Paleologus (Pesaro and Cornwall)

Thomas Palaiologos (left, 1409–1465) and his son Andreas Palaiologos (right, 1453–1502) were some of the last certain descendants of the final few Byzantine emperors. The Paleologus in Pesaro and Cornwall claimed descent from an otherwise unattested son of Thomas (named John), whose existence is plausible, but uncertain.

As the Byzantine Empire collapsed over the course of the 14th and 15th centuries due to internal strife and the aggressive expansion of the Ottoman Empire, many Byzantine nobles fled their dying empire, travelling to Western Europe. In particular, Italy received many such exiles and in the aftermath of the Fall of Constantinople, the Byzantine capital, in 1453, the surviving members of the empire's final ruling dynasty, the Palaiologoi, were dispossessed. In November 1460, the highest-profile Byzantine exile of them all, Thomas Palaiologos, younger brother of the final emperor Constantine XI, arrived in Rome, hoping to convince Pope Pius II to call for a crusade so that the empire could be restored.[2] Despite the hopes of Thomas, no crusade would ever be called again and Constantinople remained in Turkish hands. Thomas died in Rome and was survived by at least four children; Helena, Zoe, Andreas and Manuel.[3] His daughters had many descendants,[4] but none carried the Palaiologos name, and while the elder son Andreas is most often presumed to have been childless,[5] Manuel had two children; John and another Andreas, who converted to Islam.[6] John died young but Andreas lived longer, though is not thought to have had any children of his own.[7] As such, the last certain male-line descendants of the last few Byzantine emperors went extinct during the 16th century.[5]

The Paleologus family, attested as living in Pesaro in Italy from the early 16th century onwards, claimed descent from a purported third son of Thomas Palaiologos, identified as John Palaiologos. As of yet, there is no independent evidence that Thomas had a son by the name John (or indeed that this John actually existed).[8] Crucially, the most widely accepted source on Thomas, contemporary Byzantine historian George Sphrantzes, mentions all the other four children but fails to mention John. Although Sphrantzes's work has been questioned in later years, it appears that much of it was rewritten by an editor at a later date and the timeline provided within is somewhat questionable, having Thomas's wife Catherine give birth to one of their children at the age of 65.[9]

The earliest unrelated source referencing a son of Thomas called John is the writings of the Greek scholar Leo Allatius. Allatius wrote in 1648, too late for his works to act as independent evidence for the descent of the Paleologus family, but he was the keeper of the Vatican Library and would have had access to its vast collection of books and records and might have deduced his findings from there.[10] As such, it is possible that Allatius had access to earlier documents, now lost, which would have proven the legitimacy of the Paleologus line.[11] Allatius gives the sons of Thomas as "Andrea, Manuele and Ioanne".[12] It would be difficult to explain why Allatius, a respected and famous scholar, would simply make up a member of an ancient dynasty.[11]

It is possible that "John" is a corruption of the name "Leone" (the names being similar in their Latin form where John is rendered as Ioannes and Leone is rendered as Leonis) and there are some references to a Leone Palaiologos in Pesaro, notably a 1535 document which speaks of the “long and faithful service of Leone Palaiologos to the papal captain Giovanni della Rovere”. Assuming that a “long and faithful” service means at least a few decades, Leone would have entered Giovanni's service in a time when Thomas's arrival to Italy would have been in recent memory and it would have been very difficult to fake kinship with him.[12] John could thus very well have been a real historical figure and a genuine son of Thomas Palaiologos, possibly illegitimate. It is also possible that John was a son of either one of Thomas's verified sons, Andreas or Manuel (who had a son by that name).[13] If the existence of John is accepted, in some form, there is little reason to doubt the lineage of the Paleologus in Pesaro. By the time they arrived in England, none of their contemporaries doubted their alleged imperial descent.[14]

With the exception of John, the rest of the earlier members of the family can be verified through records at Pesaro, which for instance prove the existence of John's purported son Theodore (1504–1540) and grandson Prosper (Prospero in Italian and Prosperos in Greek).[13] Prosper is documented as one of the town's prominent nobles in 1537 and is recorded as having been alive as late as 1580. Both Theodore and Prosper served the Rovere family, rulers of Pesaro, in a military capacity. Prosper's younger brother, Guidobaldo Paleologus, served as Capitan dei Porto in Pesaro.[15] Prosper had three sons; Camilio (of which almost nothing is known), Leonidas and Scipione. In 1578, Leonidas and Scipione were arrested for attempted murder, together with their nephew and Camilio's son, Theodore (Teodoro or Theodoro in Italian).[16] The fate of Scipione is uncertain, but Leonidas was executed and Theodore, on account of his young age, was exiled from Pesaro rather than killed.[17]

Monument commemorating the 1670 (the monument erroneously gives the year as 1678) death of Ferdinand Paleologus in Barbados

After being exiled, Theodore is next attested upon his arrival to England in 1599, there to kill a man named Allesandro Antelminelli, wanted by the authorities of the Republic of Lucca.[18] At this point, Theodore had established himself as an assassin, and seems to have had an impressive reputation.[19] Ultimately, Theodore failed to kill Antelminelli, and perhaps because he wanted a safer and more stable profession (he was around 40 years old), he stayed in England for the rest of his life, first entering into the service of Henry Clinton, the Earl of Lincoln.[20] Clinton was almost sixty years old and one of the most brutal, feared and hated feudal lords in Britain. Clinton is frequently described as waging war on his neighbors and is often credited with rioting, abduction, arson, sabotage, extortion and perjury. At one point, Clinton even expanded his castle walls into the nearby churchyard.[21]

While in Clinton's service, Theodore met his wife, Mary Balls, with whom he had six, possibly seven, children. When Clinton died in 1616, the fate of the family is unknown, but they were no longer present at the Earl's seat in Tattershall.[22] Three years later, Theodore, Mary and some of the children lived in Plymouth, where Theodore in 1682 attempted to enter into the service of George Villiers, the Duke of Buckingham, who was almost as hated in England as the Earl of Lincoln had been.[23] Villiers was assassinated soon thereafter, however, and Theodore was instead invited to stay with Sir Nicholas Lower, a rich Cornish squire, at his home in Landulph, Cornwall,[24] called Clifton Hall. Clifton Hall was divided as to give place to two families, and Theodore was joined by his wife and some of his children.[25]

When Theodore died in 1636, the family seemed to be well-off. He was survived by five of his children; the two daughters Dorothy and Mary and the three sons Theodore Junior, John Theodore and Ferdinand. Of the two daughters, only Dorothy married and she probably never had children.[26] The fates of the three brothers were caught up in the English Civil War of 1642–1651. Theodore Junior supported the Roundheads, who meant to end absolute monarchy in Britain, and did not survive the war, probably dying of camp fever during the early stages of the long Siege of Oxford.[27] He was buried in Westminster Abbey, where his grave still remains.[28] The other two brothers were Cavaliers, or royalists, and fled the country during the war.[29]

Both Ferdinand and John Theodore were in Barbados, among the first colonists on the island, in 1644. John Theodore disappears from history soon thereafter, but Ferdinand stayed on the island for the rest of his life, becoming known there as the "Greek prince from Cornwall".[28] He quickly became one of the elite on the island, cultivating cotton or sugar and possibly pineapples and was highly influential in the affairs of the local St. John's Parish Church.[30] He constructed a great mansion called Clifton Hall, named after the family's home in Cornwall, which stands on the island to this day, recognized as one of the oldest and grandest great houses in Barbados.[31]

Ferdinand had only one known child, his son Theodore (frequently spelled Theodorious), who soon left Barbados, returning to England and becoming a privateer.[30][32] He lived in Stepney, London and died in Spain at A Coruña in 1693.[33] The only surviving child of Theodore, and the last known member of the family overall, was Theodore's posthumous daughter Godscall Paleologue, born on 12 January 1694. Little is known of Godscall, who is last attested as a little orphan girl in Wapping or Stepney in London in 1694.[34]

• Brandow, James C. (1983). Genealogies of Barbados families: from Caribbeana and the Journal of the Barbados Museum and Historical Society. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company. ISBN 0806310049.
• Carr, John C. (2015). Fighting Emperors of Byzantium. Barnsley: Pen & Sword. ISBN 978-1783831166.
• Hall, John (2015). An Elizabethan Assassin: Theodore Paleologus: Seducer, Spy and Killer. Stroud: The History Press. ISBN 978-0750962612.
• Harris, Jonathan (1995). "A Worthless Prince? Andreas Palaeologus in Rome, 1465-1502". Orientalia Christiana Periodica. 61: 537–554.
• Nicol, Donald M. (1974). "Byzantium and England". Balkan Studies. 15 (2): 179–203.
• Nicol, Donald M. (1992). The Immortal Emperor: The Life and Legend of Constantine Palaiologos, Last Emperor of the Romans. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0511583698.
• Runciman, Steven (2009) [1980]. Lost Capital of Byzantium: The History of Mistra and the Peloponnese. New York: Tauris Parke Paperbacks. ISBN 978-1845118952.
• Schomburg, Robert (2012) [1848]. The History of Barbados. Abingdon: Routledge. ISBN 978-0714619484.

• "Tour Property". Clifton-Hall. Retrieved 2019-10-17.