|
ALEXANDER LESLIE,
Earl of Leven, the distinguished general who commanded the army of
the Scottish Covenanters in the Great Civil War, was the son of
Captain George Leslie of Balgonie in Fife, by his wife, a daughter
of Stewart of Ballechin. Having made choice of the military
profession, he obtained at an early age a captain’s commission in
the regiment of Lord Vere, who was then assisting the Dutch in
their memorable contest against Spain, and soon rendered himself
conspicuous by his valour and military skill. He afterwards served
with great distinction under Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, by whom
he was promoted to the rank of field-marshal. His successful
defence of Stralsund in 1628, against a powerful army of
Imperialists, under the celebrated Count Wallenstein, gained him
great reputation; and the citizens showed their gratitude to their
deliverer by making him a handsome present, and having medals
struck in his honour. In 1639, when the Scottish Covenanters were
preparing to resist, by force if necessary, the attempts of
Charles I. to compel them to submit to the new English Liturgy,
General Leslie returned to his native country, along with a number
of his brother officers, and was appointed to the chief command of
the army which had been raised by the Committee of the Scottish
Estates. His plans were sagaciously formed and promptly executed,
and before the Covenanting forces marched towards the Borders to
meet the hostile army which Charles was bringing against them from
England, nearly all the strongholds of the country were in their
possession. When their ill-advised sovereign reached the Tweed, he
learned to his surprise and dismay that an army of at least twenty
thousand men was encamped on Dunse Law in readiness to repel force
by force, with the most influential nobles in Scotland as their
chief officers, with experienced soldiers for their subalterns,
and the whole under the command of a general who had gained in the
Continental wars a high reputation for military skill. ‘We were
feared,’ says Baillie, ‘that emulation among our nobles might have
done harm when they should be met in the field; but such was the
wisdom and authority of that old little crooked soldier, that all
with ane incredible submission, from the beginning to the end,
gave o’er themselves to be guided by him as if he had been great
Solyman.’
Charles, finding
that his soldiers had no heart to fight in his quarrel, and that
he was quite unable to resist the formidable army which General
Leslie had brought .against him, was fain to come to an amicable
agreement, 28th June, 1639, which, however, was not of long
duration. In the following year the Covenanters found it necessary
to reassemble their forces, and Leslie again assumed the chief
command, and marched into England at the head of a well-equipped
army, consisting of twenty-three thousand infantry, three thousand
cavalry, and a train of artillery. He defeated the royal forces
that opposed his passage of the Tyne, and took possession of
Newcastle and other important towns in the north of England. These
successes led to the Treaty of Ripon, and a compliance on the part
of the King with all the demands of the Scottish Covenanters.
In the following
year (1641) Charles visited Scotland for the purpose of
conciliating the Presbyterian party, and created General Leslie
Lord Balgonie and Earl of Leven. When the Civil War at length
broke out, and the Scottish Estates resolved to send assistance to
the Parliament, the Earl once more took the command of their
forces. He was present at the battle of Marston Moor, and
commanded the left division of the centre of the Parliamentary
forces, which was broken by the impetuous charge of Prince Rupert,
and driven from the field. But David Leslie assisted in retrieving
the day, which terminated in the total defeat of the royal army.
While the Scots were engaged in the siege of Newark, the
unfortunate monarch repaired.to Leslie’s camp, May 5th, 1646; but
his obstinate refusal to comply with the proposals of the
Covenanting leaders made it impossible for them to espouse his
cause.
On the termination
of the war General Leslie resigned his command on account of his
great age, but was present as a volunteer at the battle of Dunbar
in 1650. In the following year he was surprised and taken prisoner
by one of Cromwell’s officers, along with a number of noblemen and
gentlemen, who had met at Alyth, in Forfarshire, to concert
measures for the restoration of Charles II. He was conveyed to
London and confined in the Tower, but was ultimately set at
liberty through the intercession of Christina, Queen of Sweden,
and returned to Scotland in 1654. He died in 1661 at a very
advanced age.
General Leslie had
two sons, both of whom predeceased him. The elder, Alexander, Lord
Balgonie, left by his wife—a sister of the Duke of Rothes—a son,
also named ALEXANDER, and a daughter. The former succeeded his
grandfather as second Earl of Leven; the latter married the, first
Earl of Melville, and their son became the third Earl of Leven.
The second Earl of Leven, who died in 1664, left two daughters,
who were successively Countesses of Leven in their own right. The
elder—Margaret, who married the second son of the seventh Earl of
Eglinton—died without issue. Catherine, the younger, died
unmarried. Her aunt, the Countess of Melville, was served heir to
her in 1706, and the title devolved upon her son—
DAVID, third Earl
of Leven and second Earl of Melville. He entered the service of
the Duke of Brandenburg in 1685, and became colonel of a regiment
of foot, with which he accompanied the Prince of Orange to England
at the Revolution of 1688. He fought at Killiecrankie, and
distinguished himself in the campaigns in Ireland and in Flanders.
He attained the rank of lieutenant-general in 1706, and was
appointed Commander-in-Chief of the forces in Scotland.
The two sons of the
fifth Earl of Leven were officers in the army, and the younger,
Alexander, served in the American War, and was second in command
under Lord Cornwallis, who, in his dispatches, commends him in the
highest terms. The elder, DAVID, sixth Earl, had four sons, three
of whom entered the military service of their country. One was
killed in the American War. The other two earned the reputation of
brave and energetic officers, and both reached the position of
lieutenant-general. ALEXANDER, the seventh Earl, married a
daughter of John Thornton, of London, the eminent banker, whose
munificent charities are mentioned with glowing eulogies in the
‘Life and Letters of Cowper,’ the poet. His eldest son, DAVID
LESLIE-MELVILLE, eighth Earl of Leven, entered the navy, and
attained the rank of vice-admiral. His two sons predeceased him.
The elder, ALEXANDER, Viscount Balgonie, was an officer in the
Grenadier Guards, and died in 1857, worn out by the hardships and
privations of the Crimean War. On the death of the eighth Earl, in
1860, his estates, yielding £3,089 18s. a year, were inherited by
his eldest daughter, Elizabeth Jane, who married Mr. T. B.
Cartwright, son of the late Sir T. Cartwright, G.C.H., but the
family titles passed to the Earl’s brother, JOHN THORNTON, whose
eldest son—
ALEXANDER
LESLIE-MELVILLE, tenth Earl of Leven, and ninth
Earl of Melville, is now the
head of the house. He has a small estate in Fife of 1,019 acres,
with a rental of £1,761 11s.; and one in Nairn of 7,805 acres,
yielding £1,317 4s. a year. The Balgonie estate, which belonged to
General Leslie, the founder of the family, and has a rental of
£5,102 6s., was sold by the eighth Earl a
good many years before his death. |
