and Thomas, reigned as despots of the Morea in Greece; but the ruin
of the empire was the gloomy prelude to their own misfortunes.
Demetrius became the pensioner of the new Turkish emperor Mohammed,
and received a city of Thrace and some adjacent islands for his own
maintenance and that of his followers. In this state of humiliating
dependence he remained until death released him from his ignominious
servitude. Thomas, the other brother, was driven into exile by the
invasion of his dominions. He fled to Corfu, and from thence to
Italy--according to Gibbon's account--'with some naked adherents;
his name, his sufferings, and the head of the apostle St Andrew,
entitled him to the hospitality of the Vatican, and his misery was
prolonged by a pension of 6000 ducats from the pope and cardinals.'
He left two sons (he must have had a third, as will afterwards
appear), Andrew and Manuel, who were educated in Italy. The eldest
degraded himself by the looseness of his life and marriage, and died
the inheritor of an empty title. Manuel was tempted to revisit his
native country; and after spending the remainder of his life in
safety and ease at Constantinople, he was gathered to his fathers,
'an honourable train of Christians and Moslems attending him to the
grave.'

From this date--early in the sixteenth century--little is known of
the name and lineage of the Palæologi. The crescent waved over the
royal city of Constantine; and, as an old Byzantine annalist
remarks, the last heir of the last spark of the Roman Empire seemed
to be extinct. History had forgotten them, and the restless tide of
human vicissitudes rolled onwards, unconscious of their existence.
Italy was understood to be the asylum of the imperial outcasts; and
there they might have vegetated in oblivion, or dropped into
unhonoured graves without leaving a single representative, had not a