LESLIE, ALEXANDER, the
celebrated military leader of the covenanters, during the civil wars of
Charles I., created lord Balgonie, and afterwards earl of Leven, was the son
of captain George Leslie of Balgonie, by his wife Anne, a daughter of
Stewart of Ballechin. Of the place of his birth, or the extent of his
education, little can be said with certainty. Spalding says, he was born in
Balveny, which Gordon of Straloch affirms was never possessed by the
Leslies, and, of course, according to him, could not be the place of his
birth. This, he supposes to have been Tullich, which lies over against
Balveny, on the east side of the water of Fiddich; or, perhaps, Kininvie,
which lies a mile to the north of Tullich, on the same water of Fiddich.
Gordon adds, that he "was a natural son of Kininvie’s, and that his mother,
during her pregnancy, could eat nothing but wheat bread, and drink nothing
but wine, which Kininvie allowed her to be provided with, although she was
nothing but a common servant." There is, however, much reason to suppose
that this account of his birth is only a cavalier fiction.
Educated for the military
profession, Leslie very early in life obtained a captain’s commission in the
regiment of Horatio lord de Vere, then employed in Holland as auxiliaries to
the Dutch in fighting for their liberties against the overwhelming power of
Spain. In this service he acquitted himself with singular bravery, and
obtained the reputation of a skilful officer. He afterwards, along with many
thousands of his countrymen, passed into the service of Sweden, under
Gustavus Adolphus, by whom, after many heroic achievements, he was promoted
to the rank of field-marshal with the approbation of the whole army.
In the year 1628, he defended
Stralsund, which was besieged by the whole force of the Imperialists, at
that time masters of all Germany, that fortress excepted. Here he acquitted
himself with the utmost bravery and skill. The plague had already broken out
in the city, and the outworks were in a most deplorable condition; yet he
compelled count Wallenstein, with a formidable army and flushed with
victory, to raise the siege, after having sustained a severe loss. The
citizens of Stralsund were so sensible of the services of the field-marshal,
on this occasion, that they made him a handsome present, and had medals
struck to perpetuate their gratitude and the honour of their deliverer. In
the year 1635, he had charters granted to him, his wife, and son, of the
barony of Balgonie, and other lands in the counties of Fife, Berwick, and
Roxburgh. He was at this time serving in Lower Saxony. In the year 1639,
when the covenanters were preparing to resist their sovereign in the field,
Leslie returned from Sweden, where he had continued after the death of
Gustavus in the service of Christina. "This Leslie," says Spalding, "having
conquest from nought wealth and honour, resolved to come home to his native
country of Scotland and settle himself beside his chief, the earl of Rothes,
as he did indeed, and bought fair lands in Fife; but the earl foreseeing the
troubles, whereof himself was one of the principal beginners, took hold of
this Leslie, who was both wise and stout, acquainted him with the plot, and
had his advice for the furtherance thereof to his power."
It was a fortunate
circumstance for the covenanters, that the oppressions to which they had
been subjected, and the persecutions that were evidently preparing for them,
were well known on the continent, where thousands of their fellow countrymen
had been shedding their blood in the defence of the religion and liberties
of their fellow protestants, and excited the deepest interest in their
favour. Leslie had undoubtedly been invited home, and he brought a number of
his countrymen along with him, who, having periled their lives for the same
cause among foreigners, could not reasonably be considered as indifferent to
its success among their own countrymen. Half a century had, for the first
time since it was a nation, passed over Scotland without any thing like
general warfare. The people had, in a great measure, become unaccustomed to
its hardships and its dangers, and the chieftains, such as had been abroad
excepted, were unacquainted with its practice, and ignorant of its details.
This defect, by the return of so many who had been in the wars of Gustavus,
was amply supplied. Leslie was, by the committee of estates, appointed to
the chief command;--many of his fellow adventurers of less celebrity, yet
well acquainted with military details and the equipment of an army, were
dispersed throughout the country, where they were employed in training the
militia, which in those days comprehended every man that was able to bear
arms, from the age of sixteen to sixty. By these means, together with a
manifesto by the Tables (committees of the four estates assembled at
Edinburgh), entitled, "State of the Question, and Reasons for Defensive
War," which was circulated so as to meet the eye or the ear of every
individual in the nation,—the covenanters were in a state of preparation
greatly superior to the king, though he had been meditating hostilities long
before he declared them. Though now an old man, little in stature, and
deformed in person, Leslie was possessed of ceaseless activity, as well as
consummate skill; and in both he was powerfully seconded by the zeal of the
people in general. Early apprized of the intentions of Charles, he so
managed matters as to render them entirely nugatory. It was the intention of
the latter, while he advanced with his main force upon his ancient kingdom
by the eastern marches, to enter it previously, or at least simultaneously,
on the western side, with a body of Highlanders and Irish, and by the Firth
of Forth with a strong division of his English army, under his commissioner
the duke of Hamilton. To meet this formidable array, every thing that lay
within the compass of their limited means, was prepared by the covenanters.
Military Committees were appointed for every county, who were to see to the
assembling and training of the militia generally, and to forward to the army
such levies and such supplies, as might be from time to time demanded.
Smiths were every where put in requisition for the fabrication of muskets,
carbines, pole-axes, Lochaber axes, and halberts; magazines to supply the
troops were also provided; and to call them together when occasion should
require, beacons were provided, and placed in every shire. Arms to the
amount of thirty thousand stand were provided from Holland, in addition to
those of home manufacture, and a foundry for cannon was established in the
Potter Row, at that time one of the suburbs, now a street of Edinburgh.
Leith, the part of the capital, was, however, still defenceless; but, aware
that the duke of Hamilton proposed to land there with hostile intentions, it
was immediately resolved to put the place in a posture of defence. The plan
of a new fort, the old defences of the town being in ruins, was laid down by
Sir Alexander Hamilton, who acted as engineer to Leslie; and several
thousands came spontaneously forward to assist in its erection. Noblemen,
gentlemen, and citizens; men, women, and children; even ladies of quality,
claimed the privilege of assisting in forwarding the good work, and in less
than a week it was finished, and the security of Edinburgh was considered
complete. Along the coast of Fife, too, every town was surrounded with
batteries mounted with cannon, carried on shore from the ships; and with the
exception of Inchkeith and Inchcolm, which were somehow neglected, there was
not a resting place in the Firth for an enemy, till he should win it at the
point of the pike.
In the mean time, the duke of
Hamilton lying in Yarmouth roads, was commanded to sail for the Forth, and
by all or any means to "create an awful diversion." His first sail was no
sooner discovered as a speck in the distant horizon, than the beacons were
in a blaze from the one extremity of the country to the other, and ere he
approached the shores of Leith they were lined by upwards of twenty thousand
intrepid defenders, among whom was his own mother, mounted on horseback at
the head of her vassals, with a pair of pistols in the holsters before her,
with which she declared she would shoot her son with her own hand the moment
he set a hostile foot on shore. Hamilton now found that he could do nothing.
The troops on board his fleet did not exceed five thousand men, all
raw young peasants, miserably sea-sick, and many of them labouring under the
small pox. Instead of attempting hostile operations, he landed his men upon
the islands of Inchkeith and Inchcolm, which served him for hospitals, and
contented himself with sending into the town council some more of Charles’s
proclamations, which were promised to be laid before the States, who were
expected to meet in a few days. This, as the measure of their obedience,
Hamilton was for the time obliged to accept. Of this circumstance, with the
strength which they mustered, he failed not to acquaint his master, advising
him at the same time to negotiate.—We are not detailing the history of the
war, but the part performed in it by an individual, or we should have stated
that Argyle had been sent to the west, where he had seized upon the castle
of Brodick in Arran, where the earl of Antrim was to have first headed his
Irish bands, in consequence of which they were for a time unable to come
forward. The castle of Dumbarton had also been seized by a master-stroke of
policy, as that of Edinburgh now was by the same in war. In the afternoon of
the twenty-third of March, Leslie himself, with a few companies which he had
been, according to his usual custom, training in the outer court-yard of
Holyrood house, some of which he secretly disposed in closes at the head of
the Castle Hill, approached to the exterior gate of the castle, where he
called a parley with the captain or governor, demanding to be admitted. This
being refused, he seemed to retire from the gate, when a petard which he had
hung against it, burst and laid it open. The inner gate was instantly
assailed with axes, and scaling ladders were applied to the wall, by which
the covenanters gained immediate admission; while the garrison, panic-struck
with the sudden explosion and the vigour of the attack, surrendered without
offering any resistance.
The castles of Dalkeith,
Douglas, and Strathaven in Clydesdale, and, in short, all the castles of the
kingdom, with the exception of that of Carlaverock, were seized in the same
manner. Huntly, who was making dispositions in the north to side with
Charles, had also in the interim been kidnapped by Montrose, so that he had
actually not the shadow of a party in the whole kingdom. Towards the end of
May, the king beginning to move from York, where he had fixed his
head-quarters, towards the north, the army under Leslie was ordered
southward to meet him. The final muster of the army, previous to the march,
took place on the Links of Leith, on the 20th of May, 1639, when from twelve
to sixteen thousand men made their appearance, well armed in the German
fashion, and commanded by native officers whom they respected as their
natural superiors, or by their own countrymen celebrated for their
hardihood, and that experience in military affairs which they had acquired
abroad. With the exception of one German trumpeter, there was not a
foreigner among them: all were Scotsmen, brought immediately from the
hearths and the altars which it was the object of the war to defend. The
private men were, for the most part, ploughmen from the western counties;
stout rustics whose bodies were rendered muscular by healthy exercise, and
whose minds were exalted by the purest feelings of patriotism and religion.
It was on this day that they were properly constituted an army, by having
the articles of war read to them. These had been drawn out by Leslie with
the advice of the Tables, after the model of those of Gustavus Adolphus, and
a printed copy of them was delivered to every individual soldier. The
general himself, at the same time, took an oath to the Estates,
acknowledging himself in all things liable both to civil and ecclesiastical
censure.
Leslie had by this time
acquired not only the respect and confidence, but the love of the whole
community, by the judgment with which all his measures were taken, and the
zeal he displayed in the cause; a zeal, the sincerity of which was
sufficiently attested by the fame of his exploits in Germany, and by the
scars which he bore on his person in consequence of these exploits. He was
deformed, old, and mean in his appearance; but the consummate skill which he
displayed, and the piety of his deportment, rendered him, according to
Baillie, who was along with him, a more popular and respected general than
Scotland had ever enjoyed in the most warlike and beloved of her kings. With
the van of this army, which was but a small part of the military array of
Scotland at this time, Leslie marched for the borders on the 21st of May,
the main body following him in order. He was abundantly supplied on his
march, and at every successive stage found that his numbers were increased,
and his stock of provisions becoming more ample. The first night he reached
Haddington, the second Dunbar, and the third Dunglass, a strong castle at
the east end of Lammermoor, where he halted and threw up some intrenchments.
Charles, in the mean time,
advanced to the borders, indulging in the most perfect assurance of driving
the Scottish insurgents before him. Learning from his spies, however, that
they were within a day’s march of him, and so well marshalled that the
result of a contest would be at best doubtful, he ordered a trumpet to be
sent with letters from himself to the Scottish army, conveying overtures of
a friendly nature, but forbidding them to approach within ten miles of his
camp, and on this demonstration of their temporal obedience, promising that
all their just supplications should be granted. Finding them disposed to an
amicable agreement, Charles advanced his camp to the Birks, on the banks of
the Tweed, and directed the earl of Holland, his general of horse, to
proceed with thirteen troops of cavalry, three thousand foot, and a number
of field-pieces, to drive some regiments of the covenanters which had been
stationed at Kelso and Jedburgh under colonel Robert Munro, for the
protection of the borders, from their station, as being within the limits
stipulated with the noblemen who commanded the main body. Proceeding, in the
execution of his order, to Dunse, the first town that lay in his way within
the Scottish border, the earl of Holland found it totally deserted of its
inhabitants, except a very few, who heard him read a proclamation, declaring
the whole Scottish nation, especially all who were in arms and did not
immediately lay them down, traitors. Proceeding westward to Kelso, and
having reached a height overlooking the town, he found the Scottish troops
in the act of being drawn out to receive him. Startled at their appearance,
Holland sent forward a trumpeter, to command them to retire according to the
promise of their leaders. His messenger was met by a stern demand whose
trumpeter he was, and on answering that he was lord Holland’s, was told that
it would be well for him to be gone. Displeased with this reception of his
missionary, his lordship ordered a retreat, and the Scottish soldiers were
with difficulty restrained from pursuing them to their camp.
What share Leslie had in the
proposed submission to Charles is not known; but he no sooner heard of the
above affair than he broke up his encampment at Dunglass, and set forward to
Dunse, where he ordered Munro to join him. Finding here an excellent
position commanding both roads to Edinburgh, he formed his camp on the Law
behind the town, where he could see the royal camp at Birks, on the other
side of the Tweed. This movement was made without the knowledge of the
English, whose camp Leslie, had he been left to himself, would most probably
have surprised and secured, with all that was in it. Charles himself,
walking out after an alarm from the Scottish army, was the first to descry
their encampment on Dunse Law, and he rightly estimated their number to be
from sixteen to eighteen thousand men; they were soon, however, increased to
twenty-four thousand by the reinforcements that hastened up to them on the
report of the English incursions at Dunse and Kelso; and never was an army
led to the field better appointed, or composed of better materials. "It
would have done your heart good," said an eye-witness, "to have cast your
eyes athwart our brave and rich hills as oft as I did, with great
contentment and joy. Our hill was garnished on the top toward the south and
east with our mounted cannon, well near to forty, great and small. Our
regiment lay on the sides; the crowners (superior officers of regiments) lay
in canvass lodges, large and wide; their captains about them in lesser ones;
the soldiers about all in huts of timber, covered with divot or straw. Over
every captain’s tent door waved the flag of his company, blue, with the arms
of Scotland wrought in gold, with the inscription ‘For Christ’s Crown and
Covenant.’ Leslie himself lay in the castle of Dunse, at the bottom of the
bill, whence he issued regularly every night, rode round the camp, and saw
the watches regularly set." Throughout the whole army there was the most
perfect harmony of opinion, both as to matters of civil and ecclesiastical
polity; and there was a fervour in the cause they had undertaken, that
burned with an equal flame in the bosom of the peasant and the peer. The
latter took their full share in all the fatigues of the camp; slept like the
common soldiers, in their boots and cloaks on the bare ground; and in their
intercourse with their inferiors, used the language of affection and
friendship, rather than that of command. Ministers of the gospel attended
the camp in great numbers, carrying arms like the rest, and many of them
attended by little parties of their friends and dependents. There were
sermons morning and evening in various places of the camp, to which the
soldiers were called by beat of drum; and while the day was devoted to the
practice of military exercises, its rise and its fall were celebrated in
every tent with the singing of psalms, reading the Scriptures, and prayer.
The general tone of the army was ardent, full of devotion to God and of the
hope of success against the enemy. "They felt," says Baillie, "the favour of
God shining upon them, and a sweet, meek, humble, yet strong and vehement
feeling leading them along. For myself, I never found my mind in better
temper than it was all that time since I came from home, for I was as a man
who had taken my leave from the world, and was resolved to die in that
service without return." While they were thus strengthened in spirit, the
body was equally well attended to. The regular pay of the common men was
six-pence a day; fourpence purchased a leg of lamb, and all of them were
served with wheaten bread; a luxury which it is probable many of them never
enjoyed either before or after. Leslie kept open table daily at Dunse castle
for the nobility and for strangers, besides a side table for gentlemen
waiters; and as there had been an extraordinary crop the preceding year, and
the people were zealous to offer supplies, the camp abounded with all the
necessaries of life. An amicable arrangement, however, having been entered
into between Charles and the covenanters, peace was proclaimed in both camps
on the 18th of June, 1639.
In the month of April, 1640,
it was found necessary by the covenanters to reassemble their army, and
Leslie was again appointed general; but from various causes it was the
beginning of August before the general armament could be collected at Dunse,
where, in the early part of that month it was reviewed by the general. It
amounted to twenty-three thousand foot, three thousand horse, and a train of
heavy artillery, besides some light cannon, formed of tin and leather corded
round, capable of sustaining twelve discharges each. This was a species of
artillery used by Gustavus Adolphus, and which the Scottish general had
adopted in imitation of his master. This army was composed of the same men
who had last year occupied Dunse Law. The horse were chiefly composed of
respectable citizens and country gentlemen, lightly armed; some of them
having lances, and generally mounted on the small, but active horses of the
country. Their attire and accoutrements were the same as in the preceding
year, including the broad Lowland blue bonnet. Their march over the border
was, however, delayed for some weeks for the want of money and necessaries.
"It was found," says Mr John Livingston, who accompanied the army in the
capacity of chaplain to the earl of Cassillis’s regiment, "when the whole
army was come up, that there was want of powder and of bread, the biscuit
being spoiled, and of cloth to be huts to the soldiers. This produced some
fear that the expedition might be delayed for that year. One day when the
committee of estates and general officers, and some ministers, were met in
the castle of Dunse, and were at prayer and consulting what to do, an
officer of the guard comes and knocks rudely at the door of the room where
we were, and told there was treachery discovered; for he, going to a big
cellar in the bottom of the house, seeking for some other thing, had found a
great many barrels of gun-powder, which he apprehended was intended to blow
us all up. After search, it was found that the powder had been laid in there
the year before, when the army had departed from Dunse Law, and had been
forgotten. Therefore, having found powder, the earls of Rothes and Loudon,
Mr Alexander Henderson, and Mr Archibald Johnston were sent to Edinburgh,
and within a few days brought as much meal and cloth to the soldiers by the
gift of well affected people there, as sufficed the whole army. With the
same readiness these people had parted with their cloth and their meal,
others parted with their plate, and to such an extent was this carried, that
for many years afterwards, not even a silver spoon was to be met with in the
best houses."—"It was very refreshful," adds Livingston, " to remark that
after we came to a quarter at night, there was nothing to be heard almost
through the whole army but singing of psalms, prayer, and reading of the
Scriptures by the soldiers in their several tents; and I was informed there
was much more the year before, when the army lay at Dunse Law. And, indeed,
in all our meetings and consultings, both within doors and in the fields,
always the nearer the beginning there was so much the more dependence upon
God, and more tenderness in worship and walking; but through process of
time, we still declined more and more."
General Leslie crossed the
Tweed on the 20th of August with his army, in three divisions; the College
of Justice’ troop of horse, consisting of one hundred and sixty gentlemen,
under Sir Thomas Hope, riding on the right wing in order to break the stream
for the foot; all of whom got safely through but one man, who was drowned.
In their march, the officers of the Scottish army were greatly embarrassed
by a fear of offending the English nation, with which they had no quarrel,
and with which they knew well they were not able to contend. With all the
difficulties imposed on him by his situation, however, Leslie continued his
march till the 28th, when he completely defeated the king’s troops, who had
been sent to defend the fords at Newburn. This success put him in possession
of Newcastle, Tynemouth, Shields, and Durham, together with several large
magazines of provisions, and again reduced Charles to the last extremity; a
crisis which ultimately produced the treaty of Rippon, afterwards
transferred to London. The king had now, however, the parliament of England
upon his hands, and was less occupied with Scottish affairs than formerly.
Ten months elapsed before the English parliament saw fit to allow the treaty
to be concluded, the Scottish army being all the time quartered in
Newcastle, that they might be at hand to assist, in case of matters coming
to extremities between the king and the lords of St Stephen’s chapel.
Embarrassed and controlled by his parliament, Charles now attempted to
conciliate the Scots by conceding to them all their demands; hoping thereby
to engage them to take part with him against the former. With this view he
came himself to Scotland in the month of August, 1641, when, passing through
the Scottish army at Newcastle, he was received with the utmost respect, and
entertained by the general, who was created lord Balgonie, and on the 11th
of October, 1641, earl of Leven by patent to him and his heirs whatsoever,
in the following year the earl was sent over to Ireland, in command of the
forces raised for suppressing the rebellion there. In the next year he was
recalled to take the command of the forces sent into England to the
assistance of the parliament, in pursuance of the Solemn League and
Covenant. He commanded the left of the centre division of the parliamentary
forces at the battle of Marston moor, and was driven out of the field,
though the honour of his own name and that of his country was gallantly
sustained by David Leslie, whose valour contributed in a great degree to the
victory there obtained. He afterwards, assisted by the earl of
Callander, took the town of Newcastle by storm; but treated both the town
and the garrison with lenity. The king having made overtures to the Scottish
generals, Leven sent a copy of them to the parliament, which in return
awarded him a vote of thanks, accompanied by a present of a piece of plate.
He now laid siege to Harford, but being left by David Leslie, who had
marched with all the horse into Scotland to oppose Montrose, and the king
approaching in great force, he raised the siege, and marched northward. He
was appointed to command, at the siege of Newark, an army composed of both
Scottish and English troops, where the king came to him privately on the 5th
day of May, 1646. He was afterwards one of a hundred officers who, on their
knees, besought his majesty to accept the propositions offered him by the
parliament, and thus be merciful to himself and to the nation. When the
engagement for the king’s rescue was entered into, the earl of Leven
resigned the command of the army in disgust, pleading the infirmities of old
age. On the failure of that project, he was again restored to the place he
had so honourably filled; but before the battle of Dunbar he again resigned
on account of his great age, but appeared in the field as a volunteer. The
year following, at a meeting of some noblemen for concerting measures in
behalf of Charles II. at Eliot in Angus, he was, along with the rest,
surprised by a detachment from the garrison of Dundee, carried to London,
and thrown into the Tower. At the request of Christina, queen of Sweden, he
was liberated, had his sequestration taken off, and no fine imposed upon
him. He returned to Scotland in the month of May, 1654, and shortly after
went to Sweden, to thank Christina for the favour she had done him by
interceding with Cromwell on his behalf. How long he remained in Sweden is
not known; but he died at Balgony on the 4th of April, 1661, at a very
advanced age. He was buried on the nineteenth of the same month in the
church of Markinch. Few men have been more fortunate in life than Alexander
Leslie, earl of Leven. He appears to have entered upon its duties without
fortune and with a scanty education, and by the force of his talents,
seconded by habits of religion and persevering industry, raised himself to
the highest honours which society has to confer, both in his own and in
foreign countries. His services were at the time of immense value to his
country, and would have been much more so, had they not been shackled by the
prejudices, the prepossessions, and the ignorance, of those whom the
circumstances of birth placed over him as directors. His lordship acquired
extensive landed property, particularly Inchmartin in the Cane of Gowrie,
which he called Inchleslie. He was twice married; first to Agnes, daughter
of Renton of Billy in Berwickshire, and by her had two sons, Gustavus and
Alexander, the latter of whom succeeded him as earl of Leven; and five
daughters. After the death of his first wife, which took place in 1651, he
married Frances, daughter of Sir John Ferriers of Tamworth in Staffordshire,
relict of Sir John Parkington, baronet of Westwood, in the county of
Worcester, by whom he had no issue. His peerage finally became merged by a
female with that of Melville, in conjunction with which it still exists.
The Life and
Campaigns of Alexander Leslie
First Earl of Leven by Charles Sanford Terry (1899) (pdf) |