Prince or Pauper Ancestry

Some folks research their ancestry and discover royalty. I probably haven't gone back far enough but so far I've only found paupers. My 3rd Great Grandfather, John Francis, was a tenant farmer under the Earl of Essex and at age 23 was assessed the first income tax of 1799 to help the British Military defeat Napoleon. By 1751, at age 75, he and his wife Sarah were inmates at the Poor Law Union Workhouse in Bourne, Lincolnshire, England. He lived there until he died at age 91.

From Wikipedia:

Life in a workhouse was intended to be harsh, to deter the able-bodied poor and to ensure that only the truly destitute would apply. But in areas such as the provision of free medical care and education for children, neither of which was available to the poor in England living outside workhouses until the early 20th century, workhouse inmates were advantaged over the general population, a dilemma that the Poor Law authorities never managed to reconcile.  

Some Poor Law authorities hoped to run workhouses at a profit by utilising the free labour of their inmates, who generally lacked the skills or motivation to compete in the open market. Most were employed on tasks such as breaking stones, crushing bones to produce fertiliser, or picking oakum using a large metal nail known as a spike, perhaps the origin of the workhouse's nickname.

I hope he would be pleased to see how much his descendants have accomplished.