Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 8.djvu/405

 10 s. VIIL OCT. 26, loo:.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

335

dant of the Greek Emperors found his final resting-place.

For the information of your correspondent I have extracted the following notes from " Monumental Inscriptions of the British West Indies/ by Capt. J. H. Lawrence- Archer (Chatto & Windus, 1875), it being an expensive work, and one now, perhaps, difficult to obtain, and practically limited to monuments in Jamaica and Barbados.

At p. 346, in his introductory notes to the monuments of Barbados, the author states :

" St. John's is noted as being the'.burial-place of

the supposed last of the Palseologi As nothing

can be uninteresting which is connected with the misfortunes and_ wanderings of so illustrious a race as the Palaeologi, some digression may be permitted on the present occasion, although the scope of this work renders it unnecessary, and indeed out of place, to discuss the opinions of the many able writers who have treated the subject in its many bearings, and especially with reference to the lineage and descendants of Theodore Palseologus, whose remarkable monumental inscription at Landulph professes to give both."

Various particulars of his ancestry and children follow, most of which have been stated by L. L. K. and LEO C. at the second reference.

Capt. Lawrence-Archer continues :

" The earlier writers on Barbados seem to have an indistinct idea of the pretensions of Ferdinand Palseologus, but recent inquiries have thrown con- siderable light on the question of his origin.

" Ferdinand Palaeologus appears to have settled in Barbados between 1628 and 1645, and to have become proprietor of a plantation in the parish of St. John, wnere between 1649-1669 he was surveyor of highways, &c. 1678 and 1680 have both been designated as the year in which he died, a dis- crepancy that certainly ought not to exist.

" On the whole, there seems to be no doubt that these accounts sustain the belief of the identi- fication of Ferdinand as the son of Theodore of Pesaro and Landulph.

"Amongst the ruins of the parish church of St. John, which was destroyed in the hurricane of 1831, was discovered in the vault under the organ- loft the leaden coffin of Ferdinand Palaeologus in the position adopted by the Greek Church, which is the reverse of others. It was opened on 3rd May, 1844, and in it was found a skeleton of remarkable size imbedded in quick lime, thus showing that although Ferdinard may have accommodated him- self to the circumstances of his position, he had died in the faith of his own Church.

"It is said that during the last conflict for Grecian independence and deliverance from the Turkish yoke an application was made by the Pro- visional Greek Government to the authorities of Barbados respecting any male descendants of Ferdi- nand Palseologus who might still exist, but it was ascertained that there was none. This assertion, it may be added, has been denied (see Notes and Queries)."

Will the Editor kindly supply the reference ?

In a note on p. 347, Capt. Lawrence- Archer sets out in full the will of Ferdinand Paloeo- logus, dated 26 Sept., 1670, wherein his signature is, apparently, given by a " mark." In this will the testator leaves to his wife Rebecca a moiety of his plantation and attendant belongings for her life, and the other moiety to his son Theodorus Palceo- logus, who also has the reversion of his mother's share. He bequeaths 20s. each to his sisters Mary Paloeologus and Dorothy Arundel, and, after leaving one or two other specific legacies, appoints his wife sole executrix. By a codicil dated 2 Oct., 1670, the testator declared that the whole estate was to go to his wife on the death of his son Theodore without lawful issue during her lifetime. Capt. Lawrence- Archer states that this Theodore was a mariner on board the ship Charles II., and died at sea in 1693 (will Doct. Com.), when the property in Barbados went to his mother, although he appears to have had a wife named Martha, for her children are referred to in his will. J. S. UDAL, F.S.A.

Antigua, W.I.

[The reference required is 3 S. xii. 30 (13 July, 1867), and the denial is contained in the last para- graph of a communication from PRINCE RHODO- CANAKIS on the subject of surviving descendants of the Palaeologi in Cornwall.]

"THE COMMON HANGMAN " (10 S. yiii. 244). MB. HORACE BLEACKLEY'S informing notes in regard to the early Georgian hang- men, Price and his successor and, as it would appear, his predecessor likewise Marvel, can be supplemented in a very striking way from the newspapers of the time.

Mist's Weekly Journal of 26 April, 1718, contained the following graphic paragraph :

" On Sunday the Lord Mayor was taken so ill at Dinner, that he was carried away by his Servants, but is so well recovered that he sate in Court this Week at the Sessions-house in the Old Baily, where the former hangman was tried for the Murder of an old Woman that sold Nuts and Apples in Bun- hill-fields, who making a Resistance when he robb'd her, he beat one of her Eyes out of her Head, broke one of her Arms, of which she died ; he was found guilty, and is such a harden'd Villain that he appeared not at all concerned, and went afterwards upon the Leads, and took the present Hangman by the Hand, telling him he hang d a great many, and now he must hang him. The old Woman that he robb'd had but five Shillings upon her."

In Applebee's Original Weekly Journal of 10-17 May, 1718, it was said :

" Next Wednesday, John Price, the late Exe- cutioner, is to be hang'd on a Gibbet in Bunhill- Fields, the Place where he committed the Murder, but is not afterwards to be hang'd in Chains. The