Theodore Paleologus

Clinton officially hired Theodore as his Master of the Horse, but he clearly had intended uses for Theodore beyond the Italian's skills with horses,^[16] and presumably knew of Theodore's previous work.^[17] It is thus likely that Clinton's real intended use for Theodore was as a soldier and assassin.^[1] Theodore himself probably entered Clinton's service due to his advancing age, hoping to find a safer and more stable profession than his many years as a hired killer.^[17] Clinton was often at London due to his frequent entanglements with the law, during which Theodore, as Master of the Horse, would likely have accompanied and escorted him.^[18]

While staying at Tattershall, Theodore met his future wife, Mary Balls. Mary had been born in Hadleigh, Suffolk c. 1575 (she is known to have been 24 years old in 1599) and had no known friends or family outside that town, making her sudden appearance at Tattershall in 1599 somewhat puzzling. The only certain previous link between her family and Tattershall is her father, William Balls, being recorded as a witness to a legal document in Tattershall in 1585. William might thus have been known at the Tattershall household in some capacity.^[19]

Mary conceived Theodore's first child c. September 1599, and she married him in

On 14 May 1600, Francis Norreys, the son of Clinton's wife Elizabeth Morrison by a previous marriage, wrote to the Secretary of State, Robert Cecil, in the hope that he would intervene in Clinton's affairs, since Clinton had recently ordered that Elizabeth be confined to Tatershall Castle.^[25] The letter references an "Italian murderer", likely Theodore. With Clinton pressured to release her as more and more letters describing her situation came in to Cecil, Elizabeth was released later that year.^[22] A passage of Norreys's message reads:^[25]

He keeps her docked up like a prisoner, without suffering her either to write or hear from any of her friends, having appointed to guard her an Italian, a man that hath done divers murders in Italy and in the Low Countries, from which he fled to England, from whom, I protest, she has just cause hourly to fear the cutting of her throat.^[25]

During his time at Tattershall, Theodore also met and befriended

Clinton died on 29 September 1616.^[31] After Clinton's death, there are no further records of Theodore at Tattershall, or anywhere else for several years. It is possible that he was quickly evicted by Clinton's son and successor, Thomas Clinton. It is possible that the family lived with Mary's relatives, the Balls family, during this time or that the children were placed in the service of some higher class household, a common practice in regards to adolescents.^[32] Another possibility is that Theodore spent much of the time between 1609 and 1621 fighting in the Netherlands during the Eighty Years' War.^[1][23]

Theodore is attested as living in

Theodore's coat of arms, as presented on the brass plaque marking his grave in Landulph (left) and a colour reconstruction of the arms (right). The crescent at the bottom of the arms on the tombstone (which heraldically marks a second son)^[38] might have mistakenly been added after Theodore's death.^[39]

In Theodore's letter to Villiers, he describes himself as "capable as one who has lived and shed his blood in war since his youth, at the pleasure of the late Prince of Orange, and other diverse English and French lords who have seen and known me and can bear witness" and calls himself a gentleman of a good family, worthy of the name he bears on account of his many accomplishments, but "unlucky in the misfortune experienced by my ancestors and myself".^[37] Theodore met Villiers in Plymouth and had seemingly been promised a rather generous employment, but on the 23 August that same year, Villiers was assassinated, leaving Theodore once more without an employer.^[40]

Shortly thereafter, Theodore was invited by Sir Nicholas Lower, a rich Cornish squire, to join him at his home in Landulph, Cornwall,^[40] probably on account of Theodore's supposedly exalted lineage.^[41] Lower's home, Clifton Hall, was divided to accommodate two families after Mary and the Paleologus daughters (and probably Ferdinand) moved in shortly after Theodore. At Clifton Hall, Theodore probably served the Lowers as a scholar of history and the Greek language, possibly helping to educate their children.^[42]

Theodore stayed with his family and the Lowers at Clifton Hall for the rest of his life.^[43] His wife, Mary Balls, was buried in Plymouth on 24 November 1631 and would have been 56 years old at the time of her death.^[34] As per the brass plaque which marks his grave in the Church of St Leonard & St Dilpe in Landulph, Theodore died on 21 January 1636.^[23][44] The brass plaque prominently displays a coat of arms reminiscent of that of the Palaiologos emperors of Byzantium, displaying the imperial double-headed eagle.^[45] According to the registers at Landulph, Theodore was buried on 20 October 1636, but this is probably an error since it seems unlikely that his body remained unburied for nine months.^[46]

The inscription of Theodore's tombstone reads:

Here lyeth the Body of Theodoro Paleologus of Pesaro in Italye descended from ye imperiall lyne of ye last Christian Emperors of Greece, being the sonne of Camilio, the sonne of Prosper, the sonne of Theodoro, the sonne of John, the sonne of Thomas, second brother to Constantine Paleologus, the 8th of that name and last of ye lyne yt raygned in Constantinople untill [sic] subdewed by the Turkes, who married with Mary ye Daughter of William Balls of Hadlye in Souffolke, Gent., and had issue 5 children, Theodore, John, Ferdinando, Maria, Dorothy, and departed this life at Clyfton ye 21st of January, 1636.^[29][38][47]

Family and children

With his wife Mary, Theodore had six, possibly seven, children:

• Theodore Paleologus (June – 1 September 1600) – Theodore and Mary's first child, died in infancy.^[22]
• Dorothy Paleologus (August 1606 – 1681) – Remained in Landulph after Theodore's death. Dorothy married William Arundel, son^[48] or grandson^[49] of Alexander Arundel, who Nicholas Lower had purchased Clifton Hall from.^[48] The entries recording the marriage in the marriage registers at Landulph and at William's home parish of St Mellion grandly describe Dorothy as of "imperial stock" (Dorothea Paleologus de stirpe imperatorum).^[23][48] Since the registers at St. Dominic were accidentally destroyed, it is impossible to determine whether Dorothy and William had children,^[49] but it is unlikely since Dorothy was fifty years old by the time of the marriage.^[23] Dorothy was buried in Landulph in 1681.^[50]
• Mary Paleologus (? – 1674) – Remained in Landulph after Theodore's death. Very little is known of Mary and she is the only one of the children whose birth year is unknown. She was probably never married and was buried in Landulph on 15 May 1674.^[48]
• camp fever during the early stages of the siege of Oxford, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.^[23][51]
• John Theodore Paleologus (June/July 1611 – ?) – The most enigmatic of the children, John Theodore is thought to have fought for the Royalists, or Cavaliers, in the English Civil War, but left England before its conclusion, being attested in Barbados with his younger brother Ferdinand in 1644. Nothing is known of John Theodore after 1644 and his ultimate fate is unknown.^[23][52]
• (?) Elizabeth Paleologus (July/August 1614 – ?) – Known only from a partial baptismal record from Tattershall, Elizabeth is likely to have been another of Theodore and Mary's daughters. As she is never referenced again after this baptismal record, it is probable that she died in infancy.[24]
• Ferdinand Paleologus (June 1619 – 2 October 1670) – The youngest son, Ferdinand travelled with John Theodore to Barbados,^[52] where he stayed for the rest of his life, becoming one of the elite on the island.^[53] He had a son, named Theodore, and was known on Barbados as the "Greek prince from Cornwall".^[23] Ferdinand constructed a great house on the island, named Clifton Hall after the house the family had stayed in while in Cornwall.^[54]

According to some genealogies, Theodore was married to another woman before Mary. This previous marriage would have taken place on 6 July 1593 on the island Chios, his bride being "Eudoxia

Constantine Rhodocanakis (a real historical figure), who Demetrius in turn claimed was his ancestor.^[55] Demetrius's forgeries were revealed when he published a biography on Constantine Rhodocanakis in 1872, wherein a portrait of Constantine was exposed to actually be a portrait of the author himself, dressed in a costume. His genealogy had been thoroughly debunked by the early 20th century.^[56]

Legacy

Theodore's grave was accidentally opened in 1795, revealing an oak coffin. Inside, his body was discovered in a good enough state to ascertain that Theodore was far above common height and had possessed an aquiline nose and a long white beard reaching low on his breast.^[23][57][58] His well-preserved body means that he had probably been embalmed before being buried.^[59]

To this day, Theodore's tomb brings many Greek visitors to Landulph.

Gregorios, head of the Greek Orthodox community in Britain.^[60] Barnabas's service for Theodore in the late 20th century was the first service of any kind conducted in Theodore's name since his burial in 1636.^[62] Gregorios's rite, conducted on 18 April 2007, involved draping Theodore's grave in silk ribbons with the colors of the Greek flag, and also displaying flags with the double-headed eagle. The rite was not technically a full traditional memorial rite, since Theodore was not Orthodox, but included chants and incense. The two rites were evocations of ancient Byzantium never before seen in Landulph.^[63] Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, a member of the modern Greek royal family, visited Theodore's tomb together with his wife, Queen Elizabeth II, in 1962.^[64]

Theodore has sometimes figured in popular culture. In the novel Sir John Constantine (1906) by Arthur Quiller-Couch, a band of Cornish squires called the "Constantines" are descended from Theodore. The novel is purported to be the 1756 memoirs of Sir John Constantine Paleologus, who with the rest of the Constantines go on several adventures. John Constantine is described as having white hair and an aquiline nose, clearly based on descriptions of the real Theodore Paleologus. In an earlier novella by Quiller-Couch, The Mystery of Joseph Laquedem (1900), a girl named Julie Constantine, also a fictional descendant of Theodore, features in the plot, alongside the actual grave of Theodore himself.^[65]

During World War I, playwright William Price Drury wrote and produced a play called The Emperor's Ring, in which the central plot revolves around a delegation from various states in the Balkans arriving to Landulph to bend the knee to a living descendant of Theodore, an aged miner called Simon Paleol in the play. After a telegram arrives informing the delegation of the death of Simon's only son in the trenches, their hopes are dashed and as Simon grows more and more tired of the delegation hoping for him to take his place on the throne of Greece, he grabs Theodore's old signet ring, a priceless heirloom, and throws it in the Tamar river. The Emperor's Ring was later reworked to a short story, published in 1919 with the title All the King's Men. All the King's Men also features a passage inspired by the opening of Theodore's grave, with the addition that his body crumbles to dust as the grave is opened.^[66]

The novel Days Without Number (2003) by Robert Goddard is a thriller with supernatural elements and incorporates fictional modern descendants of Theodore as a central plot element. In the novel, Theodore's Paleologus descendants battle with James Bond-style villains through murders, seductions and car and speedboat chases, all in order to find a lost stained glass window with an inscription supposedly containing the date of the Second Coming, preserved by the Knights Templar through the ages.^[67]

References

1. ^ ^{a b c d} Nicol 1992, p. 123.
2. ^ Hall 2015, p. 42.
3. ^ Jago 1817, p. 88.
4. ^ Hall 2015, p. 15.
5. ^ Haldon 2005, p. 176.
6. ^ Hall 2015, p. 38.
7. ^ ^{a b} Nicol 1974, p. 201.
8. ^ Hall 2015, pp. 15, 40–42.
9. ^ Hall 2015, p. 44.
10. ^ Hall 2015, p. 46.
11. ^ ^{a b c} Hall 2015, p. 47.
12. ^ Hall 2015, p. 50.
13. ^ Villani 2004, p. 285.
14. ^ Hall 2015, p. 55.
15. ^ Hall 2015, p. 57.
16. ^ Hall 2015, p. 58.
17. ^ ^{a b} Hall 2015, p. 63.
18. ^ Hall 2015, p. 97.
19. ^ Hall 2015, p. 65.
20. ^ Hall 2015, p. 68.
21. ^ Hall 2015, p. 69.
22. ^ ^{a b c} Hall 2015, p. 89.
23. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i} Nicol 1974, p. 202.
24. ^ ^{a b} Hall 2015, p. 129.
25. ^ ^{a b c} Hall 2015, p. 105.
26. ^ Hall 2015, p. 99.
27. ^ ^{a b} Barbour 1964, p. 15.
28. ^ ^{a b} Hall 2015, p. 100.
29. ^ ^{a b} Brandow 1983, p. 435.
30. ^ Hoobler & Hoobler 2006, p. 22.
31. ^ Hall 2015, p. 142.
32. ^ Hall 2015, p. 144.
33. ^ Hall 2015, p. 148.
34. ^ ^{a b} Hall 2015, p. 149.
35. ^ Hall 2015, p. 151.
36. ^ Hall 2015, p. 150.
37. ^ ^{a b} Hall 2015, p. 152.
38. ^ ^{a b} Baring-Gould 1909, p. 727.
39. ^ Hall 2015, p. 166.
40. ^ ^{a b} Hall 2015, p. 155.
41. ^ Hall 2015, p. 159.
42. ^ Hall 2015, p. 160.
43. ^ Jago 1817, p. 91.
44. ^ Hall 2015, p. 164.
45. ^ Hall 2015, p. 165.
46. ^ Jago 1817, p. 92.
47. ^ Jago 1817, p. 84.
48. ^ ^{a b c d} Hall 2015, p. 180.
49. ^ ^{a b} Jago 1817, p. 93.
50. ^ Hall 2015, p. 181.
51. ^ Hall 2015, p. 174.
52. ^ ^{a b} Hall 2015, p. 179.
53. ^ Hall 2015, p. 188.
54. ^ Brandow 1983, p. 436.
55. ^ Hall 2015, p. 52.
56. ^ Hall 2015, p. 53.
57. ^ Hall 2015, p. 167.
58. ^ Jago 1817, p. 92–93.
59. ^ Hall 2015, p. 168.
60. ^ ^{a b} Hall 2015, p. 169.
61. ^ Feuillet exarchat.
62. ^ Hall 2015, p. 170.
63. ^ Hall 2015, p. 18.
64. ^ Tregellas Pope 2006, p. 21.
65. ^ Hall 2015, p. 211.
66. ^ Hall 2015, p. 212.
67. ^ Hall 2015, p. 214.

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