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After all these weary
tracasseries of the cramers, it is refreshing, if only by way of
contrast, to come to the military Scot in Poland, who was, if not more
noble by birth than many of the merchants, yet considerably more
interesting. Dr. Fischer tells us much less about them. He gives, however,
the sad case of Colonel Alexander Ruthven, whose widow, Margaret Munro, in
1605, petitioned the town of Dantzig for help for herself and her poor
children, inasmuch as her husband had lost his life in the service of King
Sigismund III., whose Chancellor and Field-Marshal, John Zamoyski (Zamoscius)
had promised, ‘when he was about to meet his death at the siege of Volmer,’
to see them provided for. George Bruce, George Smyth, George Hepburn, all
Scots in Poland, appear in the documents. [Fischer, Scots in Eastern
and Western Prussia.]
In 1615, Patrick Gordon,
tutor to the Swede Count Gustaf Stenbock, returned from Poland to Sweden,
and reported that wicked, abominable people had been writing more libels
there, printed cum privilegio regali, not, moreover, only against
the Protestant Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia, but against all the
House of Stuart. Trouble was evidently brewing against Sweden or Britain,
and we find that some time afterwards, in 1623, it burst.
In that year King Gustavus Adolphus
wrote (on the 23rd September) an indignant letter in excellent latinity to
King James I and VI , informing him there was a Scottish renegade
in his service who had gone over to the King of Poland and had made a
bargain to bring eight thousand Scots into that of the Polish King for the
invasion of Sweden and the ruin of the reformed faith. This Scot was Lord
Robert Stuart of Middleton, ‘Son of the Earl of Orkney, [Bastard brother
to Queen Mary and uncle to King James VI.] and once secretary
to the Vice-Chancellor of Poland,’ and with him was another, Sir John
Vizard, a ‘gilded Knight’ The Swedish envoy, the Scot, James Spens of
Wormistoun, younger (whose father James Spens had served the Swedish crown
so faithfully, and won such encomiums), received a ‘counterblast’ from
King James (4th March 1624) in the form of a counter-warrant [Register
Privy Council of Scotland, vol. xiii. pp. lvii, 364-365.] to levy
twelve hundred Scots for service in Sweden. It is said Spens moved every
stone, and (perhaps for his Scottish audience) hinted that money was not
forthcoming from Poland, which news was most comforting to his British and
Swedish masters, ‘and of the 9000 Scots raised for the King of Denmark in
1627, many, dazzled by the brilliance of Your [Swedish]
Majesty’s renown, prefer serving under Your victorious banner, with all
the chances of war, to good pay in Denmark.’ [Horace Marryat, One Year in
Sweden, vol. ii. pp. 466-467. London, 1862.]
That there was (in spite of
this) much favour to the Scots is shown to us by the fact that in one case
the King of Poland granted in 1618 to Robert Cunningham the property (the
fourth part of the property of a stranger invariably was confiscated to
the Crown) of John Tullidaff (Tullidelph). Whether he was in the army is
not stated. [Fischer, East and West Prussia] That other Scotsmen were in
the Polish army is demonstrated by (in 1619) a grant by the King of Poland
to Peter Learmonth, ‘nobilis,’ to whom the Crown renounced a heritage
fallen to it by the jus caducum. The deed says, ‘He showed himself a brave
and active soldier, not only against the Duke of Sudermania, but also
during the whole of the Russian war when we were besieging Smolensk.’
[Ibid. p. 131. It is there suggested that he may have been ancestor of the
Russian poet Lermontoff, whose ancestors came to Russia from Poland, by
way of Tula.] We know later that he became chief captain over three
companies of German soldiers, nine hundred in all, and that King Sigismund
III. gave a letter [Penes Patrick Keith-Murray, Esq. A translation of the
letter is printed in the Scottish Historical Review, vol. iii (1906), pp.
524-552.] of recommendation and a free pass to him and to his captain
William Keitz (Keith), [Perhaps this was the William Kyth who died in 1636
on his way to Jaroslave. If so, he had a brother, Jacob Keith. –The Scots
in East and West Prussia. The head of the Keith family, William, 5th Earl
Marischal (died 28th October 1635), member of the Scottish Privy Council
under King Charles I., it is said, fitted out a fleet which he sent to
King Vladislas of Poland.] dated at Warsaw, 17th January 1621. There was
also Thomas Fergusson, ‘egregius,’ who had served with Jacob Wilson and
Captain Kirkpatrick as a sergeant against the Russians. To him King
Vladislas IV. granted permission in 1624 to return to his native country,
characterising his service as brave and honourable. [Fischer, East and
West Prussia, iv. p. 129.] Colonel James Murray was also a Scottish
officer of the Poles. In 1627 he commissioned one Jacob Rowan (the
persecuted Ruthvens sometimes took that name) at Dantzig to collect his
pension, [Reg. Privy Council (2nd Series) pp. 480, 481. ] and we find him
still in Poland in 1632 petitioning for a belated birth-brieve. We also
discover the names of Captain Reay and of Major-General Count von
Johnston, a colonel of a regiment of cuirassiers. We have a curious
instance also, in February 1639, of the cosmopolitanism of the Scot when,
in the Roll of the Vassals called by the Earl of Mar in his actions, we
notice one in Denmark cheek by jowl with ‘. . . Fentoun in Swaden, and . .
. Norie in Pole.’ [Hist. MSS. Commission Report, ‘The Earl of Mar and
Kelley’s MSS.,’ p. 9.]
In 1656 we find that some
Scottish Highlanders, dissatisfied with Cromwell’s government, went to
Poland in the service of the King of Sweden. Mr. James Fraser’s account of
this levy is as follows: [Chronicle of the Frasers, the ‘Wardlaw MS.,’ p.
417. Edited by Wm. Mackay. Scottish History Society, 1905.]‘This yeare the
Lord Cranston haveing gotten a Cornels Commission levyes a new regiment of
voluntiers for the King of Poles [really Sweden’s] service, and it tristed
well for his incurragement and advantage; for the royalists chused rather
to goe abroad, though in a very meane condition, than live at home under a
yoke of slavery. The Collonel sent one Captain Montgomery north in June,
and had very good luck, listing many for the service; and himselfe
followed after in August, and, reseeding at Invernes, sallied out to visit
the Master of
Lovat, and in 3 dayes got 43 of the Frasers to take on. Among the rest
Captain James Fraser, my Lord Lovats son, engages, and without degradation
Cranston gives him a Captains commission. Hugh Fraser, young Clunvacky,
takes on as lieutenant. William Fraser [Brother of the author, Mr. James
Fraser.] sone to Mr. William Fraser of Phoppachy, an ensign;
James Fraser, sone to Foyer, a corporall. The Lord Lovats son, Captain
James, had 22 young gentlemen with the rest, who ingaged be themselves out
of Stratharick, Abertarph, Aird, and Strathglass, that I heard the
Collonel say he was vain of them for gallantry. I saw them march out of
Invernes, and most of the English regiment lookeing on with no small
commendation as well as emulation of their bravery.’ This levy would, as
it was really Swedish, of course concern us little, were it not for the
fact that some of the officers remained in Poland after leaving their
regiment. The same writer tells us their tale. [Chronicle of the
Frasers, ‘Wardlaw MS.,’ p. 424. Edited by Wm. Mackay. Scottish History
Society, 1905.] ‘That same summer (1659) Captain James Fraser,
my Lord Lovat’s sone, who had gone abroad with the Lord Cranston, 1656,
died up at Torn in Pomer, and three more of his name with him; and onely
Lieutenant Hugh Fraser, Clunvacky, returnd home alive.’ And later, [Ibid.
p. 491.] in 1670: ‘This October came to the country my
brother germain, William Fraser. He went abroad with Captain James Fraser,
my Lord Lovat sone, anno 1656, in the qualety of an Ensign in the
Lord Cranstons regiment, for the service of Carolus Gustavus, King of
Sweden; and after the peace he went up to Pole with other Scotshmen, and
settled at Torn, where he married, as a marchant . .’ This is interesting
because, as Dr. Fischer has pointed out, Scottish merchants of pure Celtic
origin are comparatively rare. ‘He had given trust and long delay to the
Aberdeens men, and was necessitat to take the occasion of a ship and come
to Scotland to crave his own. He and yong Clunvaky, Hugh, are the only
surviving two of the gallant crew who ventered over seas with their
cheefes sone, Captain James, and he is glad of this happy occasion . .
continued here among his friends all the winter, and returned back in the
spring, never to see his native country again. Two of his foster brothers
ventered with him, Farqhar and Rory, very pretty boyes.’
Another levy brought
(unwillingly enough) into the Polish service, General Patrick Gordon of
Auchleuchries, who later gained great fame in Russia as ‘Patrick
Ivanovitch,’ the friend and collaborator of Peter the Great. He entered
the Swedish army in 1655, seduced thereto at Hamburg by a Ruit-master
Gardin, of his own nation; was captured after the siege of Cracow next
year by the Poles. He was compelled to take service in their army, in a
company of dragoons under Constantine Lubomirsky, Starosta of Sandets,
being released for the purpose, through the intervention of his
countryman, ‘P. Innes, Provincial of the Franciscans.’ It was not the
first time that Patrick Gordon had been in Poland, however, as we learn
from his Diary, [Passages from the Diary of General Patrick
Gordon of Auchleuchries, A.D. 1635-A.D. 1699. (Spalding Club), 1859.]
which is delightful in itself, and invaluable to all students of
Russian and Polish history.
The son of the laird of
Auchleuchries in Aberdeen, and his wife, Mary Ogilvy, he was born in 1635,
and educated at the school of Ellon and other local schools till 1651,
when, he says, ‘staying at home, did wait upon my father.’ Anxious to make
his fortune as ‘the younger son of a younger brother of a younger house,’
he determined to go abroad to seek his fortune with--although a
Catholic—no particular choice of country ‘seing I had no knowne friend in
any foreigne place.’ He shipped to Dantzig, found Scottish friends there,
and then thought of the Jesuit college of Bromberg, ‘yet could not my
humor endure such a still and strict way of liveing.’ Slipping away, he
had many adventures of the poor traveller in Prussia until, in 1653,
‘falling into acquaintance with one John Dick; who was prentice to a
merchant called Robert Sleich, I was perswaded by him to travell further
up into Polland, and, because I was much inclined to be a souldier, he
told me that Duke Ian Radzewill had a lyfe company, all or most Scottismen,
where wee would without doubt be accommodated.’ His journal in Poland
chiefly shows the ubiquity of the Scots. The first night (1654) in a
village they ‘lodged by a Skotsman who lived there.’ They went on to
Warsaw and lodged ‘in the suburb Lesczinsky, so called from a pallace-like
house hard by, built by noblemen of the family of Leczinskyes. The seym or
parliament was sitting at this time in Varsaw,’ but ‘Duke Radzivell was
not there.’ His ‘comerad’ was of use, as he ‘had been two or three years
in the countrey, could speak Polls and Dutch, had some skill in
merchandising, and so, for getting a livelyhood had many wayes the
advantage of me.’ Nor was his companion alone in this. ‘Here were many
merchants of our countreymen, into whose acquaintance I was ashamed to
intrude myself, and they showed but very little countenance to me, haveing
heard of my intention to turne souldier, and fearing lest I should be
burthensome or troublesome to them.’ So, anxious to get back to Scotland,
he pushed on (with but eight or nine forms left) to a big city and soon
‘had a sight of the fair citty of Posna.’ (Posen). .. ‘Of all the cities
of Polland. . . the most pleasant, being very well situated, haveing a
wholesome aire, and a most fertile countrey round about it . . . But that
which surpasseth all, is the civility of the inhabitants, which is
occasioned by its vicinity to Germany, and the frequent resorting of
strangers to the two annual faires, and every day allmost; the Polls also,
in emulation of the strangers dwelling amongst them, strive to transcend
one another in civility.’ Here he met more compatriots. ‘The gentleman who
brought me along, had his house or lodging’ (this is very significant of
the confusion of the Poles of Jews and Scots, to the detriment of the
latter) ‘in the Jewes Street, where I dined with him; and after dinner he
took me along to a Skotsman, called James Lindesay, [A family of Lindsay,
apparently descendants of the family of Fesdo, had their noblesse
recognised by the National Diet of 1764 under the name of Lindesin –Lives
of the Lindsays, vol. ii. P. 281n.] to whom I had a
recommendatory letter. At first, he was imperiously inquisitive of my
parents, education, travells, and intentions. I answered to all his
demands, with an observant ingenuity. One passage I cannot forgett, which
was this. When, upon his enquiry, I had told him what my parents names
were, he said in a disdainful manner: Gordon and Ogilvie! These are two
great clannes, sure you must be a gentleman! To which, albeit I knew it to
be spoken in derision, I answered nothing, but that I was not the worse
for that. However afterwards he was kind enough to me,’ as were Robert
Farquhar, James White, James Watson, and other Scots. They recommended
Gordon, a passionate Royalist, to accompany a young nobleman Opalinsky,
who was ‘going to visit foreign countreys,’ furnishing him liberally with
money, and he travelled with him until (being warmed with wine) he entered
the Swedish army.
After his capture by the
Poles in 1656, his adhesion to their service did not last very long. When
captured again by the Swedes he pleaded that he had been forced into the
Polish ranks, and his statement was accepted. [We see a case of ‘treason’
by a Scot going over from the Polish to the Swedish side later in this
book. Since this was written I have discovered a Scottish officer in the
army of John Sobieski, George Guthry. He was a colonel in the Polish
service, and there still exists in his family a silver cup out of which
King John drank just before he saved Vienna. This George Guthrie, who
organised at his own expense a regiment of Hussars, part of the victorious
host at Vienna in 1683, is described as a descendant of Guthrie of Guthrie
in Scotland, and was, for causes examined in 1672, granted a Diploma of
Polish Nobility by King John Sobieski. His descendant Baron de Guttry
lived at Pariz, near Posen, in 1914, and it is to his eldest son that I am
indebted for the family history.] With them, driving cattle and getting
booty employed him well, until, in 1657, he was again taken prisoner by
the troops of Poland. One of these who pressed him unsuccessfully to quit
the allegiance of Sweden for Poland was Patrick Gordon [The reader will
find much information about ‘Steelhand’ and many of the many Gordons in
the Polish service in Mr. J.M. Bulloch’s invaluable House of Gordon
(New Spalding Club), vol. iii. Lieutenant Adam Gordon and Ensign John
Kennedy, both dying in the Polish service, gave Patrick Gordon some
trouble in recovering their properties.] of the Steel Hand, an
excommuniated Royalist who had taken flight from Scotland into the service
of the King of Poland, and was now a captain in the Polish cavalry. On
22nd November 1658, after many vicissitudes such as capture by the
Imperial forces, he again fell into the hands of the Poles, and the
latter, wishing his service, now refused to release him, holding him as a
valuable asset. Probably as a Catholic he was quite glad to serve under
their banner, but he was politic enough to show reluctance. John Sobieski
offered him the command of a dragoon company on his own estates, but he
declined the offer of one whom he described as ‘a hard bargainer but
courteous.’ One wonders what a Royalist like Patrick Gordon would have
done had he known that John Sobieski’s grand-daughter, Clementina Sobieska,
was to marry the Chevalier de St. George, the son of his revered
sovereign, more revered because deposed, James II. and VII.
In his next campaign, in
1659, he, now quartermaster, met two more compatriots, James Burnett of
Leys, [Grandson of Sir Thomas Burnett of Leys, first baronet. He borrowed
money from Gordon in 1667.—The Family of Burnett of Leys (New
Spalding Club), p.66.] in the train of the ‘Waywode of Kiew,’ and
Dr. William Davidson, then physician to Field-Marshal Lubomirski, but
afterwards, for he made Poland his home, premier physician to King John
Casimir of Poland.
We see Gordon’s good sense.
When he was offered a company of a regiment of dragoons, his first care
was for the health of his men, and he repaired to Posen to consult a Jew
doctor reputed wise in treatment of the plague. We are also told he
avoided marching his troops to one town whose prince protected foreigners
and whose ‘provost’ was a Scot; but he afterwards repented this
generosity. In June 1660 Gordon took part in the Polish victory over the
Russians at Czudno(Chudnovo). Yet we find that, in 1661, after coquetting
with the service of the Emperor, [In the proposed levy of eight hundred
horse he mentions Lieutenant-Colonel John Watson, Major Davidson. His
sureties were Steelhand, James Birney, George Gordon, and James Wenton,
all merchants in Zamosk.] he determined to enter that of the Tsar of
Russia, Aleksei Mikhaelovitch, and went with Paul Menzies (of the
Pitfoddels family, a Catholic, in the Polish service), Colonel Crawford
(in the Russian service, but a Polish prisoner of Lord Henry Gordon, who
‘not only maintained him at a plentifull table at Varso, but dismissed him
ransome free, and gave him a pass as a Captaine of horse’), when he left
for Moscow. Gordon’s success there can be read in other books, [Cf.
Scottish Influences in Russian History, by A. Francis Steuart.
Glasgow, 1913.] for it was continuous and certain, and he died
at Moscow full of honours on the 29th November 1699.
On his journey to Moscow,
Gordon mentions that at Znin they ‘were merry with Captaine Portes and
Ensigne Martine,’ Scots, no doubt; and it is interesting to note that he
describes another halting-place, Kiadany, in this way: ‘This towne
belongeth to the family of the Radzivills, [The Radzivill family were for
long the chief supporters of the Calvinists in Poland. (See Miss
Baskerville’s Introduction also.) They were patrons of John Johnston, who
dedicated his book, Thaumatographia Naturalis (Amsterdam 1665), to
Prince Janus and his son Prince Boguslas Radzivill.] where is
the public exercise of the Protestant religion, and because of that many
Scotsmen were liveing, by one whereof wee lodged,’ and there, or near
there, he met one ‘Major Karstares.’
The Lord Henry Gordon
mentioned above deserves a word, and his twin-sister a few words more.
Lord Henry Gordon [Miss Baskerville has another note on the Gordon family
on pp. 104-105.] was the youngest son of George, second Marquis of Huntly.
Though ‘hare-brained,’ we are told he was ‘very courageous,’ a good
attribute. He is said to have come to Poland after his sister’s marriage
and, any way, became a Polish noble in 1658. He got from King Charles II.
a life annuity of six thousand merks Scots from the Huntly estates in
1667. He died in Scotland at Strathbogie.
His twin-sister, Lady
Catherine Gordon, had a very different career. A Catholic, she was carried
to France, and was, as her high birth entitled her, attached to the Court.
When Cardinal Mazarin, in order to remove her influence from French
politics, married the Princess Marie Louise de Gonzaga-Nevers to King
Vladislas of Poland in 1645, Lady Catherine was one of her ‘train,’ as was
the child Marie de la Grange d’Arquien, who became later the wife of King
John Sobieski. Lady Catherine Gordon married in Poland the poet-noble,
Andrew John, Count Morsztyn, the ‘exiled’ Grand Treasurer of Poland (who
‘haveing more regard to his own private interest than the public benefitt,
sent all the riches of the thesaurary into France, quhairunto he retired
himself, anno 1683, to prevent the Diet’s calling him to account’).
His wife, ‘an active woman,’ had very considerable political influence,
and ‘much credite’ during the reigns of the last of the Vasa kings and
during the promotion of John Sobieski, [See K. Waliczewskis ‘Marysienka.’
She had a birth-brieve under the Great Seal of Scotland, 21st
August 1687.] and also influenced the election of the Prince de Conti. She
had a son, the Comte de Chateau Villain, killed at Namur, who married the
daughter of the Duc de Chevreuse, by whom he had two daughters; and (at
least) two daughters. The one married the Polish Grand-Chamberlain, Count
Bielinski, the other, Isabelle de Morszlyn, [She had also a birth-brieve
granted by the Privy Council of Scotland, 6th March 1700—Hist.
MSS. Commission Report, the ‘Duke of Roxbugh’s Papers,’ p. 82. The
portraits of these ladies, which I had hoped to reproduce as illustrations
to this volume, from the originals in the Czartoriski Collection, have,
unfortunately, owing to the war, never reached me.] married Casimir
Czartoriski, Palatine of Wilna. Her son was ancestor of the later
Czartoriskis, while her daughter, Constance Czartoriska, married (14th
September 1720) Stanilas Poniatowski, and was mother of the last King of
Poland. Nor was this great alliance forgotten by her relations in Britain.
They remembered it, and were proud of it. We find that Grande Dame,
Lady Mary Coke (née Campbell), a daughter of the powerful Highland
Chief, John, Duke of Argyll, writing in 1768: ‘The Polish Prince (Czartoriski)
you mention is our cousin. His Grand Mother or great Grand-Mother, was a
daughter of the Marquis of Argyll’s. The King of Poland is the same
relation to Us.’ [The Journal of Lady Mary Coke, vol. ii. P. 361.]
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