Cornish Characters and Strange Events

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, and by her had three sons, Theodore, John, and Ferdinando, and two daughters.

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."

notes

1

The letter is given in Household Words, 1852, p. 234.

2

Froude, Hist. of England, X, p. 410.

3

Ibid., XI, 471-2.

4

We have only Peters' own word for this sum. It was probably much less.

5

Vita, J. Barwick, London, 1721.

6

Stubbe, Justification of the War, 1673, pt. ii. p. 83.

7

Whitfeld, Plymouth and Devonport in War and Peace, Plymouth, 1900.

8

Morning Leader, 29th October, 1902.

9

There is an engraving of it in the Annual Report of the Society of Arts for 1821. The life-preserving rocket was exhibited on the Serpentine before the Duke of Clarence, afterwards King William IV, on May 28th, 1819. People looked on as at some firework display, and nothing came of it.

10

Trengrouse's apparatus fitted into a case 4 ft. 3 in. long by 1 ft. 6 in. wide.

11

The cup is still in the possession of the Corporation of Penryn. It is of silver, will hold about three quarts, and is inscribed: "From Mayor to Mayor of the town of Penryn, where they received me in great misery. Jane Killygrew, 1613."

12

The hole is still shown in the Tree Inn, Stratton.

13

Smiles (S.), Lives of the Engineers, Vol. III, p. 100. London, 1862.

14

Deanery of Trigg Minor, I, p. 301.

15

At S. Breward the bells were cast in a small garden outside the churchyard fence, since called "Bell garden."

16

Afterwards Sir George Cocks, k. c.b., who lost an arm at Waterloo.

17

Baptized S. Mary's, Truro, Jan. 27th, 1720-1.

18

The earl died on November 5th, 1701.

19

History of the Reign of Queen Anne, Vol. XII, pp. 305-6 (1713).

20

Familiar Letters, ed. 1678, p. 233.

21

Familiar Letters, p. 239. It is wrongly dated, June, 1634, in place of 1636. The dates to the letters were in many cases arbitrarily assigned by the publisher.

22