An Elizabethan Assassin

by John Hall

  Plymouth had a terrible time for three days in succession last week. I fear the destruction was appalling and the loss of life very heavy. From our garden and house we look straight across at Plymouth, though a low hill lies between and prevents a direct view of it, so we get a wonderful sight of the raids, and if one could forget what it all means it would be (and in fact is) a most beautiful display – brilliant flares slowly coming down and breaking up into streams of silvery fireworks, red tracer bullets trying to put them out, searchlights all around, the vivid flashes of the AA guns and then the shell bursts in the air, the terrible red glow over the burning town … During the last ‘blitz’ shrapnel came pattering down round the rectory for the first time. It has amazed me that we have not had any before. I picked up a small piece just outside the front door.

  An attractive target for Hitler’s Kriegsmarine, Barbados too suffered severe hardship in the early years of the war and was virtually cut off from the outside world. Adams and Shilstone were always conscious that the correspondence sharing their discoveries might end up at the bottom of the sea. The battle for the Atlantic was not the first time the Axis had interfered with Adams’s research into the Paleologi, however, as he had encountered constant obstacles to extracting further information from Italian authorities ever since the rise of Mussolini. The worst time for Barbados was September 1942 when five ships heading for Bridgetown were attacked by the submarine U-514, the major casualty being the SS Cornwallis, a merchant vessel sunk in Carlisle Bay. In eighty-seven days at sea the U-boat sank 17,000 tons of Allied shipping, while a second foray sent a further 15,000 tons to the bottom. U-514 was eventually sunk in July 1943 by rockets fired from an RAF plane.

  The French writer Andre Savignon, a winner of the Prix Goncourt, was caught in England at the fall of France. He spent much of the war in Plymouth, marvelling at the passive courage of the people as the nightly death toll mounted and each raid wiped out landmark after landmark. ‘Gradually, Plymouth lost substance,’ he wrote in his wartime memoirs. ‘How, though, to make those who have not known it understand the almost physical impression that a city is slipping away under one’s very feet, departing?’ In a few hours over two nights the centre of Plymouth was swept clean away: the streets lost their identity so completely that signboards had to be put up because life-long inhabitants lost their way in the blackened and smoking ruins. ‘They pass by, these English, silent, with shakes of the head but never a protest, never a spasmodic jerk of rage,’ wrote Savignon. ‘Their calm, that is what strikes me: it is stoical and splendid.’

  The highest casualties of the Plymouth Blitz came in seven night raids spread over March and April that year. In all, the bombing attacks killed 1,172 civilians and injured 4,448. Almost the entire city centre was gone and Adams was deeply saddened by the catastrophic loss of life and destruction of Plymouth’s heritage, writing to Shilstone of the loss of so many beautiful churches and hoping that Landulph would continue to be spared. Especially tragic, he said, was the near destruction of ancient St Andrew’s, the largest parish church in Devon. Though Canon Adams did not know it, this was where Ferdinand Paleologus was christened and his mother buried.

  But he must have heard of the inspiring scene amid the smouldering ruins of the church when a defiant parishioner, a headmistress, nailed a wooden sign over the door bearing the single word Resurgam – I shall rise again. Many years later, at St Andrew’s re-consecration, a granite plaque with the same inscription was raised over the church entrance.

  A sense of déjà vu is unavoidable as we move on to the opening of Ferdinand Paleologus’s coffin a century and a half after his burial. His father’s coffin had been opened in Cornwall after very much the same stretch of time; the coffin of his brother Theodore II had been dug up by the ‘body-snatcher’ dean of Westminster after a period of nearly 200 years. At least Ferdinand’s coffin was uncovered by an act of God rather than human inquisitiveness, in the great hurricane of Barbados which laid waste to much of the island on 13 October 1819. It was, however, the same old irresistible curiosity which supplies the rest of the story. Graphic accounts of the scene were written by two nineteenth-century historians of Barbados, Henry Bradfield and the German-born explorer Sir Robert Schombergk.

  Writing in The Gentleman’s Magazine in 1843, Bradfield describes a ramble with a friend among the rocks and cliffs near St John’s. As they strolled into the old abandoned churchyard, his companion spoke of the dreadful hurricane, ‘the fatal effects of which were yet visible to us, in the shape of ruined tombstones when the dead had been, as it were, torn from their graves like chaff before the devastating winds’.

  Standing by a vault belonging to his friend’s family, Bradfield was told that on the removal of the disturbed bodies to a new burial ground the body of Paleologus was discovered:

  in a large leaden coffin with the feet pointing to the east, the usual mode of burial among the ancient Greeks. On opening the coffin, which was partially destroyed from the action of the air on the metal, it was found to contain the perfect skeleton, which impressed all present with the idea that he must have been a man of extraordinary stature, and this, as a local octogenarian observed, was known traditionally to have been the Greek prince from Cornwall.

  The parsonage and vestry were destroyed in the hurricane, but with the permission of the rector, the Revd John H. Gittens, Bradfield rummaged about among remnants of papers in the ruins – ‘much to the discomfiture of sundry scorpions, cockroaches and centipedes, who probably considered the manuscripts as “heirlooms” in the family’ – and discovered the old vestry book which detailed Ferdinand’s appointments from 1649 to 1669.

  Schombergk’s account is somewhat different. In The History of Barbados he dates the discovery of Ferdinand’s body to a later hurricane in 1831 when the original church was destroyed. The coffin was found when the ruins were cleared, not in the churchyard but in a vault under the organ loft. Schombergk writes that the curiosity of the rector – the same Revd John Gittens74 – was aroused by the fact that it was lying in the opposite direction to all the other coffins in the vault, with head to the west and feet to the east ‘according to the Greek custom’. The coffin was opened on 3 May 1844 ‘to test the truth of the tradition’. Schombergk agrees the coffin was of lead and contained a skeleton of extraordinary size imbedded in quicklime, which the author asserts to be ‘another proof of the Greek origin of Paleologus’. Canon Adams remarks in his notes that it is odd both writers believed that burying a body with the feet to the east is a peculiarly Greek custom when in fact it is the usual practice in England. Schombergk goes on to say the coffin was finally deposited in a vault owned by a local landowner. Another account said that Ferdinand was buried with an icon of the Resurrection on his breast while yet another declared the body ‘was buried upside down’.

  It became apparent to Adams on comparing the various stories that Ferdinand’s coffin was actually opened twice, Schombergk’s date of 1844 for its opening being one year after the publication of Bradfield’s article. Adams’s Barbados chum was soon on the case, and Mr Shilstone discovered that the same vault had been unbolted again in recent days, presumably for a new interment. As described to him, the coffins inside were piled up almost to the roof, but at one end of the vault was one very old lead coffin by itself, undoubtedly containing the much-disturbed remains of Ferdinand Paleologus. Shilstone also discovered that the vault had originally been owned by Sir Peter Colleton, a friend of Ferdinand and owner of 180 slaves.

  The description of the body is a reminder that quicklime was commonly used during plagues and other epidemics as it was thought to speed up the disintegration of the corpse to prevent the spread of disease. In some Balkan cultures, including the Greek, it was employed to destroy the body of a suspected vampire. Yet despite a generous layer of quicklime Ferdinand’s skeleton was found in excellent condition. As an aside it may be worth noting that quicklime was a major component of Greek fire, the secret incendiary weapon used by the Byzan
tines in naval battles. On at least two occasions in Constantinople’s history Greek fire was credited with the salvation of the city from Muslim conquest.

  The Paleologus tomb and the story of ‘Prince Ferdinand’ is still a regular feature in Barbadian tourism publicity. Holiday brochures refer to the monument as one of the oldest in Barbados, and the visitor to St John’s Church is immediately confronted by a sign pointing to its location. But we have learnt that things are not always as they seem in the Paleologus story, and the truth is the St John’s monument is neither old nor in the place where Ferdinand was first buried. In fact it was erected as recently as 1906 when the then rector of St John’s raised the necessary funds by public subscription. It was ordered from the less than exotic source of Wippell’s, a long-established clerical supplier of Exeter, so at least there is a West Country connection.

  Yet oddly enough, the very first note of incredulity sounded over the English family’s imperial descent was by John Oldmixon, author of The British Empire in America (first published in 1708 and now regarded as a pioneering work on colonial history). Oldmixon therefore visited Barbados when contemporaries of Theodore III would still be alive and quite possibly a few who knew Ferdinand. He refers to a tradition of a scion of the Byzantine dynasty residing in the island ‘with a small plantation near the top of the cliff’, and voices his personal scepticism about the lineage without stating any reason. It is, however, remarkable that the first reference in print to the imperial descent is one of doubt, putting Oldmixon at odds with the general run of historians for the next 200 years and more.

  The inscription on Ferdinand’s headstone, clearly based on the brass of Theodore I in Landulph Church, has the incorrect date remarked on by Canon Adams, and runs:

  HERE LYETH YE BODY OF

  FERDINANDO PALEOLOGUS

  DESCENDED FROM YE IMPERIAL

  LYNE OF YE LAST CHRISTIAN

  EMPERORS OF GREECE

  CHURCHWARDEN OF THIS PARISH

  1655-1656

  VESTRYMAN TWENTYE YEARS

  DIED OCTOBER 3 1678.

  Present-day holidaymakers in the island have no difficulty in finding attractions to occupy their time, but a lack of things to show to well-heeled visitors from cruise ships was a persistent concern to commercial interests in the interwar years, and it was an enterprising Italian travel agent based in Barbados who realised that the impressive tombstone of the legendary ‘Greek prince from Cornwall’ could be drummed up as an attraction for tourists, especially if no one mentioned that the monument with its quaint inscription and ancient date was actually a recent import.

  One such visitor in 1932 was Evelyn Waugh. The novelist had just published Black Mischief, one of his most popular works, but he arrived in a miserable frame of mind following a stormy crossing from Tilbury and his recent divorce from his first wife. When the SS Ingoma dropped anchor at Bridgetown on 17 December, Waugh went ashore on a day of intermittent rain and quickly decided ‘very little to see in town’ besides the statue of Nelson in Trafalgar Square and the memorial tablets to victims of yellow fever in the cathedral. He heard of Paleologus’s tomb, however, and with a fellow passenger was driven through never-ending sugarcane fields to St John’s. There he viewed the grave – with his thorough knowledge of architecture Waugh would not have been deceived that the stone was seventeenth-century work – and tersely noted in his diary that the church was ‘1830 gothic of best pre-Ruskin kind’. His stay in Barbados ended that evening with an amateur dramatic performance of a play by P.G. Wodehouse, cocktails and dinner at a hotel, then ‘back to ship in pouring rain’. Six years later Waugh gave the name Paleologue to a wily Mr Fit-it and pimp character in his comic masterpiece Scoop, a man with two wives and ‘countless queer-coloured children’. Waugh later wrote the historical novel Helena, the story of how the mother of Constantine the Great found the True Cross.

  The graveyard of St John’s as I saw it in late April is an unforgettable place and there can be no better view than that enjoyed from Ferdinand’s tomb. Yellow sugar birds hopped along the gravestone as green and purple hummingbirds darted amid the orange blossom and geranium trees. My approach startled a blue-faced lizard from the shady side of a neighbouring vault. Close to the grave stands a Barbados Ebony, commonly called the Woman’s Tongue Tree because its pods rattle with a loud persistence, and an Oriental Thuja, known as the Tree of Life. A constant warm breeze ruffled the palms overhead and the hum of an antiquated mower came from immaculate lawns behind the sprawling rectory. The fine church noted by Waugh might have been transported from the heart of some favoured English village, perhaps the scene of a Miss Marple mystery. But take a few steps and you are on the edge of a cliff. Eight hundred feet below is the dazzling blue Atlantic, its white waves breaking soundlessly on a deserted beach.

  The churchyard is a most remarkable sight, for a venerable hamlet of mausoleums to the early planters is all around you. If the dead here are indeed to see a joyful resurrection of the just, Ferdinand will step from his grave to face the sunrise in the east, the direction also of England and Constantinople, as from the ancient coral vaults around emerge the men he knew in life, Colletons, Fosters, Walronds and Hothersalls, those early masters of the island whose plantations we see marked on the decorative old maps with their tiny drawings of spouting whales and galleons, wild hogs and windmills, and horsemen chasing runaway slaves. Beyond the graveyard still stretch the cane fields which made these people rich, for after more than three centuries sugar remains a staple crop of the island.

  The ‘Greek prince from Cornwall’ continues to figure in island lore. During my stay it happened that Clifton Hall came on to the market, glowingly described in the estate agents’ brochure as ‘a magnificent plantation home which boasts a unique historical legacy as the Great House of Prince Ferdinand Paleologus, a descendant of Greek royalty who named his home from his birthplace in Cornwall, England’. Needless to say, Ferdinand would not recognise the present spacious mansion built of solid coral stone, with its magnificent suite of reception rooms, marble-floored galleries, six bedrooms, three bathrooms and powder room, surrounded by orchards of guava, breadfruit, lime, mango and avocado, all yours for US $3 million. The oldest part of the house dating from Paleologus’s time is now the kitchen and staff quarters except for two small rooms used as changing rooms for the swimming pool. Much of the fabric of the main house dates from 1810, however, and is designated as of historic and architectural interest by the Barbados National Trust.

  The brochure states that ‘the property harbours no other insects than the firefly which light up tranquil evenings that can be spent lounging outside’, so the resurrected Ferdinand would look round in vain for the mosquitos that plagued him in life.

  We are left with Ferdinand’s brother John Theodore to account for. The absence of further record of him in Barbados after 1644 indicates his stay was not a long one. Perhaps he failed to get on with the influential Balls relations and lack of money prevented him from establishing himself as an island worthy like Ferdinand. Returning to Cromwell’s England was not an appealing prospect, and the likelihood is that John was among an exodus of disenchanted settlers and indentured servants – and there were lots of them – who left Barbados to try their luck on the American mainland, or headed for neighbouring Dutch and French islands in the West Indies.

  Many of these turned to piracy of one kind or another. One enticing possibility is that John fell in with the most famous of the indentured servants to escape from Barbados, the notorious buccaneer Henry Morgan. Forging a new career as an officer of the Royal Navy, Morgan quickly rose through the ranks and took full advantage of the regular wars between England and her enemies, plundering the Caribbean for the enrichment of himself and his crews. A number of unsuccessful settlers left Barbados to enlist with Morgan at Port Royal in Jamaica. But unless further evidence turns up, John’s destiny remains a matter for pure conjecture: the fact is that the most elusive of the English Paleologi simply disappears from
the record.

  Notes

  69 Extract from the diary of Henry Whistler, quoted in The Narrative of General Venables, 1654–1655, edited by C.H. Firth, London, 1900.

  70 After his surrender Willoughby was twice imprisoned by Cromwell’s Protectorate. At the Restoration he returned to the Caribbean as governor and in 1666 commanded a fleet sent against French forces which had seized St Kitts. He was lost when his flagship sank in a hurricane.

  71 Still known as Balls Plantation, the estate near Oistins in Christ Church Parish is now the home of the Barbados Horticultural Society. Remaining relics of the old days include a boiling house and a windmill used to grind the sugar cane.

  72 Campbell, P.F., The Barbados Vestries, 1627–1700, Journal of the Barbados Museum and Historical Society, Vol. 37, 1983.

  73 Codrington enlarged his fortune by smuggling slaves into the island at night after the Royal African Company was granted a monopoly in the transportation of slaves. In 1710 his son bequeathed the family estate of 800 acres and 300 slaves to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel.

  74 By coincidence, on my visit to the Paleologus grave I met a Canadian tourist who was at St John’s to research a Barbadian ancestor: none other than Rev. John H. Gittens.

  19

  Now and then we had the hope that if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates.

  Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi.