Essays on the Latin Orient — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Essays on the Latin Orient
John Stuart Mill · en
The fate of the Palaiologoi deserves a brief notice. Demetrios lived ten
years at Ænos in Thrace in the enjoyment of the pension which Mohammed
allowed him, and died a monk at Adrianople in 1470. His daughter, whom
the Sultan never married after all, had predeceased him. Thomas proceeded
to Rome with the head of St Andrew from Patras as a present for the Pope,
who received the precious relic with much ceremony at the spot near the
Ponte Molle, where the little chapel of St Andrew now commemorates the
event, and assigned to its bearer a pension of 300 ducats a month, to
which the cardinals added 200 more, and Venice a smaller sum. He died
at Rome in 1465, leaving two sons and two daughters. One of the latter
died in a convent on the island of Santa Maura; the other married, first
a Caracciolo of Naples and then the Grand Duke Ivan III of Russia, by
whom she had a daughter, afterwards the wife of Alexander Jagellon of
Poland. With this daughter the female line became extinct. Of Thomas’
two sons, the elder, Andrew, married a woman off the streets of Rome,
ceded all his rights, first to Charles VIII of France, and then to
Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, and died in 1502 without issue. The
younger son, Manuel, escaped from papal tutelage to the court of Mohammed
II, who gave him an establishment and allowed him a daily sum for its
maintenance. He died a Christian; but of his two sons (the elder of whom
died young), the younger became a Mussulman, took the name of Mohammed,
and is last heard of in the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent. Though
the family would thus appear to have long been extinct, a Cornish
antiquary announced in 1815 that the church of Landulph contained a
monument to one of Thomas’ descendants. A few years ago a lady residing
in London considered herself to be the heiress of the Palaiologoi and
aspired to play a part in the Eastern question[59]. But neither of
these claims is genealogically sound; for there is no historical proof
of the existence of the supposed third son of Thomas, mentioned in the
Landulph inscription. But, after all, the world has not lost much by the
extinction of this race, nor would the future of Constantinople or Greece
be affected by its revival.
APPENDIX
THE NAME OF NAVARINO