Oct. 28. 1854.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



351 



THE EXTINCTION OF THE PAL^OLOGI. 



(Vol. v., pp. 173. 280. 357. ; Vol. viii., pp. 408. 526.) 



Passing events have revived the interest which 

 attaches to the fate of the imperial family of By- 

 zantium ; and numerous references have recently 

 appeared in your pages as to the descendants of 

 the " last Constantine." But the contributors to 

 " N. & Q." have added little or nothing to the facts 

 communicated years ago in the eighteenth volume 

 of the ArchcBologia, by the Rev. Fr. Vyvyan Jago, 

 the rector of Landulph, in Cornwall, relative to 

 Theodore Palaeologus, who was interred there in 

 A.D. 1636. 



The circumstances under which this gentleman 

 arrived in England are left in uncertainty. Little 

 is known of his parentage, and nothing is men- 

 tioned of his descendants beyond the first genera- 

 tion. Mr. Jago conjectures him to have been — 



" The immediate descendant of the Constantine famih', 

 and, in all probability, the lineal heir to the empire of 

 Greece." 



The last Constantine died unmarried, leaving 

 two brothers, Demetrius and Thomas, the despots 

 of the Morea. Demetrius died a monk, having 

 had one daugliter, who entered the harem of 

 Mahomet II. ; and whether she left any offspring, 

 we have no means of knowing. 



Thomas fled to Italy, after the seizure of the 

 Morea by the Turks. And a passage in Gibbon 

 would imply, that his family consisted of but two 

 sons, Andrew and Manuel : the first of whom he 

 says was "degraded by his life and marriage;" 

 and the other died a monk at Constantinople, 

 where " his surviving son was lost in the habit 

 and religion of a Turkish slave." But, from the 

 inscription on the tomb at Landulph, it appears 

 that Thomas had a third son John, from whom 

 was descended Theodore Palaeologus, who lived 

 in England in the seventeenth century, whither 

 he appears to have come from — 



" Pesaro, in Italye, being the sonne of Camilio, y« sonne 

 of Prosper, the sonne of Theodoro, the sonne of John, y" 

 Sonne of Thomas, second brother of Constantine Palaeo- 

 logus, the 8th of that name, and last of y' lyne y' rayned 

 in Constantinople until subdued by y« Turks : who mar- 

 ried w« Mary, y* daughter of William Balls, of Hadlye in 

 Suffolk, Gent., and had issue 5 children : Theodoro, 

 John, Ferdinando, Maria, and Dorothv ; and departed this 

 life at Clyfton y« 21st of Januarj% 1636." — ArchcBoL, 

 vol. xviii. p. 34. 



Mr. Jago did not succeed in collecting much 

 information in Cornwall as to the subsequent his- 

 tory of these five children : of two of the sons, 

 John and Ferdinando, he discovered nothing. 

 The other Theodore he says was a sailor, and 

 served on board the "Charles 11.:" he died at 

 sea, 1693; and his will in Doctors' Commons 

 makes no mention of children, but leaves his pro- 

 perty to his widow. By the register of Landulph, 



it appears that Mary Palaeologus died unmarried 

 in 1674 : and that her sister Dorothy was married 

 in 1656 to William Arundel ; the entry being, 

 " Dorothea Palaeologus ex stirpe Imperatorum." 

 Mr. Jago adds that — 



" Soon after their marriage, they settled at the adjoining 

 parish of St. Dominick, the registers of which are de- 

 stroyed ; so that it is impossible now to determine if they 

 had' any issue, though it seems highly probable. They 

 were buried at Landulph : Dorothy in 1681, and her hus- 

 band in 1684; and as, some years after, a Mary Arundel 

 was married to Francis Lee, the imperial blood perhaps 

 still flows in the bargemen of Cargeen ! " 



Cargeen is a parish on the Tamar, near Ply- 

 mouth ; and members of the family of the Lees 

 were boatmen on the Hamoaze in 1824, 



The only advance made on the information thus 

 given, by any of the contributors of "N. & Q.," is 

 a note in Vol. v., p. 174., to the effect that Fer- 

 dinand, the third son of Theodore, of whom Mr. 

 Jago could discover no traces, "appears to have 

 died in the island of Barbadoes in 1678, and was 

 buried in the church of St. John." 



This statement is substantially correct. Fer- 

 dinando Palzeologus appears to have settled in 

 Barbadoes between the years 1628 and 1645 ; he 

 became proprietor of a small plantation in the 

 parish of St. John's in the north of the island, 

 where he appears, by the vestry books, to have 

 been vestryman, churchwarden, and sui-veyor of 

 highways between 1649 and 1669. He died in 

 1680, and the register of his interment describes 

 him as Lieutenant Ferdinand Palaeologus. In the 

 Gentleman s Magazine for January, 1843, will be 

 found a communication from Mr. Bradfield, who 

 was Colonial Secretary of that island in 1841, in 

 which he has given these facts, and a copy of the 

 will of Pateologu?, dated March 20, 1678; by 

 which he bequeaths one half of his plantation to 

 his wife Rebecka Palteologus for her life, with 

 remainder to his son " Theodorious Palaeologus.'' 

 The will continues : 



" Item. 1 give and bequeath unto my sister Mary Palceo- 

 logus, twenty shils. ster». 

 Item. I give and bequeath unto my sister Dorothy 



Arondoll, twenty shils. sterl^. 

 Item. I give and bequeath unto Ralph Hassell, my God 



sonn, sonn of Ralph Hassell, my black stone colt. 

 Item. I give and bequeath to Edward Wallrond, sonn of 

 Henry Wallrond, Jun"", one grey mare colt. 



" (Signed) Fardinaijd Paleologus." 



The article goes on to say that — 



" In consequence of the son's death, the whole of the pro- 

 perty devolved upon the wife of the deceased ; and it i» 

 supposed there are still in existence descendants of this 

 illustrious family in the female line." 



He adds : 



" During the late war of independence in Greece, a 

 letter was received in Barbadoes by the authorities from 

 the Greek government, informing them that they had 

 traced the family to Cornwall, and thence to Barbadoes ; 



