“The dissensions of the two brothers may be considered a principal cause of the fall of the Greek empire.
“After the capture of Constantinople, Mohammed makes war on Demetrius and Thomas, under pretence of recovering the tribute due to him from them as despots of the Morea; but he is obliged to retire, and soon after comes to agreement with them. At this time the Albanians, Thomas’s subjects, revolt, and attack Pattras, a city of Achaia, where Thomas resided, but are repulsed; they would have been, however, ultimately successful, had not Mohammed sent his general Thuraken to their assistance.
“The two brothers again falling out, and endeavouring to supplant each other, Mohammed takes advantage of it, and in 1458 sends an order to the despots of the Morea to pay three years’ arrears of ten thousand ducats tribute, or quit the country. In spring following, he marched to attack the Morea, and reduced Corinth, without using force. At the first news of his appearance, Thomas, one of the despots, retired to Italy with his wife and children; and Demetrius,
the other, submitted of his own accord to the Soltân, who carried him away to Constantinople.
“Such is the account given in the Universal History from Dukas. The relation of Khalcondylas in the same work is more particular, as well as more favourable to the character of Thomas: ‘Prince Thomas having retired from Pylos, repaired to the island of Korfu, where he left his family, and set sail for Italy; at the same time he sent an ambassador to know if Mohammed would give him a great extent of country along the sea coast in exchange for the city of Epidamnum. The Soltân, by way of answer, put the envoy in irons, but soon after sent him back. Thomas arriving at Rome 1461, was lodged in the Pope’s palace, and had a pension of three thousand livres for his other expenses.’
“Rycaut, in his History, gives a still higher character of Thomas: ‘Thomas getting into the castle of Salmenica, defended the same against the infidels a whole year, when, despairing of relief, he escaped into Italy, where the Pope allowed him a pension till the day of his death.’ Of him Mahomet gave this character: ‘That he had found many slaves, but never a man in the Grecian province besides Prince Thomas.’
“But Gibbon has a very contemptible account of the ultimate fate of this unfortunate family. He says, that Demetrius died at Constantinople in a monastic habit, and abject slavery; that the misery of Thomas was prolonged by a pension of six thousand ducats from the Pope and cardinals; that he died leaving two sons, Andrew and Manuel, who were educated in Italy; that Manuel the younger returned to Constantinople, where he was maintained by the Soltân, and died, leaving a son, who was lost in the habit and religion of a Turkish slave. The elder brother, Andrew, contemptible to his enemies, and burthensome to his friends, was degraded by the baseness of his life and marriage, and sold his title to the empires of Constantinople and Trebizond to Charles VIII. in 1494,
who assumed the purple and title of Augustus. And in a note he says, from Du Cange, that the Palæologi of Montferrat were not extinct till the next century, but they had forgotten their Greek origin and kindred.
“So degrading is the account this historian gives us of the remains of this celebrated family. It is a grateful task to endeavour to prove his representation in some respects incorrect and undeserved; as we shall then be authorised to hesitate upon what he tells us as to the rest, and to put a more liberal construction upon the whole.
“From the inscription at Landulph it is clear Thomas had three sons: the third, called John, whose family, though we have no particular mention of them, remained in Italy, at Rome probably, and Pesaro, till the time of Theodore. From the inscription it is also certain that this family was not extinct in 1636, and perhaps some of the descendants are still living in England at this moment.