X-Nico

unusual facts about Theophilus Oglethorpe, Jr.



Charles, Prince of Rochefort

He married Eléonore Eugénie de Béthisy de Mézières, younger daughter of Eugène Marie de Béthisy, Marquis de Mézières, and Eléonore Oglethorpe, like her sisters, a loyal and active Jacobite, who was in turn a daughter of Theophilus Oglethorpe, an English soldier and MP.

Eleanor Oglethorpe de Mezieres

Eleanor’s father, Theophilus Oglethorpe, also offered his service to James, but as a Protestant he was eventually sidelined.

Theophilus Oglethorpe

Theophilus Oglethorpe is the main protagonist in John Whitbourn's The Royal Changeling, (1998), which describes the 1685 rebellion with some fantasy elements added.

Throughout the whole of this time, although loyally devoting himself to the Stuart cause, Theophilus had remained a Protestant as his father had been, and when James II finally rid his court at Saint-Germain of all non-Catholics in response to the pressure of his French hosts, Theophilus, after twenty years of service to the Stuarts, ruefully returned to Godalming and, in the late autumn of 1696, took the oath of loyalty to William III.

Theophilus Oglethorpe, Jr.

Like his father, who had been equerry to James II and had gone into exile with him after the Glorious Revolution, Oglethorpe was a Jacobite sympathiser and shortly afterwards fled abroad to join the Old Pretender; his sister, Anne, was rumoured to be the Pretender's mistress.

John Whitbourn's three book 'Downs-Lord' 'triptych' (1999–2002) contains a fantasy treatment of the life and death of Theophilus Oglethorpe junior.


see also