No-nonsense host Alexander Armstrong expected to discover some great ancestors when he appeared on the BBC genealogy program Who Do You Think You Are? in 2010. However, nothing could have prepared him, the father of four, for the scandal he uncovered, which included the murder of a baron.
“I’ve been called posh a lot in my life,” he admitted at the beginning of his research. “We grew up on the edge of a very large family, but as second cousins, you know, the younger wing.”
He also admitted to his wife that he suspected there might be some dark secrets lurking in his family’s background.
“The problem is that the only parts of the family you know are obviously the parts the family wants us to know about. Maybe they’re caught up in some scandal,” he mused.
His royal connections were quickly established. He turns out to be a descendant of William the Conqueror, who was the first Norman king of England after defeating Harold Godwinson’s Anglo-Saxon forces at the Battle of Hastings.
He is also distantly related to William Armstrong, founder of Cragside, whose family still owns Bamburgh Castle. He has connections with the 6th Earl and 2nd Marquess of Worcester, Edward Somerset, who was one of the monarchy’s biggest supporters during the Civil War in 1642.
A family member who used to work in a royal household turns out to be the most interesting branch in his tree, as her son becomes embroiled in a murder scandal.
It turns out that his six-time grandmother, Mary Boughton (1714-1786), was a woman of Queen Charlotte’s bedchamber in an era when this was a very prestigious position.
Digging deeper into her life in the Shropshire archives, he found correspondence indicating tension between her sons Edward and Charles.
“He is neither fish, nor meat, nor a good red herring,” Mary wrote to Charles of the “lazy” Edward who at one point owed his younger brother more than £14,400. This was an enormous amount in that era.
Despite his obvious shortcomings, Edward ended up inheriting the baronetcy from his cousin, and foul play was suspected in the death.
The cousin in question, Sir Theodosius Boughton, had apparently been poisoned, and Edward described the death as “wonderful news” in a letter.
Captain John Donnellan, Theodosius’ brother-in-law, was convicted of the murder but there was a question mark over whether Edward was actually responsible.
Edward’s good fortune seemed to do nothing to ease his rivalry with his brother Charles, and just hours before his death, he disinherited his brother in favor of his illegitimate daughter.
Although Charles, who married well and gained his own baronetcy, inherited his brother’s title, he did not leave Edward’s estate. This snub appears to have cost Sir Charles a peerage although this missed opportunity hardly affected Alexander’s aristocratic credentials.