John Paleologus | |
|---|---|
| Born | June/July 1611 Tattershall, Lincolnshire, England |
| Died | After 1644 |
| Noble family | Paleologus |
| Father | Theodore Paleologus |
| Mother | Mary Balls |
| Occupation | Soldier, Cavalier |
John Paleologus (Italian: Giovanni Paleologo; June/July 1611 – after 1644), full name John Theodore Paleologus, was the third son of the 16th/17th-century soldier and assassin Theodore Paleologus and, through his father, possibly a descendant of the Palaiologos dynasty of Byzantine emperors.
Of Theodore's three sons to survive until adulthood (including John's brothers Theodore Junior and Ferdinand), John is the most enigmatic and his ultimate fate is uncertain. He probably sided with the Royalists, or Cavaliers, in the English Civil War (1642–1651), as Ferdinand did, and is known to have accompanied Ferdinand to Barbados, where both of them are attested in 1644. No later records of John, either in Barbados or back home in England, are known. He is popularly believed to have died at the Battle of Naseby in 1645, fighting for the Royalists, but there is no evidence that he returned to England. Another possibility is that he stayed in the Caribbean and, as many other disenchanted settlers did, ultimately turned to piracy.