Danny Dyer Who Do You Think You Are?

This is Albert Square. This is Walford. This is my manor.

This is where I work every single day. And I love it.

Danny Dyer is an actor most famous for his role as Mick Carter,

the pub landlord of the Queen Vic in EastEnders.

This is the Vic.

The beautiful Vic.

Here she is.

My baby.

Danny began acting while he was at school,

and has gone on to work on countless TV and film productions.

EastEnders comes along, they gave me this massive opportunity,

and I knew I had to relish every second of it.

People watching, the stereotype and all that,

they're going to expect me to be related to criminals.

Maybe I am related to a few criminals.

You know, I want the opposite to that.

Who knows where it's going to take me?

I want to freak a few people out, you know,

be related to aristocracy or something.

Something completely left field to what I'm known for.

You know, that's what I'd like. I'd like to freak a few people out.

Danny was born in Custom House in the East End of London in 1977,

and now lives in Essex with his family.

Growing up, you either had to make people laugh,

or you had to be able to hold your hands up...

..or you'd get walked all over, to be fair.

So I was a bit of a tearaway as a kid.

I was heading, probably, for prison...

..until I found my calling, which was acting.

I'm from a broken family, if that's what you want to call it,

in the respect that my mum and dad split up when I was quite young.

But...

It was just my mum that brought me up,

which is where I get my feminine side from.

My dad wasn't really around that much, really, as a father figure.

So I've never really asked about what my ancestry is.

I'd like to, maybe, discover

there are some strong male relations to me,

back in the day.

Danny is off to meet his father, Tony Dyer,

to find out about his paternal line.

-East Londoners.

-Proper geezer.

Danny Dyer.

Old school. That's us, yeah.

-Love you.

-Pleasure.

THEY ALL SPEAK AT ONCE

Watch. Push that one, whip it round, it's called a selfie.

He's meeting his dad for a pint in an East End pub

to see what he knows about his ancestors.

Here he is, look, the old man.

-All right, son?

-All right, Pop?

-Have a sit down.

-What are you on?

I'll have one of them, go on.

Give us a couple of whatever the old man's drinking.

Right, let's have a look at some of these smudges.

That one, I remember well.

Cos we had that up on our wall.

One thing you and Mother did get right,

-is you've got beautiful-looking kids, haven't you?

-That's it.

-I've got some more here. Here we are.

-Let's have a look.

Right, have a look at this.

There's your nan and grandad and me.

So there they are, the old man, look,

there's me nan there. Nanny Joyce.

Grandad John.

With Nanny, what was her parents like?

Well, I remember my grandad, but not my nan,

because, obviously, she died.

She died of kidney failure.

How old was she, Nan, when her,

-when her mother died?

-About nine years old.

-Nine.

-Yeah.

Never knew. Never knew.

No. Granny there, and Auntie Silv.

They brought my mother up.

That was Sylvia, was it?

She's beaut, and all, Sylvie, look.

Absolutely stunning, but Mary Ann, she looks naughty.

She looks like she could swing a right-hander, you know what I mean?

-Yeah, yeah.

-It's a strong face.

Fascinating...

That's your great-great-grandmother,

and that's your great-great-great-grandmother.

Great-great-great-grandmother.

On the back, look.

1851.

See, I love all this.

-I love all this.

-A few years ago, son, weren't it?

1851.

Hard face, wasn't it?

-Really hard.

-Albert and Anne Buttivant.

My aunt Sylv said they ran the workhouse down in Mile End.

Them two.

They ran the workhouse?

That's what I was told.

So, anything going past

-Albert and Ann...

-No, I don't know no further than that.

You don't go no further than that?

-No. No.

-This seems to be the route I'm going to be going down.

Albert and Ann Buttivant.

That's near here, then, isn't it?

Mile End?

Danny's learned that his paternal grandmother, Joyce, whose mother,

Mary Ann Wallace, died young,

was brought up by her grandmother, Mary Ann Buttivant.

Danny knows nothing about the Buttivant family except that his

father, Tony, has told him Albert and Ann,

his great-great-great-grandparents,

ran a workhouse in London's East end.

For my dad to tell me about my nan losing her mum at nine...

..you know, it's freaked my head out little bit. I didn't expect that.

You know, I feel for her.

I'm also intrigued about the fact

that Ann and Albert Buttivant ran a workhouse.

That must have been a real tough gig, that one.

I think I want to learn a little bit more about that,

and see where that takes me.

Danny's going to the Tower Hamlets archive

to meet Professor David Green

who studied the records of the Mile End workhouse.

So, Professor Green - good name, cool name, that.

-Pro Green.

-Pro Green.

Now this is a picture of Mary Ann

who was my two times great-grandmother...

who is the daughter of...

..Ann Buttivant, and this is Albert Buttivant.

So I learned that these two ran a workhouse, as far as I know.

OK. I'm going to show you something from the workhouse records.

-Let's have a look.

-So, 1878...

1878, December the 2nd.

And there is Ann Buttivant.

So there's Ann.

So there's Mary Ann...

Who was born in 1877,

so just a few months before they were admitted into the workhouse.

So she's in there, the mother, with a very, very young baby,

Mary Ann, entering the workhouse...

-..as a pauper.

-As a pauper?

-As a pauper.

-So she wasn't...

-She didn't run the workhouse? She was just in it.

-That's right.

David has scoured the Mile End workhouse records

and compiled a list of all the Buttivant family admissions.

What about Albert? All I'm seeing here, really,

is, obviously, Mary Ann,

Ann, Eliza, Emma, which is obviously her daughters, yeah?

That's right.

No Albert. No Albert knocking about

at all. Then he comes in...

-Oh, right, OK.

-They don't just go in once.

They go in often.

That's a kind of three-year period

between 1878 and 1881 down here.

They are just in and out the whole time, usually without Albert.

He may be trying to find work outside.

This would have been the poorest time of their life,

because they had three young daughters, at least,

because we see their names here.

And he was the only breadwinner.

It's either death...

really, starve to death, your kids,

especially if you've got a baby.

They've got no choice.

They committed no crime.

Other than being poor, that's their crime. Having no money.

So these are the bare-bones, life in the workhouse,

but you get a really great feel, if you could see the buildings.

The Mile End Hospital next door

still uses the old workhouse buildings

where Danny's great-great-grandmother

spent most of her childhood.

It's incredibly rare to see these buildings still standing.

And your relative, Mary Ann Buttivant,

when she was a baby,

this is where she would have been.

-That's the front.

-Oh, yeah.

And you can see, it's actually not changed very much.

That looks quite grand.

You know, it's a hellhole.

So, Mary Ann Buttivant, very little education, no connections,

so, coming out of the workhouse,

I don't know where your story's going to go from here

but too often these people fell foul of the law.

It might be a really good idea, perhaps,

to look at the police records to see if they picked her up.

Yeah. It's a strange feeling to think that...

..that's the actual building Mary Ann,

Ann and Albert actually knocked about in.

SIREN WAILS

Danny is going to search the criminal records

to see if he can find any trace

of Mary Ann Buttivant after she came out of the workhouse.

-All right, Nev?

-Hello, Danny.

-How are you, son?

-How are you, mate? You all right? Cup of tea?

-Yeah, cup of tea. I'll be parked over here, yeah?

-No problem.

I ain't got a clue what's going to come up.

Hopefully nothing, and there's no crime involved.

OK.

Search all records.

So I found her name.

It's says she was a servant.

So she did have a job.

It says Mary Ann Buttivant...

..bailed at police court.

Her crime... "Having been delivered of a child

"did by secret disposition of the dead body,

"endeavour to conceal the birth thereof."

So she pleaded guilty.

Did not expect that. I thought it would be petty stealing.

When you've held your own newborn in your arms,

and it's such a vulnerable little weak, little thing...

you know, it always makes me feel slightly sick...

..the idea of a baby dying before it even gets started on this Earth.

The idea of it being a baby,

of all things, not babies.

Oh!

I feel that, you know,

I'm starting this journey and I want to grow to love these people.

I want to grow to love these people.

You know, cos these are my blood.

You know. I don't want to...

..I don't want to find out stuff like this.

I've come into this thinking, you know, like...

..I'll be quite detached from it and, you know,

it's just bits of paper I'm reading and stuff like that.

But it actually goes a bit deeper than that.

Danny has come to the Bishopsgate Institute

for further help unravelling

Mary Ann Buttivant's criminal record.

He's here to meet historian Dr Daniel Grey.

-Please, call me Daniel.

-Oh, good man.

Right.

My two times...

..great grandmother...

..Mary Ann, she's got a criminal record

which we didn't know about and she pleaded guilty...

..of endeavouring to conceal the birth of a child.

So, I'm like... Now, she was 17

-at this point.

-Yeah.

So I don't know whether she was helping deliver someone else's baby,

or whether it was her own child.

I don't know if you can explain to me what it means.

Well, I've found some documents

which I'm hoping is going to...

help you with that. So this is the copy of an indictment.

"Mary Ann Buttivant.

"Delivered of a certain female child...

"..on the 24th day of February.." I can't read it.

It's driving me mad.

"In the county of London,

"and within the jurisdiction of the said courts by certain secret

"disposition of the dead body of the said child to whit,

"by secretly placing the dead body of the said child in a pail."

So that's a bucket. "And covering its dead body with ashes there with

"intent to conceal the birth thereof."

So what it's saying she's done is

she's hidden the dead body of a baby,

and that it's her baby, that she's the one who's given birth to it.

I thought that might have been the case.

So this is the death certificate.

Daughter of Mary Ann Buttivant, unmarried,

so what's really crucial here about cause of death is that it says,

"Found dead, a haemorrhage from umbilical cord

"from want of proper attention at birth."

There is no evidence of violence.

No-one's tried to hurt the baby in any way.

What's happened is that shortly after giving birth,

when the umbilical cord's been cut, no-one's tied it and that means that

you can bleed to death very, very quickly.

This is... I'm going to put it in my head.

This is my family.

You know, that she was 17.

Maybe she didn't know she was pregnant.

All of a sudden, this baby starts to come out,

she then tries to deal with it herself.

She doesn't know what to do.

She gets it wrong.

So... I can't imagine what that was like.

And then, of course, she panics...

..and puts the baby...

..in a bucket, just...

If there had been a midwife there,

which most working class women can arrange to hire one,

or at the very least, at the very least,

a local woman who's friendly and helps people out informally because

-she's given birth herself.

-Just someone.

-Someone.

They would have known to tie the cord

-and been able to do it quickly enough.

-Aged two minutes.

Yeah.

Concealment of birth was a common offence in the Victorian period.

And women could be prosecuted for hiding the dead body of a baby.

It was the jury's job to decide whether or not

the child had been intentionally killed.

What she could have got, and what they give women who they suspect of

having deliberately killed their children -

two years' imprisonment with hard labour.

But this is basically a suspended sentence. No jail time.

They seem to have decided this was very much a tragic accident.

I know this might sound like a weird thing,

but I'm slightly relieved.

-I think relief is totally understandable.

-Yeah.

Before she died in 1960, Mary Ann

went on to have ten other children.

Her youngest, Sylvie, is now in her 90s,

and lives nearby in Poplar, in East London.

I haven't seen her since I was, like, a baby, tiny, tiny.

So it's been a long, long time.

But I'm really happy that there's somebody

that's, you know, still alive,

that I can talk to,

that gives me this access into this Victorian world.

I'm also very nervous,

cos I don't know what sort of reaction I'm going to get.

Sylvie is cared for by her daughter, Iris, Danny's distant cousin.

-Are you all right?

-How are you, babes, you all right?

-You look lovely.

-You look beautiful and all.

-Come and see Auntie Silv.

-Will do. Come on.

Hello, my darling.

What have you put me in?

I know, I do apologise.

Give us a kiss.

-You all right?

-Yeah, I'm all right.

-Yeah?

-Yeah, but I don't want to be a celebrity!

SHE LAUGHS

-No, nor do I, darling.

-It's too much like hard work.

It is hard work, babe, believe you me.

Believe you me. Don't worry about it.

I didn't realise there was so much in it.

Auntie Sylvie is your oldest living relative.

You're still knocking about, beautiful little thing.

And I'm 92.

Well, I found out some stuff about your mother, Mary Ann,

over the last couple of days.

-My mum, yeah.

-I don't know how much you know.

Some quite upsetting stuff.

She was...a proper old East Ender.

A proper old East Ender.

I've known my mother, for people to come up and say to her,

"Got a couple of shillings to lend us, old girl?"

She says, "No, I've only got enough for myself,"

but she's lent them her washing to take and pawn

to get a couple of bob.

She had a heart of gold, my mum.

This is the only picture we've got of Mary Ann.

-This is Mary Ann here.

-Right.

For me, your mother, amazing woman.

It's what I found out, I done a bit of research,

did you know that Mary Ann has got a criminal record?

-All right?

-Oh!

What it was... It was concealing a dead baby.

-Right?

-Oh.

So when she was 17, she got pregnant, she had a little girl...

and the little girl was two minutes old.

So it would have been your sister.

So, obviously, she was distraught, she didn't hurt the baby,

she didn't kill the baby, she just tried to do it on her own.

She obviously wasn't savvy enough to tie the cord.

Of course, the baby needs the cord to be tied,

cos they bleed out.

And, of course, she was so scared, she hid it in a bucket.

Yeah, hid it in a bucket, and someone found it and...

So, all that, the past, I wouldn't have known anything about,

because I was the youngest of the lot, of ten.

Of course. But you didn't know that you had another sister,

-that she'd...

-No-one, none of us knew.

-So she didn't say nothing about that.

-Not one of us knew.

No, she never, ever mentioned anything like that, did she?

-Well, I suppose, why would you?

-No-one ever knew about that.

That's what I'm saying. How do you? How do you approach it?

To even come through that

and still be a decent human being

-says a lot about the woman.

-Yeah.

It's funny she lost the baby at 17,

because in later life, she delivered all the babies.

She delivered me.

She delivered my sister.

She delivered all the babies in the flats,

and they used to call her Aunt Polly and say,

"Go and get Aunt Polly, quick, there's another baby coming."

So, yeah, she turned out to be like a midwife, really.

If a baby come quick like that,

-she would never touch a cord.

-No.

She'd wait till the nurse got there.

She would never do that herself, obviously, because...

That explains it, doesn't it?

She was thinking back to what happened to her, I suppose.

Of course. Absolutely.

So that really does make sense now.

Obviously, we focused on the Buttivant side of it.

Is there anything else you can tell me about Albert and Ann?

I was about nine when my grandparents died, I think.

And he always had that gentlemanly...

..bit about him. Right smart.

With his old fob watch.

He originated from French.

By all accounts, he came from a very rich family...

A very rich French family?

Rich French family.

His name was Buttivent.

Yeah. That's posh, isn't it, that?

-Buddivent.

-So there is some money involved in our family,

although we never saw none of it!

Going right back, because, I mean, we've never had any dough,

do you know what I mean? None of us.

So it's lovely seeing Sylv.

Very interested in Albert.

I've ordered his birth certificate cos I want to learn more about him.

I want to see... I want to see...

maybe, how much he was worth,

if it says any of that, how French he was.

Am I French? How French am I?

I know I look French and all that.

So...

Born the 4th of November, 1851.

And he was born...

Church Lane, Whitechapel.

That's strange. He was born in Whitechapel, so he's a Londoner.

Name of mother is Hannah Sarah.

Name of father - Charles.

OK. His occupation of his dad, Charles, is a commercial clerk.

That sounds like he could be still worth money.

There's nothing about being French here, though, other than the name.

It sounds cockney French in my eyes, Buttivant.

However you pronounce it. Bootivant.

I'd say bu-a-vant. There's no T's in it.

So I need to find out more, really.

Interesting.

I feel like I've come to a bit of a dead end.

I don't really know what to do.

I don't really know what...

sort of route to go down.

I'm confused by it all and I don't know what to do.

I just hope that this journey gets a little bit more jolly,

to be honest.

Danny's come to meet expert genealogist Laura Berry

who's agreed to work on his family tree

to see if she can help him solve the French mystery.

So, Laura, my four times

great-grandfather, Charles Buttivant...

I was led to believe was French.

Well, I have done a bit of research,

-as you can see from this family tree here.

-OK.

And you're at the bottom,

and then we've got your four times great-grandfather,

Charles Buttivant is here.

-Here he is.

-I've managed to go back a little bit further,

but I'm afraid I haven't been able to find any French ancestry

in these immediate generations here.

Although, I have managed to find something quite interesting

going back through Charles' mother,

Ann Gosnold, who came from a really prominent Suffolk family.

And if you work up the tree to Robert Gosnold,

who is your ten times great-grandfather.

Ten times great...

I love this. This is...

Ten times great-grandfather, Robert Gosnold.

-Wow!

-And he was born in 1611 and died in 1658.

And, actually, on his baptism record, dating from 1611,

it was written in Latin, it is quite difficult to read, but there is...

-I can't read Latin!

-It's all right. I've not got it.

-Oh, good.

But he...

It does say that his father, Robert Gosnold, was an armiger.

I don't know if that phrase means anything to you.

I wish I was intelligent enough to say yes, but no, it doesn't.

I don't know what it means. What does it mean?

It's interesting because it suggests

that he was part of the landed gentry,

and that he had a coat of arms.

We've got a picture of it here.

Wow! Finally, some money in my family.

I've been led to believe there was money in my family.

And it's been the complete opposite so far.

Shame it was in the 17th century.

So Robert's my man!

OK.

I'm hoping he's cake-o bake-o.

And that, in cockney, sort of means really rich.

-Oh.

-Yeah, like, caked.

That would be quite exciting.

I need to find out more about this geezer, don't I?

I'm hoping he's a proper geezer, like, proper.

What's interesting about your ten times great-grandfather's dates,

you know, he was alive in the 1640s and 1650s.

He would have been an adult during the English Civil War.

And the landed gentry did tend to

play quite prominent roles in the English Civil War.

So I think he would be

a really interesting person to investigate a bit further.

Robert Gosnold.

Sounds posh.

I'm very excited. Robert Gosnold...

possibly could have fought in the English Civil War.

And...

and it's exciting, because...

..you know, I want a real man.

I want a bit of... I want a leader of men in my life.

And I need some good news.

Because I've had some pretty heavy stuff up until this point.

Danny has travelled to Oxford to meet Professor Mark Stoyle,

a Civil War historian.

I know this is a very old pub, the oldest pub in Oxford, but why,

why are we here?

Well, Oxford, at this time, is absolutely rammed with people,

so there are the normal townsfolk,

-and there are also thousands of soldiers.

-Yeah.

So we can be quite certain

this pub would have had soldiers billeted in it.

I know a certain amount about Robert Gosnold.

And he was in the English Civil War.

-He was?

-He himself might even have popped into this pub.

He would certainly have walked...

Of course he would have popped into this pub!

Of course he was in here.

Yeah!

-I love that.

-So this is the kind of ambience...

That gives me a little shiver up the spine.

It does. To think that, you know,

he could have been knocking about in here.

Danny's ancestor,

Colonel Robert Gosnold, fought in the bloody English Civil War,

which began in 1642 and saw nearly 200,000 people lose their lives.

Supporters of King Charles I, the Royalists,

were pitted against the parliamentarians.

After a number of defeats, the King's army were on the run,

and finally retreated to Oxford in 1646.

By this stage, only the most loyal troops

were still standing by Charles I.

And Robert Gosnold was among them.

And the fact that he's decided to put himself into Oxford,

and defend the King's capital, even when things are going so badly for

Charles, shows that he is, sort of, an uber Royalist,

an uber Cavalier, if you like.

-Well, I'm not really a royalist.

-Yeah.

None of my family are, really.

I don't know why I'm not a royalist.

But now I want to be a royalist, for some reason.

I feel like I should be.

This is an image of Oxford as it was at the time.

It shows you the incredible earthworks

that the Royalists had built around it,

and this fortress was about to be attacked

by the strongest army in the British Isles.

-Outnumbered completely.

-Completely.

These are the parliamentarian troops.

Look at them all there. Just waiting to pounce.

And Robert is in there somewhere.

-He's probably in here!

-Yeah.

Oh, I love it.

I love it. I love it.

As the parliamentarians advanced ever closer,

the King disguised himself

and escaped Oxford in April 1646.

He was eventually arrested and executed.

Charles left behind his loyal troops,

who were forced to negotiate the final surrender.

Even at this point, when all is clearly lost, Robert himself,

and his close comrades, are not keen to surrender.

Even though there's virtually no hope left to them,

they still want to hold out.

-He was game as you like.

-Yeah.

He's taking royalism about as far as it can be taken.

The loyalty that these men are showing is incredible, really.

We've definitely got that in our family, you know?

It's about heart and spirit.

-This seems to be a recurring theme for me.

-Yeah.

You know, battling against the odds, and still coming out the other side.

-He's a force, mate.

-Mm.

-He's a powerful, powerful man.

And I'm hopelessly in love with him.

MARK LAUGHS

So, Robert Gosnold is my hero at this point.

What a man. Erm...

King Charles I obviously had his head chopped off,

but what happened to Robert?

You know, what was his fate?

That's what I'm intrigued about.

Danny has come to Robert Gosnold's village, Otley in Suffolk,

to meet local historian Stephen Potts.

Stephen.

-Danny.

-How are you?

-I'm very well. Pleased to meet you.

-Pleasure, pleasure.

-Welcome to Otley.

-Thank you.

So, Stephen, Robert Gosnold.

What a man.

Absolutely fascinated by this character.

Erm, I've learned a bit about him.

Is there any more you can tell me about him?

Well, a good place to start is to come here and to Otley Hall

and see exactly where he lived.

Oh, wow.

So this is Robert Gosnold's house.

I'm not ready for this, I'm really not ready for this.

Oh, wow.

This is the most beautiful house I've ever seen, I think.

It's one of the finest

Grade I listed houses in the whole of the county.

-Yeah...

-This is up there. Is, er...

Is that his, one of his peacocks, or...?

STEPHEN LAUGHS

Um, do they bite, peacocks, by the way?

I don't think so.

PEACOCK SQUAWKS IN BACKGROUND

I know that Robert was an uber royalist,

I know he was on the losing side in the war.

We all know King Charles I's fate...

I don't know what happened to Robert. Was he imprisoned?

I mean...

No, they didn't imprison the royalists,

but they did exploit them.

So they would've taken money from their estates during the Civil War,

and they set up a system whereby they could fine them,

-because what they needed more than anything else was money.

-Yeah.

There's lots of documentation

that still exists that shows what happened to him.

What date is it?

This is dated... 1st of September 1646,

so this is just a few months after the war has ended.

"To the honourable committee at Goldsmiths Hall

"for compositions with delinquents."

-Do you know what that means?

-No.

-So anybody who was a royalist and supported Charles...

-Mm-hm?

..was a delinquent.

-Right, OK.

-We've got the transcript there.

Ah, this is more a bit of me, OK.

"He prayes a direction to the Committee in the Country

"to pay the arrears...

"of theis rents

"and annuityes for the Tyme they have received the rents

"and profits of his Lands.

"That he is indebted £1,200..."

Wow.

"That his howses are decayed and spoiled

"to the value of £500

"and his Woods cutt downe and wasted to the value of a £1,000.

"Fyne is £600."

What are we talking in today's money?

Difficult to put it in terms of today's money,

but we're certainly talking about the equivalent

of several hundred thousand pounds.

So they've hit him for severe readies,

as you'd say in the East London.

-Severe readies.

-Severe readies, yeah.

-I like the fact you've just said that.

-This would have hurt him

-tremendously.

-And they knew he'd come from wealth, so they've hit him hard, haven't they?

Yes, they want the money.

But he ends up mortgaging, remortgaging and so on.

And finally, after his death...

-Mm.

-..his heirs have no choice but to sell the land on.

So they basically just lost... everything, really.

Because they were royalists.

-Yeah.

-Just snatched away from them.

-Yeah.

-All this.

This beauty.

So, at this point,

the Gosnolds are no longer landed gentry.

They have no land.

They go down the social scale.

And no hope of ever getting back to where they were before.

Yeah.

I knew it was all too good to be true.

There's never really been any money in my family at all.

You know.

Don't despair.

-Robert's mother...

-Mm-hm.

-So, your Colonel Robert's mother,

was a Tollemache.

-A what?

-A Tollemache, Ann Tollemache.

And the Tollemache family are still a landowning family.

In fact, in the very next village to here to this day.

Shall we go to the next village?

And, er...

-cause some chaos?

-STEVE LAUGHS

Danny has discovered that the Gosnolds

are related to the Tollemache family via his 11 times

great-grandmother Anne Tollemache,

the mother of Colonel Robert Gosnold.

Danny's going to meet his distant relative,

the current Lord Tollemache.

So, I'm at Helmingham Hall...

owned by the Tollemaches.

I've no idea...

about the Tollemaches.

I'm getting a rough idea as I drive down.

The size of this gaffe's ridiculous.

What?

Wow.

There's a geezer waiting for me. I'm assuming he's my relative.

-Hello, Danny?

-Hello, young man.

-Very nice to meet you.

-Absolute pleasure, yeah.

-Pleasure, er..

-Welcome to Helmingham.

What a gaffe you've got here!

Well, I've put the drawbridge down for you.

-Can I drive over it?

-You certainly can.

-Hero.

-The geezer's got a drawbridge.

-BLEEP

-hell!

He has and all.

Oh, I don't think I'm going to get over this, babe, to be honest.

I can't believe this, honestly. I cannot believe it.

How can these people be my relatives?

And why don't I know about this?

Right.

Let's, er...

Let's go and have a bit of bunny with the lord.

Oh...

So, um, you're a lord.

Er, can I call you Tim?

-You can call me Tim.

-As we're related.

Very much so.

So, we're related through, er, the Gosnolds.

We are.

And I believe,

you being a Tollemache,

my 11 times great-grandmother was Anne Tollemache.

-Is that right?

-That's absolutely right, yes.

-OK.

It was Anne who was the daughter of Sir Lionel Tollemache

and his wife, Catherine. And Anne was born and bred here.

I mean, this has took my breath away. This is...

This is another level of house.

Is it a house? I mean, it's got a moat.

-I'm stunned.

-Yeah, no... It was built, we came here 500 years ago

and built Helmingham, as it stands today,

with its moat and its drawbridge.

I'll tell you what, the Helmingham church is just over there.

-OK.

-And we've got some monuments to the many, many Tollemaches there.

Including Anne's father, Lionel Tollemache.

Let's do it, Tim, let's do it.

Well, there are a lot of monuments in this church,

but the one I want you to see is up here.

-OK.

-Um...

And it is actually the very, very top one,

made by Lionel Tollemache, the one at the top.

So that would be my 12 times great grandfather?

That's right.

-Wow!

-So, Lionel Tollemache

-and then his father...

-Mm-hm.

..grandfather, and great-grandfather.

And each one of them has got a little rhyme, or couplet,

describing what they did in life. I don't know whether you can read it.

-You probably can't...

-Not from here, no, I don't think so,

-I think I'll struggle with that.

-So I've got it written down there.

"Here with his father sleeps Sir Lionel, knight baronet,

"all honours worthy well, happy in Soul, in Body, Goods and Name.

"Happy in wedlock with a noble dame.

"Lord Cromwell's daughter..."

Lord Cromwell's daughter?

-Hold on a minute, hold on a minute. So...

-So...

Lionel's Tollemache's wife, Catherine Cromwell,

was the great granddaughter of Thomas Cromwell,

and he was Henry VIII's great statesman,

-and supporter and courtier.

-Wow.

Wow.

But I've got a picture of Catherine here...

One of the portraits which hangs in Helmingham Hall.

And that is, that is her.

Our mutual ancestor.

Ah...

I'm just going to, er, I'm going to put the lips on her, Tim.

-I'm going to put the lips...

-TIM LAUGHS

She's my family. She's my family.

There she is. See the resemblance?

Got it?

Eh? Yeah?

DANNY LAUGHS

I love it! I love it!

MUSIC DROWNS SPEECH

'So, Danny Dyer

'is a direct descendant of Thomas Cromwell.'

I can't believe it.

I... I don't know what to say.

I'll say it again, I am a direct descendant of Thomas Cromwell.

Danny's learned that via his 12 times great grandmother,

Catherine Cromwell,

he's descended from Thomas Cromwell,

King Henry VIII's right-hand man.

So he's heading back to London

to find out more about his famous ancestor.

Just about to pull into the gaffe now.

Hampton Court Palace, of course. It's Hampton Court Palace.

My 15 times great-grandfather...

Yeah.

He's come to meet Thomas Cromwell's biographer, Tracy Borman.

Welcome to Hampton Court.

-Pleasure.

-Well, congratulations.

-Yeah.

-You're related to the most controversial man

in British history.

Oh, the most controversial?

I think so, yeah.

In recent times we've grown to love Thomas Cromwell,

but he was always the villain of history.

-Was he?

-The man you love to hate.

-So, he was a bit like Marmite, was he?

-Exactly.

So this is the sort of place where Cromwell would've been,

literally, burning the midnight oil as he was working for the King.

This is the Great Hall,

the centrepiece of Henry VIII's Palace.

Built to impress, as you can see.

-DANNY EXHALES DEEPLY

-Yeah.

You'd have a right rave in here, couldn't you, babe, eh?

-TRACY LAUGHS

-And that's exactly what they did.

And Cromwell would've been at quite a few of them.

-Would you like to see a picture?

-I'd love to see a smudge of him.

Well, this was painted by the most famous portrait painter of the age,

um, Holbein.

And I think, actually, there is more than a passing resemblance.

I have to say, yeah.

I do. I think around the nose.

If you were to look a little bit...

The puffy eyes, yeah, I get that bit. Yeah, yeah.

What do you think of him?

You can tell he liked his grub, as well.

-TRACY LAUGHS

-We've got the jowls.

-Yeah.

-The Cromwell jowls.

-The Cromwell jowls, I'm going to call it now.

Yeah. That man, I've got his blood running through my veins.

It excites me a lot,

although I don't know that much about him, so...

Well, this portrait's got a loss to answer for,

because it's, I think, largely due to this

that people see him as a villain.

-Cos he does look...

-He is looking pretty sinister there, isn't he?

Looking at somebody like he's about to maybe have them executed.

You wouldn't mess with him, would you?

Certainly not, no. Certainly not.

He wasn't of noble birth.

He had, er, very humble origins.

He was born in about 1485 in Putney.

Now, obviously today, Putney is a nice part of London.

It wasn't in the late 15th century when Cromwell was born.

Not the sort of place you'd want to find yourself after dark.

It was full of cut-throats and criminals,

and one of the worst of all was Cromwell's father, Walter.

He was a blacksmith and he was a brewer.

He had his own pub

and he was always in trouble with the law.

So he's managed this unbelievable rise from where he came from...

Yeah.

-..to be sitting with Henry, from the slums...

-Yeah.

-..to there.

I mean, mine's a much more small comparison,

but I'm from the slums, if you like...

99% of the people at Henry's court

were from wealthy backgrounds.

He was extraordinary.

You know, he was an absolute phenomenon.

-It's ridiculous is what it is.

-It is.

I never thought I'd meet anybody who's related to Thomas Cromwell.

-That's extraordinary.

-HE LAUGHS

Historians have speculated,

what was it about this blacksmith's son

that appealed to Henry?

And certainly Henry recognised Cromwell's great talent.

He was, by this time...

He was a self-taught lawyer by this time.

He was an exceptionally sharp man.

I've always thought there was more to it than that.

I think what appealed to Henry about Cromwell, he was cheeky.

He would make the king laugh, and Henry loved that...

Would you say it was a difficult thing,

-to make the king laugh?

-I think, yeah.

And then if you overstepped the mark with the king, you're brown bread.

He was cheeky. He was known to be funny.

He would make even his enemies laugh.

But it's not all plain sailing between Henry and Cromwell.

They're two quite big personalities,

-so you can imagine the clash.

-Right.

And we've got a letter here, written by a courtier.

"So the king benave of him twice a week,

"and sometimes knock him well about the pate."

That's the head, yeah.

"And yet when he have been well pummelled about the head

"and shaken up as it were a dog,

"he will come out into the great chamber

"shaking of the bush with as merry a countenance

"as though he might rule all the roost."

-Oh, I see. So, he takes a clumping.

-Yeah.

-And he just goes like that...

-Exactly.

-Picks himself up, walks out as if he owns the manor.

-Yeah.

-That's absolutely it.

-It's like, "So what? I took a beating."

-Yeah.

-He's proving to everyone, he is the alpha male.

-Absolutely.

And it's funny you should say that about power, you know.

By the middle of the 1530s,

Cromwell is the most powerful man in England.

There's only the king who is above him.

He's Henry VIII's chief minister. He's running the show.

-This is ridiculous.

-He is in charge of everything.

And then the sort of highest that he rises is in 1540,

and I think you'll like this.

He is made Earl of Essex.

And this is his heraldry as the Earl of Essex.

Oh!

-Which is...which is where I live.

-Mm-hm.

So, in a way, I'm sort of the Earl of Essex?

Yeah. By descent.

I think it's going to change me as a human being.

-Not in a bad way.

-Yeah.

-But in a way of thinking.

Yeah, yeah. Definitely.

-In a positive way.

-Yeah, I can imagine.

It's certainly going to give me more confidence.

So, Cromwell, at this point of his career,

seems utterly invincible,

but I'm afraid things are about to go very horribly wrong.

Of course they are. Of course they are.

I suppose he's getting very cocky.

He's starting to push it too far, maybe, all of these noblemen,

and well-educated people,

and he's starting to rub their nose in it, isn't he?

Absolutely. And I'm afraid he's about to pay.

Tracy has led Danny to the Tower of London.

-So, you're taking me into a dungeon, are you?

-I'm afraid so.

Which is where, in June 1540,

Danny's 15-times great-grandfather, Thomas Cromwell,

was brought on charges of treason and heresy.

It was really a coup by his enemies at court,

particularly the Duke of Norfolk.

-He'd always hated this baseborn boy from Putney.

-Yeah.

And he managed to convince Henry VIII

that Cromwell was plotting treason,

plotting to supplant the king himself

to marry the King's daughter, Mary, and the charges were ridiculous.

You know, Cromwell couldn't get into Henry's head, no?

Cos he was quite clever at getting into his head,

and all of a sudden he couldn't any more.

His only chance of survival was to persuade Henry

to change his mind.

He wrote three letters to Henry

and we have a copy of the last letter here.

"Beseech, your most humble Your Grace,

"to pardon this, my rude writing,

"and to consider that I am a most woeful prisoner,

"ready to take the death when it shall please God

"and Your Majesty.

"Most gracious prynce,

"I cry for mercy, mercy, mercy."

So...

..my 15-times great-grandfather really is desperate now.

On the morning of the 28th of July 1540

Thomas Cromwell was taken from his cell.

Private executions within the walls of the tower

were reserved for those of blue blood.

Tower Hill, with its huge mobs, was for the commoners like Cromwell.

It takes three blows of the axe to sever Cromwell's head,

and that head is then set on a spike and put on London Bridge

alongside all the heads of all the traitors,

there for everyone to see.

It's a weird feeling to think that one of my ancestors,

-you know, would have suffered this.

-Mm.

-So, he's born a commoner...

-Yeah.

-..and he died a commoner.

-Absolutely.

-And he had that mad period in between.

-Mm.

He did. But a few years previous to his execution,

he'd done something so clever that it was feathering the nest

of the Cromwells for a long time to come,

and that is to arrange an extraordinarily prestigious marriage

for his son, Gregory...

Now, this may be a portrait of the young Gregory.

..to the sister of Jane Seymour.

This was the wife whom Henry was said to have loved

more than all the others cos she gave him a son.

So, you can imagine what an alliance for the Cromwells.

They're now marrying into the royal family.

It was a brilliant move on Cromwell's part.

So, Danny, you're descended from the first-born son of Gregory,

whom they named in honour of the king.

-He was Henry.

-No!

That's a bittersweet fact, I think.

That is bittersweet, isn't it?

Danny has discovered that

his 14-times great-grandfather

Gregory Cromwell

was married to Elizabeth,

the sister of Queen Jane Seymour -

Henry VIII's third

and favourite wife.

To find out who I was related to was a lot for me to take in,

and I've woke up today and I really want to find out about the Seymours.

So, that's my aim today. I think that's the path I've chose.

Danny has come to Westminster Abbey to meet Peter O'Donoghue,

a herald from the College of Arms

and an expert in the pedigree of the oldest families in the land.

-Hi, Danny.

-How are you, Peter? All right?

-Nice to meet you.

-A pleasure.

-Right, well, come and sit down

and we'll have a talk.

Now, you've been learning about Cromwell, I gather,

-your ancestor Thomas Cromwell?

-Yeah.

My 15-times great-grandfather.

So, building on that, what we've got here

is a scroll which will show you...

..a bit about the history of your family.

So, here is Gregory Cromwell and his wife, Elizabeth Seymour.

OK, so, Elizabeth Seymour,

John Seymour,

Wentworths.

Sir Henry Hotspur Percy.

Philippa Plantagenet.

-Explain to me.

-So, I don't know if that name, Plantagenet...

-Plantagenet, obviously not...

-..rings a bell.

-..because I've just said it wrong, so I've no idea.

-Right.

Well, if you follow the line back up to the top,

-you'll see where that name takes us.

-Lionel Plantagenet.

Edward III.

Edward III, that great medieval king.

So, Edward III, yes,

he's your 22-times great-grandfather.

So, you are directly descended from King Edward III of England.

I can't be.

I can't be.

A direct descendant from Edward III?

So, Danny Dyer's right at the bottom of that scroll

-and Edward III is at the top.

-HE LAUGHS

It's just stupid, isn't it?!

It's great. It's fantastic.

-It's quite amazing.

-It is pretty amazing, isn't it? It really is.

I just need to just digest it and get it in my nut,

and then I can move on with my life and...

I think I'm going to treat myself to a ruff.

-What, the...?

-Yeah.

-Yeah. It would be a good look for you.

Just get a massive ruff, just bowl about with it,

and if anyone questions it,

then I'll explain to them why I'm wearing a ruff.

That's true, yeah.

And then they'll have to walk away, won't they, embarrassed?

Actually, we can go and find out more about Edward III, if you like,

-further up in the abbey.

-Yeah, can I just take a moment?

-Sure.

-Just have a moment to myself to just...

A kid from Canning Town, Custom House,

and this is my bloodline.

OK, I've had my moment now. Let's go.

Let's go and have a pipe at Edward III,

my 22-times great-grandfather.

We're going over here.

-Where is he?

-Right, so, this is your ancestor, Edward III.

You can see his name, Edwardus, there.

-Edwardus.

-Yeah.

-It's laughable.

-It doesn't feel real, you mean?

Of course it doesn't feel real.

It's ridiculous to think somebody of my stature, somebody, you know,

from absolutely nothing,

and actually my blood is his blood.

I can't compute it in my brain.

-This man's related to me.

-Yeah.

This wonderful, powerful man.

Not only are you descended from Edward III,

you're descended from all of his royal ancestors

right back to William the Conqueror.

You're also descended from Henry III,

who built this abbey.

So, I'm on my way home now

to show my family this.

This beauty.

And to basically tell them that we're royalty.

I'm so excited. I can't wait.

Oh, my home, finally.

Oh!

HE PRETENDS TO SPEAK ITALIAN

-Hello, baby.

-What have you got?

Come here. Come here, you.

-Give us a kiss.

-Hello, babe.

-I'm so excited.

-What's that?

-Right.

So, just roll that down.

Roll it down, right?

Now, look at the bottom.

-All right?

-Oh, my...

-That's Daddy at the bottom.

And we go up, and we go up through all this mob, right?

There's the Cromwells.

And, look, that's my 22-times great-grandfather - Edward III.

-So, basically...

-The king?

-The king.

-King.

The king. And what are you? A prince?

-Yeah.

-We're blue blood, all right?

No way!

-So, cop that. Go on.

-Oh, my God! I knew I was a princess!

All right, it's been lovely. It's been a wonderful journey...

Woohoo! I'm a princess!

..but can you get off my drive now, please? Paupers!

Go on, get out of here. Go on, else I'll call my security.

-Say... Go on, say, "Get out of it!" Go on.

-Get out of it.

That's it, good boy. Ta-ta.