While Boris's grandfather never mentioned his family history his wife he
Wren who Boris called granny butter was extremely proud and vocal about hers she
told stories of an aristocratic French heritage a sharp contrast to her farming
life granny butter she is with sheep zonix
more where it's been I spent a long time another child you got to understand the
contrast between granny butters you know imagined ancestry imagine all I don't
know and the life she lived on Exmoor it was you know a life of extreme struggle
against the elements very very cold and damp everything covered with lichen but
she came from also she was used to tell us long line of defense who was some
ancient Magna French nobility and before you acclaim we always I have to say his
children find slightly implausible but as a boy Boris was aware of one
tantalizing clue that suggested granny butter really may have had a glamorous
past there was a mythical there was a great that was it used to be great sort
of wooden crate or canteen or something called the which contained the defense
silver was never we never opened it this chess but it was perilous on little
Hadden's cave it was a Tutankhamun's tomb a riches and the gag was that
anybody who bore the name to fell in the family would inherit as handsome and I
was due to inherit it as being Alexander Boris TEFL Johnson because I'd been
cunningly christened by my parents but then tragically when I was about 10 I
think everybody's on the resume there are two holdups they floated and what I
have to say that one of the great mysteries of my childhood one mysteries
in my life in many mysteries but one that has been just how posh was granny
butter and was she really a French talk like what she told us Boris's aren't
birdie has come to tell him more about granny butters background
well done coming coming coming coming granny Bossa with her father
oh wow and who's her father that was Stanley William Stanley Williams
Yeah right whom your father is named after yeah look that's her with her
mother and her mother was French right Marin Ruth defer fell deceitful well
that was her maiden name I made me yeah yeah that's where granny
buddy gets that exactly yeah she was so keen on all these guys these old guys
related to Mary deviis defect that
birdie has a document that reveals more about baron charles de fell the man in
the photo hey what is this his death notice beautiful most amazing document
pre April we pray for him the Baron and the bound of FL the count and the
countess Toth kirkin the count on the Countess of poachy
have the honor of informing you of their sad loss in the person of the barrel
shall defend Paris stood got Strasbourg Rome's and Petersburg I mean London
Paris you take you say he's kind of serious euro Tov died in Munich telleth
to January 1890 Sean Bell on you what a barrier so this is the former
Chamberlain of the King of Bavaria that's me
so why is her bird I mean this is incredible stuff these guys were not
French these guys were German I know better go
to Germany to track them down only claim later came the obeying barony reclaim my
title so the couple in the photographs are granny butters great-grandfather
baron charles de FEV and his wife Caroline but how heiress to Craddock
were the de FEV
Horace is on his way to Germany on the trail of baron charles de FEV i would
justify i would justify this otherwise gross exercise in narcissism as follows
that he is interesting to look at how british i can feel and yet actually what
a completely composition i really boris has come to the State Library in Munich
he has an appointment with Sabina Schleich at a genealogist who's been
doing some digging for him the Bavarians had a section in the archive which
stores all the information about noble families it says the federal family was
nabilla Teta in 1828 and this nobility is hereditary so the children also went
over but it's a it is not in a very old medieval or something nobility they were
just nobility ated in 1828 and that's when the friar thinking comes in yes
that's all that they did not have the title Baron a fire so this is the answer
from the nobility register in German okay
oh yeah yes your excellency believe me I am ha not to inform your
excellency about Adelheid Paulina Fatiha yes she was she was actually her
official name so to speak was allied Polina but she went by Caroline and now
the interesting part comes she is dr. dare sharpener and Frederica part she's
now out of the shots Astros be the villain do you know that name watch me
learn the shafts Peter and the something player yes actress
the actress okay yes and there's no mentioning of her father okay
so no where did you get that name from that's a question there's a jolly good
questions tough kitchen rights back to the nobility to register nothing one
sets create an own movie then Sleeping Dogs not after will need absolutely it's
cheap it sounds like I'm worried about to find a dark secret here are we
he suspects something I mean really sorry deeply embarrassing and this is
basically the end of the fire the nobility register tries to get the match
entry from Augsburg and all that between Carl Caroline
so wait that could be interesting the the the the marriage ends about I think
it might be interesting to take a look at that entry yes I I'm obviously on the
verge of some real story here but I didn't quite what it is what's clear is
that one tough cookie posh German son-in-law of Caroline
Wright to the German you know register nobility saying tell me about this bond
rothenburg's net sound total Cavendish Bentinck Chumley's mais that sounds
pretty puff to me from Rotenberg just how poor are the bond rothenburg's he
says and they write back saying me awfully sorry old boy she's the daughter
actress and we don't know who the father is
there's obviously yet more to be discovered in Augsburg and maybe we'll
find out more about the antecedents of the mysterious Caroline von Rothenberg
question mark question mark
you