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 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.
In 1783 he returned to England as Major Marsack and following marriage, with £20,000 contributed by his wife's trustees, bought Caversham Park in Oxfordshire[5] from Lord Cadogan, restoring and enlarging the house in the Greek style, including the installation of a large Corinthian colonnade at the front.
Now in Berkshire and from 1943 to 2018 used by the BBC, Caversham Park house has been rated a Grade II listed building.
He was survived by his widow Charlotte Becher (1767-1837), whom he had married at Epsom, Surrey in 1783, and by seven of his eleven children: Richard Henry (1786-1852), George Hartwell (*1791), Edward Claude (*1794) and four daughters Charlotte (*1785), Caroline (1800-1836) who married Thomas Frederick Sowdon (1793-1873), son of Thomas Sowdon and Eleanor at St Mary's Church, Reading in 1821, Louisa (*1802), Mary Eleanor (*1807).