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In the summer of 1728, a merchant ship from Dublin | 0:00:08 | 0:00:13 | |
sailed into the Delaware Bay on the east coast of America. | 0:00:13 | 0:00:16 | |
The ship was laden with goods | 0:00:22 | 0:00:24 | |
and dozens of poor Irish emigrants bound for the New World. | 0:00:24 | 0:00:28 | |
Amongst them was a scrawny 13-year-old boy. | 0:00:28 | 0:00:33 | |
The boy's name was James Annesley, | 0:00:37 | 0:00:39 | |
and he wasn't like the other children on board. | 0:00:39 | 0:00:42 | |
His late father had been a baron, and James was heir to five | 0:00:42 | 0:00:47 | |
aristocratic titles and numerous estates. | 0:00:47 | 0:00:51 | |
That is, until he was kidnapped and sold into slavery. | 0:00:51 | 0:00:55 | |
It's a tragic story of betrayal, loss and salvation | 0:00:57 | 0:01:02 | |
played out in one of the great trials of the 18th century. | 0:01:02 | 0:01:06 | |
It later became an inspiration for Kidnapped, | 0:01:06 | 0:01:10 | |
Robert Louis Stevenson's classic novel about a boy whose inheritance | 0:01:10 | 0:01:14 | |
was stolen by his wicked uncle. | 0:01:14 | 0:01:16 | |
James's extraordinary childhood took him from the privileged peak | 0:01:19 | 0:01:24 | |
to the murky depths of 18th century society. | 0:01:24 | 0:01:28 | |
His story opens a window onto a tumultuous age. | 0:01:30 | 0:01:34 | |
The 18th century heralded the rise of the British Empire, | 0:01:36 | 0:01:39 | |
and the birth of the Enlightenment | 0:01:39 | 0:01:42 | |
with its progressive ideas about freedom and equality. | 0:01:42 | 0:01:47 | |
In this film, I will reveal that it was a century of contradictions | 0:01:47 | 0:01:52 | |
tainted by the shocking exploitation of the vulnerable and the poor. | 0:01:52 | 0:01:59 | |
And it had a guilty secret. | 0:01:59 | 0:02:01 | |
You could kidnap a child, and it wasn't even a serious crime. | 0:02:02 | 0:02:07 | |
HOUNDS BARK | 0:02:16 | 0:02:19 | |
In April 1715, a son was born to an | 0:02:22 | 0:02:27 | |
Irish aristocrat, Baron Altham, here at Dunmain House in County Wexford. | 0:02:27 | 0:02:33 | |
Little James was like manna from heaven for his doting parents. | 0:02:36 | 0:02:40 | |
To have a male heir was of the greatest importance for aristocratic | 0:02:40 | 0:02:44 | |
families in the 18th century, so at Dunmain there were celebrations - | 0:02:44 | 0:02:49 | |
bonfires, dancing, singing, revelry. | 0:02:49 | 0:02:52 | |
Under primogeniture, the oldest son inherited everything, | 0:02:56 | 0:03:01 | |
land, fortune and a title if there was one. | 0:03:01 | 0:03:05 | |
It was one of the foundation stones of British society. | 0:03:05 | 0:03:09 | |
Young James was in line to become the Earl of Anglesea, and indeed, | 0:03:13 | 0:03:17 | |
to inherit four other titles | 0:03:17 | 0:03:19 | |
and many estates in Ireland, England and Wales and £10,000 a year, | 0:03:19 | 0:03:23 | |
that's millions in today's money. | 0:03:23 | 0:03:26 | |
For James, growing up in the Elysian Fields | 0:03:44 | 0:03:48 | |
of southern Ireland was idyllic. | 0:03:48 | 0:03:50 | |
The future promised so much. | 0:03:50 | 0:03:53 | |
He would one day be one of the wealthiest men in the British Isles | 0:03:54 | 0:03:58 | |
and hold seats in the English and the Irish House of Lords. | 0:03:58 | 0:04:03 | |
Like many privileged children in the 18th century, | 0:04:03 | 0:04:06 | |
young Jamie lived a childhood that many boys would envy. | 0:04:06 | 0:04:10 | |
Dogs, horses and guns. | 0:04:10 | 0:04:13 | |
And Jamie looked terrific. | 0:04:13 | 0:04:15 | |
His father dressed him in a scarlet silk coat, | 0:04:15 | 0:04:20 | |
a hat with gold lace and a white feather. | 0:04:20 | 0:04:23 | |
And Jamie sported a sword, lovely. | 0:04:23 | 0:04:26 | |
Also, his father gave him a young mare called Hanover, | 0:04:26 | 0:04:31 | |
named in honour of the King, George I. | 0:04:31 | 0:04:34 | |
Young Jamie was absolutely very much a little lord. | 0:04:34 | 0:04:39 | |
James lived a pampered existence in this gilded world. | 0:04:42 | 0:04:46 | |
If you were lucky enough to have wealthy parents, | 0:04:48 | 0:04:51 | |
the Georgian era was a good time to grow up. | 0:04:51 | 0:04:54 | |
Increased prosperity and the rise of the middle classes | 0:04:59 | 0:05:03 | |
spawned an affectionate and sentimental view of children. | 0:05:03 | 0:05:08 | |
In many ways, it was when our modern notion of childhood began. | 0:05:08 | 0:05:13 | |
James was born into the Anglo-Irish aristocracy. | 0:05:15 | 0:05:20 | |
They'd come to power during the Protestant Ascendancy | 0:05:20 | 0:05:24 | |
when English adventurers seized control of Ireland. | 0:05:24 | 0:05:28 | |
# Irish blood, English heart This I'm made of | 0:05:28 | 0:05:35 | |
# There is no-one on earth I'm afraid of... # | 0:05:35 | 0:05:42 | |
Now, this aristocracy was very different | 0:05:42 | 0:05:45 | |
to its more sophisticated English counterpart. | 0:05:45 | 0:05:48 | |
It certainly behaved very differently. | 0:05:48 | 0:05:51 | |
They were rough and ready characters, boisterous, earthy, | 0:05:51 | 0:05:56 | |
prickly, aggressive. | 0:05:56 | 0:05:58 | |
They loved hunting, shooting, boozing, living life to the full. | 0:05:58 | 0:06:04 | |
And that would have a devastating effect on James | 0:06:05 | 0:06:08 | |
when he was just two years old. | 0:06:08 | 0:06:10 | |
Baron Altham was a rogue, rascal and a rake, | 0:06:13 | 0:06:18 | |
given to gambling, boozing and womanising. | 0:06:18 | 0:06:23 | |
He was said to have fathered a son with James's wet nurse, | 0:06:27 | 0:06:32 | |
a maid called Juggy Landy. | 0:06:32 | 0:06:35 | |
This rumour would one day come back and haunt James. | 0:06:35 | 0:06:40 | |
The family home at Dunmain House is now owned by the Conway family. | 0:06:40 | 0:06:46 | |
Tales about James's parents are legend here. | 0:06:46 | 0:06:50 | |
One Sunday in 1717, James's world was turned upside down. | 0:06:53 | 0:06:59 | |
This time, it was his mother who seemed to be at fault. | 0:07:01 | 0:07:05 | |
She entertained a male visitor whilst Lord Altham was out. | 0:07:05 | 0:07:09 | |
He returned back to the house here, | 0:07:11 | 0:07:13 | |
and he came upstairs and found her in bed with Thomas Palliser. | 0:07:13 | 0:07:16 | |
And they had a big fight that night as well, of course, | 0:07:16 | 0:07:20 | |
and he pulled his sword and he severed off his ear. | 0:07:20 | 0:07:24 | |
-He cut his ear off? -He severed his ear off with his sword. | 0:07:24 | 0:07:28 | |
A rough and ready and violent man, obviously a temper. | 0:07:28 | 0:07:31 | |
He was a very bad tempered man altogether. | 0:07:31 | 0:07:32 | |
He banished her from the house, he ordered her out. | 0:07:32 | 0:07:36 | |
She had to pack her bags and leave, | 0:07:36 | 0:07:37 | |
and she was forbidden ever to see James again. | 0:07:37 | 0:07:39 | |
-So James lost his mother that night, effectively. -Yes. | 0:07:39 | 0:07:42 | |
I must say, a most odd business. | 0:07:46 | 0:07:50 | |
One can't help but think that the baron orchestrated the whole affair | 0:07:50 | 0:07:54 | |
as a way of getting rid of his wife | 0:07:54 | 0:07:55 | |
and to appear blameless. | 0:07:55 | 0:07:57 | |
It says a lot about marriage | 0:07:59 | 0:08:01 | |
at the time. He enjoyed her dowry. | 0:08:01 | 0:08:05 | |
The marriage took place, but there was no love. | 0:08:05 | 0:08:08 | |
And of course, in the end, | 0:08:08 | 0:08:10 | |
the real victim of this tragic state of affairs was young James. | 0:08:10 | 0:08:15 | |
Baron Altham uprooted James from the family home | 0:08:21 | 0:08:24 | |
and drifted around his Irish estates before ending up in Dublin in 1722. | 0:08:24 | 0:08:30 | |
After all this upheaval, the Irish capital must have seemed | 0:08:33 | 0:08:37 | |
like the perfect place for James and his father to make a new start. | 0:08:37 | 0:08:41 | |
It was the second biggest city in the British Empire. | 0:08:46 | 0:08:50 | |
The first glimmers of the Enlightenment were appearing, | 0:08:50 | 0:08:54 | |
visionary ideas about freedom, | 0:08:54 | 0:08:57 | |
education and reason that would come to define the 18th century. | 0:08:57 | 0:09:02 | |
These ideas were expressed in bricks and mortar, | 0:09:02 | 0:09:05 | |
for example here in the elegant | 0:09:05 | 0:09:07 | |
neoclassical townhouses of Henrietta Street. | 0:09:07 | 0:09:11 | |
I find the 18th century so fascinating because it was | 0:09:12 | 0:09:17 | |
a portal between worlds, a time of tremendous change and contrast. | 0:09:17 | 0:09:24 | |
We think of it quite rightly as the beginning of the modern world, | 0:09:24 | 0:09:28 | |
the Industrial Revolution, new technology. | 0:09:28 | 0:09:31 | |
And that's correct of course, | 0:09:31 | 0:09:32 | |
this sense of it being the age of the Enlightenment. | 0:09:32 | 0:09:34 | |
But that Enlightenment you must set | 0:09:34 | 0:09:36 | |
against the darkness that lingered from the old world. | 0:09:36 | 0:09:40 | |
Fantastic contrast. | 0:09:40 | 0:09:42 | |
If you think of the changes that took place after 1700, | 0:09:42 | 0:09:46 | |
in that hundred years, all was transformed. | 0:09:46 | 0:09:48 | |
Aristocrats like James's father | 0:09:53 | 0:09:55 | |
would have entertained lavishly in houses like these, | 0:09:55 | 0:09:58 | |
which were the height of fashion in the first half of the 18th century. | 0:09:58 | 0:10:02 | |
But there was another side to Dublin. | 0:10:06 | 0:10:10 | |
It's said that everybody in Dublin | 0:10:12 | 0:10:14 | |
knew everybody else and their business, which I'm sure was true. | 0:10:14 | 0:10:19 | |
The trouble with the baron, his business was not good. | 0:10:19 | 0:10:22 | |
He would do virtually anything but work for a living. | 0:10:22 | 0:10:25 | |
That, of course, was the case with most lords and gentlemen | 0:10:25 | 0:10:28 | |
in the 18th century. | 0:10:28 | 0:10:30 | |
"Work, good heavens!" | 0:10:30 | 0:10:33 | |
The thing about the baron, of course, is that he spent a lot | 0:10:33 | 0:10:36 | |
more than his income allowed | 0:10:36 | 0:10:38 | |
on...well, the usual vices. | 0:10:38 | 0:10:42 | |
To fund his debauched lifestyle, | 0:10:45 | 0:10:49 | |
he became embroiled in dodgy financial deals. | 0:10:49 | 0:10:52 | |
Altham sold rights to land, | 0:10:52 | 0:10:55 | |
but the land wasn't his yet. | 0:10:55 | 0:10:57 | |
He wouldn't inherit until his cousin, the Earl of Anglesea, died. | 0:10:57 | 0:11:03 | |
He was playing a dangerous game. | 0:11:03 | 0:11:07 | |
Let's say that the baron sells a lease for half its current value. | 0:11:07 | 0:11:13 | |
Here's a lease, a wonderful and compelling document, | 0:11:13 | 0:11:16 | |
signed at the bottom. | 0:11:16 | 0:11:19 | |
This, you might think, is a very good deal for the purchaser. | 0:11:19 | 0:11:24 | |
And so it is in many ways, but they are gambling, | 0:11:24 | 0:11:28 | |
gambling that the baron will outlive the Earl of Anglesea and actually | 0:11:28 | 0:11:33 | |
inherit the estate that he's selling leases on. | 0:11:33 | 0:11:37 | |
Also, usually in these deals, | 0:11:37 | 0:11:41 | |
the person selling the lease | 0:11:41 | 0:11:44 | |
gets his heir to also sign the lease. | 0:11:44 | 0:11:47 | |
That makes the purchaser feel a little | 0:11:47 | 0:11:49 | |
bit more happy, but in this case James was too young. | 0:11:49 | 0:11:53 | |
So James was something of an inconvenience for his father | 0:11:53 | 0:11:56 | |
in this rather strange dealing that was going on. | 0:11:56 | 0:11:58 | |
Leave the lease here and take the | 0:11:58 | 0:12:00 | |
money I've got for it over here. | 0:12:00 | 0:12:04 | |
The baron couldn't have been a worse father. | 0:12:08 | 0:12:10 | |
It wasn't just his financial skulduggery, | 0:12:10 | 0:12:13 | |
selling off James's inheritance. | 0:12:13 | 0:12:17 | |
There was also his womanising... | 0:12:19 | 0:12:22 | |
..which had an even more dramatic effect on James. | 0:12:23 | 0:12:27 | |
Altham seduced a wealthy woman called Sally Gregory | 0:12:27 | 0:12:31 | |
and moved in with her. | 0:12:31 | 0:12:33 | |
Was the baron attracted to Sally Gregory's beauty | 0:12:35 | 0:12:40 | |
or to her bulging bank balance? | 0:12:40 | 0:12:43 | |
Probably a bit of both. | 0:12:43 | 0:12:46 | |
What is more certain is that Sally was a tough character. | 0:12:46 | 0:12:52 | |
She hated James, she wanted him out of the way, | 0:12:52 | 0:12:56 | |
probably wanted to replace him with a son and heir of her own. | 0:12:56 | 0:13:01 | |
She was frightful, to be frank. | 0:13:01 | 0:13:03 | |
She and her mother beat James, and eventually the baron agreed | 0:13:03 | 0:13:09 | |
that James was to be put out to lodgings, | 0:13:09 | 0:13:11 | |
out of sight, out of mind, out of the house. | 0:13:11 | 0:13:13 | |
James had lost his mother, | 0:13:16 | 0:13:18 | |
and now, aged eight, he'd been abandoned by his father. | 0:13:18 | 0:13:22 | |
Father, Father, where are you going? | 0:13:25 | 0:13:29 | |
Oh, do not walk so fast! | 0:13:29 | 0:13:32 | |
Speak, Father, speak to your little boy, | 0:13:32 | 0:13:36 | |
Or else I shall be lost. | 0:13:36 | 0:13:39 | |
Life in the lodgings was unbearable, | 0:13:45 | 0:13:48 | |
and James soon ran away. | 0:13:48 | 0:13:50 | |
Overnight, the young aristocrat with everything | 0:13:53 | 0:13:57 | |
was sleeping rough in haylofts, doorways and dark alleys. | 0:13:57 | 0:14:02 | |
James now lived a cruel, harsh, feral existence, | 0:14:05 | 0:14:10 | |
a shocking contrast to his privileged upbringing, | 0:14:10 | 0:14:15 | |
evidence of the narrow boundary between heaven and hell | 0:14:15 | 0:14:19 | |
in the 18th century. | 0:14:19 | 0:14:21 | |
James's harrowing experiences in the dark and dangerous streets of Dublin | 0:14:21 | 0:14:27 | |
mirror those of tens of thousands of homeless children | 0:14:27 | 0:14:32 | |
whose secret sufferings and short lives have been lost to memory, | 0:14:32 | 0:14:37 | |
lost to history. | 0:14:37 | 0:14:39 | |
Is that trembling cry a song? | 0:14:45 | 0:14:49 | |
Can it be a song of joy? | 0:14:49 | 0:14:52 | |
And so many children poor? | 0:14:52 | 0:14:54 | |
It is a land of poverty! | 0:14:54 | 0:14:56 | |
As James wandered through these streets, | 0:15:01 | 0:15:04 | |
emaciated and dressed in rags, | 0:15:04 | 0:15:06 | |
he would have been seen as a vagrant, | 0:15:06 | 0:15:08 | |
an idle and dangerous pariah. | 0:15:08 | 0:15:11 | |
Vagrancy was a growing problem in the 18th century, | 0:15:13 | 0:15:17 | |
and as attitudes towards this vulnerable underclass hardened, | 0:15:17 | 0:15:21 | |
the authorities decided something had to be done. | 0:15:21 | 0:15:26 | |
They used the full force of the law, | 0:15:26 | 0:15:29 | |
the cruel and vindictive Vagrancy Acts. | 0:15:29 | 0:15:32 | |
Parish authorities could use the Vagrancy Acts to round up not just | 0:15:36 | 0:15:39 | |
the beggars and the vagabonds, but all who lived and worked | 0:15:39 | 0:15:43 | |
in the street, the homeless, the poor, the powerless, | 0:15:43 | 0:15:48 | |
those people deemed to be socially inconvenient. | 0:15:48 | 0:15:52 | |
Destitute children were seized in great numbers | 0:15:52 | 0:15:55 | |
and made to toil in the workhouse. | 0:15:55 | 0:15:57 | |
There their lives could be brutal and short. | 0:15:57 | 0:16:00 | |
The first workhouses date back to the 17th century. | 0:16:07 | 0:16:12 | |
By James's time, they had sprung up all over Britain. | 0:16:12 | 0:16:17 | |
They were designed to clean up the streets. | 0:16:17 | 0:16:19 | |
They promised children a minimal education and put them to work. | 0:16:19 | 0:16:24 | |
But the workhouses were, in many cases, no more than prisons | 0:16:27 | 0:16:32 | |
where children were exploited | 0:16:32 | 0:16:34 | |
and subjected to the most appalling abuse. | 0:16:34 | 0:16:39 | |
She beat no-one as much as Alexander Knipe. | 0:16:39 | 0:16:43 | |
She beat him with a stick with her left hand first, | 0:16:43 | 0:16:46 | |
and because that was not enough, | 0:16:46 | 0:16:48 | |
she took her right hand and hit him with the head of the stick. | 0:16:48 | 0:16:53 | |
And she hauled him upon the ground with her hand and stamped upon him. | 0:16:54 | 0:16:58 | |
He was very hot. | 0:16:59 | 0:17:02 | |
He groaned worse and worse. | 0:17:02 | 0:17:03 | |
The next morning, I saw him dead in his bed. | 0:17:06 | 0:17:09 | |
Not all abandoned children suffered the horrors of the workhouse. | 0:17:15 | 0:17:20 | |
The 18th century witnessed a rise in philanthropy and the spread of more | 0:17:20 | 0:17:24 | |
enlightened institutions, | 0:17:24 | 0:17:26 | |
like charitable schools and foundling hospitals. | 0:17:26 | 0:17:30 | |
In Dublin, King's Hospital was founded as a free school | 0:17:35 | 0:17:40 | |
by King Charles II in 1669 | 0:17:40 | 0:17:44 | |
to provide an education to boys who had lost their fathers. | 0:17:44 | 0:17:47 | |
Here they would have learnt the three Rs - | 0:17:49 | 0:17:52 | |
reading, writing and arithmetic, | 0:17:52 | 0:17:55 | |
and then they would have been apprenticed | 0:17:55 | 0:17:57 | |
to one of Dublin's many tradesmen. | 0:17:57 | 0:18:00 | |
Schools like the King's Hospital were full of good intentions, | 0:18:02 | 0:18:07 | |
but they couldn't do much more than scratch the surface. | 0:18:07 | 0:18:10 | |
The vast majority of poor children | 0:18:15 | 0:18:17 | |
fell outside the safety net provided by the philanthropists. | 0:18:17 | 0:18:20 | |
James Annesley was one of them. | 0:18:25 | 0:18:27 | |
Desperate and alone, he finally plucked up the courage | 0:18:27 | 0:18:31 | |
to go and see the one man who could save him from his life of misery. | 0:18:31 | 0:18:36 | |
James tried to visit his father once. | 0:18:38 | 0:18:41 | |
He knocked on the door and was treated like a common beggar, | 0:18:41 | 0:18:45 | |
a vagabond. The neighbours observed this and were shocked. | 0:18:45 | 0:18:50 | |
They then begged Baron Altham | 0:18:50 | 0:18:52 | |
to take better care of his poor destitute son. | 0:18:52 | 0:18:56 | |
There was no-one left for James to turn to. | 0:19:04 | 0:19:07 | |
He had to learn to survive on his wits. | 0:19:07 | 0:19:10 | |
He became a well known face on the tough streets of Dublin, | 0:19:10 | 0:19:15 | |
that small, scruffy urchin who claimed to be the son of a lord. | 0:19:15 | 0:19:20 | |
But what sort of man was James's father? | 0:19:28 | 0:19:30 | |
How could he treat James in such a terrible manner? | 0:19:30 | 0:19:32 | |
Particularly since he loved him so much earlier on. | 0:19:32 | 0:19:37 | |
We simply do not know. It is one of the mysteries of the story. | 0:19:37 | 0:19:41 | |
What we do know, though, is that one day James was here | 0:19:41 | 0:19:45 | |
in Smithfield, the horse market, | 0:19:45 | 0:19:47 | |
leading a horse around for sale, I suppose. | 0:19:47 | 0:19:50 | |
And James was spotted by a butcher, | 0:19:50 | 0:19:52 | |
John Purcell. | 0:19:52 | 0:19:54 | |
Purcell knew a little bit about James, he recognised him, | 0:19:54 | 0:19:57 | |
questioned him, found out more details about James's story, | 0:19:57 | 0:20:01 | |
took pity on him and took him under his wing, | 0:20:01 | 0:20:03 | |
a very important turning point in James's life | 0:20:03 | 0:20:07 | |
on the streets of Dublin. | 0:20:07 | 0:20:09 | |
Purcell had a son of his own, | 0:20:11 | 0:20:13 | |
and he was shocked to see the state of James. | 0:20:13 | 0:20:17 | |
My father brought James Annesley to his house in Dublin in a very bad | 0:20:20 | 0:20:23 | |
condition with hardly a shoe to his foot and a hair rope about his middle | 0:20:23 | 0:20:29 | |
to keep his clothes together. | 0:20:29 | 0:20:32 | |
James, now 12, | 0:20:36 | 0:20:38 | |
had been given a second chance by the well-meaning John Purcell. | 0:20:38 | 0:20:43 | |
He now entered the world of the Dublin artisan classes, | 0:20:44 | 0:20:48 | |
hard-working tradesmen who were the beating heart of the city. | 0:20:48 | 0:20:52 | |
In return for food and shelter, | 0:20:52 | 0:20:56 | |
James ran errands for Purcell. | 0:20:56 | 0:20:58 | |
The work was tough and the hours long, | 0:20:58 | 0:21:01 | |
but it was a close-knit community | 0:21:01 | 0:21:03 | |
where people looked out for each other and James felt safe. | 0:21:03 | 0:21:08 | |
James had been virtually adopted by Purcell. | 0:21:08 | 0:21:11 | |
He'd been saved from destitution | 0:21:11 | 0:21:15 | |
and for the first time in three years had some stability, | 0:21:15 | 0:21:19 | |
but just when the future looked bright, | 0:21:19 | 0:21:23 | |
fate intervened. | 0:21:23 | 0:21:24 | |
An extraordinary scene now unfolded in Dublin's Christ Church Cathedral. | 0:21:33 | 0:21:38 | |
On November 16th 1727, James came to the funeral of his own father. | 0:21:41 | 0:21:48 | |
Baron Altham had died suddenly and in mysterious circumstances | 0:21:48 | 0:21:53 | |
at the age of just 38. | 0:21:53 | 0:21:56 | |
James crept into the cathedral | 0:22:01 | 0:22:04 | |
and found the funeral already under way. | 0:22:04 | 0:22:06 | |
He mixed with the mourners who would have been gathered just about here. | 0:22:06 | 0:22:11 | |
They were respectable people | 0:22:11 | 0:22:13 | |
and I'm sure rather shocked by this dishevelled street child | 0:22:13 | 0:22:16 | |
joining them, but of course, it was the funeral of his father, | 0:22:16 | 0:22:21 | |
and James had not been invited. | 0:22:21 | 0:22:23 | |
As the body was carried down here, | 0:22:23 | 0:22:27 | |
James could restrain himself no longer | 0:22:27 | 0:22:30 | |
and cried out with tears in his eyes, "My father, my father." | 0:22:30 | 0:22:35 | |
One mourner, most surprised by James's outburst, | 0:22:37 | 0:22:41 | |
asked the little urchin what he meant by it. | 0:22:41 | 0:22:45 | |
James blurted out, "I am Baron Altham's son," | 0:22:45 | 0:22:49 | |
and then fled from the crypt, from the cathedral | 0:22:49 | 0:22:52 | |
back to the butcher's shop. | 0:22:52 | 0:22:54 | |
To find out more about the baron's untimely death, | 0:22:57 | 0:23:01 | |
I went to meet Kenneth Milne, the cathedral's historian. | 0:23:01 | 0:23:04 | |
It starts in 1669 with a list of burials. Where's our chap? | 0:23:05 | 0:23:11 | |
Our one is 1727. | 0:23:11 | 0:23:13 | |
Ah, there it is. | 0:23:13 | 0:23:15 | |
Altham, Arthur. Fourth Lord, Baron. | 0:23:15 | 0:23:18 | |
And this records him being buried here. | 0:23:18 | 0:23:21 | |
He was supposed to be buried at the public expense. | 0:23:21 | 0:23:23 | |
He was impoverished, he was an improvident person. | 0:23:23 | 0:23:26 | |
Essentially, it was a pauper's burial, | 0:23:26 | 0:23:28 | |
but he was buried in the cathedral because of his rank. | 0:23:28 | 0:23:31 | |
Yes, I would have thought so. | 0:23:31 | 0:23:32 | |
Ah! So we don't know where his bones are now? | 0:23:32 | 0:23:35 | |
No, there's no monument. | 0:23:35 | 0:23:37 | |
Maybe this solves the mystery of why the baron abandoned James. | 0:23:39 | 0:23:44 | |
He was so broke that he had to make his son an outcast. | 0:23:44 | 0:23:49 | |
There was, however, one mourner present who did recognise James, | 0:23:49 | 0:23:54 | |
and this mourner took a very unhealthy interest in the lad, | 0:23:54 | 0:23:58 | |
indeed would do all he could to destroy him. | 0:23:58 | 0:24:02 | |
It was James's uncle, Richard Annesley. | 0:24:02 | 0:24:05 | |
He was a brigand, a bigamist and a blackguard. | 0:24:08 | 0:24:12 | |
And he had one very good reason for wanting to see the back of James. | 0:24:12 | 0:24:18 | |
Now Baron Altham was dead and gone, James was due to inherit. | 0:24:18 | 0:24:24 | |
But if something should happen to him, | 0:24:24 | 0:24:26 | |
then one Richard Annesley would get everything. | 0:24:26 | 0:24:29 | |
James's freedom, even his life, was in jeopardy. | 0:24:30 | 0:24:34 | |
Here's the Annesley family tree, | 0:24:39 | 0:24:41 | |
and here we see the senior member of the family in the 1720s, | 0:24:41 | 0:24:46 | |
Arthur, the Earl of Anglesea. | 0:24:46 | 0:24:50 | |
No children at this time and probably too old to have any. | 0:24:50 | 0:24:55 | |
So the title and fortune he possesses would go upon his death to | 0:24:55 | 0:25:00 | |
his cousin Arthur, the next oldest male heir. | 0:25:00 | 0:25:04 | |
Here we see him, Arthur, Baron Altham. | 0:25:04 | 0:25:07 | |
And upon Baron Altham's death, all would go to Altham's son, James. | 0:25:07 | 0:25:14 | |
But now, if James were not around, | 0:25:14 | 0:25:17 | |
all would go from Altham | 0:25:17 | 0:25:20 | |
to Altham's younger brother, Richard. | 0:25:20 | 0:25:22 | |
All Richard has to do to become the Earl of Anglesea and to have | 0:25:22 | 0:25:28 | |
millions of pounds in today's value is to get rid of James. | 0:25:28 | 0:25:34 | |
You can see the temptation. | 0:25:34 | 0:25:37 | |
Richard dreamed up a most dastardly plan. | 0:25:39 | 0:25:43 | |
Three weeks after the death of the baron, Richard sent | 0:25:49 | 0:25:53 | |
a message to Purcell, requesting a meeting with his nephew, James. | 0:25:53 | 0:25:58 | |
The meeting was to take place at the Ormond Market, | 0:25:58 | 0:26:02 | |
the butchers' market that stood here. | 0:26:02 | 0:26:05 | |
Purcell was alarmed by the message. | 0:26:05 | 0:26:08 | |
He was very suspicious, he wasn't quite sure what Richard | 0:26:08 | 0:26:12 | |
had planned, so he came here, he agreed to the meeting, | 0:26:12 | 0:26:17 | |
but he came armed with a cudgel, with James clinging to his side. | 0:26:17 | 0:26:22 | |
Somewhere around about here, | 0:26:22 | 0:26:24 | |
the pair of them saw this rather sinister figure, Richard, | 0:26:24 | 0:26:28 | |
dressed in black. | 0:26:28 | 0:26:29 | |
And with no more ado, Richard strode towards them | 0:26:29 | 0:26:33 | |
and demanded that Purcell hand over that "thieving son of a whore". | 0:26:33 | 0:26:38 | |
I threatened to knock out the brains of the first man | 0:26:46 | 0:26:49 | |
that should offer to take him from me | 0:26:49 | 0:26:51 | |
and said I would lose my life before I lose my child. | 0:26:51 | 0:26:57 | |
The people in the market heard it, and the butchers came to assist me. | 0:26:57 | 0:27:03 | |
James had escaped...this time. | 0:27:08 | 0:27:11 | |
But the scheming Richard Annesley was not deterred. | 0:27:17 | 0:27:21 | |
He came up with a simple but brilliant plan to get rid of his | 0:27:25 | 0:27:28 | |
nephew, legally and permanently, courtesy of the British Empire. | 0:27:28 | 0:27:34 | |
Richard accused James of stealing a silver spoon | 0:27:37 | 0:27:41 | |
and got two constables to arrest him. | 0:27:41 | 0:27:44 | |
Together, they dragged him off to Dublin's port. | 0:27:44 | 0:27:47 | |
James's life was about to change for ever. | 0:27:47 | 0:27:50 | |
James was brought here, no doubt kicking and screaming, | 0:27:56 | 0:28:01 | |
and confined in a ship bound for America. | 0:28:01 | 0:28:04 | |
Richard Annesley had struck a deal with the ship's captain. | 0:28:04 | 0:28:08 | |
James was to be transported 3,000 miles and sold as a servant | 0:28:08 | 0:28:13 | |
to the highest bidder. | 0:28:13 | 0:28:15 | |
Since the Pilgrim Fathers sailed the Mayflower to America | 0:28:18 | 0:28:21 | |
a hundred years earlier, | 0:28:21 | 0:28:23 | |
there had been a huge demand for labour in the New World, | 0:28:23 | 0:28:27 | |
and the Old World was only too happy to oblige. | 0:28:27 | 0:28:32 | |
From the 17th century onwards, | 0:28:32 | 0:28:35 | |
thousands of youths like James were transported. | 0:28:35 | 0:28:39 | |
They ended up as the chattels of plantation owners | 0:28:39 | 0:28:43 | |
in far-flung lands. | 0:28:43 | 0:28:45 | |
The popular fear of the idle classes, those rogues and vagabonds | 0:28:46 | 0:28:50 | |
that cluttered the streets of many cities, | 0:28:50 | 0:28:53 | |
was one motivation for human trafficking. | 0:28:53 | 0:28:56 | |
Another was the simple fact that getting rid | 0:28:56 | 0:28:58 | |
of the ne'er-be-goods could be highly profitable business. | 0:28:58 | 0:29:03 | |
-How are you? -Hello! | 0:29:03 | 0:29:06 | |
Shady recruitment agents, known as "spirits", | 0:29:09 | 0:29:12 | |
profited from this business. | 0:29:12 | 0:29:15 | |
These characters lurked in most of the ports around Britain. | 0:29:15 | 0:29:18 | |
They'd come into bars, a bit like this, I suppose, look around, see | 0:29:18 | 0:29:22 | |
somebody down on their luck, alone, looking miserable. | 0:29:22 | 0:29:25 | |
They'd target them. Buy them a drink or two. | 0:29:25 | 0:29:28 | |
When that person was drunk, insensible, | 0:29:28 | 0:29:31 | |
the legal form of indenture would be produced. | 0:29:31 | 0:29:33 | |
Somehow the signature of the drunken person was put on the form, | 0:29:33 | 0:29:36 | |
and that was it. There was no going back. | 0:29:36 | 0:29:39 | |
They'd been "spirited away". | 0:29:39 | 0:29:41 | |
This demand for labour in the colonies meant that some people | 0:29:43 | 0:29:46 | |
were prepared to stoop to something far more nefarious - kidnapping. | 0:29:46 | 0:29:52 | |
"Kidnapping" was a word that entered the English language | 0:29:52 | 0:29:55 | |
in the 17th century and means really what it says, | 0:29:55 | 0:29:58 | |
the abduction of children, | 0:29:58 | 0:30:00 | |
who were normally sent across the seas to toil. | 0:30:00 | 0:30:03 | |
Children, well, they were easy prey. They couldn't fight back. | 0:30:03 | 0:30:07 | |
They could be stowed aboard ships without too much difficulty, | 0:30:07 | 0:30:11 | |
kept under control. | 0:30:11 | 0:30:13 | |
This frightful trafficking in human beings was not, | 0:30:13 | 0:30:17 | |
of course, confined to Ireland in the 18th century, | 0:30:17 | 0:30:19 | |
but took place all across the British Isles. | 0:30:19 | 0:30:23 | |
There's no way of telling just how many children were nabbed, | 0:30:28 | 0:30:32 | |
never to be seen again by their parents. | 0:30:32 | 0:30:36 | |
But we do know about a boy from Aberdeen called Peter Williamson | 0:30:37 | 0:30:44 | |
who was abducted in 1743. | 0:30:44 | 0:30:47 | |
I was playing on the quay when I was taken notice of | 0:30:51 | 0:30:54 | |
by two fellows belonging to a vessel in the harbour | 0:30:54 | 0:30:58 | |
employed in that villainous practice called kidnapping - | 0:30:58 | 0:31:01 | |
stealing young children from their parents | 0:31:01 | 0:31:04 | |
and selling them as slaves in the plantations abroad. | 0:31:04 | 0:31:07 | |
Being marked out by those monsters as their prey, | 0:31:07 | 0:31:10 | |
I was cajoled on board the ship by them. | 0:31:10 | 0:31:12 | |
Imagine the terror. | 0:31:36 | 0:31:38 | |
The children, suddenly confined in an utterly alien, wooden world, | 0:31:38 | 0:31:45 | |
surrounded by things all of which were unfamiliar. | 0:31:45 | 0:31:51 | |
The smell of tar, | 0:31:51 | 0:31:53 | |
ropes, scuttling rats, | 0:31:53 | 0:31:56 | |
bustling seamen, hunger, thirst, disease | 0:31:56 | 0:32:00 | |
and, of course, far from home, far from friends, | 0:32:00 | 0:32:05 | |
in all likelihood never to be seen again. | 0:32:05 | 0:32:09 | |
The weeping child could not be heard | 0:32:13 | 0:32:16 | |
The weeping parents wept in vain | 0:32:16 | 0:32:20 | |
They stripped him to a little shirt | 0:32:20 | 0:32:23 | |
And bound him in an iron chain. | 0:32:23 | 0:32:26 | |
For kidnapped boys like James and Peter, | 0:32:37 | 0:32:40 | |
this was the first view of their new home, | 0:32:40 | 0:32:43 | |
the distant and alien land of America. | 0:32:43 | 0:32:47 | |
A great wilderness. | 0:32:47 | 0:32:50 | |
For Peter, well, his arrival was particularly traumatic. | 0:32:50 | 0:32:53 | |
The ship bringing him ran aground on a sandbank | 0:32:53 | 0:32:56 | |
as it approached the American coast. | 0:32:56 | 0:32:58 | |
The crew abandoned ship leaving the cargo of children, including Peter, | 0:32:58 | 0:33:04 | |
to fend for themselves. | 0:33:04 | 0:33:05 | |
The cries, the shrieks and tears of a parcel of infants | 0:33:10 | 0:33:13 | |
had no affect on or caused the least remorse | 0:33:13 | 0:33:16 | |
in the breasts of these merciless wretches. | 0:33:16 | 0:33:19 | |
The wind at length abated. | 0:33:22 | 0:33:24 | |
The captain, unwilling to lose all his cargo, | 0:33:24 | 0:33:27 | |
sent some of his crew in a boat | 0:33:27 | 0:33:29 | |
to the ship's side to bring us onshore. | 0:33:29 | 0:33:31 | |
James Annesley's arrival was less dramatic, | 0:33:35 | 0:33:38 | |
but he couldn't possibly have imagined | 0:33:38 | 0:33:41 | |
what terrors the New World had in store for him. | 0:33:41 | 0:33:45 | |
James landed in Delaware, on the east coast of America, | 0:33:47 | 0:33:51 | |
at a town called Newcastle, south of Philadelphia. | 0:33:51 | 0:33:55 | |
Newcastle was the state capital, a bustling port | 0:33:57 | 0:34:01 | |
and the place of entry for many indentured servants. | 0:34:01 | 0:34:04 | |
Now, we all know about the way in which black Africans | 0:34:06 | 0:34:10 | |
suffered the indignities, the horrors of slavery. | 0:34:10 | 0:34:14 | |
But what's not so well known | 0:34:14 | 0:34:16 | |
is the often almost equally bitter story of white servitude, | 0:34:16 | 0:34:21 | |
and that was a world that James was now about to enter. | 0:34:21 | 0:34:24 | |
Astonishingly, almost half of the estimated 300,000 emigrants | 0:34:31 | 0:34:37 | |
from the British Isles arriving in the British colonies in America | 0:34:37 | 0:34:40 | |
between 1700 and 1775 | 0:34:40 | 0:34:43 | |
were either transported convicts or indentured servants. | 0:34:43 | 0:34:49 | |
For the poor and dispossessed, | 0:34:53 | 0:34:55 | |
indentured servitude could offer an escape. | 0:34:55 | 0:34:58 | |
They paid for their passage across the Atlantic | 0:34:58 | 0:35:01 | |
by agreeing to work for nothing for a set number of years. | 0:35:01 | 0:35:06 | |
Unlike slavery, once they'd served their time, | 0:35:06 | 0:35:11 | |
they were free to start a new life. | 0:35:11 | 0:35:13 | |
But the reality was often much bleaker. | 0:35:13 | 0:35:17 | |
On their arrival, they were sold off like animals. | 0:35:17 | 0:35:21 | |
I've never seen such parcels of poor wretches in my life, | 0:35:28 | 0:35:32 | |
for they are used no better than many Negro slaves | 0:35:32 | 0:35:36 | |
and sold in the same manner as horses or cows. | 0:35:36 | 0:35:39 | |
James was bought by a farmer called Duncan Drummond. | 0:35:44 | 0:35:49 | |
There's no record of how much he fetched, but Peter Williamson | 0:35:50 | 0:35:55 | |
was sold for £16, which is about £2,000 today. | 0:35:55 | 0:36:00 | |
I'm going to Philadelphia to meet historian Roger Ekirch, | 0:36:05 | 0:36:10 | |
who has written a biography of James Annesley. | 0:36:10 | 0:36:12 | |
Nobody knows more about his story. | 0:36:12 | 0:36:15 | |
Can you tell me what James's life would have been like, | 0:36:16 | 0:36:19 | |
as far as one can tell, when he arrived in Delaware? | 0:36:19 | 0:36:22 | |
Clearly, the evidence suggests his first master was very, very, brutal. | 0:36:22 | 0:36:29 | |
Very tough. | 0:36:29 | 0:36:31 | |
His daily life consisted of felling timber | 0:36:33 | 0:36:38 | |
in the backwoods of Northern Delaware. | 0:36:38 | 0:36:42 | |
Daniel Defoe in the very early 18th century, in Moll Flanders, | 0:36:42 | 0:36:45 | |
talks about indentured servants, doesn't he? | 0:36:45 | 0:36:48 | |
And he says they should be more properly called slaves. | 0:36:48 | 0:36:51 | |
There was a common saying among slaves | 0:36:51 | 0:36:54 | |
that were a Negro not a Negro, an Irishman would be a Negro. | 0:36:54 | 0:37:00 | |
In terms of the material conditions of life, | 0:37:00 | 0:37:04 | |
one's daily existence, dress, diet, housing, | 0:37:04 | 0:37:10 | |
conditions for both slaves and white servants, | 0:37:10 | 0:37:15 | |
especially unskilled servants, | 0:37:15 | 0:37:19 | |
they were both absolutely horrendous | 0:37:19 | 0:37:23 | |
with very little likelihood, in his uncle's mind, | 0:37:23 | 0:37:26 | |
that James would ever be able to return to Ireland. | 0:37:26 | 0:37:31 | |
And the people responsible for the kidnapping - | 0:37:31 | 0:37:34 | |
the law in Britain was quite ambiguous | 0:37:34 | 0:37:37 | |
about the nature of their activity, wasn't it? | 0:37:37 | 0:37:40 | |
Yes. Up until the early 19th century, | 0:37:40 | 0:37:44 | |
you could be hung for stealing a horse, | 0:37:44 | 0:37:48 | |
whereas the kidnapping of an individual was only a misdemeanour. | 0:37:48 | 0:37:55 | |
It's a sickening thought. | 0:38:02 | 0:38:04 | |
Richard Annesley would only have had his knuckles rapped | 0:38:04 | 0:38:07 | |
and a fine for kidnapping James, | 0:38:07 | 0:38:10 | |
while his teenage nephew slaved in this primeval landscape. | 0:38:10 | 0:38:15 | |
James was put to work by Duncan Drummond on his farm... | 0:38:25 | 0:38:28 | |
..toiling relentlessly with hardly anything to eat | 0:38:30 | 0:38:35 | |
and constant beatings. | 0:38:35 | 0:38:36 | |
All in this terrifying wilderness infested with snakes, | 0:38:38 | 0:38:41 | |
wild beasts and mosquitoes. | 0:38:41 | 0:38:44 | |
It must have been horrendous. | 0:38:45 | 0:38:48 | |
After five years, James could take no more. | 0:38:58 | 0:39:01 | |
He escaped, risking everything in the desperate hope | 0:39:04 | 0:39:07 | |
that he would get back to Ireland and reclaim his inheritance. | 0:39:07 | 0:39:11 | |
James must have been in an appalling situation, hacking away, fearful. | 0:39:16 | 0:39:22 | |
It just shows, doesn't it, how, I suppose, frightful things were | 0:39:22 | 0:39:27 | |
on Drummond's plantation, where James was treated cruelly, | 0:39:27 | 0:39:32 | |
that this was a preferred option, | 0:39:32 | 0:39:36 | |
to be wandering through this dangerous, elemental land. | 0:39:36 | 0:39:42 | |
Newspapers of the time are full of advertisements | 0:39:50 | 0:39:54 | |
offering rewards for the capture of indentured servants. | 0:39:54 | 0:39:59 | |
I have some of these newspapers here. | 0:40:01 | 0:40:05 | |
Ten dollars reward. | 0:40:08 | 0:40:09 | |
An indentured servant named James Quinn, by trade a tailor. | 0:40:09 | 0:40:15 | |
About 5ft high with black curly hair, a down look... | 0:40:15 | 0:40:21 | |
HE LAUGHS | 0:40:21 | 0:40:22 | |
..with thick legs and much addicted to liquor. | 0:40:22 | 0:40:26 | |
Eight dollars reward. | 0:40:26 | 0:40:28 | |
An Irish servant man, name - George Murphy, by trade a barber, | 0:40:28 | 0:40:32 | |
of a black complexion, straight black hair, pock marked, | 0:40:32 | 0:40:37 | |
a well-fed fellow, about 5ft 5in high, | 0:40:37 | 0:40:40 | |
18 or 19 years old. | 0:40:40 | 0:40:43 | |
All these people, of course, | 0:40:43 | 0:40:45 | |
are the property, the possessions of others, of their masters, | 0:40:45 | 0:40:50 | |
and I suppose, you know, a form of currency | 0:40:50 | 0:40:54 | |
in what was, in many respects, a very brutal world. | 0:40:54 | 0:40:59 | |
James joined a group of fugitives, other runaways. | 0:41:03 | 0:41:08 | |
That was a big mistake. | 0:41:08 | 0:41:09 | |
They were more easily tracked, and all of them were captured. | 0:41:09 | 0:41:13 | |
James was returned to Drummond, who gave him a very severe whipping. | 0:41:13 | 0:41:18 | |
Worse still, James's period of servitude was extended. | 0:41:18 | 0:41:23 | |
Would he never escape this hell? | 0:41:23 | 0:41:27 | |
As he toiled day in day out, | 0:41:29 | 0:41:32 | |
there is no way he could have known | 0:41:32 | 0:41:34 | |
he was living through extraordinary times. | 0:41:34 | 0:41:37 | |
Revolutionary new ideas were germinating | 0:41:40 | 0:41:42 | |
that would eventually transform the world. | 0:41:42 | 0:41:45 | |
These were the Enlightenment ideas for which, in many ways, | 0:41:48 | 0:41:52 | |
the 18th century is best remembered. | 0:41:52 | 0:41:54 | |
The triumph of rational thinking, the assertion of the rights of man, | 0:41:54 | 0:41:59 | |
the heady mix of liberty and equality | 0:41:59 | 0:42:04 | |
that fuelled revolutions in America and in France. | 0:42:04 | 0:42:08 | |
A new generation of thinkers arose | 0:42:08 | 0:42:11 | |
that challenged the very essence of the Old World. | 0:42:11 | 0:42:15 | |
Philosophers, like Jean-Jacques Rousseau, | 0:42:15 | 0:42:19 | |
had radical new ideas on everything from politics to childhood. | 0:42:19 | 0:42:24 | |
Love childhood. | 0:42:25 | 0:42:27 | |
Indulge its sports, its pleasures, its delightful instincts. | 0:42:27 | 0:42:31 | |
Who has not sometimes regretted that age, | 0:42:31 | 0:42:35 | |
when laughter was ever on the lips | 0:42:35 | 0:42:38 | |
and when the heart was ever at peace? | 0:42:38 | 0:42:42 | |
Inspired by the ideas of men like Rousseau, | 0:42:45 | 0:42:47 | |
the American Colonies overthrew British rule. | 0:42:47 | 0:42:51 | |
They declared independence in 1776... | 0:42:51 | 0:42:56 | |
..and the United States of America was born. | 0:42:59 | 0:43:03 | |
The ideas of Enlightenment were taking root in the New World. | 0:43:03 | 0:43:08 | |
We hold it to be a self-evident truth | 0:43:17 | 0:43:20 | |
that all men are created equal. | 0:43:20 | 0:43:23 | |
The rights enshrined in the 1776 Declaration of Independence are, | 0:43:23 | 0:43:30 | |
of course, admirable, but the problem is that, um... | 0:43:30 | 0:43:34 | |
..attitudes towards slavery and indentured servitude | 0:43:36 | 0:43:40 | |
changed painfully slowly. | 0:43:40 | 0:43:43 | |
The abolition of slavery went on | 0:43:46 | 0:43:48 | |
to become one of the great moral crusades of the 19th century. | 0:43:48 | 0:43:52 | |
By the 1820s, the trade in indentured servants | 0:43:55 | 0:43:58 | |
had all but died out | 0:43:58 | 0:43:59 | |
because it was no longer profitable. | 0:43:59 | 0:44:02 | |
But for James, that would be too late. | 0:44:03 | 0:44:06 | |
James wanted to escape his brutal existence | 0:44:11 | 0:44:15 | |
and, primarily, had one thing on his mind. | 0:44:15 | 0:44:19 | |
He did not want to make a life for himself in the New World, | 0:44:19 | 0:44:23 | |
but get back to Ireland and battle to reclaim his birthright. | 0:44:23 | 0:44:28 | |
After 13 years of abuse and exploitation, | 0:44:31 | 0:44:35 | |
and on his third attempt, he finally escaped. | 0:44:35 | 0:44:40 | |
He was 25 and had been in America, effectively a slave, | 0:44:40 | 0:44:45 | |
for more than half his life. | 0:44:45 | 0:44:47 | |
James made his way to Jamaica, | 0:44:50 | 0:44:52 | |
where he enlisted as a common seaman upon a Royal Naval warship. | 0:44:52 | 0:44:56 | |
Incredibly, while on that ship, | 0:44:56 | 0:44:58 | |
he was recognised by an old school friend from Dublin. | 0:44:58 | 0:45:02 | |
This story was so incredible, so strange, | 0:45:02 | 0:45:05 | |
that it soon got back to London. | 0:45:05 | 0:45:07 | |
Here we have a copy of the Daily Post, | 0:45:07 | 0:45:10 | |
published on February 12th 1741, | 0:45:10 | 0:45:14 | |
that, indeed, contains an account of James's discovery. | 0:45:14 | 0:45:19 | |
Under plantation news - the admiral has ordered | 0:45:19 | 0:45:22 | |
he should walk the quarterdeck as a midshipman | 0:45:22 | 0:45:26 | |
till the truth can be manifested. | 0:45:26 | 0:45:29 | |
So, James, well, things were looking up, weren't they? | 0:45:29 | 0:45:33 | |
Recognised by the Royal Navy, or at least by the Admiral of the Fleet. | 0:45:33 | 0:45:37 | |
This would do him a great deal of good. | 0:45:37 | 0:45:39 | |
He was on his way back to Ireland, | 0:45:39 | 0:45:40 | |
on his way back to reclaim his titles and his rightful inheritance. | 0:45:40 | 0:45:44 | |
But before he could do that, he had to do battle with his nemesis, | 0:45:52 | 0:45:56 | |
his uncle, Richard Annesley, | 0:45:56 | 0:45:59 | |
who was now the rich and powerful Earl of Anglesea. | 0:45:59 | 0:46:03 | |
In Ireland, James was welcomed back like the prodigal son. | 0:46:14 | 0:46:17 | |
He'd become one of the most celebrated figures in the country | 0:46:17 | 0:46:21 | |
and had won many supporters. | 0:46:21 | 0:46:23 | |
The newspapers called his battle the Great Cause. | 0:46:23 | 0:46:27 | |
But not everybody was pleased that James was back. | 0:46:27 | 0:46:32 | |
On the 16th September 1743, | 0:46:33 | 0:46:37 | |
James attended one of Ireland's leading social events - | 0:46:37 | 0:46:41 | |
the Curragh races in Kildare - | 0:46:41 | 0:46:43 | |
and was accompanied by one of his wealthy new friends, | 0:46:43 | 0:46:47 | |
Daniel MacKercher. | 0:46:47 | 0:46:49 | |
Richard Annesley was at the races, too, | 0:46:50 | 0:46:53 | |
and he had one thing on his mind... | 0:46:53 | 0:46:55 | |
..murder. | 0:46:58 | 0:47:00 | |
Things here took a very dramatic turn. | 0:47:04 | 0:47:07 | |
Even before James reached the racecourse, | 0:47:07 | 0:47:09 | |
a coach drawn by six horses thundered towards him, | 0:47:09 | 0:47:13 | |
nearer and nearer. | 0:47:13 | 0:47:14 | |
It tried to run him down and missed by a hair's breadth. | 0:47:14 | 0:47:19 | |
James and his party recognised the coachman. | 0:47:19 | 0:47:21 | |
It was one of Richard's men. | 0:47:21 | 0:47:23 | |
Then, incredibly, the coach stopped, turned round | 0:47:25 | 0:47:28 | |
and had another go at this dramatic hit-and-run killing. | 0:47:28 | 0:47:32 | |
It was an astonishing event, so brazen in front of everybody. | 0:47:32 | 0:47:37 | |
All the race-goers could see this going on. | 0:47:37 | 0:47:39 | |
MacKercher was outraged by this attempt to murder James, | 0:47:43 | 0:47:47 | |
or at least to terrorise him. | 0:47:47 | 0:47:49 | |
He spotted Richard by the winning post with his henchmen. | 0:47:49 | 0:47:52 | |
Very bravely, MacKercher approached Richard, they had an argument. | 0:47:52 | 0:47:56 | |
During the argument, | 0:47:56 | 0:47:57 | |
MacKercher was hit over the head with a butt of a whip. | 0:47:57 | 0:48:00 | |
James was advised to flee. | 0:48:02 | 0:48:04 | |
He got on his horse, fled the field, chased by 40 or 50 armed men. | 0:48:04 | 0:48:08 | |
As he ran off, | 0:48:08 | 0:48:09 | |
he could hear Richard screaming out, "Knock his brains out!" | 0:48:09 | 0:48:13 | |
James turned to confront the men, | 0:48:15 | 0:48:18 | |
but his horse fell and landed on top of him. | 0:48:18 | 0:48:21 | |
The mob left him for dead. | 0:48:21 | 0:48:23 | |
But they hadn't counted on James's resilience. | 0:48:29 | 0:48:32 | |
He survived | 0:48:33 | 0:48:35 | |
and was even more determined to win back his inheritance. | 0:48:35 | 0:48:40 | |
It would prove to be the biggest challenge of his life. | 0:48:40 | 0:48:44 | |
He was to take the fight against Richard Annesley | 0:48:44 | 0:48:47 | |
to the law courts of Dublin. | 0:48:47 | 0:48:50 | |
The trial was regarded as the most important of the age. | 0:48:54 | 0:48:58 | |
At stake was one of the foundation stones of society - inheritance - | 0:48:58 | 0:49:04 | |
the idea that title, wealth, power, property | 0:49:04 | 0:49:08 | |
passed through the blood to legal heirs. | 0:49:08 | 0:49:12 | |
The Irish peers who met in this splendid room, | 0:49:18 | 0:49:23 | |
the Chamber of the House of Lords, | 0:49:23 | 0:49:26 | |
knew that to tinker with the God-given laws of inheritance | 0:49:26 | 0:49:29 | |
could undermine their very world. | 0:49:29 | 0:49:33 | |
Roger Ekirch has spent two years | 0:49:41 | 0:49:43 | |
studying the transcripts of this extraordinary trial. | 0:49:43 | 0:49:46 | |
It centred on whether James was a legitimate heir | 0:49:48 | 0:49:52 | |
to one of the Annesley estates in Ireland. | 0:49:52 | 0:49:55 | |
So, Roger, why do you believe, as you clearly do, | 0:49:55 | 0:49:58 | |
you're convinced, that James was indeed the legitimate heir? | 0:49:58 | 0:50:03 | |
Most basically, because the circumstances are irrefutable. | 0:50:03 | 0:50:09 | |
What was at issue is whether Lady Altham was his natural mother | 0:50:09 | 0:50:15 | |
or instead a chambermaid by the name of Joan, | 0:50:15 | 0:50:20 | |
or, as she was sometimes referred to, Juggy Landy. | 0:50:20 | 0:50:26 | |
So that you had servants brought to Dublin | 0:50:26 | 0:50:32 | |
from more than 20 years earlier. | 0:50:32 | 0:50:36 | |
One, for example, was named Dennis Redmonds, who had been sent | 0:50:36 | 0:50:42 | |
to procure a midwife | 0:50:42 | 0:50:45 | |
while Lady Altham was reportedly in labour. | 0:50:45 | 0:50:50 | |
"Well, then I ask you | 0:50:50 | 0:50:52 | |
"whether you ever knew My Lady to be with child or not | 0:50:52 | 0:50:56 | |
"during the time of your being there?" | 0:50:56 | 0:50:59 | |
"I did." | 0:50:59 | 0:51:01 | |
"How did you know it?" | 0:51:01 | 0:51:02 | |
"Because I seen her big bellied." | 0:51:02 | 0:51:05 | |
One of the most compelling reasons, I think, | 0:51:06 | 0:51:09 | |
why this trial was so sensational, | 0:51:09 | 0:51:13 | |
on a very sort of fundamental, visceral level, | 0:51:13 | 0:51:17 | |
was that, ultimately, | 0:51:17 | 0:51:20 | |
James's saga was a story of betrayal and loss. | 0:51:20 | 0:51:27 | |
It's also a story of enormous resilience, | 0:51:27 | 0:51:32 | |
survival... | 0:51:32 | 0:51:34 | |
and had the potential, ultimately, for redemption. | 0:51:34 | 0:51:38 | |
The trial lasted 12 days, | 0:51:42 | 0:51:44 | |
the longest at the time in British legal history. | 0:51:44 | 0:51:48 | |
James emerged victorious. | 0:51:48 | 0:51:51 | |
There were wild celebrations in the streets of Dublin | 0:51:51 | 0:51:55 | |
and in James's home town of New Ross. | 0:51:55 | 0:51:58 | |
There was curiosity throughout the nation. | 0:51:58 | 0:52:00 | |
George II invited James to an audience in London. | 0:52:00 | 0:52:05 | |
Round one went to James, but victory in Dublin simply wasn't enough. | 0:52:08 | 0:52:13 | |
Battle would now recommence in London. | 0:52:15 | 0:52:18 | |
James had to defeat his Uncle Richard | 0:52:18 | 0:52:22 | |
at the heart of the English judicial system, | 0:52:22 | 0:52:25 | |
here in Westminster. | 0:52:25 | 0:52:27 | |
He would have to prove that he was rightful heir, | 0:52:29 | 0:52:33 | |
not just to one estate in Ireland, | 0:52:33 | 0:52:35 | |
but also to five peerages across the British Isles... | 0:52:35 | 0:52:38 | |
..or he would get nothing. | 0:52:40 | 0:52:43 | |
This was going to prove much tougher. | 0:52:45 | 0:52:47 | |
The Court of Chancery was notoriously slow, | 0:52:47 | 0:52:51 | |
and Richard, of course, had in his possession the family estates | 0:52:51 | 0:52:55 | |
and all the wealth that went with them. | 0:52:55 | 0:52:57 | |
Also, he was more than happy to pervert the course of justice, | 0:52:57 | 0:53:01 | |
if necessary, | 0:53:01 | 0:53:02 | |
and, sadly, justice was more than happy to be perverted. | 0:53:02 | 0:53:07 | |
Richard had in his pocket | 0:53:07 | 0:53:09 | |
some of the leading lawyers of the kingdom, | 0:53:09 | 0:53:11 | |
men who knew how to use and abuse the legal system | 0:53:11 | 0:53:15 | |
to attain their ends. | 0:53:15 | 0:53:17 | |
They used arcane legal technicalities to stall proceedings. | 0:53:20 | 0:53:23 | |
The longer the case dragged on, the more they lined their pockets, | 0:53:25 | 0:53:28 | |
proving the old proverb... | 0:53:28 | 0:53:31 | |
"..He that goes to law holds a wolf by the ears." | 0:53:33 | 0:53:39 | |
Richard knew that James's meagre funds wouldn't last for ever. | 0:53:39 | 0:53:43 | |
Lawyers do not, of course, come cheap. | 0:53:43 | 0:53:46 | |
So, in effect, Richard was bankrupting his nephew. | 0:53:46 | 0:53:50 | |
James's case became the great cause celebre of the age | 0:53:55 | 0:53:59 | |
and a fighting fund was raised for him | 0:53:59 | 0:54:02 | |
by leading members of Georgian high society. | 0:54:02 | 0:54:05 | |
After 15 years, | 0:54:07 | 0:54:09 | |
the Court of Chancery completed its examination of the witnesses, | 0:54:09 | 0:54:13 | |
but by this time, James was down to his last five pounds. | 0:54:13 | 0:54:17 | |
This meant that he needed the equivalent of legal aid. | 0:54:17 | 0:54:21 | |
There was additional delay but, finally, | 0:54:21 | 0:54:24 | |
the court announced that it would hear the case in January 1760. | 0:54:24 | 0:54:29 | |
But James couldn't keep the appointment | 0:54:32 | 0:54:35 | |
which promised to bring him victory. | 0:54:35 | 0:54:37 | |
On 5th January, he suffered an asthma attack and died. | 0:54:37 | 0:54:43 | |
He was only 44. | 0:54:46 | 0:54:49 | |
Within a year, his uncle Richard was also dead. | 0:54:52 | 0:54:56 | |
Ironically, Richard's son and heir was judged to be illegitimate, | 0:54:56 | 0:55:01 | |
so the coveted Earldom of Anglesea was declared extinct. | 0:55:01 | 0:55:06 | |
James was buried here in St Margaret's Church | 0:55:09 | 0:55:13 | |
in the village of Lee in Kent. | 0:55:13 | 0:55:15 | |
Hello. | 0:55:15 | 0:55:17 | |
-Nice to meet you. -And you, too, yes. -Excellent. | 0:55:17 | 0:55:20 | |
Well, wonderful to be here at this really splendid church, | 0:55:20 | 0:55:24 | |
but my real quest is to find the grave of James Annesley. | 0:55:24 | 0:55:28 | |
Is it known where he's buried? | 0:55:28 | 0:55:30 | |
We don't know where he's buried, | 0:55:30 | 0:55:32 | |
but there's no doubt that he is buried here. | 0:55:32 | 0:55:34 | |
His name is recorded in the parish register. | 0:55:34 | 0:55:36 | |
But tombs of earlier members of the family | 0:55:40 | 0:55:43 | |
-have survived in part and they are stored here. -How exciting. | 0:55:43 | 0:55:48 | |
So, I can't pay my respects to James but I can... | 0:55:48 | 0:55:50 | |
But you can to his ancestors. | 0:55:50 | 0:55:52 | |
It's tragic that, after such a long and astonishing journey, | 0:55:58 | 0:56:02 | |
it all came to nothing for James. | 0:56:02 | 0:56:05 | |
And he, like his father, doesn't even have a known grave. | 0:56:05 | 0:56:09 | |
But he did leave a will, and I've got a copy of it here. | 0:56:09 | 0:56:13 | |
"This is the last will and testament of me, James Annesley." | 0:56:13 | 0:56:19 | |
He states here very directly, "The only son and heir | 0:56:19 | 0:56:24 | |
"of the Right Honourable Arthur, late Lord Baron of Altham." | 0:56:24 | 0:56:30 | |
Here we see he proposed to leave £1,000 each to his wife, | 0:56:30 | 0:56:36 | |
son and daughter, | 0:56:36 | 0:56:38 | |
and £15,000 to Daniel MacKercher, Esquire. | 0:56:38 | 0:56:44 | |
But none of this happened. | 0:56:44 | 0:56:47 | |
James did not regain his birthright. | 0:56:47 | 0:56:50 | |
He died a pauper | 0:56:50 | 0:56:52 | |
and nobody - not friend nor family - received a penny. | 0:56:52 | 0:56:57 | |
James's body would have been buried | 0:57:07 | 0:57:09 | |
somewhere in the churchyard across the road. | 0:57:09 | 0:57:12 | |
The old churchyard is wonderful, | 0:57:17 | 0:57:20 | |
full of 18th-century headstones and tombs. | 0:57:20 | 0:57:25 | |
I can't but feel somewhere I'll see the name of James Annesley. | 0:57:25 | 0:57:30 | |
It's an incredible feeling after all my searchings | 0:57:32 | 0:57:37 | |
for this chap and his story | 0:57:37 | 0:57:39 | |
to be now so near his last resting place on Earth. | 0:57:39 | 0:57:42 | |
James lived many lives in one. | 0:57:46 | 0:57:48 | |
As a son of the nobility, | 0:57:50 | 0:57:52 | |
he'd briefly tasted the fruits of privilege. | 0:57:52 | 0:57:54 | |
But then he became a victim of cruel circumstance | 0:57:54 | 0:57:59 | |
and felt the full force of the contradictions | 0:57:59 | 0:58:02 | |
at the heart of the 18th century, | 0:58:02 | 0:58:04 | |
when children were both sentimentalised | 0:58:04 | 0:58:08 | |
and brutally exploited. | 0:58:08 | 0:58:10 | |
It's a story that makes talk of the Enlightenment, of the rights of man, | 0:58:10 | 0:58:16 | |
of human progress sound like empty rhetoric. | 0:58:16 | 0:58:21 | |
With the Industrial Revolution just around the corner, | 0:58:21 | 0:58:25 | |
with its exploitation of child labour, | 0:58:25 | 0:58:28 | |
it was to be a long time before the basic idea was accepted | 0:58:28 | 0:58:33 | |
that children also have individual and precious rights. | 0:58:33 | 0:58:39 | |
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd | 0:58:53 | 0:58:56 | |
E-mail [email protected] | 0:58:56 | 0:59:00 |