Charles Marsack

Charles Marsack (1747/8 – 22 December 1820) was an East India Company army officer and landowner who, from seemingly humble origins had made a fortune in India, and according to stories first published in Burke's Landed Gentry in 1894, was reputedly the son of Frederick, Prince of Wales or of King George II by a so-called Comtesse de Marsac. He was said to have been born about 1735-6 (from his age at burial) but was probably born (from his age at marriage) in 1747-8 and was said to have married in 1767 (whereas he married in 1783). He was actually the son of Jean Charles Marsac (1708-1751), a servant to one of George II's pages, Joachim Lorentz Sollifoffer (died 1754), who in his will made generous provision for the widowed Margaret Marsac née Saunders and her child Jean Charles who was his godson. Jean Charles Marsac's father was the son of a migrant from Poitou, also called Charles Marsac, a carpenter, who had come to England before 1704/5. Jean Charles Marsac was usually called Charles Marsac and was apprenticed as a weaver. He died in Kensington in 1751, having married at St Martin in the Fields in 1745/6 one Margaret Saunders who was probably related to Thomas Saunders (died 1753), standing wardrobe keeper to George I and George II. She married secondly at St George's Chapel, Mayfair, John Holcroft (died 1768), and died in 1785, her administration being granted to Charles Marsack her 'natural and lawful son'. By her second husband she had a daughter Margaretta Holcroft (1755-1785) who lived with William Roome and had several illegitimate children by him who (aided by editions of Burke's Landed Gentry down to 1937) spread the story that she was the daughter of Margaret, Comtesse de Marsac. Marsack went to India around 1760 as an Ensign in the service of the East India Company. After being appointed Lieutenant and Surveyor of the province of Oudh, he rose by 1777 to be Captain of a cavalry unit of the Nabob of Oudh. Resigning his commission in 1779, he in 1780 undertook an arduous journey from Lucknow to Delhi and back to meet the powerful Najaf Khan, a journey that was documented by his native travelling companion.