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00:03Dame Judi Dench has been a star of stage and screen across seven decades from roles in
00:11Shakespeare to James Bond and now with grandson Sam she's a social media sensation my parents
00:22they were both incredibly full of life we've always been taken to the theatre and we were
00:28always dashing about everywhere dressed up my ma was making all the costumes and daddy could recite
00:39the whole of Hirewatha it was a family like that I must have been about seven or eight now he's
00:47taken
00:47to see Macbeth my eldest brother Peter played Duncan and he walked on and said what bloody man
00:54is that and I can remember thinking oh this is this is Shakespeare this is swearing and I was hooked
01:05Judy made her professional debut in 1957 playing Ophelia in Shakespeare's Hamlet I'm passionate
01:15about Shakespeare I would like to meet him then I would like to save you any other plays up your
01:20sleeve have you anything for anyone in their 80s a rather good part sitting down most of the time
01:30Judy was born in England but her parents met and grew up in Ireland my ma was very funny very
01:40Irish and
01:41fiery very fiery and had no relations at all that we ever met my father was born in Dorset and
01:52he was
01:53brought up in Dublin and he was the most wonderful doctor this was my dad's consulting room desk and this
02:06was his chair was he sat in look it does this it's really really comfortable and look it has wonderful
02:14things that do this those were for writing prescriptions on I love it I know that my pa was in
02:24the 1418 war and I
02:26know he's a young man and I know also he was in the Leinsters which was an Irish regiment and
02:33I know that he
02:34um was very very brave in France and got a badge for it but I would love to know more
02:41about that because
02:43you know it's our duty anyway to pass it down and I want the family to know I can't think
02:48where this
02:50scent might lead us who knows but I'm very excited
03:29Judy's daughter Finty and grandson Sam have come to visit so ma yeah this is you in the middle
03:37itty of natches without the socks without socks and with gold ballet shoes on you're the only one
03:43wearing gold ballet shoes everyone else is wearing black well that's the way it goes center stage
03:50start as you mean to go on and then there's mummy and then what's going on there's mummy
03:58but she had red hair my hair hello that's where it came from red hair and very very turquoise blue
04:08eyes
04:08she said have I remember her eyes remember yeah and there we are look at you super glamour daddy looks
04:15good doesn't he he looks amazing he looks great because he used to laugh
04:22he used to laugh so much quite inappropriate for a doctor
04:27but look look at but look at i know i've never noticed this before but look at that photograph
04:35which is daddy when he was in the first world war he must have been he must have been about
04:4218 or 19
04:43four or five years younger than sammy is now i suppose that's right that is mental isn't it
04:49what are these amazing don't ask me they belong to gampy they must have done look he's wearing it in
04:56this picture i know it's not exactly on his lapels it's a good clean that's really cool i like that
05:04one this one what is it the star they say i always say it's going so this gold one says
05:14the great war
05:15for civilization 1914 to 1919. i like this star i like this star who what are these chaps angels can
05:25you see that
05:28oh yes i can see oh i can see an angel did he talk about it
05:36not very much and i don't believe that anyone who was in that war wanted to come back and talk
05:44about
05:44it much it'd be amazing to find out more really important as well yeah really important i would love
05:58to find out aged five judy's father reginald dench moved from england to ireland where judy still has
06:06extended family she's come to dublin to meet her paternal cousins dennis and valerie
06:14to hear what they remember about her father oh you're looking fabulous oh thank you the family
06:21came over to ireland i'd lived in sandymount but that was a lovely little place sandymount's a
06:26beautiful little village church i think mom and daddy were married there weren't they our grandmother
06:32bessie oak bessie oak hmm there's a window to her yes that's right she was heavily involved in the
06:39women's organization in the church there would you like to have a look at some of the photos
06:44you bet you bet this is the family album oh my parents kept newspaper cuttings this is you
06:52playing the part of ophelia my first part at the ovec yes yes 1957 with john neville in hamlet
07:01the girl who dares to start at the top no vital statistics but she can act no vital statistics is
07:09that what it says dirty disgusting beggars no vital statistics i don't think you need those as a
07:17philia do you i wouldn't think so there's another photo i'd like to show you uh which is your father
07:26looking very dapper i've never seen that before yeah very jaunty that's the most lovely picture
07:34he's a very generous man is all i remember of him very much so and he damaged his leg and
07:40he always
07:41wore calipers on yes he did but it didn't stop him swimming no it didn't no no no but he
07:49won the
07:50military cross so you know he must have been extraordinarily brave yes he did but we keep a
07:56very good archive here uh of military for the whole of ireland yeah i'd love to know
08:12judy wants to learn more about her father's war medals so she's meeting historian lar joy at the
08:19military archives of ireland well i'll show you him actually there's a picture of him i'm so blind that
08:28i don't know it may not even be the right way out is it that's perfect and what age do
08:33you think he
08:33was in that i'm not quite sure but i know that my ma prized it very much rightly this first
08:41document
08:41here is actually the application to join the uh british army for your father um you know important
08:47thing he's joining an irish regiment a very famous the leinsters yes they had a very long history uh
08:52over well over 100 years uh fighting in the british army and recruiting heavily uh as i say in ireland
08:57and then he's been told to report to dublin university so trinity college and in trinity
09:02college you had an officer training corps and they specialized in training young officers and and when
09:07they've been trained as officers they've very much been trained to you know to lead from the front
09:11and they're kind of instilled to kind of look after their men what age is he he's 18 at this
09:16stage so a very very young man so he really is going from being a school boy to be trained
09:21as an
09:21officer and then later on will be in charge of people who could be five ten years older than when
09:27i think of my own grandson who is now 24 i think of him at 18 the responsibility on your
09:34shoulders
09:39so this one is a is from the medical board report and it shows you that he's being he's been
09:45injured
09:46um and while he's injured in the knee he's injured knee yes yes okay did he there was this a
09:52recurring
09:53injury for him was it yes okay okay i didn't realize that that had happened in the war um and
10:00it's
10:00interesting it's it's it's actually a training injury so it happens while he's in trinity college
10:03and a quote from from the board's report uh while during his training uh he injured his knee um and
10:10displaced the cartilage the cartilage was removed by an operation in june 1916 and he was hospital for
10:17seven weeks so that's before he went so that's before he even went to france i didn't realize
10:22that it happened so early let me show you these and tell me they looked like something you would
10:28wear on a very special day wow that's a beautiful collection but this medal here at the end is the
10:34one that jumps out to me this is the the military cross so the military cross is a gallantry medal
10:40so 99 percent of medals are for service you were there is to prove that you were there but one
10:45percent
10:46are the the the the gallantry medals for officers for these young officers the lieutenants and captains
10:51who are doing all the the the fighting and leading it's a special medal for them uh so to to
10:56to get a
10:57military cross is um you know it's a huge accolade and shows that he's very very brave um and um
11:03but but
11:04what's really fascinating about this is this bar so this bar has a is on them on the on the
11:10military
11:10crossing bar you do don't you and is this the bar across that bar and has a little small rosette
11:15what does that mean that means he got the medal a second time he got it a second time yep
11:20so he's
11:21incredibly brave um so to have it once is is quite an achievement to get it twice is is an
11:28amazing
11:28achievement out of an army of six and a half million soldiers um uh only three thousand uh got the
11:37medal
11:38twice so it's it's you know we're looking at a very small group of officers i'm so pleased and i
11:45feel
11:45very proud of him that's that's wonderful he's a hero he was he well he was always a hero in
11:56my eyes
11:56but he's now even more of a hero to explore why reginald dench was awarded two military crosses
12:06judy's come to trinity college dublin to meet battlefield historian peter barton
12:14in training he had an accident how did he how did he what jumping
12:21jump says in jumping in training that's right yeah so in september 1916 he was recovering
12:27from that knee operation and you may be surprised to know that it was that
12:32which saved him from fighting in the battle of the somme otherwise he would have been on the somme
12:40so he's he was very lucky there very lucky recuperating from his operation in 1916
12:49reginald dench missed the horrors of the song where in five months of fierce combat allied forces failed
12:56to make any significant advance against the germans it was one of the bloodiest battles in all of human
13:03history with more than a million casualties on both sides
13:11judy's father joined the battalion when it was ordered to head north to ypres in belgium
13:18on the 8th of march 1917 it's his first taste of action heavy german shelling starts and it becomes
13:27incredibly uh powerful and brutal terrible and then at 4am in the morning so it's pitch black
13:36the germans launch their raid and what they're hoping to do is to get into the british trenches
13:41your father's trenches kill as many british as possible capture some prisoners to feed upon for
13:46intelligence but it doesn't work their artillery has failed to cut the protective barbed wire
13:54entanglements in front of the trench and they can't get through there and everybody is firing at these
13:59approaching germans including your father he picks up a machine gun and he's firing at them as they
14:06approach and then as they go away again they can't get through the wire so that raid is a total
14:12failure
14:12it's actually in the war diary it it says second lieutenant dench and bernie especially distinguished
14:20themselves during the attack and all ranks behave with the greatest gallantry so he's he's awarded a
14:27military cross for holding the men together and for fighting off this trench raid which could have been
14:32catastrophic six months later after his actions had been recognized with a gallantry medal on the 13th
14:41of october 1917 judy's father was stationed south of arras near the hindenburg line one of the germans last
14:49lines of defense on the western front in order to win the war it was essential that battalions like
14:57reginald dench's found ways to break through this heavily fortified zone of interlocking trenches
15:05and extraordinarily we actually have a photograph of the place where he was roll out there
15:16what's a terrible place for them all he's made an acting captain so he's no longer commanding 30 men
15:24he's commanding 200 250 men but he is put in charge or he offers to organize a trench raid
15:32now this isn't a normal trench raid what he's doing here he's going in with a party of royal engineers
15:41so that they can measure the german trenches with tape measures they need to survey the german trenches
15:47in this sector so that they can devise plans as to how they can attack them successfully a massive
15:54responsibility has a hundred men going over over the top with him that must have been full of of german
16:01soldiers correct yeah they've got to do it as quickly as possible get in allow the royal engineers to get
16:08the intelligence and then get out again and we have a report i've got a map just here actually
16:18i've marked the route the exact route that your father took so he crossed no man's land through the
16:25german wire got into the german frontline trench there and then turned left and this is where he hits
16:31resistance a small party of the enemy worked their way towards your father's men bombing and firing rifles
16:40our men retaliated one being shot at close range by captain dench mc
16:47your father shot a german soldier at point blank range pretty well and he also threw bombs
16:55so he is he's achieved what he needed to do he's holding off aggression by the germans they then
17:03have to get back the royal engineers have done their stuff they get back in no man's land your father
17:09stays in no man's land like a shepherd and ushers his men back to the safety of their own trenches
17:16so he's the
17:17last to come back which is remarkable and for that he receives another military cross
17:30i'm not at all surprised that nobody spoke about it all
17:37but he knew what his duty was and he knew it was that german soldier or him
17:46for four months reginald dench continued to serve on the front line south of arras
17:54but in march 1918 the battalion found themselves in the firing line of the germans final and most
18:01deadly attack of the war the spring offensive
18:06they lost every single officer in the battalion every single officer was killed wounded or captured
18:14and here's the list of all the officers wounded killed missing wounded wounded and missing
18:22was he there your father's name is not on that list because he was sent home on the 15th of
18:31march
18:31six days before this happened and he was exchanged for another officer because of his knee
18:38so it saved him from the somme it could have saved him from messina that's why he never complained
18:43and was in obviously in pain a lot but never complained do you suppose
18:51yes i can see that i can see that very clearly oh dear
19:01yes judy's come to christ church in sandy mount where her grandparents were active members of the
19:08congregation
19:10inside a war memorial commemorates reginald and the soldiers he served alongside
19:18reggie
19:22and many others
19:25i didn't know that was that i must have seen it when i was here once but i just remember
19:31my grandmother's window
19:41i'm very anti-war
19:47and hard to contemplate how
19:50how how you would commit yourself to that each day
19:57used to just rub his knee
20:03um
20:07but he never said you know he never said
20:10he never talked about that
20:12and how in fact you know having that injury must ultimately have saved his life on
20:18maybe even more more than two occasions
20:22when you think how completely life-changing those experiences were
20:27not sure that you could live in the past
20:31i think you'd want to push that away from you a bit
20:35well a lot
20:41unlike her father judy's mother was born in ireland
20:44but judy knows very little about her maternal side of the family
20:48so she's meeting genealogist nicola morris at the national library of ireland
20:54so we can go a little bit further back on your mother's family
20:59quite a bit further back in fact so we have a little family tree here
21:05so starting with you
21:08and that's your mother so eleanor olive jones that's right and her father was um henry jeb
21:15yes because i had a cat called jeb oh very good after him yeah and it's quite an unusual name
21:20it is
21:20and we work our way back up to your two times great grandmother so eleanor francis bolton was born
21:28in 1802 she was born in a house called brazil house which is actually just in county dublin
21:35in the parish of swords so just north of the city this is the ruins of the house
21:43so quite a substantial big house big house so they would have been a well-to-do family
21:50golly they had been in this brazil house for at least 200 years really yeah and i have another
21:59thing i wanted to show you which tells us a little bit more about the boltons so hang on one
22:03second
22:04right oh my yes you have to keep this propped up so this was created by the office of the
22:19ulster king
22:20of arms so this was the chief herald of ireland essentially who kind of kept the record of the
22:26landed uh families of ireland as you'll see it's handwritten so these are his
22:33notes that he has made on the bolton family so we were looking at hand made hand written isn't it
22:43beautiful so we were looking at eleanor francis bolton right and we work our way back up so this is
22:52your
22:52six times great grandfather so we're going all the way back to the very early 18th century 1700s
23:02and we have richard bolton of brazil and his wife here is anne catherine daughter of steen
23:10billy of copenhagen of copenhagen
23:18your six times great grandmother came from denmark
23:28well they kept it very quiet
23:32well nobody has ever ever in our family mentioned denmark nobody
23:40well it was a long long time ago it was a long time ago but you think they kind of
23:45remember
23:45a vestige of something i know yeah judy now knows that her maternal great-great-grandmother
23:53eleanor francis bolton descended from landed gentry and her six times great grandfather richard bolton
24:01married a danish woman called anne catherine billy the daughter of steen billy of copenhagen
24:10there's a little bit more to the story so i'm going to show you something else
24:14i love this book in its bed gorgeous isn't it oh yeah this is a catalogue of a collection of
24:24letters
24:25written by robert molesworth but he was sent as an extraordinary envoy to denmark and he brought with
24:32him the essentially orphaned richard bolton who'd lost his parents as an assistant and out of these lovely
24:41letters that we have from molesworth writing to his wife back in dublin he makes reference to this young
24:48dick bolton and his behavior so we have here at the and his behavior yes oh yes he's up to
24:57no good
24:58and to his wife he says remarks as to affair of dick bolton and his mistress anne catherine billy
25:07did he marry her he did he did he can be forgiven this is what he says i can say
25:16nothing to the
25:16disadvantage of the young gentlewoman but want of fortune and by all my art i cannot keep them from
25:24running into deeper engagements it's all to do with the money isn't it exactly and i think that's his
25:32concern is that somebody's going to have to come up with a marriage settlement it's possible that dick
25:38doesn't really have much to fall back on himself but he doesn't seem to think that that anne catherine
25:46billy is an appropriate match for him poor old dick bolton well molesworth letter certainly points to the
25:57fact that it was probably a it was a love match you know they they clearly had an affair and
26:03weren't
26:03nobody was going to get in the way of stopping it good so i think it will be worth
26:09going to see why it was that the molesworths taught this was an inappropriate match then i have to go
26:20to denmark and find out you do
26:29judy's traveled to the capital of denmark copenhagen
26:34the mummy's side of the family been traced back to copenhagen oh that's amazing so that's my mom
26:40does that mean that we are literally vikings um i expect you are brilliant i'll i'll i'll take that
26:49you look you look viking to me you look quite viking i think i think if i wore a hat
26:54with horns i could
26:55pass as a viking no that's that's not true i don't think they did i'll find out a bit more
27:00and let you know
27:01just to let you know that um i'm cooking a full roast dinner roast chicken in yorkshire puddings
27:08and blankets uh carrots broccoli with chicken what yorkshire pudding with chicken that's very
27:16curious well i guess we are danish aren't we ma so that's what it is of course you have
27:21yorkshire pudding with chicken if you're a dane you're too silly
27:28to learn more about her six times great grandmother anne catherine billet and her
27:33seven times great grandfather steen billet judy's meeting her newly discovered distant cousin
27:39yawn billet
27:46oh hello what a pleasure and an honor as well how lovely yes i can't believe this
27:54you are relatively i know and that we're related can you believe it no i'm thrilled i didn't even know
28:01we had any danish blood in us please thank you very much indeed i can tell you i'm an actor
28:07as well
28:10and i worked on the royal theater so i just had to walk for four minutes and i was in
28:16the royal
28:16theater no yes it must be in the jeans well it must be because my brother yes he's also one
28:25of my
28:25brothers oh really jeff yes well won't you sit down uh so steen anderson billet our common ancestor i
28:34found his diary from 1659 it's here and it's a little bit difficult to read this old gothic
28:46handwriting but uh he wrote about anne catherine billet in english and catherine but she was called
28:54in danish anna catherine billet that is dick bolton's what they called mistress so rudely
29:03when he wasn't even married okay the letter we saw i was mostly offended when i heard about it
29:10that is disapproved yes we're both offended we were both very very offended but well anyhow he must have
29:18been very pleased with his little daughter steen anderson billet because he wrote in 1665 on april 4th
29:25between 1am and 2am god blessed my dear wife and me with our little daughter anna catherine may god
29:33allow her to grow up in age and grace both in god and in people uh why did they make
29:40so much a thing that
29:41she had no inheritance or fortune well i can show you a painting of the grandfather of anna catherine
29:51and that's anna spiele he was council of the realm and playmate of the king and the king's brother
30:00although judy's six times great grandmother anna catherine was described as being in want of fortune
30:07her grandfather who was called anna steensen billet was an aristocrat what a nice looking man he was
30:17very he was very good looking um i was told he was not that tall well that's fine that goes
30:24to the
30:25family because he has this family coat of arms here and then i thought oh yes that must be the
30:34coat
30:34uh of arms of his mother because that's normal you do that in danish father and mother but it was
30:42not his mother coat of arms in those times it was forbidden to marry outside aristocracy so he couldn't
30:49marry catherine the woman he loved because she was the daughter of a peasant a very remarkable woman
30:56and she was the mother of steen anna steensen billet as an aristocrat judy's eight times great
31:04grandfather anna steensen billet was forbidden from marian katarina the mother of his children because
31:12she was not from a noble family this meant that their son steen anason billet judy's seven times great
31:19grandfather was illegitimate and unable to inherit his father's title but because he was illegitimate
31:29the son steen our ancestor steen the painter painted you can't see it really an oak tree cut over
31:38it's this oak stump this means that the nobility was cut so it couldn't continue because he his son was
31:48illegitimate illegitimate illegitimate yes illegitimate and on this little stump there's a green branch
31:55little sapling and i love this writing beneath and you can't read it i can't read it here it's
32:01if god wishes no no no no opposite no it's when god wishes because he he was convinced something was
32:08going to have when god wishes and when i discovered it i was really moved because in a way we
32:14both are
32:15descendants of little this little green we are we are i i i found it extremely interesting when i read
32:25about your anna kathrine billet in steen anason billet's diary because her baptismal witnesses were
32:33mr governor gap and general field marshal wurtz major general ruse all the baptismal witnesses were
32:42military people from high rank the army she had the army there but because he was illegitimate
32:49how did that happen what was his connection with those people i don't know that much maybe you can
32:56find out maybe i'll find out and tell you and tell me then we have a new meeting and you
33:01tell me all
33:02about what i'll find all the other people related
33:10the oak trees what kept me awake last night because oak is a family name of mine on my father's
33:17side and it is part of my grandson's name and i suddenly had the vision of that the locked oak
33:26tree
33:26tree but the wonderful thing and the hope of it all is this lovely sapling at the side oak sapling
33:33which
33:33is growing and what is lovely about it of course is the motto when god wishes which we're all going
33:43to have written all over us like i've got carpe diem i expect i'll find out somewhere in my uh
33:49in my ancestry
33:58to find out how her seven times great grandfather steen anason billet established high ranking military
34:05connections without being a member of the nobility judy has come to copenhagen's citadel a city center
34:13fortress and is meeting dr sebastian ollen jernson dean anason billet was bright he started studied at
34:22the university and sought to make a fortune for himself in italy where he entered the service of the
34:30medici grand dukes of tuscany you could say he had been a beef eater right italian beef eater italian
34:38beef eater after some years he returned to denmark with a nice letter of recommendation
34:45yet there would have been very narrow limits to his career there was a glass ceiling for everybody not
34:52a nobleman in denmark they could rise but only to the middling rank
34:59what he does not know is that the next few years will be very dramatic and will turn the fortunes
35:06of denmark and the political system upside down
35:12for centuries the danish nobility had enjoyed huge power and influence they even chose who could be king
35:21but in 1658 during a disastrous war with sweden
35:26key members of the nobility and their armies were wiped out providing an opportunity for ordinary
35:33soldiers like judy's seven times great grandfather steen anason billet to rise through the ranks
35:43a year later after the danes repelled a swedish attack in 1659 the danish king frederick the third seized the
35:52chance to end his dependence on the nobility once and for all and steen anason billet was at the heart
36:00of this power grab
36:04the king staged a revolution and a key moment in this process is 13th of october 1660 where the king
36:13decides to close the city gates so that all the nobility can't leave the city they have to stay
36:19there and take the right decision to transfer power to the king and the man who goes to the gates
36:27and
36:28gives the order is steen anason billet he's also the the man who tells them they are now
36:36effectively prisoners on his own not his on his own he was a he was a an instrument
36:44this assembled nobility lost all courage and morale and in three days they succumbed to the to the king's
36:56demand and denmark became an absolute monarchy in one clean stroke all political power of the nobility
37:07and everybody else is abolished and the king decides everything you can say for steen anason billet this
37:16was a an opportunity he sided with the king and played the king's game
37:25so he ended up on the winning side of history
37:31quite lucky yes because of his descent he was this bastard son of a danish nobleman a half
37:41a member of the nobility so
37:45perhaps the right person to do that yes
37:49to find out if her seven times great grandfather steen anason billet benefited from his loyal service
37:56to the king judas come to the danish national archives and is meeting adam john chronic
38:03so welcome to the national archives thank you and goodness me
38:11we have something for you to see here how on earth did you get the ones at the top
38:16i'll show you please do are you afraid of heights um no okay that's good
38:33it's like back to the future it is
38:37and it's back to the past back to the past yes
38:47to help her understand the danish records judy's meeting with archivist ronnie anason
38:56what is this so if we open up
39:00we see here
39:04the seal of the king
39:07and here we have the document itself
39:12this is from 1679
39:15and this is the ennoblement of your seventh great-grandfather
39:19steen anderson bill for his services to the king
39:25he's a colonel and vice commander of copenhagen
39:30well that's an extraordinary piece of
39:35information
39:36it is
39:36that i didn't expect
39:39at all i don't expect he did
39:42no
39:43well he was as you know uh
39:46an illegitimate son
39:47yes
39:48there is this um
39:49this division between the old nobility
39:51who law who loses all their privileges and rights
39:55in 1660 and then the new nobility that supports the king
39:59and and has to be loyal to the king to
40:01to to be given privileges and and power
40:03and then here we have steen anderson biller achieving this by becoming a nobleman
40:11and he was granted the arms of his father of the biller family
40:15right so he was granted those again yes yes
40:20having been denied his father's coat of arms at birth
40:24judy's seven times great-grandfather steen anerson billet was allowed to use his family crest
40:30for the first time at the age of 55. absolutely wonderful yes i'm so pleased for him
40:40yes he managed to succeed in life
40:44and worked quite hard worked quite hard for it yes
40:47and of course he was a loyal soldier to the king yes yes
40:50i've got something very interesting to show you
41:01this is a deed from 1699 the year after steen anerson billet died
41:06and here his wife leaves an estate to the daughter anna katrina and
41:15richard bolton her husband so this is dick bolton
41:20dick so she was all right in the end yes
41:26well
41:27dick bolton my sixth great-grandfather came to copenhagen with somebody called molesworth
41:34who wrote a very um elaborate letter home saying dick bolton was having an association said with his
41:43mistress um who really had no prospects and no hope of any inheritance and so he wanted to wash his
41:51hands of the whole affair robert molesworth didn't like steen anerson billet because he represented the
41:57new system yes absolute yes monarchy yes and there's only one thing that's worse than no money that's new money
42:06so uh so uh so he he he he didn't like the new absolute uh system and that's perhaps an
42:12explanation of why he
42:13he he didn't like um steen anderson billet and and her his daughter anna katrina
42:28i think he was the most remarkable man steen anderson after quite a life and quite an adventure
42:35he got back into the nobility it must have been a glorious thing to happen to him he worked hard
42:44and got some kind of recognition for it i just will never stop talking about it now i'm a dane
42:57heaven i would like now then to find out as much as we can about the billet family
43:03if there is more to find out let's go and do it
43:09to see if she can push her billet family line further back judy's meeting dr anna's tofgore
43:15at the royal library of copenhagen
43:20so this genealogical table will reveal something about the next generation of your ancestors you have
43:31learned about a certain steen billet uh yes yes and others and then if we push one step further back
43:43we come to steen billet oh steen was a one of the recurrent names and in the family yes so
43:52this uh steen
43:54who was your nine times great grandfather his sister was a certain beate bile beate
44:05and she was married to a certain otto bra and had a son whose name was uh chico bra and
44:16in english
44:16uh that would be taiko bra does that name uh say that name again taiko bra no no uh and
44:26uh that's
44:27perfectly understandable is that shocking uh you're going to tell me that's very shocking
44:33their son taiko bra is uh is one of the most famous astronomers in the history of modern science
44:43judy's learned that her nine times great grandfather was called steen billet and his
44:49sister judy's ten times great aunt beada billet had a son called tucco bra a famous astronomer
44:58the steam be your nine times great grandfather supported tucco bra and was helping him
45:08uh making experiments and uh and huge encouragement yes he gave him encouragement and that's good
45:15yes so tucco bra was at the his uncle's castle at the castle he observed the sky and saw a
45:24star which
45:24he had never noticed before he wrote his own book on the observations uh and they were this was the
45:33major breakthrough of uh do we recognize that star now uh yes and do we know what it's called it's
45:39uh
45:39it's uh the reason why it was so visible uh then was that it was a supernova so it was
45:47a uh a star
45:49which became visible before uh fading away so he had a a year to observe it uh and here is
45:57an illustration
45:58of uh cassiopeia uh cassiopeia and and then there's a new star here it changed the vision of uh the
46:10world
46:10and of of the stars so he had to uh make a new theory and this is uh the book
46:18which then propelled him
46:19uh to fame uh to fame tuco's observations were at the forefront of a revolution in scientific thinking
46:27about the universe the stars were no longer seen as fixed heavenly bodies but part of a moving and
46:34changing cosmos now the danish king gave him an island where he could build his uh observatory and uh
46:44observe the stars this is one volume of his manuscript observations of uh of the sky look at the drawings
46:56are the portraits of him yes and i would like to show you one contemporary portrait this is the danish
47:04king frederick the second portrayed here on a tapestry and in front of this castle
47:10uh we see taiko bra standing here in in conversation and be a the sister of steen and the mother
47:21of
47:21chuko uh she was a lady-in-waiting of the queen at the castle and the castle uh was built
47:29in the
47:30the danish town helsinger and do you know uh his helsinger helsinger uh yes why do i know that
47:39you might you might you might know it's uh better uh you might know the english name better uh elsinore
47:47is elsinore yeah that's um and this is the castle uh where the eight of the uh spent many years
47:57of
47:57her life as a lady-in-waiting in that castle in that castle
48:09judy has discovered that her ten times great aunt bia de billet was a lady-in-waiting at crombor castle
48:16in helsinger which shakespeare named elsinore the setting for his play hamlet
48:22this link you know the very first part i played the old wick was ophelia in hamlet and and suddenly
48:32to be told that an ancestor of mine was actually in elsinore
48:46that's very very very difficult to take in with everything else
48:54i'm going to bore the
49:05to find out more about her connection to elsinore and her ten times great aunt's role as lady-in-waiting
49:12to the queen judy is traveling to crombor castle i have had a genuine passion for shakespeare all my life
49:22i can't believe we're going to actually go to elsinore did shakespeare ever actually come here to
49:29denmark did he ever actually come to elsinore maybe i'll find out
49:38judy is meeting dr ann sophie resko
49:44so welcome to cornbow castle thank you this is one of the most magnificent renaissance castles of
49:52northern europe as you can see it's so beautiful and i wanted to take you inside to show you where
50:00where your ten times great aunt bia de billet was working although of course i say working but it's not
50:07quite the correct term is it because she was the hofmester inner to the danish queen sophie and a
50:13hofmester inner is not a servant she was in fact the queen's second in command she was the highest
50:20ranking female quarter at the court so she was in a very powerful position
50:28the first thing i want to show you is i found a portrait
50:33of your ten times great aunt beeta whom we've been talking about oh how lovely
50:42quite a direct gaze isn't it yes can you see a family resemblance please a minute
50:55so we know that she took up the position of
51:00mistress of the robes or chief lady-in-waiting in 1584 and that she was with queen sophie for eight
51:06years so that takes us up to 1592 which is the period when a certain playwright in london is beginning
51:17to
51:18make his mark on the world isn't it it certainly is we've always called him the man who pays the
51:25rent
51:26mike mikey my husband and i love it i've always called him that yes simply because you know i was
51:34at
51:34the vic for years and he was at stratford and then we were both together
51:43so you know of course that beda had a very famous son called tucco your ancestor
51:49tucobra yes
51:51well here is a picture of tucco and if you look very closely at the heraldic shields around tucco do
52:04you read what it says here gilden stern
52:10and if we go up a little bit further one two three to this heraldic shield here rosencrantz
52:36the names of tucco's ancestors rosencrantz and gildenstern
52:44are also the names of devious characters in shakespeare's hamlet
52:49to rely on hamlet about i would trust them as i would adder's tongues i mean exactly hamlet doesn't
52:56speak very well he doesn't speak and they don't come to a very good end and they don't come to
53:00a
53:00good ending no what then is the connection then did shakespeare just read about them and think they
53:06were fascinating names or so this is an image from some from one of his books that he published yes
53:12so
53:12because these scientific discoveries became so famous um it's it it's quite possible that
53:19his books and his writings would have found their ways to people in london who might have known shakespeare
53:26the other thing that i wanted to show you do you see how um tucco has inserted his own motto
53:34here
53:35on this side and on this side and his motto reads non habere said essa in latin which translates to
53:46something like not what seems but what is is but what but what is does that remind you of anything
53:55it
53:56seems madam it is it's it's a practically a line from hamlet so it is
54:08this is a very precious document because king frederick and queen sophie were such lovers of the arts and
54:17because they held these lavish parties and banquets they had entertainers here and the entertainers came
54:24from all over europe so we have you're not telling me there was a tour an english tour of
54:34there was in fact an english tour in fact there were several this lists salaries that were paid to some
54:44english players who came here in 1586 to perform for the king and the um name that we can read
54:54here if we look
54:55very closely it says wilhelm kemp does that name will kemp is that will kemp it's welcome
55:09will kemp will kemp was a famous actor who worked with shakespeare at the globe theater in london
55:15shakespeare even wrote roles specifically for kemp to show off the actor's comic talents
55:22this document tells us that will kemp was here in the summer months of 1586 and what's more
55:31better beale would have seen him wouldn't she she would have yes she would have seen it so will kemp
55:38who
55:38then went back to london and worked with william shakespeare was here well maybe the stories that will
55:49kemp brought back um could have been some kind of inspiration to to shakespeare to to write about
55:59el senor and and and write the story of hamlet i think it could have been
56:06how was it he said to him when he got back how was it how was it
56:13cold very very cold
56:17terribly proud of the connection wonderful
56:35well
56:40i started this journey off
56:43not knowing anything about my mother's side of the family
56:48it's just been an extraordinary adventure it's like starting a play and not knowing your part in it
56:55saja
56:56GOTC and suddenly you find at the end you're you're you're you're fetched up in elsinore
57:03and so you know i feel as if i feel as if there's a hand reaching across a lot of
57:09ages to maybe touch
57:12william shakespeare
57:14who knows
57:19I'm now coming back to London
57:22with very very long legs
57:24and very very long blonde hair
57:25and I'm Danish from top to toe
57:29but that is not to negate
57:31that I have a great deal of Irish in me as well
57:35can't just
57:36but I'm claiming a lot of the Danish
58:06and I'm claiming a lot of the Danish