Talk:Charles Marsack

Charles Marsack's family background

Stories, first published in 1894, made Major Charles Marsac (died 1820) who, from seemingly humble origins, had made a fortune in India, an illegitimate son of either Frederick, Prince of Wales, or of George II, by the so-called Comtesse de Marsac, but the boy was actually the son of Jean Charles Marsac (1708-1751), a servant to one of George II's pages, Joachim Lorentz Sollicoffer (died 1754), who in his will made generous provision for the widowed Margaret Marsac nee 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 prior to 1704/5. Jean Charles Marsac was usually called Charles Marsac and was apprenticed as a weaver. He died in Kensington in 1751 and had 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 (with the assistance of editions of Burke's "Landed Gentry" down to 1937) spread the story that she was daughter of Margaret, Comtesse de Marsac. The full details are given with full references to contemporary sources in my "Royal Mistresses and Bastards: Fact and Fiction: 1714-1936" (2007) pages 32-37. Major Charles Marsack is often said to have married in 1767 but actually married in 1783; he is also said to have been born about 1735-6 (from his age at burial) but was probably born in 1747-8 (from his age at marriage). AnthonyCamp (talk) 10:11, 14 August 2017 (UTC).