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THE founder of the
Leslie family was a Hungarian named Bartolf, or Bartholomew, who
is said to have come to Scotland in the train of Edgar Atheling
and his sisters, one of whom (the Princess Margaret) became the
wife of Malcolm Canmore. Bartolf seems to have been a man of
vigorous intellect as well as of great bodily strength—qualities
highly prized in an age when might too often made right. He became
a great favourite at the Scottish Court, and obtained in marriage
the hand of one of Malcolm’s sisters, along with the governorship
of Edinburgh Castle and extensive grants of land in Aberdeenshire,
Angus, and Fife. As is the case in regard to most of our old
Scottish families, there are various traditions respecting the
origin of the name which the descendants of the founder of the
house assumed, and of the family arms and motto; but there is
every reason to believe that the Leslies derived their patronymic
from the lands of Lesselyn, in the district of Garioch, in
Aberdeenshire. Here they erected their first seat, the Castle of
Leslie, on the banks of the Gaudy, at the back of the celebrated
hill of Bennachie. So numerously did the cadets of the house
cluster around their ancestral domain that, in the words of a fine
old song—
‘Thick sit the
Leslies on Gaudy side,
At the back of Bennachie.’
Along with the
Lindsays, Ogilvies, and other new settlers whom the policy of
Malcolm Canmore encouraged to take up their residence in Scotland,
they formed a powerful barrier against the incursions of the
Highland and Island clans, who at that time attempted to maintain
an independent sovereignty in the northern and western districts
of Scotland. The Leslies were a stalwart race, strong in body and
mind, and in these days of ‘rugging and riving’ contrived to
obtain a large share both of territory and influence, not only in
Scotland but in several Continental countries. No Scottish
surname, indeed, has been more widely known than theirs, or more
famous, on the Continent. Five generals of the name of Leslie
commanded the armies of Scotland, Germany, Sweden, and Russia
about the same time. Two counts of the Balquhain Leslies were
field-marshals in the service of the Emperor of Germany. A junior
member of this branch was a field-marshal in the army of Gustavus
Adolphus. A member of the Rothes line, after serving under the
same monarch, was a lieutenant-general in the army which the
Scottish Parliament sent to the assistance of the English
Parliament against Charles I. Major-General David Leslie
contributed greatly to turn the tide of battle on Marston Moor,
and at Philiphaugh he avenged on Montrose the series of defeats
which the great Marquis had inflicted on the Covenanters at
Alford, Turriff, and Kilsyth. Another Leslie became a general in
the Russian service, and was made Governor of Smolensko. The
Leslies were distinguished as men of the gown as well as men of
the sword. John Leslie, Bishop of Ross, was eminent for his
historical ability, and still more for his devoted adherence to
the unfortunate Mary Queen of Scots. William Leslie, of the
Warthill branch, was Prince-Bishop of Laybach and a Privy
Councillor of the Empire. No fewer than four members of the Wardis
and Rothes branches were bishops of the Irish Episcopal Church,
and the Rev. Charles Leslie, son of one of these bishops, and a ‘reasoner,’
as Dr. Johnson said, ‘who was not to be reasoned against,’ was the
author of the celebrated ‘Short and Easy Method with Deists,’ and
other works on the evidence of Christianity, which have been
pronounced on high authority ‘the best books of their kind.’ Sir
John Leslie, the well-known Edinburgh Professor, enjoyed a
European reputation as a mathematician and a philosopher; and
Charles R. Leslie was one of the most eminent painters of the
present day.
SIR NORMAN,
the fifth in descent from the
Hungarian Bartolf, appears to have been the first of the family
who assumed the surname of Lesselyn, or Leslie. Previous to this
time, the usual designation of their chief was the ‘Constable of
Inverurie.’ Sir Norman’s name is found in the ‘Ragman’s Roll,’ and
in other documents connected with the Scottish War of
Independence. His son and grandson were staunch adherents of
Robert Bruce and David II., and shared in their perils and
privations, and ultimate success of their struggles with the
Baliols and their English supporters. DAVID, the fourth in
succession to the barony of Leslie, joined one of the Crusades
towards the close of the fourteenth century, and was so long
absent in Palestine without any intelligence of him having reached
home, that he was given up for dead, and a distant kinsman, Sir
George Leslie of Rothes, was installed in his ancestral castle and
estates. But scarcely had Sir George taken possession of the
family mansion of Leslie, when the long-lost heir unexpectedly
returned to Scotland and recovered his patrimonial estates. He,
however, confirmed the entail executed by his father in favour of
his kinsman, and at his death, forty years later, the principal
property of the family passed to Norman de Leslie, son of Sir
George, while the remainder was inherited by his own daughter and
only child, Margaret, wife of Alexander Leslie, a son of the Baron
of Balquhain, who assumed the designation of Leslie, or, according
to the Scottish phrase, of ‘that ilk,’ though he was the head only
of a minor branch of the family.
The Leslies of
Rothes and Balquhain became henceforth the principal
representatives of this ancient house. The Leslies of Balquhain
still possess their ancestral estates. The Rothes Leslies exist in
the female line, but the Leslies of that ilk were compelled to
dispose of their patrimony about the beginning of the seventeenth
century, owing to the imprudence and improvidence of George
Leslie, the eighth baron. Their ancient castle of Leslie, erected
by Bartolf, the founder of the family, which, like Balquhain,
stands near the ‘Hill of Bennachie,’ was inhabited up to the
beginning of the present century, but is now a ruin. So is the
castle of Balquhain, ‘a stern, simple square block, as destitute
of decoration or architectural peculiarity as any stone boulder on
the adjoining moor,’ in which Queen Mary was hospitably
entertained on her northern progress in 1562. It remained
the main seat of the family till 1690, when they removed to
Fetternear, an old summer residence of the Bishops of Aberdeen,
beautifully situated in a finely wooded domain on the banks of the
Don, which still remains their principal residence. The district
of Garioch, in which these interesting baronial mansions stand, is
associated with not a few historical incidents and remains of
antiquity. The chapel of Garioch was endowed by Christian Bruce
for the celebration of religious services for the souls of her
brother, King Robert, and of her husband, Sir Andrew. Moray, his
brave, companion in arms; and by the Countess of Mar, widow of
William, Earl of Douglas, for the performance of similar services
for the souls of her husband, her brother, and her son, the hero
of Otterburn. About a mile from the church is the battlefield of
Harlaw, where another chaplaincy was founded by the widow of Sir
Andrew Leslie of Balquhain for the souls of her six sons, who fell
on that fatal field, and of her husband, who was killed at Braco
in 1420.
There is a curious
chapter in the memoirs of these old Leslies which has an important
bearing on the ancient history of Scotland. WALTER, fourth son of
Sir Andrew Leslie of Leslie, by his wife, one of the co-heiresses
of the powerful family of Abernethy, served with great distinction
in the Imperial army under the Emperors Louis IV. and Charles IV.
(1346—1378) against the Saracens, and was so remarkable for his
humanity, as well as his bravery and military skill, that he was
styled the ‘Generous Knight.’ His brilliant exploits against
Edward III. of England were rewarded with a liberal grant from
Charles V. by a patent dated 1372. On his return to Scotland the
fame of his valour and courtesy gained him the heart and hand of
Euphemia, eldest daughter and heiress of the Earl of Ross, one of
the most powerful magnates in the kingdom, and who had repeatedly
aspired to independent sovereignty. Walter Leslie assumed the
title of Earl of Ross in right of his wife, and their only son,
Alexander, after his death became eighth Earl. He married Isabel
Stewart, daughter of Robert, Duke of Albany, the ambitious Regent
of Scotland during the long captivity, in England of his nephew,
James I. Their only child, Euphemia, on the death of her father in
1411, succeeded to his titles and estates, and being under age and
small of stature and deformed, was induced by her unscrupulous
grandfather, the Regent, to become a nun, and to resign her right
to the earldom of Ross in favour of his son, John Stewart, Earl of
Buchan. But Donald, Lord of the Isles, who had married the aunt of
the young Countess, asserted his claim to the earldom in right of
his wife, and resolved to vindicate his pretensions by force of
arms. At the head of an army of 10,000 men he marched through
Moray into the Garioch, intending to attack the city of Aberdeen.
He was encountered at Harlaw, on the Urie, by Alexander Stewart,
Earl of Mar, at the head of the chivalry of Aberdeenshire, Angus
and Mearns, together with the Provost and a troop of the stoutest
burgesses of the city of Aberdeen, numbering altogether, however,
only one to ten of the hostile force. The battle was long and
obstinately contested, and was indecisive in its immediate
results, but six sons of Sir Andrew Leslie were left among the
slain, along with the Provost of Aberdeen, the Sheriff of Angus,
the Constable of Dundee, and the principal gentry of the district.
It was justly said that—
‘Baith Hieland and
Lowland rnournfu’ be
For the sair field of Harlaw.’
There is reason to
believe that the fate of the Baron of Balquhain, who commanded the
van of Mar’s army in this famous battle, was before the mind of
Sir Walter Scott when he depicted one of the most thrilling scenes
he ever wrote—the description of old Elspeth’s talk and ballad in
‘The Antiquary’ respecting the fall of the Earl of Glenallan in
that sanguinary encounter, and that the novelist had the Leslies
of Balquhain in his eye when he makes Elspeth say that the
Glenallan family always buried their dead at night and by
torchlight, ‘since the time the great Earl fell at the sair battle
o’ the Harlaw, when they say the coronach was cried in ae day from
the mouth o’ the Tay to the Buck of the Cabrach. But the great
Earl’s mother was living; they were a doughty and a dour race, the
women o’ the house o’ Glenallan, and she wad hae nae coronach
cried for her son, but had him laid in the silence o’ midnight in
his place o’ rest, without either drinking the dirge or crying the
lament. She said he had killed enow that day he died for the
widows and daughters o’ the Highlanders he had slain to cry the
coronach for them he had slain and for her son too; and sae she
laid him in the grave wi’ dry eyes and without a groan or a wail.’
In later times the
Leslies sent not a few stout men-at-arms to take part in the long
and bloody wars of the seventeenth century. Walter, a younger son
of the Baron of Balquhain, was created a Count by the Emperor
Ferdinand III., and subsequently became a Field-Marshal and a
Knight of the Golden Fleece. He served with great distinction in
the Thirty Years’ War, and held some of the highest offices in the
empire; but he tarnished his fame by the prominent part he took in
the assassination of Wallenstein, under whom he had long served
with brilliant reputation, and has in consequence been branded
with infamy by the great German poet, Schiller, in his drama of
Wallenstein. His nephew, James, who succeeded to his
hereditary honours and to his lordship of Neustadt, gained a
worthier reputation in the famous defence of Vienna against the
Turks in 1683. |
