-A kind of Tudor Mugabe?

-Absolutely.

In 1536,

the new head of the English Church, King Henry VIII,

decided that the wealth

of the nation's 900 or so religious houses belonged to him.

He seized their assets and dismantled their buildings -

an act of destruction that proved deeply divisive.

In Nottinghamshire's neighbouring county, Lincolnshire,

nearly 20,000 men gathered in open revolt against the Crown.

Local gentry are making the decision -

do they go with the rebels or do they stick with the government.

And this is the decision

which Michael Stanhope had to make in 1536.

And which way did he go?

Well, we have a document which might shed some light on that.

It's a letter from the Earl of Shrewsbury to Henry VIII.

"Please it your Noble Grace, to assemble and gather my servants,

"tenants and friends to apprehend

"and take the said captains of this, their insurrection."

And then there's a load of names of people including Michael Stanhope.

So, Michael then was part of this cabal

-which is essentially trying to shore up the Tudor monarchy?

-Yes.

So, immediately a group of local people formed a rapid reaction force

and Michael was part of that force.

So, they nipped the insurrection in the bud here in Nottinghamshire?

They did, yes.

It was the decisions of people like Michael which saved the Crown.

King Henry VIII dispensed gifts of land and positions of power

to those who had supported him.

Men like Michael Stanhope.

Show me what you've got.

Well, and this is as you can see, one of the exciting things.

-Who is this?

-Michael Stanhope.

-(No way!)

Oh, my God!

Wow!

-Look at that.

-Mm.

-I am his ten times great-grandson.

-Yeah.

-Wow!

He's kind of fingering these medallions.

-Do you think, by then, he's already knighted?

-Possibly, yes.

So, how did he get his knighthood?

Well, he does crop up in a document from 1545.

He's being sent to Hull to fortify the town.

"Michael Stanhope to the Council.

"On 6th of Feb was seen riding off Flamborough Head

-"two Scottish top men-of-war..." Ships, presumably.

-Mm, yes.

-"..with two French pinnaces." Also ships, yeah?

-Yes.

So, this is a reasonably strong sort of mini-fleet.

In the 1540s, England was embroiled in a series of wars

with Catholic France and Scotland.

Hull was a strategically vital port, a target for French invasion.

If Hull could be taken, so might England.

Michael Stanhope was now on the front line.

"Two French pinnaces chased ships of Hull and Beverly...

"into Scarborough Road, but were put off by gunners

"sent thither by Stanhope himself, who shot out of the castle at them."

-Is this how he gets his knighthood?

-Yes. Yeah.

-From overseeing the defence of Hull against enemy shipping?

-Yes.

-He then becomes Sir Michael. He gets his knighthood.

-Wow!

-Is this the pinnacle of his career now?

-Um, no.

-In 1547, Henry VIII dies.

-That must be huge for him.

Yeah. The new king is Henry's nine-year-old son, Edward.

Edward VI is obviously young,

so he needs some kind of management by a major servant of state.

Have you heard of Edward Seymour?

-Anything to do with Jane Seymour?

-Yes.

-Right.

But also, um...

-Michael's half-sister's husband.

-Oh, my God!

Sir Michael Stanhope's half-sister Anne,

married courtier Edward Seymour.

His sister, Jane Seymour, was the third wife of Henry VIII.

She died soon after giving birth to the King's only son, Edward.

The nine-year-old Edward VI was now king.

His uncle, Edward Seymour, became the most powerful man in England.

He was declared Lord Protector

and made himself First Duke of Somerset.

Sir Michael Stanhope was now part of the greater royal family.

Frank has come to London to discover what these changes meant

for his ten times great-grandfather.

-Thanks for coming.

-Great to meet you.

He's meeting historian John Murphy,

who's researched Michael Stanhope's life in detail.

So, John, I never knew that such a beast existed

as an expert in Michael Stanhope, but I've found one in you!

What happened when he came down from Hull and got here to London?

Well, he gets a very important job.

But it's a little bit of a surprise though, I suppose.

Have you ever seen one of those before?

-Um, it looks like an incredibly plush toilet.

-It is.

That's got to be the most comfortable

Tudor khazi that was...ever created!

Well, kings can spend a great deal of time sitting on that.

-Whole roast swans would pass through that!

-Pass through it happily!

It's kept in the King's bed chamber,

and it's looked after by a man called the Groom of the Stool.

-HE LAUGHS

-You're kidding!

-That really existed, that title?

-Yes. That title really existed.

And it is to that appointment

-that your ancestor Sir Michael Stanhope...

-Oh, come on...!

-No.

-No, no.

-Yes, yes.

-Yeah. And not only that...

-So... Wait, wait, wait.

-No, back the truck up here.

-Yeah.

Stanhope - you know, he's defended Hull,

he's put the artillery in the right places,

-he's seen off the French and Scottish fleets...

-Absolutely.

-..and he's put in charge of sewage, essentially?

-He's the King's...

-The King's effluent.

-He's put in charge of the King's effluent

because the King's effluent is where the King is.

I mean, this is... this is a hammer blow, John.

This is one of the most important jobs

-in the royal court at this time.

-You're not selling it to me.

And he is the man who alone can go into the bed chamber of the King

and you can't see the King, speak to the King,

put a message across to the King

without first going through Sir Michael Stanhope.

He's, in every sense, a sort of father-figure to the King.

So, how did Stanhope become the closest confidante of the Boy King?

He gets this job, um, really through Somerset, Edward Seymour,

who is the King's uncle,

and by giving it to Stanhope,

who is his brother-in-law, effectively,

it keeps the King and access to the King in the family.

But Somerset does have his enemies,

and the biggest enemy he has,

a man called the Earl of Warwick, general bad guy.

He's waiting for his chance.

He's circling the court in this period, a bit like a vulture,

waiting for his opportunity to do down Somerset.

As tensions between the rivals escalated,

Somerset made a major mistake.

He handed his rival, the Earl of Warwick, control of the army,

ordering him out of court of suppress a rebellion.

But Warwick returned a hero,

at the head of a devoted army.

He was now the most powerful man in the country.

Warwick displaces Somerset.

Somerset loses his position at court

and your man Stanhope

loses his job in the privy chamber.

(Oh, God!)

Sir Michael Stanhope's job was handed to one of Warwick's men.

The Earl of Warwick wasn't content with simply ousting his rivals...

..he wanted to destroy them.

I have a very bad feeling,

I don't know why, that something bad is going to happen to my ancestor.

Well, this is the King's diary

and I'd like you to have a look at this entry here.

"Mr Banister and Mr Vaughan

"were attached and sent to the Tower and so was Mr Stanhope."

-So, my ancestor was carted off to the Tower of London?

-Yes.

This is really serious.

But there is always a chance that you can make a case in a courtroom.

But he is in deep doo-doo.

And he is in very deep doo-doo, there's no question about that.

Can I open this? I really want to know...

-Yeah. I think you should open it.

-..what happens next.

After his arrest, Stanhope was brought before a closed court

to hear the allegations against him.

This is called the "bag of secrets"

for very secret state trials...

..of which this is one.

My God, look at this.

This is all in legal Latin, but we have here a translation.

"Michael Stanhope, late of Beddington

"in the county of Surrey. Knight.

"Not having God before their eyes

"but led by diabolical prompting

"to feloniously take, imprison, and murder

"the most noble John, Duke of Northumberland,

"then Earl of Warwick." Oh, heavens!

He's been accused of plotting against Northumberland

and others of the Council.

But since 1549, that has been treason.

-Right.

-It's as if he was plotting against the king.

OK. I am dying to know, how does he defend himself?

How does my ancestor get out of this...this hole?

Well, let's see... Let's see where he enters his plea.

-And so can you see here?

-I can. Just right there.

That's it, Michael Stanhope.

And you can see above, they've entered in his plea.

Have a look here.

"Michael Stanhope, late of Beddington in the county of Surrey.

"Knight. He pleads not guilty."

He denies it strenuously.

-So, the jury has been assembled.

-Yeah.

-What do they decide?

Well, let's see. So, if you go from that line there...

"And so came the jury for this case.

"Before the said Justices at Westminster,

"say it upon their oath that the said Michael Stanhope is guilty."

"It's ordered...Michael Stanhope should be hanged."

He's been sentenced to death!

-He has been sentenced to death and...

-On what evidence?

This is the word of his enemies against his.

So, my ancestor has been found guilty of conspiracy

against his king with no proof of anything against him

-other than the word of other people?

-That's right.

Hearsay. Sworn hearsay.

Was he, in your mind, guilty?

I think Stanhope is innocent.

-I think they were all innocent men, and that's...

-It's a fit up.

..and that's how Tudor justice works, I'm afraid.

It doesn't sound like justice to me.

Is it now an inexorable passage to the gallows?

It is now a matter that will be very much in personal hands of the King.

This story has taken a really dark turn.

I'm not happy about it at all.

He is my ancestor, Sir Michael Stanhope,

and he's facing execution and his life, his fate,

rests in the hands of a 13-year-old boy, King Edward VI.

This is not a good position for him to be in.

Sir Michael Stanhope was sent to the Tower.

He entered across the drawbridge used by members of the royal family.

He was imprisoned alongside three of the other alleged conspirators.

Imagine being brought in here under heavy guard.

There's no escape. And you're facing execution.

It must have been beyond terrifying.

Frank wants to discover if the 13-year-old king

saved his ancestor from the hangman.

-Stephen.

-Hello.

He's hoping Professor Stephen Alford can tell him.

Forgive this, um, slightly strange contraption.

This would have been a massive come-down for Sir Michael Stanhope,

-wouldn't it?

-Absolutely.

-Would he have been in a room like this, a kind of stone room?

-Yes.

Any heating? Would he be allowed a fire?

Yes, fire, braziers,

but he would have paid for it himself.

But he hasn't got any money left. It's all been taken away from him.

Yeah, which explains our first document. We can look...

-Oh, neatly segued.

-..at a document here which is a warrant.

-So impressive.

-Here...

-Brilliant.

So, we've got a translation here.

Just down there.

"Warrant to the Exchequer:

"To deliver to the Lieutenant of the Tower

"56 pounds 13 shillings and 4 pence

"to be distributed unto Sir Thomas Arundel,

"Sir Michael Stanhope," et cetera.

-So, these are the four alleged conspirators.

-Yes.

But is this the king, King Edward who's ordered this?

It's the council and I think we can assume

that Edward is somewhere behind it.

Is that a glimmer of hope that maybe there's a suspicion

-that they're not guilty?

-Well, there's a degree of clemency here.

So, after weeks of being on tenterhooks,

-he must either get executed or pardoned?

-Mm.

Which is it?

It's executed.

But it's not hanged.

-It's beheaded.

-Oh, Christ!

-Yeah.

HE GROANS

That sends a shiver down my spine,

particularly as we're, we're sitting here in the Tower

where he was incarcerated, unfairly.

I was honestly expecting this to be a happy meeting.

I thought you were going to say,

"The King's piled in, intervened, and let him off."

Beheading is some nods in the direction of mercy.

It was a better, speedier death than hanging.

-But it would have been public?

-Yes.

Oh, absolutely, yes. Out... Out there.

-Just yards away from where we are now?

-Yeah, absolutely.

Which takes us to another document.

An account of the execution.

Oh, my God...!

"Friday, the 26th of February.

"At nine of the clock in the forenoon..."

-So, nine in the morning.

-Mm.

"..Sir Michael Stanhope and Sir Thomas Arundel

"were beheaded on the Tower Hill...

"..all which took on their death that they never offended

"against the King's Majesty nor against any of his council."

-So, they maintained their innocence right till the last.

-Yes.

That's shocking. That is shocking.

I don't care that it was half a millennium ago, it's just a...

an absolute travesty.

Beheaded, for something he hadn't done!

This is a guy who's served his country well.

He was wrongly accused, wrongly convicted,

and went to his death with dignity.

That's an ancestor I can be proud of.

I set out on this quest trying to find some element of stoicism,

some steel, some fibre in my ancestors,

because my mum had it in spades.

I didn't know if it existed. But it did.

There's Professor George, the ground-breaking Victorian scientist

and there was Sir Michael Stanhope, who was wrongly convicted,

and yet, he went to his death with dignity.

Something that both myself and my mum would have been proud of.

The one thing I haven't found out on this trip

is just how far back I can trace my mum's lineage.

I'm really chuffed that I've got as them far back as Tudor times.

Can I get them any further?

Frank has come to the College Of Arms,

which has been verifying family trees since the 15th century.

-Peter.

-Hello. How do you do?

Peter O'Donoghue is one of the college heralds.

-Shall we go through?

-Yeah.

So, Peter, my mother said,

"We're descended from the Normans in 1066."

I've no idea if this is true or not.

-Did my ancestors come over with them?

-OK, well, I think we have

got a manuscript which should help us go a bit further back.

I feel I'm about to be served a kind of historical banquet here.

-Yeah, that's right. A genealogical feast!

-Yes!

This is a collection of pedigrees created in the early 19th century.

And if we look at the index...

Oh, there's Stanhope! Straightaway, yeah.

Pages 145...

This is beautiful paper, isn't it?

Yeah.

So, here we are. Sir Michael Stanhope. OK. Shelford.

Beheaded, 1552.

And then behind that, is Scrope...

Yeah.

..into 1347, Earl of Gloucester.

And we go back as far as Joan Plantagenet of Acre.

And so, her father was King Edward I.

Oh, my God!

(Wow!)

-So, am I a direct descendent, then, of King Edward I?

-Yeah, exactly.

That's exactly what this document is showing us.

I think it's time to claim my kingdom.

-I'm going to boot out these people in...Buckingham Palace.

-Exactly.

So...

18, 19, 20... 23, 24...

So, there are just 24 generations

-of direct descent between me and King Edward I?

-Exactly.

And actually, when you think about it,

24 people is very, very few people.

That's just...that's a bus queue of your direct ancestors.

But I mean, you must get a lot of people coming in here

who descended from royalty?

It may be the case that many of us

have royal ancestors somewhere along the way,

but being able to show it, generation by generation,

THAT is unusual and that is a wonderful thing.

I mean, of course I have to ask, who was his father?

Right. Well, I think that's where we should move on

-to another manuscript if we can.

-This is fantastic.

Just move this one...out of the way.

I'm sad to see it go now.

Yeah!

So, now, this is quite an interesting manuscript.

-How old is this?

-This is, I think, 14th or 15th century.

And here he is. I think you can read that.

-Yeah, "Le Roy Edward". King Edward.

-Exactly.

And then above him in red, it says: "Le Roy Henri."

-Henry III, King John, Magna Carta John?

-Precisely, yeah.

So, these are all your direct ancestors, of course.

I can't get my head round this.

This is so weird.

Looking at these pictures,

this...this chain of kings,

-and these are my direct forbears?

-Yeah.

So, above him is Henry II.

-That's right.

-And above him? what have we got here?

So, hang on...

So, above Henry I...

-..William II.

-William II, exactly.

-"Le Roi William Rufus".

And then...

-That's William I though, isn't it?

-That's it, yeah. So, that is...

-That's William the Conqueror?

-..your direct ancestor.

My God...!

Didn't just come over with the Conqueror.

-You're descended from the Conqueror.

-He WAS William the Conqueror.

It is just incredible.

Wow!

So, 26, 27, 28, 29...

So, William the Conqueror is my 29 times great-grandfather.

That's exactly right, yeah.

Which...is not that many people.

If you think of all your ancestors standing in that bus queue,

33 of them perhaps, or whatever it is, 31 of them,

um, the first eight of them were kings.

FRANK GASPS

So, they'd probably be quite grumpy about being in the queue. But, um...

-Yeah. They want their own private queue.

-Yeah.

Wow!

I mean I always suspected there may be a grain of truth

in my mum saying we came over with the Normans.

I feel ashamed that it's taken me so long to do this.

I think, um...

I think my mum would be, would be...

just so happy,

so pleased that we've done this.

I wish she'd known about it. Maybe she's looking down on this now.

Maybe she is up there.

And I can just see her saying,

"Yes! We've traced it all the way back!

"We really did come over with the Normans.

"Our ancestor WAS William the Conqueror."

So, she'll be pleased.