  In the church of Landulph is a small brass attached to the wall that bears the following inscription: "Here lyeth the body of Theodore Paleologus, of Pesaro in Italye, descended from ye Imperyal lyne of ye last Christian emperors of Greece, being the sonne of Camillio, ye sonne of Prosper, the sonne of Theodoro, the sonne of John, ye sonne of Thomas, second brother of Constantius Paleologus, the 8th of that name, and last of ye lyne yt rayned in Constantinople until subdued by the Turks, who married wt Mary, ye daughter of William Balls, of Hadlye in Souffolke, Gent., and had issue 5 children, Theodore, John, Ferdinando, Maria, and Dorothy; and departed this life at Clyfton, ye 21st of Jany 1636." Above the inscription are the imperial arms of the empire of Byzantium—an eagle displayed with two heads, the two legs resting upon two gates; the imperial crown over the whole, and between the gates a crescent, for difference as second son. There were eight Emperors of the East of the family of the Paleologi. The family descended from a General Andronicus Paleologus, who died in 1246. The Emperor Manuel, who deceased in 1425, had five sons: John II, Emperor, who died in 1449; Theodore, despot in Lacedemon; Andronicus, despot in Thessalonica; Constantine, despot of the Morea. John II was associated with his father, and succeeded him. Andronicus, the second son, died of leprosy in 1429. Theodore, Shortly after this, on the fatal May 29th, 1453, Constantinople was taken by the Turks, and the gallant Constantine was killed. Immediately after the capture Mohammed proceeded to make war on Demetrius and Thomas, whereupon the Albanians, subjects of Thomas, revolted. Fresh disputes broke out between the brothers, each endeavouring to supplant the other, and in 1459 Mohammed entered the Morea and reduced Corinth. At the first news of his approach Thomas fled to Italy with his wife and children, and Demetrius submitted to the Sultan, who carried him away to Constantinople, where he died in abject slavery in 1470. Thomas was received in Italy by Pope Pius II in 1461, who allowed him a pension of six thousand ducats. MEMORIAL BRASS IN THE CHURCH OF LANDULPH Historians record only two sons, Andrew and Manuel, but according to the inscription in Landulph church there was a third, John, whom Italian writers have not mentioned. Andrew, the eldest, married a woman from the streets of Rome, and dying childless, in 1502, bequeathed his empty honours to Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, having previously sold them to Charles VIII of France. Manuel Paleologus, the second son, revisited his native country. He was granted a train of Christians and Moslems to attend him to his grave. Gibbon says: "If there be some animals of so generous a nature that they refuse to propagate in a domestic state, the last of the imperial race must be ascribed to an inferior kind; he accepted from the Sultan's liberality two beautiful females; and his surviving son was lost in the habit and religion of a Turkish slave." Thomas, who had been despot of Morea, died in 1465. By his wife, Catherine Zaccaria, he had one daughter, in addition to the sons mentioned, and this was Helen, who married Lazarus II, King of Servia, and died in 1474. Why Theodore Paleologus came to England we do not know, but possibly in the train of Sir Henry Killigrew and Sir Nicholas Lower. Sir Nicholas had married Sir Henry's daughter, and as they were both advanced in life and childless they may have been disposed to befriend the Paleologi, and Lady Killigrew was one of the learned daughters of Sir Anthony Coke, celebrated for her knowledge of Greek, and she may have inspired her daughter, Lady Lower, with the same fondness for the classic languages. This is but conjecture; but this at least is certain, that the Paleologi were given Clifton, in Landulph, as their residence, and this was a mansion that belonged to the Lowers. Theodore Paleologus married Mary Balls in 1615, Theodore was a lieutenant in the Parliamentary army in 1642, under Lord St. John, and was buried in Westminster Abbey in 1644. There are no traces to be found of John and Ferdinando. Mary, one of the daughters of Theodore and Mary Balls, died unmarried, and was buried at Landulph in 1674. Her sister Dorothy married, in 1656, William Arundell, and died in 1681, he in 1684. There was a Theodore Paleologus who died at sea on board the Charles II under Captain Gibson, in 1693. In his will Theodore mentions only his wife Martha, and we do not know who was his father. We do not know who was the William Arundell whom Dorothy Paleologus married. Unhappily the registers of S. Dominic, where she and her husband lived, have been lost, and we cannot say whether the Mary Arundell who married a Francis Lee soon after the death of her presumed parents was a daughter. But if so, as Dr. Jago suggests in a paper in the ArchÆologia, "The imperial blood perhaps still flows in the bargemen of Cargreen." |
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