Scots in the Habsburg Service, 1618-1648 (History of Warfare, V. 21)

SCOTS IN HABSBURG SERVICE, 1618-1648

HISTORY OF WARFARE General Editor

kelly devries Loyola College Founding Editors

theresa vann paul chevedden VOLUME 21

SCOTS IN HABSBURG SERVICE, 1618-1648 BY

DAVID WORTHINGTON

BRILL LEIDEN BOSTON 2004 •

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Worthington, David. Scots in the Habsburg service, 1618-1648 / by David Worthington. p. cm. — (History of warfare, ISSN 1385-7827 ; v. 21) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 90-04-13575-8 1. Thirty Years’ War, 1618-1648. 2. Habsburg, House of—History. 3. Scots—Austria—History. I. Title. II. Series. D258.W67 2003 940.2’44—dc22 2003056086

ISSN 1385–7827 ISBN 90 04 13575 8 © Copyright 2004 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910 Danvers MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements ...................................................................... List of Abbreviations .................................................................. Note on dates/currency ............................................................ Chronology ................................................................................ Glossary of foreign terms .......................................................... Glossary of foreign names ........................................................

vii xi xiii xv xvii xxi

C O Scottish Activities in Central, Western and Southern Mainland Europe (Excluding France) to 1618 ....

1

PART I

THE SPANISH HABSBURG LANDS: WILLIAM AND HUGH SEMPLE AND THEIR CIRCLE Introduction: A Policy of Dynastic Universalism? The Habsburg Alliance, 1618–33 ........................................ C T 1618–25: The Arbitrista and the “Earl of Guile” ........................................................................ C T 1625–33: Militancy or Loyalism? ................ C F After 1633: Pro-Palatinate Initiatives ..........

39 50 80 104

PART II

THE AUSTRIAN HABSBURG LANDS: WALTER LESLIE AND HIS CIRCLE Introduction: The End of Aspirations to Universal Empire? The Habsburg Alliance, 1633–48 ........................................ C F 1633–5: The Assassination of General Wallenstein .............................................................. C S 1635–7: An “Anglo-Austrian” Alliance? ........ C S 1637–40: The Count and the New Emperor ........................................................................

133 142 177 201

vi



C E 1640–2: The Palatinate cause and the Imperial Diet at Regensburg ................................................ C N 1642–8: Towards a Peace Treaty in Westphalia ..............................................................................

245

Conclusion ..................................................................................

273

Map 1. The Habsburgs in Europe c. 1618 ............................ Map 2. Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia c. 1634 ....................

285 286

Appendix 1: Scots at the Habsburg courts, 1618 to 1648 .... Appendix 2: Scots in the Habsburg armies, 1618 to 1648 .... Appendix 3: The Scots and Irish at Eger and their post-1634 careers in Imperial service ..................................

287 291 299

Bibliography ................................................................................ Index ..........................................................................................

301 319

226

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

There are many people I would like to thank for making the completion of this book possible. Perhaps the best place to start is with my former colleagues at the University of Aberdeen. The generosity and patience of my PhD supervisors, Professor Jane Ohlmeyer and Professor Paul Dukes, has been a feature of the last six years for which I am very grateful. I also learnt a great deal from other friends in Aberdeen during my time there and, in many cases, have continued to do so since. These are too many to list. However, a special mention must go to Dr. Steve Murdoch and Dr. Alexia Grosjean whose passion for their work has been an inspiration since 1997. Thank you also to Professor Allan Macinnes and Dr. Andrew Mackillop for providing me with the opportunity to present the results of my work to an international audience at several conferences and symposia. For assistance with mapping, I would have been lost without the expertise of Alison Sandison of the Department of Geography. Regarding the all-important Leslie family, I learnt much in the company of the late Nick Bogdan. It was with great sadness that I learnt of Nick’s death in the summer of 2002. Without doubt, I am one of many who will miss his encyclopaedic knowledge, infectious enthusiasm and dedication to work in this field. Dr. Penny Dransart, Alasdair Roberts and Brian Leslie have also been very supportive regarding this aspect of the research, while the encouragement of Bishop Mario Conti (as he then was) and the staff of the Blairs Museum proved another big help in the early stages. Away from the north of Scotland, there are many others I would like to mention. The supportive academic environment of the Department of Modern History at Maynooth has been a pleasure to work in since I arrived here in October 2001. I am particularly grateful to Professor Vincent Comerford, Dr. Thomas O’Connor and Professor Colm Lennon for their encouraging words. In the Czech Republic, the late Professor Josef Poli“enskÿ of Charles University was very helpful during my visit to Prague in 1998: I will always hold dear memories of the two brief opportunities I had to spend time in his company. Petr Mat’a too, has been a huge help to me

viii

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in the same city, providing answers to my naïve enquiries regarding the entire region of what were the Bohemian crownlands. With respect to Austria, Dr. Regina Pörtner of the German Historical Institute in London has assisted a lot, as have Professor Thomas Winkelbauer and Dr. Stefan Sienell in Vienna, while the staff of both the Department of History of the Karl-Franzens-Universität and the Steiermärkisches Landesarchiv in Graz also made many useful suggestions. Krisztina Sitku of the Janus Pannonius University of Pécs has provided many positive words down the years and advice on issues relating to post-1526 Royal Hungary. On my visits to Slovenia, Marjeta Ciglene‘ki in Ptuj has been one of many helpful sources. Also of support in the same town has been Polona Vidmar, while in Ljubljana, Dr. Ignacij Voje, France Dolinar and Dr. Bogdan Kolar assisted me back in 1997. Regarding the former lands of the Habsburg monarchy more generally, Professor R.J.W. Evans has provided muchneeded advice in his responses to my written queries. With respect to my research in Spain and Belgium, I would like to thank Professor Geoffrey Parker, Dr. Glyn Redworth, Dr. Concepcion Saenz and Hector MacDonnell for their expert knowledge and various insights. A big thank you must also go to the staff of the libraries and archives that I have used over the years, and who have dealt with my enquiries (often in foreign languages of which I have poor command) with a great deal of patience. I have received generous financial backing ever since beginning this study. Without this, I would not have been able to complete the essential research. My thanks go to the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences for assisting me by means of a one-year Postdoctoral Fellowship during the 2001–2 academic year. The year before that, the Institute of Historical Research in London provided me with the Scouloudi Fellowship that allowed me to convert my primary materials into a PhD thesis: I would like to thank Professor Robert I. Frost especially for his support during that period. During both the 1998–9 and 1999–2000 academic years, I obtained a Faculty Award from the University of Aberdeen along with a number of other grants to support travel: from the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland (on three occasions), the Scottish International Education Trust and the Royal Historical Society (on two occasions), and the British Council (Slovenia) and the Moray and Nairn Educational Trust (on one occasion). In 2002–3, I received



ix

a Publications Grant from the Academic Council of NUI Maynooth. I am indebted to all of these bodies for their help. It remains to mention both my friends outwith the world of academic history and, last but not least, my family. They have been supportive throughout. There is perhaps no need to add that, at many points along the way, it was the late John Mayhew’s perceptive comments that gave me the extra push required to write-up this book.

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

Manuscript sources AGS AGS Est.

Archivo General de Simancas, Spain. Archivo General de Simancas, Estado (State Papers).

AGRB

Archives Générales du Royaume/Algemeen Rijksarchief, Brussels, Belgium. Archives Générales du Royaume/Algemeen Rijksarchief, Secrétairerie d’État et de Guerre.

AGRB T100

HHStA Staatenabteilung Grossbrittanien HHStA Kriegsakten KA KA HKR-Prot

Haus-, Hof-, und Staats-archiv (State Papers relating to Great Britain), Vienna, Austria. Haus-, Hof-, und Staats-archiv (State Documents relating to war). Kriegsarchiv, Vienna, Austria. Kriegsarchiv, Hofkriegsrats-Protokolle (Records of the Imperial War Council).

SAZ

Státní Oblastní Archiv v Zámrsku, Zámrsk, Czech Republic.

BL BL Add MSS PRO SP SCA CA

British Library, London. British Library, additional mss. Public Record Office, State Papers, London. Scottish Catholic Archives (‘Colleges Abroad’ section), Edinburgh. Special collections and archives of the University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen.

UA

xii

 Printed sources

The following abbreviations are also used throughout the text. Elsewhere, a full citation is given when a reference is first noted, following which a shorter form is provided. Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, various editors, 18 Vols. (Leipzig, 1887). ClSP O. Ogle et al. eds. Calendar of the Clarendon State Papers preserved in the Bodleian Library, 5 Vols. (Oxford: 1872– 1970). CSPD Calendar of State Papers: Domestic. CSPV Calendar of State Papers: Venetian. DNB Leslie Stephen and Sir Sidney Lee, eds. Dictionary of National Biography, 22 Vols. (London: 1921–1922). DBBT Documenta Bohemica Bellum Tricennale Illustrantia, 7 Vols. (Prague: 1971–81). NDB Neue Deutsche Biographie, various editors (Berlin: 1952–). RPCS P. Hume Brown ed. Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, (Edinburgh: 1890–1970). IR Innes Review. SHR Scottish Historical Review. EHR English Historical Review.

ADB

NOTE ON DATES/CURRENCY

Dates Unless stated, all dates are given ‘New Style’ (the system that had been adopted in Catholic Europe, but which was ten days ahead of the ‘Old Style’ then in use in the Stuart kingdoms). The latter system has only been used when referring to well known dates in British and Irish history. For instance, the date of the regicide remains 30 January 1649 (Old Style) rather than 9 February 1649 or even 30 January 1648! Thus, the year has been regarded as beginning on 1 January rather than 25 March. However, it should be noted that it is often difficult to know from the letters sent home by Scottish, English, Irish and Welsh emigrants and exiles, which of the two styles was being used. The situation can be even more confusing where printed, calendared materials from British and Irish sources on mainland Europe are relied on. The editors have been trusted for consistency in all cases.

Currency Because of hyper-inflation in the Spanish dependencies and elsewhere, it is impossible to provide an accurate currency conversion table that can be applied to the entire 1618 to 1648 period. Each of the Spanish Habsburg realms continued to use separate coins and currency.1 Moreover, in some cases, for instance in the use of florins or thalers, it is difficult to know which of several forms was being used. The following should be referred to as a very rough guide only: £12 Scottish = £1 English sterling 1 ducado (used only as unit of account) = approx. 12 reales (silver coin) or approx. 375 maravedís 1 For example, in 1560s Antwerp, 1,500 separate coins were in use. See Charles Wilson and Geoffrey Parker eds. An introduction to the sources of European economic history, 1500 –1800 (London: 1977), 99.

xiv

   ⁄ 

4.5 escudos (gold coin) = £1 English sterling 1 escudo = 10 reales 12 florins (Brabant) = £1 English sterling 6 florins (Rhine) = £1 English sterling 4.8 reichsthalers = £1 English sterling 1 reichsthaler = 90 Bohemian kreuzer (1618), or 675 kreuzer (1623) 1 gulden (emperor’s hereditary lands) = 60 kreuzer

CHRONOLOGY

Rulers/Governors

1618

STUART MONARCHY

SPANISH MONARCHY

SPANISH NETHERLANDS (CAPTAINS-GENERAL)

HABSBURG PATRIMONIAL LANDS/ HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE

JAMES VI/I (1567/ 1603–1625)

PHILIP III (1598–1621)

ARCHDUKE ALBERT OF AUSTRIA AND THE ARCHDUCHESS ISABELLA (1598–1621)

MATTHIAS I (1612–19) FERDINAND II (1619–37)

PHILIP IV (1621–1665) 1625

ARCHDUCHESS ISABELLA (1621–33)

CHARLES I (1625–49)

1630 DON FRANCISCO DE MONCADA, MARQUIS OF AYTONA (1633–4) DON FERNANDO, THE CARDINALINFANTE (1634–41) 1635 FERDINAND III (1637–57) DON FRANCISCO DE MELO, MARQUIS OF TOR DE LAGUNA (1641–4) DON MANUEL DE MOURA Y CORTEREAL, MARQUIS OF CASTEL RODRIGO (1644–7) LEOPOLD WILLIAM, ARCHDUKE OF AUSTRIA (1647–56) 1648



xvi

Resident Ambassadors or Agents (Excluding Agents From/To English Parliament) STUART COURTSPAIN

STUART COURT-SP. NETHS

STUART COURTEMPIRE

SPAINSTUART COURT

SP. NETHS- EMPIRESTUART STUART COURT COURT

(1621–22) SIMON DIGBY

(1613–18) (1620–23) DON DIEGO SARMIENTO DE ACUÑA, COUNT OF GONDOMAR

(1619–23) JEAN BAPTISTE AND LOUIS VAN MALE

(1631–41) SIR BALTHAZAR (1635–39) GERBIER JOHN TAYLOR

(1631–7) DON JUAN DE NECOLALDE

(1615–22) (1609–25) SIR FRANCIS WILLIAM COTTINGTON TRUMBULL

(1619–25) SIR WALTER ASTON (1634–38) SIR WALTER ASTON

(1636) THOMAS HOWARD, EARL OF ARUNDEL (1638–45, agent from 1630) SIR ARTHUR HOPTON

(1641–2) SIR THOMAS ROE

(1637–41) DON JUAN DE TASSIS, COUNT OF VILLAMEDIANA (1638–42) DON ALONSO DE CÁRDENAS (remained as ambassador ‘to England’ until 1660)

(1636–9) CLEMENT RADOLT

(1640–1) (1641–5) FRANZ PAUL, BARON OF LISOLA

GLOSSARY OF FOREIGN TERMS

All terms are in Spanish (Spain, Spanish Netherlands) or German (Habsburg Patrimonial Lands/Holy Roman Empire), as appropriate. SPAIN

SPANISH NETHERLANDS

HABSBURG PATRIMONIAL LANDS (post-1627)/ HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE

COURT Casa Real—royal Gobernador—Captainhousehold. general of the ‘Army Valido—royal favourite, of Flanders’. usually chief minister. Privado—intimate counsellor of the king, less unique than valido. gentilhombre de la cámara—gentleman of the king’s chamber. gentilhombre de la boca— salaried household position involving regular domestic duties, (‘gentleman of the king’s table’). gentilhombre de la casa— gentleman of the household. criado—dependent member of noble/ royal household.

Hofstaat—entire court retinue ie. fixed personnel. Numbered around 600 in 1636. Hofgesinde—all those at court. Kammerer—head chamberlain. Kämmererherr—chamberlain. ‘würkliche’ Kämmererherr— ‘real’ chamberlain. Leibgarde-Trabanten Hauptmann— captain of the bodyguard. Hofbibliothekar—court librarian. Hofadel—‘court’ nobility. Hacienda—royal treasury.

GOVERNMENT Consejo—a royal council. Consejo de Estado— council of state. Consejo de Guerra— council of war. Asiento—contract with the crown. arbitrio—proposal

Secretaría de Estado y Guerra (Secrétairerie d’État et de Guerre)— Secretariat for state and war, largely Spanish directed. Junta de Guerra—small war committee, operated after 1618.

Hofkammer—court treasury. Hofkriegsrat—Imperial council of war. Reichstag—Imperial diet. Reichshofrat—Emperor’s aulic council. Geheimer Rat—Privy Council, but large/unwieldy. Geheime Konferenz—5/6 leading

xviii

   

(cont.) SPAIN

SPANISH NETHERLANDS

submitted to the government. arbitrista—author of such a proposal. arbitrista del mar—a leading adviser on maritime policy.

HABSBURG PATRIMONIAL LANDS (post-1627)/ HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE members of Privy Council actually called on by the Emperor. ‘würkliche’ Geheime Rat—‘real’ privy council.

NOBILITY Herrenstand—higher nobility. Grafenstand—class of Imperial counts within Herrenstand. Reichsfürst—Prince of the Holy Roman Empire. Reichsgraf—Count of the Holy Roman Empire. Hofadel—‘court’ or aulic nobility. Ritterstand—lower, knightly class of nobility. Orden des Goldenen Vließes—Order of the Golden Fleece. Fideikommiss—form of entail.

Grandeza—collective term for Grandes— pinnacle of Castilian nobility. Título—a person of higher noble status. Hidalguía—generic term for Spanish nobility. Hidalgo—lowest rung of Spanish nobility. Mayorazgo—form of entail. MILITARY Maestro de Campo— commander of a tercio. tercio—large regiment (up to 2,500 men). escuadrón—large body of soldiers. entretenido—‘gentleman’ receiving salary, serving in various departments of the army. entretenido cerca la persona—salaried/ prestigious man ‘maintained about the person of the general’. entretenimiento—fixed monthly salary paid to a ‘gentleman’.

Veedor General—army inspector-general, checked on fraud/ abuse in ranks. (otherwise as for Spain)

Generalissimmo—Leading general. Feldmarschall—Field Marshall. Feld Marschall-Leutnant— Lieutenant Field Marshall. Oberst—Colonel. Inhaber—Regimental ‘proprietor’. Bestallung—officer’s employment contract. Kommandant—Commanding officer. Oberstleutnant—LieutenantColonel. Oberstwachtmeister—Major. Oberwachtmeister—Senior sergeant (usually cavalry). Wachtmeister—Cavalry sergeant. Kapitän—Captain. Hauptmann—Captain. Rittmeister—Captain (cavalry)

   

xix

(cont.) SPAIN

Pagaduría—military treasury. pagador—paymaster. ventaja—wage-bonus paid for loyal/long military service.

SPANISH NETHERLANDS

HABSBURG PATRIMONIAL LANDS (post-1627)/ HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE Fähnrich—Ensign. Feldcaplan—Regimental chaplain.

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GLOSSARY OF FOREIGN NAMES

All personal names are given in their widest-known English or Scottish version in every case where this appears in the sources, or where the form given in Spanish, German or Italian is, beyond any doubt, a phonetic interpretation alone. Otherwise, they are provided in the most commonly used version from contemporary sources. For the sake of simplicity alone, many names of central European historical figures have been given only in German, rather than in their Slavic or Magyar form. Place names in Scotland, England, Ireland and Wales are given in English. In the Spanish dependencies they are referred to in the Spanish form, except in what to contemporaries was the Spanish Netherlands, where they are provided in modern day French or Flemish equivalent. The term ‘Patrimonial Lands’ has been employed to correspond to the parameters of the ‘inherited lands’ (Erblande) as they stood after 1627, that is to refer to the entire lands of the Austrian Habsburg monarchy (both within and without the Holy Roman Empire) after that date, and so including the crownlands of Bohemia. Unfortunately, and as with personal names, for the purpose of simplification alone, place names within this area have been given only in German (or English where possible) in the text, even though the Magyar or various Slavic versions of the name may be more well-known. However, in the first citation alone, the mostwidely used modern-day form has also been provided where available—for instance ‘Pressburg (Bratislava)’. In many cases, there were at least three or four names in use during the seventeenth century. These are given below. HUNGARIAN CZECH/ SLOVENE/ POLISH ROMANIAN SLOVAK SERBOCROAT

GERMAN/ ENGLISH

LATIN

Vác

Waitzen

Vacia

Györ Szentgotthárd Esztergom Eperjes

Mono“ter Pre“ov

Raab Mogersdorf, St. Gotthard Gran Preschau

   

xxii (cont.)

HUNGARIAN CZECH/ SLOVENE/ POLISH ROMANIAN GERMAN/ LATIN SLOVAK SERBOENGLISH CROAT Érsekújvár Szatmár Pozsony

Nové Zámky

Neuhaüsel Satu-Mare

Bratislava

Pressburg Posonium Meissen Misnia Könniggrätz

Hradec Králové Brno ”pilberk Nové Mîsto-nadMetují Krome®i≥ Cheb Litomî®ice Mikulov ’eské Budîjovice Znojmo St®íbro Kladruby ’áslav Bene“ov Krnov Opava Olomouc Smidary Skrivany Novy Ber“tejn Doksy PlzeÏn Velichov

Brünn Spielberg Neustadt an der Mettau Kremsier Eger Leitmeritz Nikolsburg Budweis Znaim Mies Kladrau Czaslau Beneschau Jägerndorf Troppau Olmütz Smidar Skriwan(y) Neuperstein

Ptuj Ljubljana Rogatec Karlovac Vara≥din Osijek Zagreb Zahán Vratislav Opolí

Zagan Sulechów Legnica Wroc∑aw Opole Nysa Uznam Kraków Leszno Zlatoryja Pozna…

Hirschberg Pilsen Welichau Pettau Laibach Rohitsch Karlstadt Warasdin Esseg Agram Sagan Züllichau Leignitz Breslau Oppeln Niesse Usedom Cracow Lissa Goldberg Posen

CHAPTER ONE

SCOTTISH ACTIVITIES IN CENTRAL, WESTERN AND SOUTHERN MAINLAND EUROPE (EXCLUDING FRANCE) TO 1618

The Scottish diaspora in Europe and the Habsburgs . . . even of late, although before the intestine garboyles [disorders] of this Island, several of them [Scots] have, for their fidelity, valour and gallantry, been exceedingly renowned over all France, Spain, the Venetian territories, Pole, Muscovy, the Low Countries, Swedland, Hungary, Germany, Denmark, and other states and kingdoms.1

The above passage is taken from a work written by the maverick author and translator, Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromarty, first published in 1652. Urquhart may have been prone to exaggeration, but he was correct in suggesting that his home country had been an important source of immigration to the lands of numerous foreign powers in recent times. He made his observation following a thirtyyear period in which one Scottish name, Leslie, could have been found amongst the regimental lists of armies claiming to represent each of the places he named except perhaps Venice. Most famously, Alexander Leslie, a leading general during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms (1638–60), returned to Scotland as a veteran of Dutch and Swedish service. Aside from the bloody battlefield, individuals such as a ‘Reichsgraf Walter von Leslie’, a ‘Don Diego Leslie’ and a ‘George Archangel Leslie, Il Cappucino Scozzese’ illustrate Urquhart’s point from another angle. Indeed, the cosmopolitanism that can be attributed to so many of this surname attests to the diverse experiences of Scottish emigrants, exiles and sojourners during the first 1 The Works of Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromarty, Knight, several editors (Edinburgh, Maitland Club: 1834), 213–214. The currencies of all these places had become known to the town council of Aberdeen by the early sixteenth century. See David Ditchburn, Scotland and Europe: The Medieval Kingdom and its contacts with Christendom, 1214 –1560 (East Linton: 2001), 69.

2

 

half of the seventeenth century. Not only that, but a brief survey of their movements indicates that the knight of Cromarty was justified in including in his list those more distant lands where the Romance, Germanic, Slavic or Magyar languages predominated.2 Three and a half centuries on, this book will offer vindication of his assertions as to the pan-European scale of Scottish influences at that time. In the last few decades, a considerable amount of scholarly work has been carried out on medieval and early modern emigration from Scotland to Scandinavia and northern parts of the European continent. As shall become clear, historians have outlined a complex web of contacts linking the country to these regions prior to the beginnings of mass emigration to North America during the eighteenth century. Unfortunately, with just a handful of exceptions (most notably the recent work of David Ditchburn) they have, as of yet, failed to scrutinise a significant amount of the relevant manuscripts that provide evidence of military, religious, trading and intellectual networks towards the southern and south-eastern edges of the Scottish diaspora in Europe.3 If they had, it would surely have been recognised 2 Henceforth, where possible, all personal names and titles will be given in English. These three examples—from the German, Spanish and Italian speaking worlds— are given merely to illustrate the variety of experiences of the Leslies in continental Europe. Besides them, there were at least three students named William Leslie at the Scots College in Rome in the first half of the seventeenth century, all of whom played a part in the Catholic Mission at home. There were two colonels in continental armies named Alexander Leslie. The second served in Muscovy. For this lesser known Alexander Leslie ‘of Auchintoul’, see Paul Dukes, ‘The Leslie family in the Swedish Period (1630–5) of the Thirty Years’ War’ in European Studies Review, 12, no. 4 (1982), 401–419. The Leslie family even today, traces its origins to the arrival of a Hungarian noble in Scotland in 1067 in the train of Queen Margaret, the future wife of Malcolm III. See also Colonel K.H. Leslie, Historical Records of the family of Leslie (hereafter His. Rec. Les.) 3 Vols. (Edinburgh: 1869), I, 94–143, III, 241–272. 3 See, for the earlier period, Ditchburn, Scotland and Europe. For early-modern times, some important studies have emerged too. There are a range of articles in Steve Murdoch ed. Scotland and the Thirty Years’ War (Leiden: 2001) and T.C. Smout, ed. Scotland and Europe, 1200 –1850 (Edinburgh: 1986). The history of ‘Catholic’ Europe (excluding France) has not always been a subject which Scottish historians have shied away from. As far back as the eighteenth century, there are at least two such histories of aspects of the Habsburg world. See Robert Watson, The History of the Reign of Philip the Third, King of Spain (London: 1783); William Robertson, The History of the reign of the Emperor Charles V (London: 1769). For twentieth-century work, see the three collections edited by William Forbes Leith et al., Records of the Scots Colleges at Douai, Rome, Madrid, Valladolid and Ratisbon (Aberdeen, New Spalding Club: 1906); Memoirs of Scottish Catholics during the XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries, 2 Vols. (London: 1909); Narratives of Scottish Catholics under Mary Stuart and James VI (Edinburgh: 1885). Another useful compendium of primary sources is M.V. Hay ed. The Blairs

      

3

that assumptions as to the nature of expatriate activities prior to the Anglo-Scottish political union of 1707 should be reassessed.4 This is especially true with respect to the 1618–48 period, when Scottish soldiers and diplomats based in two sprawling, multilingual conglomerates headed by representatives of the Habsburg dynasty (with political centres to the south and east of the Alps respectively) provided an important contribution to events in their home country. Some related criticisms could be directed at English-language studies of early modern migration and emigration more widely. Excepting the pioneering volume edited by Nicholas Canny, few attempts have been made to compare the processes that led tens of thousands of men and women of British and Irish birth to travel as frequently and as far as they did within European confines.5 Irish historians have used material from archives in places such as Simancas (Spain), Brussels (Belgium) and Vienna (Austria) to great effect over the last few decades: an often-neglected tradition of contacts with these regions has been brought to the fore.6 But scholars from elsewhere in the

Papers 1603–1660 (Edinburgh 1929). See also David Matthew, The Celtic Peoples and Renaissance Europe (London: 1933); James Grant, The Scottish soldiers of fortune (London: 1890); J.H. Burton, The Scot Abroad (Edinburgh: 1864). There have also been many articles by John Durkan, the Reverend Mark Dilworth, Reverend William McGoldrick, David McRoberts and many others over the years, published in the journal of the Scottish Catholic Historical Association, The Innes Review. For an account of a Scottish translator and traveller further east and south, in the Islamic world, see G.L. Dellavida, ed. George Strachan: Memorials of a wandering Scottish scholar of the seventeenth century (Third Spalding Club, Aberdeen: 1956). 4 Besides the continent, this has occurred with respect to several other locations in recent years. See, for instance, Grant G. Simpson, ed. Scotland and Scandinavia, 800–1800 (Edinburgh: 1990); N.C. Landsman, ‘Nation, Migration, and the Province in the First British Empire: Scotland and the Americas, 1600–1800’ in American Historical Review, 104, no. 2 (1999), 463–475. 5 See the essays in Nicholas Canny ed. Europeans on the Move: Studies on European Migration, 1500–1800 (Oxford: 1994). 6 For both a full bibliography and essays by some of the leading experts in the field, see Thomas O’Connor, ed. The Irish in Europe, 1580 to 1815 (Dublin: 2001). Also important are Glyn Redworth, ‘Beyond faith and fatherland: the appeal of the Catholics of Ireland, c.1623’ in Archivium Hibernicum, 52 (1998), 3–23; Patricia O’Connell, The Irish College at Alcalá de Henares (Dublin: 1997); Gráinne Henry, The Irish Military Community in Spanish Flanders 1586–1621 (Dublin: 1992); Colm Lennon, Richard Stanihurst, the Dubliner 1547–1618 (Dublin: 1981) and ‘Primate Richard Creagh and the beginnings of the Irish Counter-Reformation’ in Archivium Hibernicum, 51 (1997), 1–18; Hector McDonnell, The Wild Geese of the Antrim MacDonnells (Blackrock: 1996); Jane H. Ohlmeyer, ‘Ireland independent: confederate foreign policy and international relations during the mid-seventeenth century’ in Jane H. Ohlmeyer, ed. Ireland from Independence to Occupation 1641–1660 (Cambridge: 1995); Jane H. Ohlmeyer,

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archipelago must still meet at least two major challenges if they are to continue to make a significant input to the field. First, researchers of connections with mainland Europe and/or Scandinavia will have to familiarise themselves to a much greater extent with current developments in migration and emigration studies within the host societies that they study. With respect to Scotland, for instance, knowledge of contacts with France, the northern Netherlands and the western Baltic region have been revised systematically by means of a series of publications, many of them emanating from the Department of History of the University of Aberdeen.7 What has yet to emerge from this groundbreaking work is a comparative perspective. This is despite the fact that, by the seventeenth century, all three of these locations were major centres for the international mercenary and arms markets, and attracted commercially minded incomers from a

Civil War and Restoration in the Three Stuart Kingdoms: The Career of Randal MacDonnell, Marquis of Antrim, 1609–1683 (Cambridge: 1993); R.A. Stradling, The Spanish Monarchy and Irish Mercenaries: The Wild Geese in Spain, 1618–1668 (Dublin: 1994); Gráinne Henry, The Irish Military Community in Spanish Flanders, 1586–1621 (Dublin 1992); Geoffrey Parker, The Army of Flanders and the Spanish Road, 1567–1659 (Cambridge: 1972); Brendan Jennings, ed. Wild Geese in Spanish Flanders, 1582–1700: Documents Relating chiefly to Irish Regiments, from the Archives Générales du Royaume, Brussels and other sources (IMC, Dublin: 1964). 7 There is a growing body of research on Scottish activities in each of these individual regions, some of which takes a long-term chronological perspective. See, for instance, Norman Macdougall, “An Antidote to the English”: the Auld Alliance, 1295–1560 (East Linton: 2001); Francisque Michel, Les Écossais en France: Les Francais en Écosse (London: 1862). For the Low Countries generally, see Grant G. Simpson, ed. Scotland and the Low Countries, 1124–1994 (East Lothian: 1996). For the hitherto neglected importance of Denmark in Scoto-Stuart diplomacy, see Steve Murdoch, Britain, Denmark-Norway and the House of Stuart, 1603–1660 (East Linton: 2000); Thomas Riis, Should Auld Acquaintance be Forgot: Scottish-Danish Relations, c.1450–1707, 2 Vols. (Odense: 1988). Sweden is covered in Simpson, ed. Scotland and Scandinavia; and in greater depth in a groundbreaking recent study, which tackles the issue of integration within the host society. See Alexia N.L. Grosjean, ‘Scots and the Swedish State: Diplomacy, Military Service and Ennoblement, 1611–1660’, Ph.D. thesis, University of Aberdeen, (1998). For ‘Germany’, although from an early-twentieth century perspective, see T.A. Fischer, The Scots in Germany (Edinburgh: 1902); T.A. Fischer, The Scots in Eastern and Western Prussia (Edinburgh: 1903). A brief introduction to Polish-Scottish relations can be found in Stanislaw Seliga and Leon Koczy, Scotland and Poland: A Chapter of Forgotten History (Dundee: 1969); A. Francis Steuart, ed. Papers relating to the Scots in Poland 1576–1793 (Edinburgh: 1915). Similarly, for the extensive literature on Russian-Scottish relations, readers might begin with Paul Dukes, et al. The Caledonian Phalanx: Scots in Russia (Edinburgh: 1987). One of few, recent works from historians of England to take the inclusive approach (although the author uses entirely English language sources) is Jonathan Scott’s England’s Troubles: Seventeenth-Century English Political Instability in European Context (Cambridge: 2000).

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5

wide range of foreign lands. Strong connections must have been forged between the Scots and others within these settings, an area which, if explored further, could offer a new approach to the study of the political and economic background to the Wars of the Three Kingdoms.8 Closer scrutiny of available publications on the theme of religious exile, the Dutch and French traditions, for example, might suggest helpful analogies in terms of the confessional factors that influenced some to leave Britain and Ireland at the time. Second, a longer-term goal must surely be to conduct comprehensive archival work on expatriate groups beyond those patches of Europe where activities are best known. In expanding the geographical range of the research in this way, major advances could be made. Only if these two hurdles are crossed, will scholars elsewhere be able to assess how the experiences of British and Irish communities abroad compared with those of other groups, both within and outwith Europe. Such contributions would be of considerable assistance to historians of countries that experienced comparable inflows and outflows of population, in familiarising them with the breakthroughs being made in English-language studies on the subject. One major objective of this book then, beside its contribution to Scottish diaspora studies, is to make a meaningful addition to the historiographical debate surrounding the ‘New British and Irish Histories’.9 Scotland, England/Wales and Ireland each became the setting for civil warfare between 1638 and 1660, conflicts that cannot be understood without addressing their connections to each other. In Scotland, although the established church had been unmistakeably

8 Important in this respect is Steve Murdoch, ‘Scotland, Scandinavia and the bishops’ wars, 1638–40’ in Allan I. Macinnes and Jane Ohlmeyer eds. The Stuart Kingdoms in the Seventeenth Century (Dublin: 2002), 113–133. See also the essays in Allan I. Macinnes, T. Riis and F.G. Pedersen, eds. Guns and Bibles in the North Sea and the Baltic States, c.1350–1700 (Tuckwell: 2000). 9 This book is heavily indebted to the approach advocated by many writers since J.G.A. Pocock published the article ‘British History: A Plea for a new subject’ in Journal of Modern History, 47, no. 4 (1975), 601–28. Various collections of essays that have been published over recent years provide a comprehensive list of works published in the field. See, for instance, S.J. Connolly, ed. Kingdoms United? Great Britain and Ireland since 1500 (Dublin: 1999); Brendan Bradshaw and Peter Roberts, eds. British Consciousness and Identity: The Making of Britain, 1533–1707 (Cambridge: 1998); Alexander Grant and Keith J. Stringer, eds. Uniting the Kingdom? The Making of British History (London: 1995); Stephen G. Ellis and Sarah Barber, eds. Conquest and Union: Fashioning a British State, 1485–1725 (Harlow: 1995).

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Protestant since 1560, the country had continued to follow an independent political course to that of her southern neighbour. A change came by means of the Union of the Crowns of 1603, through which King James VI of the house of Stewart had become ‘king of all and king of each’ of three separate polities (excluding his claim to the French throne).10 Keith Brown has shown how many Scottish nobles followed the Jacobean court south to London and remained strongly represented in the ranks of the royal bedchamber for several decades thereafter.11 But their loyalties frequently became divided. James only succumbed to his ‘salmonlike instincts’ on one occasion—despite his well-known promise to return to his native land frequently—while the failure of his son Charles I (r.1625–49) to set eyes on his country of birth as an adult until receiving his coronation in 1633, aggravated even moderate Scots (as did the manner in which he had himself crowned in Edinburgh). With respect to governance, instead of respecting parliamentary or General Assembly authority in Scotland after 1603, James had employed men such as Chancellor Alexander Seton, Bishop Andrew Knox and George Hume, the earl of Dunbar, in an attempt to rule through a more compliant, pro-Episcopalian Privy Council. Such centralising efforts continued under Charles I, contributing to the growth of a radical opposition of lairds and burgesses that would have revolutionary implications within and beyond Scotland’s borders with the rise of the covenanting movement after 1637.12 At first sight, the British and Irish political situation during the period following the regal union appears to be exceptional then: with respect to the renewal of the colonisation of large parts of Ireland it undoubtedly was. Nevertheless, as John Robertson has stated: “The

10 Jenny Wormald, ‘The creation of Britain: Multiple Kingdoms or core and colonies?’ in Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Sixth Series, 2 (1992), 189. 11 Keith M. Brown, ‘Courtiers and Cavaliers: Service, Anglicisation and Loyalty among the Royalist Nobility’ in J. Morrill, ed. The Scottish National Covenant in its British Context (Edinburgh: 1990), 155–193; ‘The Origins of a British Aristocracy: integration and its limitations before the Treaty of Union’, in Ellis and Barber eds. Conquest and Union, 222–249; and ‘The Scottish Aristocracy, Anglicization and the Court, 1603–38’ in The Historical Journal, 36, no. 3 (1993), 543–576. 12 Allan I. Macinnes, ‘Politically Reactionary Brits?: The Promotion of AngloScottish Union, 1603–1707’, in Connolly ed. Kingdoms United?, 43–56 and the same author’s Charles I and the Making of the Covenanting Movement 1625–1641 (Edinburgh: 1991).

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predicament in which England and Scotland found themselves in the seventeenth century, sharing the same monarch, was by no means as anomalous as the conventional account would suppose”.13 Problems arising from absentee rule, the persistence of independent parliamentary traditions and the alienation of nobilities in outlying kingdoms and dependencies, were by no means unique to the post-1603 period or to the Stuart monarchy.14 In many senses, the situation in the Three Kingdoms is comparable with various points in the process of state formation in other early modern polities. Similarly, the strategies adopted—the encouragement of intermarriage between the respective nobilities and various other inducements towards achieving political, socio-economic, religious and cultural coalescence—are policies that can be associated as much with early seventeenth-century kings of France or Spain (or Holy Roman Emperors for that matter) as with James VI and I and his successor. It was through compliance with some if not all of this centralising agenda, within a transplanted setting, that the assorted body of Catholics and Episcopalians covered in this monograph would base their careers.15 Thus, the analysis of their activities that follows will

13 John Robertson, ‘Empire and Union: two concepts of the early modern European political order’ in John Robertson, ed. A Union for Empire: Political Thought and the British Union of 1707 (Cambridge: 1995), 8. 14 This spelling of the family name had come into widespread use by then. 15 For recent accounts of Scotland that cover the weak royalist response in a general sense during the period, see Macinnes, Charles I; Peter Donald, An Uncounselled King: Charles I and his Scottish Troubles, 1637–1641 (Cambridge: 1990); Brown, ‘Courtiers and Cavaliers’; David Stevenson, The Scottish Revolution 1637–44, (Newton Abbott: 1973); David Matthew, Scotland Under Charles I (London: 1955). For the intellectual opposition of the ‘Aberdeen Doctors’ to the rise of the covenanters, see David Stevenson, King’s College, Aberdeen: From Protestant Reformation to Covenanting Revolution, 1560 –1641 (Aberdeen: 1990). For Scottish Episcopalians more generally, several of the essays in G.D. Henderson, Religious life in Seventeenth-Century Scotland (Cambridge: 1937) remain important. For Scottish Catholicism, besides the numerous relevant articles published over the years in the Innes Review, there is Peter F. Anson, Underground Catholicism in Scotland (Montrose: 1970); Alphons Bellesheim, (trans. D. Oswald Hunter Blair), History of the Catholic Church of Scotland, 4 vols. (Edinburgh: 1889); A.F.B. Roberts, ‘The Role of Women in Scottish Catholic Survival’, in Scottish Historical Review, 70, no. 190 (1991), 129–50. For the north-east specifically, see Alasdair Roberts and Ann Dean, ‘The Leslies of Balquhain and the Burial of Bishop Hay’, in Recusant History, 22 (1995), 536–548; Ian B.D. Bryce and Alasdair Roberts, ‘Conrack, New Leslie and the Suppression of the Catholic North’ in Northern Scotland, 17 (1997). Work on Scottish royalist military commanders after 1638 has largely focused on the marquis of Montrose, see E.J. Cowan, Montrose: For Covenant and King (London: 1977). More recently, a greater emphasis has been put on the martial

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not only shed light on the neglected royalist response in the Three Kingdoms after 1638, but illuminate aspects of much wider issues in European historiography. The book will contribute to at least four such fields. First, it will question the accounts of Russell and Elliott in relation to the problem of ‘multiple kingdoms’.16 Second, frequent reference will be made to the influence of a burgeoning number of works on court studies, which seek to explain the complex role of patron-client networks as a framework for politics during the period.17 Third, the argument will bring a new perspective to the separate, yet interconnected debates relating to the nature of the ‘Thirty Years’ War’, especially as regards the religious background.18 Finally, an attempt will be made to deal with another issue which historians have yet to explain adequately for the entire thirty-year period, namely how a fragile military and political alliance linking the two branches of the Habsburg dynasty was able to survive (See Map 1).19

successes of his ally during 1644–5, Alasdair MacColla. See David Stevenson, Highland Warrior: Alasdair MacColla and the Civil Wars (Edinburgh: 1994). For more detailed recent work on the complexities of the ‘Celtic dimension’, see Allan I. Macinnes, ‘Crowns, Clans and Fine: The ‘Civilizing’ of Scottish Gaeldom, 1587–1638’ in Northern Scotland, 13 (1993), 31–55; and the essays in J.R. Young, ed. Celtic Dimensions of the British Civil Wars (Edinburgh: 1997). 16 Conrad Russell, ‘Composite Monarchies in Early Modern Europe: The British and Irish Example’, in Alexander Grant and Keith J. Stringer, eds. Uniting the Kingdom? The Making of British History (London: 1995), 133–146; J.H. Elliott, ‘A Europe of Composite Monarchies’, in Past and Present, 137 (1992), 49–72. 17 See the articles in Eveline Cruickshanks, ed. The Stuart Courts (Stroud: 2000); R. Malcolm Smuts, ed. The Stuart Court and Europe (Cambridge: 1996). The cultural importance of the early-modern regal court is well-documented. This book will focus on its importance as “a centre for patronage and as a forum for politics”. See Ronald G. Asch, ‘Introduction’, in Ronald G. Asch and Adolf M. Birke, eds. Princes, Patronage and the Nobility: The Court at the Beginning of the Modern Age, c.1450 –1650 (Oxford: 1991), 1–38. See also Antoni Maczak, ed. Klientelsysteme im Europa der Frühen Neuzeit (Munich: 1988). 18 Ronald G. Asch, The Thirty Years War: The Holy Roman Empire and Europe, 1618–1648 (Basingstoke: 1996), ix. See also Klaus Bussmann and Heinz Schilling, eds. 1648: War and Peace in Europe, 3 vols. (Münster/Osnabrück: 1998); Konrad Repgen, ed. Krieg und Politik, 1618–1648: Europäische Probleme und Perspektiven (Munich: 1988); Georg Schmidt, Der Dreissigjährige Krieg (Munich: 1995); Johannes Burkhardt, Der Dreissigjährige Krieg (Frankfurt am Main: 1992); Geoffrey Parker, ed. The Thirty Years War (London: 1984); Geoffrey Parker and Lesley M. Smith, eds. The General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century (London: 1997); Josef. V. Poli“enskÿ, The Thirty Years War (London: 1971). 19 The best study is Hildegard Ernst, Madrid und Wien 1632–1637. Politik und Finanzen in den Beziehungen zwischen Philipp IV und Ferdinand II (Münster: 1991). This account also critically appraises previous historiography in the field. See also Eberhard

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To take one example of an individual whose career raises questions relating to all of these historiographical issues, a brief sketch of the biographical details of a contemporary of Urquhart’s, Thomas Seget (c.1570–1628) can be made. Seget’s travels seem, at first sight, only to illustrate the itinerant nature of the lives of those tiny numbers of Scotsmen for whom the completion of a ‘Grand Tour’ had become a realistic aim. Having been lucky enough to receive a humanist education in the company of Justus Lipsius at Leiden in the Netherlands, he returned to his Edinburgh birthplace as an adult, where he acted as host to the son of an Augsburg patrician. He then went back to the continent, visiting Germany first, following which he took up a library post in Padua in northern Italy. From there, Seget ventured north to the court of the Holy Roman Emperor in Prague, where he met Johann Kepler and began a correspondence with Galileo. He even went on to Poland before returning, in 1625, to scholarly circles in Leiden.20 But Seget was by no means unique as a Scot, both in crossing national boundaries and in finding an audience for his ideas in the setting of the court. Although he never seems to have made it to the Iberian peninsula, many other seventeenthcentury Scottish emigrants and travellers, some from much less privileged backgrounds, continued to wander after arriving on the continent and thus encountered some, if not all, of the disparate collection of lands that had become dependencies of the house of Habsburg.21 By the mid-sixteenth century, the Habsburgs—using a policy of strategic marriage—had built themselves up from their long-held position as provincial lords in Austria (albeit heads of the Holy Roman Empire, the amorphous, multilingual entity that had provided the wider framework for central European politics since the age of Charlemagne) to that of a global superpower. First, Emperor Maximilian I (r.1493–1519) had obtained the duchies of Burgundy

Straub, Pax et Imperium. Spaniens Kampf um seine Friedensordnung in Europa zwischen 1617 und 1635 (Paderborn: 1980); Rafael Rodenas Vilar, La Politica Europea de España durante la guerra de treinta años (1624–1630) (Madrid: 1967); Chudoba, Spain and the Empire. 20 James K. Cameron, ‘Some Scottish Students and Teachers at the University of Leiden in the late Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries’, in Simpson, ed. Scotland and the Low Countries, 125–6. 21 For English language summaries of the relationship between the two branches of the Habsburgs, see H.G. Koenigsberger, The Habsburgs and Europe: 1516–1660 (London: 1971); Bohdan Chudoba, Spain and the Empire 1519–1643 (Chicago: 1952).

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and Tyrol. When his son married a descendant of Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon, it had confirmed their claim to rule over the multifarious possessions of a multiple monarchy: an expanding collection of territories that would soon comprise much of the Iberian and Italian peninsulas and the Low Countries besides an enormous overseas empire. During the peripatetic reign of Maximilian’s Ghentborn grandson Charles—king of Spain (Carlos I) from 1516 and Holy Roman Emperor (Karl V) from 1519—the Habsburg aspiration towards ‘universal empire’ appeared to be a realistic one. Perhaps most significantly, Charles’ brother Ferdinand strengthened the position of the dynasty in the east, after his election to the crowns of both Bohemia (comprising the province of Bohemia itself, Moravia, the two Lusatias and Silesia) and the polity that is usually referred to as ‘Royal Hungary’ (See Map 2).22 Nevertheless, the division of the ‘Spanish’ and ‘Austrian’ territories between Charles’ son Philip and Ferdinand upon the emperor’s death in 1556 affirmed a divergence in political development. As Philip II (r.1556–98), the former abandoned his claims to the Imperial throne, yet continued to govern over the overseas possessions along with the entire western and southern European territories. In the wake of the Reformation and the successful revolt of the northern provinces in the Netherlands, any lingering fears of his potential to progress towards hegemony became unwarranted. This remained true despite Philip’s inheritance of the Portuguese crown in 1580 and his commitment to the task of reversing Dutch progress towards independence by means of a program of Catholic reform in those provinces of the Low Countries that still remained under Spanish suzerainty. It would appear that Castilian policy in western Europe remained much more ambitious than that pursued by their cousins towards their neighbours within the Holy Roman Empire. Following the peace of Augsburg in 1555, and particularly at the court of Emperor Ferdinand’s successor, Maximilian II (r.1564–1576), a more tolerant atmosphere is apparent: it is also a feature, if to a lesser extent, with respect to the adminis-

22

This last kingdom consisted of only one of three, divided sections of the medieval Magyar realm, following the death of Louis II Jagiellon, independent ruler of both Bohemia and Hungary in battle against the Ottomans at Mohács in 1526. The effect of this was to strengthen Habsburg power in this part of Europe considerably although a large swathe of Hungary fell under Ottoman control.

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tration of Maximilian’s introverted heir, Rudolf II (r.1576–1612), who based himself in Prague.23 As for foreign affairs, the Austrian branch of the Habsburgs increasingly sought influence closer to home in the commonwealth of Poland-Lithuania.24 Clearly then, the sense of unity that would cause the twin-headed dynasty to fight for a common cause again in 1618, had actually given every sign of diminishing from the end of Charles V’s reign on. In order to account for the activities of Scots in this vast region of the European mainland, the development of this book necessitated research in several archives, both continental and British. Regarding the former, the text relies primarily on the records of the Archivo General de Simancas in Spain, the Archives Générales du Royaume/ Algemeen Rijksarchief in Belgium and, to a lesser extent, the Haus-, Hof-, und Staats-archiv and Kriegsarchiv in Austria along with the Státní Oblastní Archiv v Zámrsku in the Czech Republic. The Spanish and Belgian materials, along with documents from the Scottish Catholic Archives in Edinburgh, provide the bulk of the manuscript evidence used in Part One. This covers the rise and fall of an influential Scottish presence in the lands of the Spanish monarchy. The documents from the Austrian and Czech repositories form some of the foundation for Part Two, which turns the attention of the reader to events further east. This section of the study in particular, also depends heavily on the State Papers held in the Public Record Office and on the manuscript collections of both the British Library in London and the University of Aberdeen.25 Due to inevitable constraints, both in terms of time and linguistics, it became necessary on occasion (especially with regard to the continental material) to supplement the findings of archival visits through reliance on printed collections of diplomatic correspondence. Although these publications were treated with caution, many proved to be very useful. Most significant for Part One was the six-volume

23

Parker, Thirty Years’ War, 5. Archduke Maximilian even sought election to the Polish-Lithuanian throne in 1587, while Archduke Ferdinand of Styria, the future emperor, tried to establish a closer alliance, by marrying two of his daughters to Sigismund III during the course of the 1590s. This was unsuccessful and Maximilian renounced his claim in 1598. See Robert I. Frost, ‘Poland-Lithuania and the Thirty Years’ War’ in Bussmann and Schilling, eds. 1648: War and Peace in Europe, I, 198. 25 See ‘Bibliography’ below for further details. 24

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Belgian collection, Correspondance de la Cour d’Espagne sur les affaires des Pays-Bas au XVII e siècle. The four-volumes edited by Maurice Van Durme, Les Archives générales de Simancas et l’histoire de la Belgique, and sections of the 112 volumes that comprise the Colleción de documentos inéditos para la Historia de España series, were also referred to frequently. Together, these three compendia provide summaries of thousands of important dispatches held in the Simancas and Brussels archives. Each contains a considerable amount of information on Scottish affairs.26 With respect to the material from east of the Rhine, even more use was made of collections of this kind. Some of these relate to Scottish involvement in the downfall of the Bohemian general, Albrecht von Wallenstein, in 1634. But the seven volumes of briefly-summarised correspondence from the 1618–1648 period that comprise the Documenta Bohemica Bellum Tricennale Illustrantia series— although representing just the tip of an iceberg when it comes to material of foreign relevance in the Czech archives—were perhaps even more important.27 It is regrettable that this book cannot be said to mark a systematic survey of the many rich holdings that await researchers on this theme in the repositories of the Czech Republic and Austria: an exhaustive study of the sources available in the region, as with those in Spain and Belgium, proved to be beyond the scope of this monograph.28 It should be mentioned that numer-

26

H. Lonchay, J. Cuvelier and J. Lefèvre, eds. Correspondance de la Cour d’Espagne sur les affaires des Pays-Bas au XVII e siècle, 6 Vols. (Brussels: 1923–37); Maurice Van Durme, ed. Les Archives générales de Simancas et l’histoire de la Belgique, 4 Vols. (Brussels: 1964–1973); A. Ballesteros Beretta, ed. Documentos inéditos para la historia de España (new series): Correspondencia oficial de Don Diego Sarmiento de Acuña, Conde de Gondomar, (hereafter Documentos inéditos), 4 Vols. (Madrid: 1936–45). Another source is Heinrich Günter, ed. Die Habsburger-Liga, 1625–35, Briefe und Akten aus dem General-Archiv zu Simancas (Berlin: 1908). 27 For the Wallenstein material, see H. Hallwich, ed. Wallenstein’s Ende, 2 Vols. (Leipzig: 1879); Briefe und Akten zur Geschichte Wallensteins, 1630–4, 4 Vols. (Vienna: 1912); Fünf Bücher Geschichte Wallenstein, 3 Vols. (Leipzig: 1910). See also Johann Eduard Hess, Biographien und Autographien zu Schillers Wallenstein ( Jena: 1859); Tomá“ V. Bílek, Beiträge zur Geschichte Waldstein’s (Prague: 1886). Several documents were published for the first time in Heinrich von Srbik, ed. Wallenstein’s Ende: Ursachen, Verlauf und Folgen der Katastrophe (Vienna: 1952). More recently, see Pekka Suvanto, ed. Wallenstein und Seine Anhänger am Wiener Hof (Helsinki: 1983). For the Czech sources, see J.V. Poli“enskÿ et al., eds. Documenta Bohemica Bellum Tricennale Illustrantia, (hereafter DBBT ) 7 Vols. (Prague: 1971–81). 28 The major Czech and Austrian archival collections of relevance to Scotland and Ireland are listed in David Worthington, ‘Towards a bibliography of the Irish in central Europe, 1618–48’ in Archivium Hibernicum, 58 (2002), 206–27.

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13

ous English-language collections of diplomatic correspondence were consulted as a starting point too, especially the five volumes of the Calendar of the Clarendon State Papers for the 1630s and 40s. Besides that, the Historical Manuscripts Commission’s Report on the manuscripts of the Earl of Denbigh became an important source for Part Two, as was the two volume, Samuel R. Gardiner edited Letters and other Documents illustrating the Relations between England and Germany for the 1618–20 period, and, more widely, the printed calendars of State Papers relating to both Venetian and domestic affairs.29 The relevance of such a range of primary sources for the early seventeenth century aside, Scotland still might not seem to have been a likely point of connection with the territories of either of the two Habsburg entities prior to that date. The journey from the old port of Bruges to the cities of Prague, Vienna, Valladolid or Madrid, was a considerable one. Still, from early times, this had neither dissuaded travellers from these locations and their environs from visiting Scotland nor prevented Scots from doing the same in return.30 As has been suggested, a quick glance through some of the many secondary sources relating to ‘the Scot abroad’ does not reveal extensive detail on the theme. But it does at least confirm that the two sets of dominions which for the period after 1580 have been labelled ‘Austria Germanica’ (that is, not only Upper, Lower, Inner and Further Austria, but the entire Bohemian crown lands, Royal Hungary and so-called ‘Imperial Italy’) and ‘Austria Hispanica’ (comprising the boundaries of modern-day Spain, Castile’s overseas empire, her dependencies on the Italian peninsula, Franche Comté, the satellite of the southern Netherlands and Portugal) contain many regions in which Scotland

29 O. Ogle et al., Calendar of the Clarendon State Papers preserved in the Bodleian Library, 5 Vols. (Oxford: 1872–1970); S.C. Lomas, ed. Report on the manuscripts of the Earl of Denbigh (H.M.C., London: 1911); Samuel R. Gardiner, ed. Letters and other Documents illustrating the Relations between England and Germany at the commencement of the Thirty Years War, 2 Vols., (Camden Society, London: 1865, 1868); Calendar of State papers: Venetian, various editors, 38 Vols. (London: 1864–1947); Calendar of State papers: Domestic, various editors, 36 Vols. (London: 1860–1939). 30 As in using the word ‘Spain’ to refer to the territory of the Castilian-based branch of the dynasty, there are considerable problems entailed in the use of the term ‘Austrian’ in a geographical sense, especially when referring to the entire lands of the monarchy east of the Rhine. For a discussion of this, see Grete Klingenstein, ‘The meanings of “Austria” and “Austrian” in the eighteenth century’ in Robert Oresko, G.C. Gibbs and H.M. Scott, eds. Royal and Republican Sovereignty in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: 1997), 423–479.

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can claim a much longer tradition of contacts.31 Although the tally of emigrants and exiles involved may still appear insignificant when compared with the figures available for other parts of Europe or indeed for Ireland or England, it will be shown to have dwarfed the paltry numbers of Scotsmen and women who had gone to America by the end of the first two decades of the seventeenth century.32 There were several centres for interchange. The first and foremost of these was the Low Countries: a broad range of Scottish connections with this region (including what became the Spanish Netherlands) are covered in a recent work edited by Grant G. Simpson.33 Medieval and early-modern ‘Spain’, however, and even more so the landlocked Habsburg Patrimonial Lands (taken in this book to comprise the Erblande after 1627, that is, including besides Austria proper, the crownlands of Bohemia and Royal Hungary) will never be associated with Scottish activity to the same extent as the Netherlands or some other parts of Europe: Scandinavia, Muscovy, France and Poland-Lithuania.34 This is an unfortunate state of affairs, since it is based on some over-simplistic assumptions. Although some of the strongest maritime links were forged between the towns of Scotland’s east coast and those ports that lay in the hands of dynasties who would become powerful neighbours and rivals of the Habsburgs from the sixteenth century, it is possible to hypothesise that emigrants might sometimes have used such points of arrival simply as stepping stones towards establishing themselves further afield. If this was so, the well-known Franco-Scottish connection would probably be the wrong place to commence, since the French took a hostile stance towards the house of Austria’s attempts to encroach on her northern, eastern and southern borders from Charles V’s time on, thus reducing the likelihood of Scots having arrived in the Habsburg world

31 The Latin terms here fail to account for Royal Hungary, which was outwith the Empire. However, following the approach of Burkhardt, they are used here for the sake of clarity and (as in early seventeenth century Habsburg propaganda) to emphasise the symbolic unity of the dynasty. See Johannes Burkhardt, ‘The Summitless Pyramid: War aims and Peace compromises amongst Europe’s universalist powers’, in Bussmann and Schilling, eds. 1648: War and Peace in Europe, I, 53. 32 Smout, Landsman and Devine, ‘Scottish Emigration’, 78. 33 Simpson, ed. Scotland and the Low Countries. 34 For a full-length analysis of a wide range of Scottish links with the Iberian peninsula before 1618, for instance, historians are dependent on John R. Elder, Spanish influences in Scottish History (Glasgow 1920).

      

15

from there. Alternatively, however, the Hanseatic ports of the Empire or of what became the commonwealth of Poland-Lithuania after 1569 were, in numerical terms, more significant destinations for Scottish merchant shipping up to 1618. A useful starting point might be made through reference to the numerous publications that cover the tradition of Scottish interactions with host communities on the southern shores of the German and Polish-speaking sections of the Baltic and the vast hinterland with which they were connected. Taking ‘Germany’ first, little research has been done on Scottish activities along the western sections of this southern Baltic coastline, or within the wider, inland region that depended on the harbours there as their outlets to the wider world. The only detailed publications devoted to the theme are those of T.A. Fischer, published at the beginning of the twentieth century.35 Fischer’s work is useful though, since he reminded his readers of a possible Scottish presence in the Rhineland dating back as far as the seventh century, when Scoti priests (most if not all of them of Irish extraction) began missionary work in the area.36 Ten ‘Scottish’ Benedictine abbeys or Schottenkirchen were founded in Mainz and Upper Hesse over subsequent centuries, and der Schott became a familiar figure in medieval Bavaria in a variety of guises.37 Scottish (as we would now label them) merchants had settled at Regensburg by 1484, while in Nuremberg, an act was passed around the same time prohibiting the residents from providing accommodation for “vagrant Scots” within a mile of the town unless they sought permission from the magistrates.38 Moving

35

Fischer, Scots in Germany; Scots in Eastern and Western Prussia. Robert Strachan, a Scottish priest at Würzburg in the 1640s, further developed the unconvincing argument that the Scoti were of Scottish origin. See Reverend Mark Dilworth, ‘“Germania Christiana”: A Seventeenth-Century Trilogy’ in IR, 17 (1966), 121. 37 He recorded one particularly interesting example, that of James, the third earl of Crawford, who established a branch of his family in Augsburg. Four of the earl’s great grandsons were, according to Fischer, ennobled by Emperor Charles V in 1547 and admitted as patricians of the city. The information is unreliable, however, since the source does not provide any archival evidence beyond that of a single poem about them. See Fischer, Scots in Germany, 279. See also his Scots in Eastern and Western Prussia, 233. Besides, Duns Scotus, the philosopher and theologian, almost certainly of Scottish background, was sent to Cologne in 1307, where he lectured until his death on November 8, 1308. 38 Fischer, Scots in Germany, 235; Scots in Eastern and Western Prussia, 6. 36

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forward to the immediate post-Reformation period, a considerable amount is known of the activities of monks from north of the Tweed at three surviving ‘Abbeys of the Scots’ (Schottenkloster) in Franconia. With the approval of Emperor Rudolf II they had, by that time, taken these foundations over from their original ‘Scoti’ occupiers.39 As regards Poland-Lithuania, more research has been done. There were something in the region of 40,000 citizens of Scottish origin in the commonwealth by the early part of the seventeenth century, not only in the Baltic ports but much further south in towns such as Posen (Pozna…) and Cracow (Kraków).40 Poland-Lithuania’s reputation for religious tolerance had made it a significant destination for Scots of both Protestant and Catholic persuasions.41 Many of the emigrants held military positions too, an aspect of a relationship that seems to have dated back to the fourteenth century.42

39 These were in Regensburg, Würzburg and Erfurt. Some of the monks there were accompanied by family members. For instance, there is the example of the many relations of the defender of divine-right, imperial monarchy and abbot at Regensburg after 1577, Ninian Winzet. His nephew, James, died at the abbey in 1611 while another relative, Claude, was a burgess there in 1607. See J.H. Burns, ‘George Buchanan and the anti-monarchomachs’ in Roger A. Mason, ed. Scots and Britons: Scottish political thought and the union of 1603 (Cambridge: 1994), 138–60; Reverend Mark Dilworth O.S.B. ‘Ninian Winzet: Some New Material’ in IR, 24, no. 2 (1973), 125–132. See also Rev. Dilworth’s ‘Two Necrologies of Scottish Benedictine Abbeys in Germany’ in IR, 9, no. 1 (1958), 202–3; ‘Benedictine Monks of Ratisbon and Würzburg in the 17th and 18th centuries: Émigrés from the Highlands of Scotland’ in Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness, 44 (1964) 94–110; and The Scots in Franconia: A Century of Monastic Life (Edinburgh: 1974). George Strachan also visited Würzburg after 1605 before travelling on to the middle east. See Dellavida, ed. George Strachan. 40 Fischer, Scots in Germany, 31, 36. 41 A. Francis Steuart, ‘Papers’, xix.; Anna Biega…ska, ‘A Note on the Scots in Poland, 1550–1800’ in Smout, ed. Scotland and Europe, 157–166. 42 A Polish captain had said during the sixteenth century that “two thousand Scots were better than six thousand Polish infantry”, while King Stefan Bathory also stated that the Polish court relied heavily on the Scots. Besides, Alexander Ruthven and Abraham Young commanded two companies of infantry alongside the Polish hussars or heavy cavalry against the Swedes at Kircholm in 1605, while there was also a Scottish presence in the Polish army at Smolensk in 1614. See A. Francis Steuart ‘Papers’, x; Robert I. Frost, The Northern Wars: war, state and society in northeastern Europe, 1558–1721 (Harlow: 2000) 48; Seliga and Koczy, Scotland and Poland, 6; Wies∑aw Majewski, ‘The Polish Art of War in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries’ in J.K. Fedorowicz, ed. A Republic of Nobles (London: 1982), 179–198; Waldemar Kowalski, ‘Scotsmen in the Cracow market in the mid-seventeenth century’, one of a number of papers on the subject given at conference on “ScottishPolish relations, 1500–1800”, Warsaw, 20–23 September 2000.

      

17

The relevance of sources relating to northern and western parts of ‘Germany’ and to Poland-Lithuania should now be clear, even if this remains insufficient evidence to back up the notion of a significant Scottish presence in those locations that will be considered in this book. Taking the apparently nomadic nature of the lives of the examples already mentioned into account, the rest of this chapter will consist of an attempt to introduce the scattered historiography of Scotland’s contacts with all those territories that were under Habsburg control by 1618. This presents a bewildering geopolitical array. What follows should not be considered an exhaustive overview of Scottish links with central, western and south-western Europe up to the outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War: the completion of such a task awaits a patient team of researchers with the necessary linguistic abilities to continue the pioneering work of Ditchburn on the pre-Reformation period.43 The brief survey in this chapter simply seeks to provide the necessary background and context for the analysis of the lands occupied by the house of Austria, the places that will be the subject of the remainder of the text.

Austria Germanica and its predecessors: Emigrants, travellers and exiles in Austria, Royal Hungary and the Bohemian crown lands to 1618 The situation in central Europe is complicated from the very beginning by the fact that the core of the Habsburg possessions there from the time of Rudolf I’s accession as Holy Roman Emperor in 1273 (Upper, Lower, Inner and Further Austria) have a very different history from that of neighbouring Hungary or of the Bohemian kingdom, prior to 1526. Hence, a common thread to Scottish-related activities can be difficult to trace.44 Nonetheless, from either the bordering regions of the Empire or from Poland-Lithuania, it is a relatively short journey to the lands that, in 1618, were ruled by the Danubian branch of the dynasty, and a number of early links have been claimed. A former Benedictine ‘Abbey of the Scots’ survives to this day in Vienna, even if, like 43

Ditchburn, Scotland and Europe. While all of present-day Austria was under Habsburg control, the entire Bohemian kingdom and Hungary were ruled by the Jagiellonians during the late fifteenth century, until 1526. 44

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those already mentioned elsewhere in the Empire, its foundation is likely to have been the work of missionaries from Ireland.45 Moving to the eleventh century, south-western Hungary has been posited as the birthplace of Margaret, the later-to-be-canonised wife of Malcolm III, king of Scots.46 The enduring significance of her life can be seen in the importance attached to her relics amongst Scottish Catholics after the Reformation, when they were taken to Philip II of Spain and placed in a shrine at the Escorial near Madrid.47 Another female link in medieval times is that of King James I’s daughter, Eleanor, who, following her marriage to Archduke Sigmund of Tyrol in 1448, wrote prolifically, in the German, Latin, French and Scots languages.48 To the north and east of ‘Austria’ and Hungary, Scotland established a variety of stronger connections with the duchy of Silesia during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. A Pavel Kravar was burnt to death for heresy in St. Andrews in 1433.49 Hostility would seem to have remained a feature of the Scottish-Silesian relationship, at least according to a series of surviving accounts on the subject of pilgrims returning to Danzig (Gda…sk) from Rome and/or Galicia. Fischer recorded details of a court case in Breslau (Wroc∑aw, Poland) involving a group of Scottish subjects who had stated that “distress and wars drove us out of Scotland”.50 It is not clear from his book if this is the same group of pilgrims who, in 1470, underwent trial in the same town for “unlawful vagabondage”.51 But the surviving report of the authorities there provides the information that

45 The dispute regarding the origin of the founders of the abbey in Vienna was the subject of correspondence between Rudolf II and the Pope in 1580. See Bellesheim, History of the Catholic Church, III, 247. 46 Alan J. Wilson, St. Margaret, Queen of Scotland (Edinburgh: 1993). 47 According to Wilson, Queen Margaret’s head and hair had been conveyed to Antwerp from Scotland in 1597 by John Robie, a Jesuit missionary. The evidence suggests that, in 1627, her relics were taken to the Scots College in Douai before being transported to Castile. See Wilson, St. Margaret, 107; Reverend Mark Dilworth, O.S.B., ‘Jesuits and Jacobites: the cultus of St. Margaret’ in IR, 47, no. 2 (1996), 169–180. 48 Priscilla Bawcutt and Bridget Henisch, ‘Scots Abroad in the Fifteenth Century: The Princesses Margaret, Isabella and Eleonora’ in Elizabeth Ewan and Maureen M. Meikle, eds. Women in Scotland, 1100–1750 (East Linton: 1999), 45–55. 49 A recent writer refers to Kravar as the “last recorded victim of the Inquisition in Scotland”. See Lawrence Moonan, ‘Pavel Kravar, and some writings once attributed to him’ in IR, 27 (1976), 3–24. 50 Fischer, Scots in Germany, 31. 51 Ibid., 241–2.

      

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they included a Lawrence Green from Edinburgh, who “had no shoes, and has been ill for three quarters of a year”. The same document goes on to state that Green had “found countrymen here and a friend at Brünn [Brno, Czech Republic] has advised him to move to this place”.52 Others involved seem to have been based nearby. A “Valterius of Dessen [Dyce]” had been a pedlar in the Saxon town of Meissen. Another, Thomas Sneider [Taylor?] who “has long been ill and vowed a pilgrimage to Rome”, was on his way to Danzig, as was a Thomas Gibson from Dundee, who had “vowed a pilgrimage to St. James [Santiago de Compostella, Galicia, Spain]” but had fallen ill on the journey. At least one of those involved in the trial, a “Reichart of Wicke, Kathnes [Richard of Wick, Caithness]” had settled in Breslau itself, if only for a short time.53 Richard of Wick may have set a wider trend since, on 2 July 1533, seven years after the Habsburgs received election to the Bohemian throne, the same town was sufficiently concerned to issue an edict directed against “pedlars, Scots, gypsies” and other marginal groups.54 Fischer also printed what purported to be a “List of Scottish Pupils at the JesuitSeminary of Braunsberg, Silesia, (1579–1642)”.55 This is erroneous information since it does not refer to the duchy at all, but to an establishment in the town now known more widely as Braniewo, on the Baltic coast.56 Even so, it is an interesting document since many of the Scottish Catholics there followed the pre-Reformation pattern by going on from Poland to Rome via the part of central Europe with which this book is concerned. One of them, an Andrew Jack, had arrived at Braunsberg in 1582 but was recorded as having been “sent to Vienna to continue his studies”. Another, a “Joannes Varrus” arrived in 1584, but was, according to Fischer, “sent to Olmütz [Olomouc, Czech Republic]”.57 Greater detail is available with respect to a diverse group of Scotsmen who attained more prominent positions in other parts of

52 This comes from the “Criminal-Akten” which Fischer transcribed from the Breslau town archives and printed in Ibid., 241–2. 53 Ibid. 54 Ibid. Some “oti (Scottish pedlars) found their way to Bohemia and Moravia too. 55 Fischer, Scots in Eastern and Western Prussia, 142. 56 Martin Murphy, ‘Robert Abercromby S.J. (1536–1613) and the Baltic Counter Reformation’ in IR, 50, no. 1 (1999), 58–76. 57 Fischer, Scots in Germany, 298–9.

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the monarchy around that time.58 John Craig —later tutor at St. Andrews to the pro-unionist Scottish lawyer, Sir Thomas Craig— visited the Viennese court of Maximilian II for a time, while John McCulloch from Edinburgh served as a physician in the household of Rudolf II in the early 1610s.59 Further east, John Paterson was also a medic, based at Eperjes (Pre“ov, Slovakia) in the late sixteenth century.60 Several Scottish intellectuals could have been tracked down in the Austrian archduchy of Styria too. Peter Green instructed in Philosophy at the University of Graz, having entered the Society of Jesus at Braunsberg in 1586, this being just two years after the commencement of the Jesuit mission in Scotland. Green left to take up a new position at Olmütz in 1612.61 Also at Graz, William Johnston S.J. taught Philosophy and Scripture, dying there in 1609 “in high repute for piety and learning”.62 The Scottish martyr of 1615, John Ogilvie, had apparently entered the Society of Jesus in the Styrian capital as well, just a few years before, as had a William Christie “somewhere in Austria” in 1616.63 Another individual worthy of consideration alongside this group is Henry Bruce, who had begun his military career in the service of the United Provinces, where he had achieved notoriety for killing a Captain Hamilton of the duke of Buccleuch’s regiment in a duel. Bruce was still in the Netherlands in 1608 when he submitted some proposals relating to military inventions and “received grants in recognition”.64 But from there, perhaps in opposition to the involvement of the Stuart monarchy against Rudolf II in the Cleves-Jülich crisis, he went to Ansbach and then onwards to Graz, in his case to the court of the Archduke Ferdinand (the future Emperor Ferdinand II). One early twentieth-century historian recorded that Bruce served the archduke “with the reputa-

58

J.V. Poli“enskÿ, ‘A Note on Scottish Soldiers in the Bohemian War’ in Murdoch, ed. Scotland and the Thirty Years’ War, 110. 59 Cameron, ‘Some Scottish Students’, 131. 60 Grant, Scottish soldiers, 148. Pre“ov lies in the ”pis region. 61 Reverend J.F.S. Gordon, ed. The Catholic Church in Scotland 1603–1869 (Glasgow: 1867), 562. 62 Gordon, ed. Catholic Church, 568. 63 Christie then returned to Scotland where he became chaplain to the marquis of Huntly for a time, before eventually returning to the continent. He was appointed rector of the Scots College in Douai in 1650. See Hay, ed. Blairs Papers, 14. For Ogilvie in Austria, see Bellesheim, History of the Catholic Church, III, 414. 64 James Ferguson, ed. The Scots Brigade in Holland, 2 Vols. (Edinburgh: 1899), I, 63.

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tion of an accomplished officer with a strongly scientific turn of mind”.65 Certainly, in 1617, he was fighting in the Adriatic, on the side of the Austrian Habsburgs and the uskok bandits of the Dalmatian coast against the Venetians, at a time when the republic, along with the help of Dutch, English (and possibly Scottish) ships, was attempting to supply its army at Gradisca.66

Austria Hispanica and its predecessors: Emigrants, travellers and exiles on the Italian peninsula, in the southern Netherlands and on the Iberian peninsula to 1618 In the vast collection of territories that by 1618 had become dominions or dependencies of the Spanish monarchy, any attempt to trace a tradition of Scottish emigration is probably even more difficult than in the lands that constituted ‘Austria Germanica’. The appellation ‘Austria Hispanica’ is a similarly inadequate label to describe what was—in linguistic and cultural terms—an equally diverse mass of dynastic possessions. Even limiting the focus to the European continent, the constituent parts of the later, Castile-centred multiple monarchy, have essentially separate histories prior to the sixteenth century, with the consequence that Scottish activities can again appear disparate and unconnected. Some further explanation is required of the complex geography involved (see Map 1). Moving gradually westwards from Further Austria, the Swiss cantons would provide a crucial link between two Habsburg worlds from the time of Charles V. Mountain passes led, not only westwards across the Alps to Iberia, but southwards, onto the Italian peninsula. This book will deal only occasionally with those regions of ‘Italy’ that fell under Castilian suzerainty (the vicekingdoms of Naples and Sicily, the island of Sardinia and the duchy of Milan) and those mentioned in the previous section that remained

65

J.S. Corbett, England in the Mediterranean, 2 Vols. (London: 1904), I, 156. Ferguson, ed. Scots Brigade in Holland, I, 63. A number of Scottish officers, such as William Scot (later Vice-Admiral of Candia i.e. Crete), Sir James Scott, a Colonel Juan Douglas and a Colonel Cornelius Wemyss were certainly involved on the side of the Venetians. See Grant, Scottish Soldiers of Fortune, 99; ‘Draft petition from Alexander McDonald to the King of Spain (n.d.)’ in SCA CA/4/9/11; Corbett, England in the Mediterranean, I, 155–159. 66

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nominally linked to the Empire.67 However, continuing westwards from Milan, the mountainous journey along what became known as ‘the Spanish road’ to the Franche-Comté (successor to the ancient duchy of Burgundy) acquired a reputation as a treacherous route for southern or eastern Europeans on their way to north-west Germany or the Low Countries. Such problems did not exist for those like the Scots who could approach the latter regions by sea. As has been touched on already, Scotland was one of many maritime countries that had deep, centuries-old connections with the ports of Flanders prior to 1618. Consequently, the southern Netherlands had become by far the most important destination for Scots in the Castilianadministered sections of the Habsburg world. Much greater amounts of relevant documentary material have been uncovered here than on the Italian or Iberian peninsulas, where no detailed exploration has ever been carried out. Yet there is evidence of early medieval links between Scotland and all of those disparate regions of the continent that the Spanish Habsburgs would later come to occupy. As far back as the year 800, a William Douglas is said to have been sent to aid the Lombards of northern Italy.68 Moving forward to the twelfth-century, the impact of ‘Flemish’ immigrants on Scotland (only some of whom were from the province of Flanders itself ) is well known, particularly in Upper Clydesdale and Moray. By then, Scottish east-coast ports were already trading considerably with towns such as St. Omer and Arras in Flanders’ neighbouring province, Artois, exchanging locally produced wool for Low Countries cloth and other goods.69 Intellectual links were established on the Italian peninsula from the 1290s by a group of more than thirty law students at the University of Bologna.70 Regarding military ties, a Scottish soldier with the unlikely name of Lawrence Pooré, allegedly served the king of Castile at some point

67 Thus, reference will be made, where relevant, to the neighbouring independent city republic of Genoa, the grand duchies of Tuscany, Savoy and Mantua, and even to the Papal States and the Venetian Republic. 68 According to Grant, an Italian family, the Scotti, are descended from him. See Grant, Scottish soldiers, 96. 69 Alexander Stevenson, ‘The Flemish Dimension of the Auld Alliance’ in Simpson, ed. Scotland and the Low Countries, 31. 70 D.E.R. Watt, ‘Scottish University Men of the 13th and 14th centuries’ in Smout, ed. Scotland and Europe, 1200–1800, 3. A Scottish embassy was also sent to Rome as early as 1301–2 to protest at the aggression of Edward I.

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in the thirteenth century.71 An interesting story also concerns events following the death of Robert the Bruce when Sir James Douglas was chosen to convey Bruce’s heart to the Holy Land. The first port of call for Douglas and his eight Scottish knights on their 1329 journey was Sluys, the maritime port of the city of Bruges. From there, they appear to have travelled southwards by sea to fight for Alphonso, King of León and Castile, in his wars against the Moors. After landing at Seville, Douglas is reputed to have marched on to Andalucia to participate in the battle of Teba, north of Malaga. Following some success there, the legend has it that he and his compatriots were surrounded by their opponents and became separated from the mass of the Castilian army. Moments before his death in the field, Douglas is thought to have thrown the vessel containing Bruce’s heart to the ground.72 During the later medieval period, links with the southern and south-western provinces of the Low Countries remain the easiest of these ‘Spanish’ ties to confirm. Besides the city of Bruges, where the Schottenin Straat is an obvious reminder of the growth of the Scottish staple, merchants established a foothold in the towns of Ghent and Antwerp in Flanders, and strengthened earlier ties with Artois. Further east, intellectuals forged bonds with Louvain in Brabant.73 From the fifteenth century, soldiers served in the armies of the dukes of Burgundy, while there also developed an increasing number of artistic and political connections between the Netherlands and the Stewart court.74 Strengthening diplomatic links can be detected too. In 1491,

71

Grant, Scottish soldiers, 132. Douglas’ body was later conveyed home (as was Bruce’s heart) to be placed in Melrose Abbey, according to Grant, Scottish soldiers, 132. A more recent portrayal of his life can be found in Sonja Cameron, ‘Sir James Douglas, Spain and the Holy Land’ in Terry Brotherstone and David Ditchburn, eds. Freedom and Authority: Scotland, c.1050–c.1650: Historical and Historiographical Essays presented to Grant G. Simpson (East Linton: 2000), 108–118. 73 Grant, Scottish soldiers, 144. Bruges was the most significant trading point for Scots in the Netherlands for a time, perhaps even until the 1550s, by which point the port had become silted up. See Alexander Stevenson, ‘Medieval Scottish Associations with Bruges’ in Brotherstone and Ditchburn eds. Freedom and Authority, 93–108, Ditchburn, Scotland and Europe, 187–8. There were also diplomatic links with Guelders. These are covered in David Ditchburn, ‘The Place of Guelders in Scottish Foreign Policy’ in Simpson, ed. Scotland and the Low Countries, 59–76. 74 Lorne Campbell, ‘Scottish Patrons and Netherlandish Painters in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries’ in Simpson, ed. Scotland and the Low Countries, 89–97; Ditchburn, Scotland and Europe, 124. 72

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James IV sent a group of envoys to Castile in an attempt to arrange a Spanish marriage.75 Four years later, he dispatched Archbishop Blacadder of Glasgow to Ferdinand and Isabella’s court there along with a separate group of representatives (including Bishop Elphinstone of Aberdeen) to Worms in the Rhineland to meet the emperor. This flurry of diplomatic activity resulted from James’ interest in the claims of the Yorkist pretender, Perkin Warbeck, to the English throne. Plainly, it comprised a new effort to promote close Scottish relations with Spain and the Holy Roman Empire to the detriment of Tudor England. It seems likely that the threat to the Scottish staple following the recent Flemish uprising was one other feature of the discussions there as might have been the significant quantities of wine, iron and timber that Scotland imported from the Iberian peninsula.76 Evidently, the continuation of the Franco-Scottish alliance down to 1560 did not rule out Scotland’s pursuit of closer relations with the continental neighbours of the house of Valois, especially when the country’s connections with the Low Countries appeared under threat. Thus, Stewart-Habsburg contacts developed considerably after 1519 when, the ‘auld alliance’ aside, the friendship of the king of Spain began at times to appear “more valuable to Scotland than the more picturesque and romantic alliance with France”.77 There appeared from that point on a recognition at the Stewart court that only good relations with the emerging Habsburg monolith (now the major rival to the French on the continent) could safeguard Scottish political, economic and cultural links with the Netherlands. Several instances can be found to back up this assessment. In 1528, Charles V dispatched an ambassador to James V, in an attempt to induce him to declare war on Henry VIII. Then, in 1535, two years after Cranmer’s annulment of Henry’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon, James became the first Scottish king to be awarded the Order of the Golden Fleece, one of many Burgundian traditions adopted in an attempt to bring Castilian court customs into line with those in the rest of the Habsburg realms.78 Artistic contacts survived in the

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Elder, Spanish Influences, 3–4. The emperor was Maximilian I. Ibid., 17; Norman Macdougall, James IV (East Linton: 1997), 118–20; Leslie J. Macfarlane, William Elphinstone and the Kingdom of Scotland, 1431–1514 (Aberdeen: 1985), 446. 77 Elder, Spanish Influences, 24. 78 Away from high politics, at least one Scot in Charles V’s service, Thomas 76

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case of the Lennox Stewarts, who employed two painters from Antwerp as late as the 1550s and 1560s. Some Scottish students even continued to go to “Flanderis” for artistic instruction after 1560, despite the assumed termination of this chapter in the story of relations with the region.79 During the 1560s, dynastic connections took on particular significance. It is sometimes forgotten that the adult Mary Stewart, a fluent Spanish speaker, played a role as an “important pawn” for Philip II, Charles of Ghent’s successor as king of Spain. He promoted Mary’s claims to the English throne in a treaty of 1562, besides putting forward his mentally unstable son Don Carlos as a candidate for her hand in marriage the following year. When this plan failed to materialise, he suggested two others of Charles’ progeny instead.80 Mary aside, Sir John Seaton of Barnes apparently served at Philip’s court during this period, as a Master of the Household. In addition, although many in Scotland sided with the Calvinist, United Provinces to the north of the Low Countries following the outbreak of the Dutch Revolt in 1566, some of the tradition of military contacts with the Spanish-administered, southern Netherlands continued too.81 By the early 1580s, the established church of Scotland had changed considerably, while Mary Stewart remained incarcerated. Yet ScottishSpanish relations would seem, in some senses, to have advanced. Certainly, the young James VI had been enamoured enough with Habsburg universalism to compose a one-thousand line poem, Lepanto, in which he glorified the naval victory won over the Turks by Charles V’s bastard son, Don John of Austria.82 Hence, it should perhaps be of no surprise that the same king failed to prevent Spanish intrigues involving Scottish recusant exiles becoming increasingly sophisticated from 1584, following the commencement of the Jesuit mission in Scotland. The Society of Jesus’ esprit de corps, more than that of any

Blake, moved on to Mexico with the conquistadores. In 1540, Blake took part in a Spanish expedition to the Americas. See J. Hewitson, Tam Blake and co.: The Story of the Scots in America (Edinburgh: 1995), 12–13. 79 Campbell, ‘Scottish Patrons’, 92. 80 Francis II had died in 1560. See Elder, Spanish Influences, 46–7. 81 Seaton apparently returned to Scotland in 1609. See Grant, Scottish soldiers, 133. 82 D.H. Willson, King James VI and I (London: 1956), 65–6.

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other order, connected militant Catholic exiles in places as distant as Bologna, Madrid or Brussels, bonds which would become particularly important during the later years of the century. Of utmost significance in this would be the Scots College in Douai, founded in 1581 by one of Sir Thomas Urquhart’s heroes, the exiled Father William Crichton S.J.83 Although similar institutions already existed in Rome and Paris—the latter having escaped Jesuit control—secular priests had become thin on the ground at home. Thus, the Douai college began to serve as a nexus for the small number of Catholic exiles scattered throughout Habsburg Europe.84 One early recruit, Alexander Bog, travelled onwards to Germany to serve as a “soldier or monk” while, in 1582, a Thomas Cheyne was reported in the college records to have “left for Sicily”. Cheyne moved on to Lorraine, while an Alexander Chalmer was stated to have gone on shortly after to accept a post teaching rhetoric and philosophy in Salins, Burgundy.85 A good deal can be revealed about the battlefield career of another highly mobile Scot, William Semple (1546–1633). Semple was a son, probably illegitimate, of the third Lord Semple of Lochwinnoch. He served the Spanish monarchy against the Dutch from 1582, when he passed control of the garrison town of Lier near Antwerp into Habsburg hands, an action for which he received the praises of Philip II. Unfortunately, Maurice Taylor is not entirely clear regarding the sources for his claim that the colonel declined the reward offered to him of 50,000 reales per annum for the rest of his life.86 Colonel Semple was not the only Scottish militant in

83 Elsewhere, Admiral James Crichton from Perthshire, was a man who, according to Urquhart, obtained fluency in twelve languages. The duke of Mantua in northern Italy employed Crichton as a tutor to his son, Vincentio di Gonzaga. It is not clear if he was a relation of Father William Crichton S.J. James Crichton was murdered in Mantua in 1583 according to Grant, Scottish soldiers, 98–99. 84 Other sources state that James Cheyne founded a separate college at nearby Tournai in 1576 which was only incorporated as part of the Douai foundation in 1612. Pope Gregory XIII’s backing for the Scottish mission may have been a response to the pleas of the English father, Robert Persons S.J., that the most promising means towards achieving conversions in England remained through the recatholicisation of Scotland. See Peter F. Anson, Underground Catholicism in Scotland, (Montrose 1970), 13. During the first year of its existence, at least seventeen Scots enrolled at Douai. A total of 134 students registered in the period up to 1618. See Forbes Leith et al. Records of the Scots Colleges, 2. 85 Ibid. 86 In Spain, noble status (Hidalguía) passed on patrilineally to all children of hidal-

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the upper ranks of the Spanish army in the Netherlands during the early 1580s. In 1584, a Colonel David Boyd led twelve companies of Scottish infantry there for the duke of Parma.87 But close study reveals that it was under the influence of a small clique around Semple that the development of Scotland’s domestic politics and international Catholicism became increasingly intertwined in the latter half of that decade. In 1586, the sixth earl of Huntly became implicated in machinations involving two other Scottish nobles, the ninth Lord Maxwell and Lord Claud Hamilton, when letters of theirs requesting arms and soldiers were found en route to Spain. A Scottish agent, Robert Bruce, had arranged the details and attempted to recruit 6,000 Germans or Italians with the help of the Spanish ambassador in Paris, Mendoza, and the duke of Parma. Bruce hoped that these troops might embark for Scotland, seize the king, massacre the anglophile earls and ministers, and garrison the major royal strongholds. Parma seems to have promised him the levies to do this in return for an arrangement whereby Spanish arms would be transported in Scottish vessels under the cover of carrying grain from Danzig to Flanders. He even gave Bruce a large sum of money towards this end.88 In May 1587, hoping to capitalise on strengthened animosity towards Elizabeth I in the wake of Mary’s execution three months earlier, Maxwell decided to sail for Lisbon in order to assess the situation for himself. He arranged, upon his arrival, to meet Archduke Albert, the viceroy of Portugal. From there, he went to Madrid for discussions with Philip II, following which he received another large cash payment. Maxwell returned to Portugal after that. However, upon visiting Paris in January 1588, he met up with

gos or higher nobility, whether they were legitimate or not. This may have benefited Semple in the development of his early career at court. See I.A.A. Thompson, ‘The Nobility in Spain, 1600–1800’ in H.M. Scott, ed. The European Nobilities in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, 2 Vols. (Harlow: 1995), 176. For a useful account of Semple’s continuing connections with Scottish Catholics up to his death in Madrid in 1633, based on the records of the Scots College in Spain, see Maurice Taylor, The Scots College in Spain (Valladolid: 1971), 2–25. See also Chapters Two and Three below. 87 SCA CA/4/9/3. 88 Keith M. Brown, ‘The making of a Politique: The Counter Reformation and the Regional Politics of John, Eighth Lord Maxwell’ in SHR, 66, no. 182 (1987), 161.

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Mendoza and William Semple. The two Scots travelled onwards to Dunkirk shortly after, before disembarking for Dundee in April.89 Ambitious, Spanish-backed schemes relating to Scotland did not peter out with the failure of the Armada that August, even if Semple was left to languish in an Edinburgh prison for a time. The colonel had escaped and returned independently to the Spanish Netherlands before the end of 1589, following the marquis of Huntly’s unsuccessful leadership of a rising of the Catholic nobility of the northeast at Brig O’ Dee near Aberdeen.90 Indeed, renewed contacts from his base in Madrid led to his involvement in the conspiracy known as the ‘Spanish Blanks’ just three years later, when another series of letters to Philip II were discovered, this time in the hands of a George Kerr. On this occasion, Scotttish Catholic earls had signed all of the documents but otherwise left them empty so as to be filled with details of a Spanish military invasion of England via Scotland.91 This plot had been organised to a large extent by Semple and the aforementioned Father William Crichton.92 Them aside, Lord Maxwell, a man considered by a recent historian as “the King of Spain’s treasurer in Scotland” at that time, actively participated in intrigues involving the hispanic world until 1593.93

89 13 May 1588, Bruges, Alexandro Farnese to ‘Le Roi’ (Philip II?), in AGS, Est. 594, f. 60; Brown ‘Making’, 163. Mary’s execution only confirmed the determination of Maxwell, Hamilton and the earls of Huntly and Crawford to bring a Spanish force across the North Sea. Meanwhile, bowing to pressure, James wrote to Henry III, Catherine de Medici and the duke of Guise to ask for help against Elizabeth. However, Philip II considered the Scottish king to be a “hopeless heretic” who “should not be converted but dethroned”. As a result, those English Catholic exiles who were opposed to Elizabeth remained divided into ‘Scottish’ and ‘Spanish’ factions. The latter, under Parsons’ influence, supported a Habsburg succession in England. See Peter Guilday, The English Catholic Refugees on the continent, 1558–1795 (London: 1914), 95; Willson, King James, 80. 90 Ruth Grant, ‘The Brig o’ Dee Affair, the sixth earl of Huntly and the politics of the Counter-Reformation’ in Julian Goodare and Michael Lynch, eds. The Reign of James VI (East Linton: 2000), 93–109. This was also around the time of the visit of a Spanish barque to the east coast. The activities of the crew of this vessel are covered in Conchi Saenz, ‘The adventures of the Spanish Barque’ in The Scots Link, 60 (2002), 12–14. 91 They were signed by the earls of Huntly, Errol, Angus and Sir Patrick Gordon of Auchindoun. These machinations came to an end with the flight of the former two earls to the continent in March 1595. See Elder, Spanish Influences, 254–6, 304–6. 92 In 1596, Father Crichton was in Seville. Notwithstanding that, the college records continued to list him as Rector at Douai until 1598. See Gordon, ed. Catholic Church, 538. 93 Brown, ‘Making’, 172.

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According to another source, Scottish imports of iron and wine from Spain remained considerable during the last decade of the sixteenth century.94 Economic factors in the relationship apart, many more Scots were becoming attracted to the Habsburg dependencies for religious reasons. Thomas Becam was reported to be a Jesuit, living somewhere in Spain, while a John Forbes had followed his elder brother William to Flanders, then travelled on to join the Capuchin order at Tournai.95 In 1594, the younger Forbes spent time in Bruges, Antwerp and Dixmude (south-west of Ghent) where he apparently “converted three hundred Scottish soldiers to the catholic religion”.96 Italy too, remained an occasional destination for Scottish Catholics: in 1595, Adam Brown S.J., a student at Douai, left for Naples.97 From the late 1590s down to 1603, despite the various setbacks of recent times regarding proposed invasions of England via Scotland and Ireland, Scottish influence at the Spanish Habsburg courts came to the fore again. First, in 1598, Robert Bruce, travelled on another mission to Brussels.98 There is also the less mysterious case of Robert Semple, the fourth Lord Semple, James VI’s ambassador in Madrid, an individual who negotiated that year with the dying Philip II over the question of the succession to the English throne. He was assisted there by William Semple, who he referred to as “the crunal my cusing”.99

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Donaldson stated that 0.5 million gallons of wine were being imported into Scotland per year, some of this from Iberia. Meanwhile spices and clothing continued to come from the southern Netherlands, despite pressure from the General Assembly on the Convention of Royal Burghs to end all Spanish trade. See Gordon Donaldson, Scotland: James V to James VII (Edinburgh: 1965), 248. 95 Gordon, ed. Catholic Church, 521. John Forbes (1571–1606) was the second son of the Protestant John, eighth Lord Forbes and his Catholic wife, Lady Margaret Gordon. Both he and his brother became known as ‘Father Archangel’. After having first been arrested by a Spanish soldier and imprisoned as a spy in Antwerp, the younger Forbes was set free, learnt Flemish and Latin and went to Tournai. He died in 1606 and was buried in a Capuchin church at Termonde. An anonymous author published a Latin biography of him in Cologne in 1620, which was translated into French (1621), English (1623) and Italian (1634). William Forbes translated and published the English language version while at the Scots College in Douai. See John Forbes’ DNB entry. 96 His mother came to Flanders too, having been provided with a pension by Philip II. She died in 1606. This is covered in his DNB entry. 97 Forbes Leith et al. Records of the Scots Colleges, 4. 98 Father George Elphinstone replaced Crichton at Douai that year. See Forbes Leith et al. Records of the Scots Colleges, 2. 99 See DNB. Another Scotsman, John Ogilvie of Pourie, conducted diplomacy on

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Robert Semple’s life is mysterious after that, although the veteran colonel’s continuing involvement in Castilian high politics is unquestionable. In 1594, he had married Doña Maria de Ledesma, the daughter of a wealthy secretary of the royal council of the Indies, thus securing access to the patronage of a leading figure at court.100 Quite possibly it was a reflection of a consequent rise in status, that the king sent Semple as his representative to the coast of Andalucia carrying a commission detailing an embargo on warships and “enemy” goods. But by 1600, the colonel seems to have been forced to delve too deeply into his already limited finances. Abandoning his earlier stubbornness over the issue of remuneration, Semple tried to impress himself on the new king Philip III (r.1598–1621) by raising the issue of shortfalls in the payments of his entretenimiento, stating that his salary had become insufficient to support him and his wife.101 From then on, monetary burdens would remain a recurring theme in the colonel’s correspondence with the Spanish court.102 That said, in 1603, the exiled earl of Bothwell met up with Colonel Semple in Spain. Just a few months after his arrival, Semple began pressing for another attempt to invade Scotland, to the extent that he had “lately passed into Flanders with money to bring Bothwell’s adherents into the Archduke’s service”.103 It has often been asserted that the years following the accession of James VI to the English throne marked the end of an era in which some loose threads in the regional politics of Scotland had become entangled in Spanish attempts to promote an international, Catholic reformation.104 Such an assumption is quite wrong. The

the Italian peninsula and then in Spain after 1595. Ogilvie seems to have shifted between a pro- and anti-Habsburg stance. See Willson, King James, 143. 100 Her father was Don Juan de Ledesma. The family paid Semple a dowry of 100,000 reales. It is not clear if the couple had any children although Semple left at least two illegitimate sons, who lived in the southern Netherlands and Spain respectively. See Taylor, Scots College, 21. 101 11 April 1600, Madrid, Semple’s ‘Relacion de Servicios’, printed in Van Durme, ed. Les Archives générales de Simancas, III, 452–3. 102 26 March 1605, Brussels, AGS, Est. 624, (n.f.), no. 8. 103 30 March 1603, Paris, Marvin Cavalli, Venetian ambassador in France to the Doge and Senate in, CSPV, 1592–1603, 567; 26 November 1603, Paris, Anzolo Badoer to the Doge and Senate, CSPV, 1603–7, 114. Bothwell remained in the Spanish Netherlands until 1610. 104 The continued presence of Bothwell excepted, Ruth Grant has emphasised in a recent article that the aims of Huntly and many other Scottish Catholics may

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relationship of hispanophiles with the relocated Stuart court would frequently be an uneasy one, but new contacts continued to be made after the regal union, in order to promote a subversive religious and political agenda. Although most accounts of Scottish-Spanish intrigues terminate with the Treaty of London of 1604, or following the failure of the Gunpowder Plot the following year, neither of these dates signal the end of the efforts of exiled Catholics to reverse the effects of Protestant reform. For example, on 26 February 1605, the Brussels authorities provided a licence to return home for a Donoch na Calen who was then serving in a company of Irish infantry under Captain Lawrence Barnewall.105 The same year, Colonel Semple also recommended some other of his countrymen for education at Douai. Archduke Albert, joint governor (with his wife Isabella) of the Spanish Netherlands, reflected on these initiatives in a letter to Philip III, pointing to Semple’s role as the commander of “the companies of Scottish infantry” in “the last campaign”.106 Captain Robert Bruce (perhaps the same man as the Scottish agent of the 1580s and 90s) wrote to the same archduke in 1607, this time regarding military operations near Nijmegen.107 Besides, Stuart agents uncovered some more detail regarding the activities of Scottish hispanophiles in 1609, when a report arrived from Brussels, on the subject of those “illaffected Scots which live on this side the seas”, who were “joining with the Irish in some practise against our State”. The informer alleged this group to be in regular correspondence from bases not

have been essentially local and political in their nature. See Grant, ‘Brig o’ Dee Affair’, 93–109. 105 Jennings, Wild Geese, no. 137. There may have been one Scot with political significance on the Italian peninsula as well. In 1607, an Alexander Hebrun (Hepburn?) was employed as a Stuart consul in Naples: H.G. Koenigsberger, ‘English Merchants in Naples and Sicily in the seventeenth century’ in EHR (1947), 326. Hebrun, if he was a Scot, would not have been the only one in Naples after the Reformation. For example, a William Elphinstone, S.J. died there in 1584. See Gordon, ed. Catholic Church, 544. In addition, Burton tells us of a James ‘Bonaventura’ Hepburn, a librarian at the Vatican around this time. See Burton, Scot Abroad, 57. 106 See 19 February 1607, Brussels, Archduke Albert to Philip III, in Correspondance de la Cour d’Espagne, I, no. 555. The archduke and his wife had been suggested by Irish and English catholic exiles as possible candidates for the English throne in 1599. See Guilday, English Catholic Refugees, 96. 107 22 August 1607, Robert Bruce to the Archduke Albert, AGS Est 2025, f. 37. In 1608, an individual named John Ellens, listed as “Scoto-Belga” and just fifteen years old, enrolled at Douai. See Forbes Leith et al. Records of the Scots Colleges, 13.

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only in the hispanic world, but in the Papal States, France and elsewhere. He believed the conspirators to include, besides Semple and the unpredictable Bothwell, Father Crichton, Sir John and William Chisholm and a Thomas Gordon.108 The twelve-year Dutch-Spanish truce of 1609 may have offered respite for some of those Scottish veterans who had been employed in the Spanish armies since the 1580s, but a few of their compatriots continued to work feverishly in Castile. Two years on, a William Gordon wrote to James VI and I from Madrid, offering his services.109 More generally, the circumstances for the Scots in the Castilian capital improved in 1613, when the administration provided two houses for Semple as a portion of his long overdue entretenimiento payments.110 Hugh Semple (1589–1654), the son of the colonel’s brother, Robert Semple of Craigbait in Renfrewshire, seems to have made the most of this following his arrival in 1614. Within a year, the younger Semple had begun a course of studies at Toledo and entered the Society of Jesus at Alcalá de Henares.111 By 1617, three other Scotsmen had joined him in becoming involved in the latest rounds of Scottish-related scheming organised by his uncle. They were Sir Robert Ker, the first Earl of Ancram, an Andrew Pitcairn and a John Dalzell, the last of whom was believed to be lodging at the colonel’s house.112 Moreover, it seems to have been during the same year that David Colville from the parish of Cleish near St. Andrews, received appointment as both royal interpreter to Philip III and as

108 The conversion of James VI and I still seemed a realistic possibility to them. See 28 February 1609, William Turnbull to the earl of Salisbury in Report on the manuscripts of Lord de L’Isle and Dudley, 6 Vols. (London, H.M.C.: 1925–66), 4, 193. For the exiled Irishmen Hugh O’Neill and Florence Conry’s hopes for the ScottishIrish connection from around this time, see Micheál Mac Craith, ‘The Gaelic Reaction to the Reformation’ in Ellis and Barber eds. Conquest and Union, 159. 109 12 December 1611, ‘Services offered to His Majesty by William Gordon’, PRO SP94/18/f 228. 110 The so-called ‘Jacometrezo’ property was in central Madrid, yet the houses were in poor condition. Part of the colonel’s obligation was to provide accomodation there for other royal servants. As a result, he joined legions of Castilian nobles at this time (following the debasements of coinage and the issuing of state bonds or juros that resulted from the issuing of copper vellón in 1602–3) by taking on a loan. This amounted to 200,000 reales. See Taylor, Scots College in Spain, 23. 111 Hugh Semple’s mother was a Grizel Montgomery or Cunningham. See John Durkan, ‘Three Manuscripts with Fife Associations: And David Colville of Fife’ in IR, 20, (1969), 48; Taylor, Scots College in Spain, 27–35. 112 John Durkan, ‘David Colville: An Appendix’ in IR, 20, (1969), 139.

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Professor in Hebrew, Arabic and Greek at the Escorial, duties for which the Spanish king granted him a pension of 600 ducats.113 The Italian peninsula too, retained its importance for Catholic Scots down to 1618. The veteran of the Imperial court mentioned earlier, John McCulloch, joined his brother James by entering the service of Cosmo II of Tuscany from 1614.114 They may have crossed paths there with the writer Thomas Dempster who, having received his early schooling in Turriff and Aberdeen, taught at the University of Pisa from 1616, becoming Professor in Civil Law.115 Although Dempster had lectured previously in Louvain, Douai and Tournai, he does not seem to have returned to the Spanish dependencies, preferring instead to move on to a series of teaching positions that would lead him to Bologna, Florence, and Siena during an eightyear period after 1617.116 Dempster’s cousin, George Leslie, a Capuchin monk, was also based in Bologna at that time, from where he reported hearing the confessions of English, Scottish and Irish exiles. ‘Archangel Leslie’ as he became known, corresponded with Semple in Madrid. In addition, he made his way back across the English Channel at some point to act as interpreter to the Spanish ambassador at the Stuart court. It is evident that Father Leslie only returned to the Scottish Catholic mission in 1623, while it was not until 1644 that Giovanni Battista Rinuccini (the papal nuncio to Ireland from 1645–9) published his Italian-language biography of him. This text was subsequently translated into Spanish, Portuguese, French and German (if not English and/or Scots).117

113 David Colville had been a student at the Scots College at Rome, but had studied in Venice, Padua, Bologna and Pisa during the first part of the 1610s. See Gordon, ed. Catholic Church, 537. Colville’s annotated notes on the Arabic manuscripts that he catalogued at the Escorial can be seen to this day. See Durkan, ‘Three Manuscripts’, 51. The value of Colville’s pension is hard to estimate since the ducat or ducado was used internationally and had no steady value during this period. See ‘Note on Dates/Currency’ above. 114 They stayed there for three years, following which they seem to have travelled elsewhere in Italy. Both published medical works, the former in Florence in 1616, the latter the following year, before returning as far as England to take up an appointment at the Jacobean court. See Cameron, ‘Some Scottish Students’, 131. 115 Dempster had a feud with Duke Cosimo II’s valido, Robert Dudley. See John Durkan, ‘Note on Scots in Italy—1’, in IR, 22 (1971), 12–18. 116 Durkan, ‘Note on Scots in Italy—1’. 117 Ann Dean, ‘George Archangel Leslie, Il Cappucino Scozzese’ in IR, 49, no. 1 (1998), 66–77; Anson, Underground Catholicism, 17. For Archangel Leslie and Dempster,

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Less surprising than the Italian connection, a small number of Scotsmen maintained a more widely acknowledged tradition by seeking their fortunes in the southern Netherlands during the latter half of the 1610s. Most of them were military recruits. A report of 20 April 1616 referred to two companies of English and Scottish soldiers in the Army of Flanders, men who were enjoying “special grants”.118 Paul Raddock’s 236-strong company was stated to consist of seventyfour “special guests”.119 By June that year “some very close relatives of the highest nobility” of the Scottish Highlands and Islands had arrived at Dunkirk to join them.120 This group presumably included James MacDonald of Dunnyveg—who had escaped from captivity in Edinburgh in May 1615—alongside his son, Donald Gorme.121 Even the fragile, if longstanding artistic links between Scotland and Flanders may not have been entirely eradicated by 1618. An outstanding case is that of George Jameson (1589 or 1590–1644), the “Scottish Van Dyck”.122 Jameson was an Aberdonian painter who came under the influence of the Flemish master, Rubens, then teaching Van Dyck in Antwerp. Art historians have debated over the possibility that Jamesone may have spent some time with Rubens at his studio there during the latter half of the decade. One of the few things they are certain about is that, if he had, he had returned to Scotland by 1620.123 This chapter has demonstrated that the manifold military, political, religious, cultural and economic connections that linked the Scottish people to the Catholic regions of the continent (excluding France) by 1618, were the result of contacts that stretched back many centuries further. In addition, it should now be clear that such ties were by no means only with the western parts of the Holy Roman Empire or with Poland, as the bulk of previous scholarly work seems to see Father Cuthbert, O.S.F.C., The Capuchins: A Contribution to the History of the Counter Reformation, 2 vols. (London: 1928), II, 333. 118 Jennings, Wild Geese, no. 592. 119 Ibid. 120 Ibid. 121 Ohlmeyer, Civil War and Restoration, 599. 122 This quote comes from an article by John Malcolm Bulloch, cited in William D. Mackay, The Scottish School of Painting (London: 1906), 13. 123 MacMillan has cast doubt on the judgement that has been made that Rubens’ second wife was an Aberdonian. See Duncan Macmillan, Scottish Art, 1460–2000 (Edinburgh: 2000), 9.

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assume. Frequently, the Baltic and continental North Sea ports had acted merely as short-term bases for a motley collection of wanderers who had made their way to locations further inland: soldiers, diplomats, courtiers, students, monks, missionaries, artists and burgesses, alongside much larger groups of pedlars. Thus, the strength of pre-1618 Scottish contacts with the regions that have been identified as Austria Germanica and Austria Hispanica should be apparent. Some important questions remain to be answered. It shall have to be considered whether there were specific factors which, after 1618, encouraged Scots to the lands east of the Rhine as opposed to the Spanish dependencies or vice versa. Was it a largely male phenomenon, as would appear from the examples already given? Not only that, but did the preservation of the Scottish Catholic tradition prove to be a catalyst for all of those involved? The apparent preponderance of north-east surnames (amongst those that went to Austria Germanica at least) will also have to be addressed. Conversely, there may be arguments to suggest that economic or other motivations should be considered of greater importance than religious or localised political issues in accounting for their arrival. In cases where they became resident, the factors that enabled so many of the Habsburgs’ Scottish clients to secure patronage and political influence at court will require some examination. Did their Scottish background prove to be of any relevance in determining the success or otherwise of their careers, or at least allow them to note comparisons between the kingdom they had left behind and the polities in which they served? Another problem to tackle will be the legitimacy or otherwise of making generalised assumptions regarding any of the above matters, based on evidence from what is, overwhelmingly, diplomatic correspondence. Such material, written with the political interests of kings and emperors in mind, obviously requires a more than superficial reading. It should be clear from this brief introductory survey, however, that the historical relationship between Scotland and the Habsburg world is worthy of greater appraisal, especially from 1519, the date from which the dynasty emerged as the major rival to the French house of Valois. The scope for future studies of other defining periods between then and 1700 (and specific aspects of the relationship) would seem wide. Important for the rest of this book, is the background that the array of pre-1618 examples presented provide for what became a little-known contribution to the world of war, politics

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and diplomacy in Scotland and Europe over the thirty years that ensued. The structure of the chapters will be quite simple. Part One will begin with a brief survey of Spanish Habsburg policy in Europe from 1618–33. This will provide the basis for the analysis of a period of renewed vitality in Scottish intrigues in the hispanic world. Part Two emerges from what recent Habsburg scholars have come to view as a change in balance within the ‘Madrid-Vienna axis’ from the mid-1630s, an alteration that allowed the emergence of an independent Austrian Habsburg foreign policy. This will be shown to have been a major factor in accounting for the dramatic rise to prominence of a second Scottish group, who sought their fortunes at the Imperial court of the Holy Roman Emperor.

PART ONE

THE SPANISH HABSBURG LANDS: WILLIAM AND HUGH SEMPLE AND THEIR CIRCLE

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INTRODUCTION

A POLICY OF DYNASTIC UNIVERSALISM? THE HABSBURG ALLIANCE, 1618–33

When studying perceptions as to the state of relations between the two major representatives of the Habsburgs in the run-up to the wars of 1618–48, certain patterns seem to emerge. Broadsheet propagandists of the time, for instance, whether they were supportive of the king of Spain and/or the emperor or not, usually assumed that the future development of the two branches of the dynasty would remain intertwined to some extent. Moreover, it is generally accepted by authorities on the Spanish monarchy to this day, not only that Castilian-style policies continued to be significant at the Imperial court, but that greater territories and financial resources meant that “Philip II and his successors took their effective superiority to the Emperor for granted”.1 This assumption, if indeed it was held, would have ignored the many and increasing difficulties associated with traversing Protestant-controlled sections of the so-called ‘Spanish road’. Finding a way through this tangle of Alpine pathways to and from central Europe had become extremely problematic, yet remained the only means of ensuring a significant hispanic influence on the administration of the Austrian Habsburg congeries.2 Notwithstanding the precarious ascendancy of the Spanish within the relationship, maps of early seventeenth-century Europe—in its various definitions—show that the emperor’s hereditary lands and the kingdoms of Bohemia and Hungary lay not to its geographical east (as most western-European historiography seems to assume) but somewhere around the centre.3 It is, in any case, erroneous and quite 1 J.H. Elliott, The Count Duke of Olivares: The Statesman in an age of Decline (London: 1986), 54; Simon L. Adams, ‘Foreign Policy and the Parliaments of 1621 and 1624’ in Kevin Sharpe, ed. Faction and Parliament: Essays on Early Stuart History (Oxford: 1978), 162–3. 2 To cross the Alps to Austria from Milan involved firstly, passing lands ruled by the duke of Savoy, then the Valtelline valley, controlled by the Protestant ‘Grey Leagues’. 3 Peter Brightwell, ‘The Spanish Origins of the Thirty Years War’, in European Studies Review, 9 (1979), 409–30.

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parochial to consider the early seventeenth-century crownlands of St. Wenceslas (Václav) to have been “an obscure corner of the world” as Peter Brightwell did relatively recently.4 The capital city, Prague, remained a city of international political, cultural and intellectual significance. Indeed, the election of candidates to the position of Holy Roman Emperor depended on backing from the Bohemian kingdom. No aspiring Kaiser could take his seat at the Reichstag until he received a majority from seven votes: one of which went to a representation from the crownlands, and the remainder to each of six other Imperial Electors. With respect to their religious allegiance, these electorates were split down the middle. Neither the Calvinist Palatinate nor largely-Lutheran Brandenburg and Saxony on the Protestant side could be considered instinctive allies on the side of multi-confessional Bohemia. These three were also generally opposed by the representatives of three Catholic electorates—the archbishops of Mainz, Trier and Cologne—who were much more amenable to the idea of having a Habsburg emperor on the throne. In practice then, a prerequisite to being elected as Kaiser following the Reformation, was to be enthroned as king of Bohemia. It was only after achieving this, that aspiring Habsburg candidates could obtain the votes of four of the seven electors and thus stake their claim to becoming ‘king of the Romans’. In 1618, only one Habsburg contender had emerged as a likely successor to the aging Emperor Matthias I (r.1612–19). This was his cousin, the Jesuit-educated Archduke Ferdinand of Styria. Despite Ferdinand’s election as king-designate of both Bohemia and Royal Hungary over the previous winter, arguments broke out soon after between his supporters and those of an emerging group of dissatisfied Protestants. The latter body seized the initiative, some of them backing the claims of Frederick V, the Elector Palatine, and his Scottish wife, Elizabeth Stuart ( James VI and I’s daughter) to the Bohemian throne. A major catalyst of rebellion and a symptom of the declining fortunes of the majority Protestant nobility in that kingdom was the ‘defenestration’ of Prague, when Ferdinand’s deputy-governor and two other leading advisers were thrown from a window in the

4 Brightwell, ‘Spanish Origins’, 409. For a fairer study, which covers both Spain and Bohemia at this time and which also assesses recent research, see J.V. Poli“enskÿ, Tragic Triangle: The Netherlands, Spain and Bohemia, 1617–21 (Prague: 1991).

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royal palace, the Hradschin (Hrad‘any), only to have their falls cushioned by a dung heap: miraculously or not, they survived and the process of Catholic reform continued apace.5 Henceforth, the Bohemian crownlands became the focus of a conflict that pitted a broad coalition of confederated powers against the menacing forces of proHabsburg dynasticism.6 It is important to consider the course of events by which the Bohemian uprising became a single component of a wider catastrophe. From the beginning, the imperialists sought to put it down with assistance from several sources. The first and foremost of these was Spain. Although Castile’s Atlantic trade was undergoing a short-term revival in 1618, Spanish financial support could not be considered a foregone conclusion. One of Philip III’s leading ambassadors, Don Balthasar de Zúñiga, and his replacement at the Imperial court, the count of Oñate, were forced to make strenuous efforts to bring it about.7 In

5 Josef PetráÏn, ‘The Beginnings of the War in Bohemia’, in Bussman and Schilling, eds. 1648: War and Peace in Europe, I, 85–95. 6 A large number of other states besides Bohemia, Silesia and Upper Austria were opposed to the Habsburgs from 1618. For instance, the duke of Savoy sent 2,000 troops which joined those of the veteran count of Mansfeld to aid the Bohemian rebels led by Heinrich Matthias, the count of Thurn. See Parker, ed. Thirty Years’ War, 45; Bussmann and Schilling, 1648: War and Peace in Europe; Asch, Thirty Years War; Burckhardt, Der Dreissigjährige Krieg; Schmidt, Der Dreissigjährige Krieg; Parker and Smith, eds. The General Crisis; Poli“enskÿ, Thirty Years War. Some have denied the existence of a ‘Thirty Years’ War’ at all, or at least dispute the chronology. See S.H. Steinberg, The ‘Thirty Years War’ and the Conflict for European Hegemony, 1600–1660 (London: 1966); Nicola M. Sutherland, ‘The Origins of the Thirty Years War and the Structure of European Politics’, in English Historical Review (hereafter EHR), (1986), 101, 587–625. 7 Oñate was helped by Zuñiga, who had been the Spanish ambassador in Vienna from 1609, following the former’s return to Madrid in 1617. Together, they had engineered the so-called ‘Oñate treaty’, which was signed in Graz in March 1617. It specified that Alsace would be ceded to Philip III in return for Spanish support in Bohemia. However, the duke of Lerma was still planning an invasion of Algiers in the spring of 1618 and tried unsuccessfully to prevent large sums of money being sent to Vienna in July and September that year. See Brightwell, ‘Spanish Origins’, 409–30, and the same author’s two articles, ‘Spain and Bohemia: The Decision to Intervene, 1619’ and ‘Spain, Bohemia and Europe’, in European Studies Review, 12 (1982), 117–141, 371–399; Charles Ingrao, The Habsburg Monarchy 1618–1815 (Cambridge: 1994), 31. Perhaps it is understandable that the situation in Bohemia is rarely assessed on the basis of Philip III’s reaction to these distant, if tumultuous events. More often, they are viewed with regard specifically to either ‘Spain’ or ‘Austria’, the stated goal of universal Habsburg hegemony being viewed as a hopelessly anachronistic one. The most balanced account of the common viewpoint is Johannes Burkhardt’s ‘The Summitless Pyramid: War aims and peace compromises among Europe’s universalist powers’ in Bussman and Schilling, eds. 1648: War and

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the interim—the Catholic League of German princes (led by Duke Maximilian I of Bavaria) having refused to intervene—the emperor accepted monetary donations from the Papacy. More immediately than any of these, Matthias and Ferdinand could rely on a supply of troops from within their own dominions.8 Non-Protestant German and Czech-speaking nobles from Bohemia provided the backbone of this Imperial army, along with a few others from Royal Hungary and the various provinces of Austria. Some of the magnates concerned were only recent converts to Catholicism, who had seen how access to court patronage might improve their dire financial position and had, hence, become servile to the cause of Catholic reform. They included men such as Cardinal-Bishop Franz Dietrichstein, based in Olmütz, and Karl Liechtenstein, the governor of Bohemia, who achieved infamy for his murky role in the execution of twentyseven of the noble opposition in Prague three years later. There were also the likes of Johann Ulrich of Eggenberg from Inner Austria, a man who apparently kept a copy of Cervantes’ Don Quixote in his library.9 In the very different conditions of Royal Hungary, Ferdinand II’s leading adviser, the Jesuit convert Miklós Esterházy, and the Archbishop of Esztergom, Peter Pázmány, had little choice but to assume a position of support for the emperor.10 Events over the next few months proved to be decisive for the rapidly-forming pro-Habsburg alliance. During the first half of 1619, the imperialists began to combine their pool of external finances and the threat of local manpower as part of a more determined effort to oust the Protestant nobility from the lands of the monarchy. One of Ferdinand’s first moves as king was his attempt to destroy the

Peace in Europe, I, 51–60. See also Koenigsberger, Habsburgs and Europe: 1516–1660, especially the last two chapters. Some others look from a pro-Spanish perspective, see, for instance, Chudoba, Spain and the Empire; Straub, Pax et Imperium. An alternative, ‘Austrian’-centred view, is given in Ernst, Madrid und Wien. 8 Ingrao, Habsburg Monarchy, 32; Thomas M. Barker, Army, Aristocracy, Monarchy (New York: 1982), 6–8; Evans, Making, 202. 9 Eggenberg picked up what he could of the newly-confiscated Protestant estates after being made an Imperial privy councillor in 1618. Together with Bohemians such as Zdenîk Lobkovic, and, after 1624, Wallenstein himself, alongside other Reich Germans, generals from elsewhere in the ‘Austrian’ lands (such as the Croatian, Johann Isolano) and the ‘foreigners’ already mentioned, he was regarded as part of a Spanish-influenced court party. Eggenberg became an Imperial Count and governor of Inner Austria in 1625. See Birely, Religion and Politics, 17–18. 10 Evans, Making, 295; Parker, ed. Thirty Years War, 79.

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Bohemian kingdom’s independent political traditions and unity of purpose as established in the Confederatio Bohemica. As a consequence, the Estates government in Prague unseated him and elected Frederick of the Palatinate as the first non-Habsburg king there in almost one hundred years.11 Ferdinand’s plan seemed to have backfired until just days later, he was promoted to the Imperial title as Matthias’s successor in response. Meanwhile in Madrid, although the Castilian court had continued to be divided for a time following the fall from favour of the influential duke of Lerma, the dynastic approach had won through: Zúñiga and Oñate had persuaded the king of his obligations to provide military support. From the spring of 1619 on, it becomes necessary to explain the existence of a ‘Madrid-Vienna axis’ that would remain in place for the next twenty-nine years.12 Several contingents had aligned to form the basis of a pro-Imperial alliance, the impressiveness of which would be shown during the course of 1620. The army recruited from within the emperor’s hereditary lands had been joined by that of the Catholic League, led by the veteran General Jean T’serclaes of Tilly from Brabant, an involvement confirmed following the promise of a dispatch of tercios from the Spanish monarchy. To add to that, Philip III sent at least 7,000 men from the Spanish Netherlands, while, in the spring of 1620, he introduced a separate army into western Europe under the command of Ambrosio Spínola, a force that invaded the Lower Palatinate late that summer. Many of Spínola’s soldiers travelled east to Bohemia too, where they contributed to a marked ‘latinising’ of the Imperial army.13 Besides these three major components, the Imperial cause also began to receive the military support in terms of manpower that had been expected from the Lutheran states of Germany and from Sigismund III of Poland.14 Following the first victory for the

11 He quickly made renewed efforts to gather an army around him. By early 1619, the prince of Transylvania, Gabriel Bethlen, had stepped in to offer him support. 12 This point is made in Burkhardt, ‘Summitless Pyramid’, 56. 13 These Spanish soldiers were able to traverse the Alps by means of the camino imperio, the so-called ‘Spanish road’, in the wake of the sacro macello, the ‘holy slaughter’ of Protestants in the Valtelline, a brutal action which had received the support of Milan. See Poli“enskÿ, Thirty Years War, 126, 164. 14 Poland-Lithuania began to provide some aid in the form of cavalry regiments, which joined up with Bucquoy’s Imperial Army in 1619. See Frost, ‘Poland-Lithuania’, 197–206; Józef Andrzej Gierowski, ‘The International Position of Poland’, in

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axis on 3 November 1620, at the battle of the White Mountain on the outskirts of Prague, Frederick and his family went into exile.15 After 1620, the focus of the conflict remained the Bohemian lands, where the emperor’s fostering of a cosmopolitan body of military entrepreneurs introduced ever more foreign officers. Although these men often had little front line experience and held in common only a superficial loyalty to the Imperial court, their participation should not be overlooked. Endowed with confiscated or abandoned Bohemian property, they became a major component of the Imperial ‘court nobility’ (Hofadel ).16 The incomers also became pro-Habsburg agents on the ground. With hostile armies on all sides, and foreign money and sympathy always in danger of running out, the expanded, yet fragile religious boundaries of the crownlands continued to be under threat.17 In many outlying regions, Catholics remained a minority alongside Calvinists and Lutherans or, to the south, Eastern Orthodox and Muslim populations. Allegiance to the dynasty could not be depended upon in such places and required experienced commanders free of local bias.18 Events continued to move quickly. Spain remained the largest single contributor to the Imperial cause down to 1621, it having been estimated that up to 40,000 of the monarchy’s soldiers were fighting for the Austrian Habsburgs by March that year.19 The Spaniards

Fedorowicz, ed. Republic of Nobles, 218–238; B.F. Porshnev, Muscovy and Sweden in the Thirty Years War, 1630–5 (Cambridge: 1995), 30. Saxony entered the war on the Imperial side in 1620. See Parker, ed. Thirty Years War, 44–5, 54, 91, 106–108. 15 Olivier Chaline, ‘The Battle of the White Mountain’, in Bussman and Schilling, eds. 1648: War and Peace in Europe, 95–102; Poli“enskÿ, Thirty Years War, 99. Most Protestant Bohemian nobles followed Frederick and Elizabeth into exile in northern Europe. 16 Poli“enskÿ, Thirty Years War, 74, 153. 17 For instance, Johann Ludwig von Küfstein the Landeshauptmann, or provincial governor for Upper Austria, was forced to deal with a border dispute with Bavaria. Elsewhere, areas such as Silesia and ‘Croatia-Slavonia’ maintained unique traditions and a great deal of independence. See Evans, Making, 161; Gunther E. Rothenberg, The Austrian Military Border in Croatia: 1522–1747 (Illinois: 1960). For a comparative analysis of Imperial frontiers, see Howard Lamar and Leonard Thompson, eds. The Frontier in History: North America and Southern Africa compared (London: 1981); Jane H. Ohlmeyer, ‘ “Civilizinge of those rude partes”: Colonization within Britain and Ireland, 1580s–1640s’, in William Roger Louis et al. eds. The Oxford History of the British Empire, 5 vols. (Oxford: 1998), I, 124–148. 18 The program of Catholic reform was never entirely successful in some remote mountain valleys, for instance. See Ingrao, Habsburg Monarchy, 39. 19 Stradling, Armada of Flanders, 37, 39; Parker, Army of Flanders, 31.

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began to seize the initiative in the Low Countries too, when their peace treaty with the Dutch ended. Following the death of Philip III— also in March 1621—the influence of the count of Olivares, the new Spanish chief minister, became perceptible: a shift in approach to which Protestant Europe seemed paralysed in its response.20 With Bavaria occupying the Upper Palatinate from October, support from London seemed the most likely option for Frederick V and his backers.21 This was despite the Stuart regime’s openness to diplomatic approaches involving Madrid and/or Brussels. Archduke Albert, governor of the Spanish Netherlands, had died in July, leaving his wife Isabella, daughter of Philip II, to rule in the latter city. Indeed, an international conference convened there in 1622 at James VI and I’s request, a brave attempt at peace that was, nonetheless, destined to fail from the start, since Spínola continued the Spanish onslaught on the Rhineland regardless. Even worse for Frederick V, in January 1623 (and against the wishes of the electors of Saxony and Brandenburg) the emperor transferred his electoral dignity at the Reichstag to the duke of Bavaria. James VI and I soon became as determined to facilitate the marriage of his son Charles to the Spanish infanta princess as to support Frederick’s cause: any further aid for the Bohemians would prejudice the likelihood of this wedding taking place. Therefore, it was a great embarrassment when the so-called ‘Spanish match’ failed to go ahead for more simple reasons. For the young Charles, then prince of Wales, and the duke of Buckingham, the insults that they perceived to have been made towards them on their visit to Castile later that year, gave them a lingering desire to wreak revenge on the hispanic world and contributed to the demise of the carefully developed Jacobean policy of finding a via media in continental affairs.22

20 Meanwhile, Frederick had to defend the Palatinate without either Oldenburg assistance or that of the rapidly-dissolving German Protestant Union. 21 Since he had been the husband of James VI and I’s daughter Elizabeth since 1613, considerable expectations were raised that the Stuarts might enter the war officially on the elector’s side. Indeed, by 1623, several thousand British and Irish troops had been recruited clandestinely to serve the anti-Habsburg forces in Bohemia, the United Provinces and elsewhere. As Steve Murdoch has shown, the assumption that the response from the Stuart kingdoms to the ‘Protestant’ cause was from then on minimal, half-hearted and ineffectual is clearly mistaken. See Murdoch, ‘House of Stuart’, 37–51; Murdoch, Britain, 47–50. 22 Buckingham tried to ensure that the pro-Spanish courtiers at Whitehall lost

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With the prospect of a new conflict against the Stuarts, the Spanish monarchy now faced military escalation on several fronts. In November 1624 Olivares unveiled his ‘Union of Arms’ project, an initiative that he hoped would create a reserve of 140,000 soldiers and encourage financial contributions from all the dependencies of the Spanish crown, the idea being that these could be used for the common defence of all the Habsburg realms. But there were a number of bad omens from the earliest stages. The Catalonian Corts rejected the proposal outright while it evoked considerable opposition elsewhere.23 Undaunted, Olivares started to plan the acquisition of a Spanish naval base in the Baltic, towards which he recognised the importance of obtaining support both from Warsaw and the Hanse towns, as well as from his counterparts in Vienna. Optimism at court appears to have been high as the chief minister finalised the details of a grand new trading network that he promised would stretch from the Iberian Peninsula to the Baltic.24 In order to achieve this, the Spanish relationship with the Imperial military command would have to become much closer, a connection that would depend on the willingness of the Bohemian-born Imperial general Albrecht von Wallenstein (1583–1634) to co-operate.

their positions after 1624. However, the failure of the ‘Spanish match’, the illness and eventual death of James in 1625 and Charles I’s early mishandling of domestic affairs, especially in Scotland, combined to bring about an end to this approach. See Allan I. Macinnes, Charles I and the Making of the Covenanting Movement 1625–1641 (Edinburgh: 1991), 52–60; Simon Adams, ‘Spain or the Netherlands? The Dilemmas of Early Stuart Foreign Policy’, in Howard Tomlinson, ed. Before the Civil War: Essays in Early Stuart Politics and Government (London: 1983), 89–90. 23 Fernando Sánchez-Marcos, ‘The Struggle for Freedom in Catalonia and Portugal’ in Bussman and Schilling, eds. 1648—War and Peace in Europe, I, 208. 24 By November 1624, Olivares was outlining the Almirantazgo de los paises Septentrionales (‘Admiralty for the northern countries’) project with the Imperial count, Schwarzenberg, an attempt to create a grand new Habsburg trading network stretching from the Iberian Peninsula to the Baltic. The ‘Almirantazgo’ started as a company of Flemish merchants with its headquarters in Seville. Besides that, the Spanish made some considerable gains on land in 1625, capturing the Dutch fortress of Breda in June, while, in November, a Stuart navy commenced the disastrous siege of Cádiz. Reflecting this confidence, the Spanish sent Count Octavio Sforza and Gabriel de Roy north to investigate new possibilities. With the help of Poland-Lithuania and the Hanse towns, they hoped that the emperor would occupy ports in East Friesland and Pomerania and, from there, wreck Dutch shipping activities in the Baltic. See Elliott, Count Duke, 219; José Alcalá-Zamora y Queipo de Llano, España, Flandes y el Mar del Norte (1618–1639) (Barcelona: 1975); Vilar, La Politica Europea de España. Simultaneously, the Swedes invaded Prussia.

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Wallenstein rose to fame following the intervention of Christian IV of Denmark-Norway in 1625, a move that signalled the beginning of the second, ‘Danish phase’ of the Thirty Years War.25 During the late 1620s, the general’s entrepreneurial skills saved the crumbling Imperial army from almost certain disintegration and forced the Danish back to the north. Of equal significance for Wallenstein’s success, Ferdinand II declared the practice of all non-Catholic creeds in Bohemia to be illegal in 1627, by means of the Verneuerte Landesordnung (Obnovené zrízení zemské ), a document that also determined the hereditary rights of the Habsburgs to the Bohemian throne.26 But Wallenstein must have known that Philip IV’s good fortune had not lasted in the interim. The outbreak of hostilities with Charles I from 1625 had become the least of Philip IV’s worries. On top of increasing financial problems related to a decline in profits from American silver, Spanish armies experienced warfare on another front in Mantua from 1628, a conflict with France that resulted from a dispute over the duke of Nevers’ claim to the succession.27 As a consequence, Castilian interest in the Spanish-Imperial-Polish maritime alliance began to grow.28 The new Imperial ambassador in Madrid, Franz Christoph Khevenhüller, brought the news that Ferdinand II had given permission for a Spanish naval base to be established in the Baltic, while Wallenstein even suggested that a canal be built so as to link the port of Kiel with the North Sea. In theory, this would allow Philip IV’s ships arriving from Dunkirk to avoid making a passage through the treacherous Danish Sound.29

25 For biographies of the Imperial generalissimo, see Hellmut Diwald, Wallenstein. Eine Biographie (Munich: 1969); Josef Poli“enskÿ and Josef Kollman, Wallenstein: Feldherr des Dreissigjährigen Krieges (Köln: 1997); Golo Mann, Wallenstein (London: 1971); Francis Watson, Wallenstein: Soldier under Saturn (London: 1938). 26 This revised constitution reduced the number of towns represented at the Bohemian Diet from forty to six. See Jaroslav Pánek, ‘The Religious Question and the Political System of Bohemia before and after the Battle of the White Mountain’, in R.J.W. Evans and T.V. Thomas, eds. Crown, Church and Estates (Basingstoke: 1991), 144. 27 Parker, ed. Thirty Years War, 95–8; R.A. Stradling, ‘Olivares and the origins of the Franco-Spanish War, 1627–1635’, in EHR, 101 (1986), 68–94. 28 In January 1626, the Spanish sent a Flemish noble, the count of Solre, to Warsaw, to negotiate for the acqusition of ships. When Gustav II Adolf of Sweden landed on the southern shores of the Baltic that same year, Sigismund’s need for Habsburg naval help became urgent. He requested the transfer of the Dunkirk squadron there, but without success. Elliott, Count-Duke, 272. 29 In April 1627, Wallenstein had become ‘General of the Oceanic and Baltic

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These plans proved unrealistic by the end of the decade as, for the first time in the war, the balance swung heavily in favour of the anti-Habsburg forces. Following prolonged conflict in the early 1620s, Sweden and Poland-Lithuania had finally reached a settlement at Altmark in 1629. King Gustav II Adolf was thus free to land on Germany’s Baltic coast. He did so soon after with a multinational force, recruited on the pretext of defending Protestantism. In so doing, the Swedish king also benefited from the implementation of the Imperial Edict of Restitution, an act that alienated many of the emperor’s earlier supporters in its demand that church lands that had been secularised since 1552 be restored. Wallenstein, who had been dismissed from Imperial command earlier in 1630, was recalled the following year, as battle raged once again in the Empire.30 From one perspective, the Habsburg axis might seem to have re-strengthened during 1631. Not only did the Spanish sign a new peace treaty with Charles I, but there also took place the marriage of Ferdinand II’s eldest son—the titular king of Hungary—to Philip IV’s sister María, the same young woman who had been diverted from the prospect of a marriage to Charles Stuart eight years earlier. Taking a more focused view, however, things looked much bleaker for the imperialists. In November that year, after a meeting of Lutheran princes at Leipzig and in the aftermath of the sack of Magdeburg by Tilly’s Catholic league troops, the Elector John George of Saxony was persuaded to place his forces on the side of the Swedes. He even invaded Prague at the head of an army of fellow Saxons while, at sea, the Swedish navy blockaded the multinational, pro-Habsburg navy at Wismar. This signalled an inglorious end to all plans for an international, pro-Imperial naval alliance.31 Another factor that confirmed the abandonment of this policy was the increase in internal unrest in the Spanish dependencies. The loss of the American fleet to the Dutch was followed by lengthy Dutch sieges at s’Hertogenbosch in 1629 and at Maastricht three years after. An inability to bring in the increased tax revenues that were demanded from the population as a result of these prolonged endeavours acted as the catalyst for

Seas’. However, the ‘Emperor Ferdinand Canal’ or ‘Kiel Canal’ that he had dreamed of, was finally opened only in 1895. See Mann, Wallenstein, 365–6. 30 Parker, ed. Thirty Years War, 103–6. 31 Frost, ‘Poland-Lithuania’, 203.

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protests, in Vizcaya in 1631 and in the southern Netherlands in 1632.32 Swedish fortunes and those of the entire Protestant cause worsened in November of the latter year, when Gustav II Adolf was killed at the battle of Lützen, an event followed just a few days later by the death of Frederick himself. Reflecting the increasingly international complexion of the conflict, it had become clear in London by 1633, that none of the northern European powers had much interest in helping the Stuarts achieve their main foreign-policy goal of obtaining a restitution of the lands and electoral status of the Upper and Lower Palatinate.33 Fifteen years had passed since the defenestration of Prague, a period in which stirrings of disquiet in Britain and Ireland had gone largely unnoticed on the war-torn continent. Stuart foreign affairs had been ineptly handled during the Thirty Years’ War to that date. Nonetheless, the next three chapters will outline how several Scotsmen based in the Spanish dependencies, became deeply involved in military policy-making during these turbulent years. To begin with, the political influence of a circle of Catholics in Madrid and Brussels, at what proved to be a turning point in Spanish history (the last three years of the reign of Philip III and the first four of his son and successor, Philip IV) will be analysed. Following that, the persistent plots of a hard core of Scottish recusants on the Iberian peninsula, along with the activities of some influential new arrivals in Brussels will be covered for the period down to 1633, a time of increasing problems for the Spanish branch of the Habsburgs, economically and militarily, as has been shown, but also the first eight years of Charles I’s rule. The third and last chapter in Part One will demonstrate how all meaningful Scottish activity in the Spanish monarchy slowly dissipated in the period from 1633 down to 1648, despite some significant efforts to promote closer relations between Stuart and Habsburg after 1638.

32 The tension is apparent with respect to events such as the arrest of the, apparently innocent, duke of Aerschot, a Walloon nobleman and courtier on 15 April 1634, at a royal meeting in the Alcázar, on the charge of having started the conspiracy in Flanders two years earlier. See R.A. Stradling, Philip IV and the Government of Spain (Cambridge: 1988), 105; Kamen, Spain, 217. 33 Leopold von Ranke, A History of England, 8 Vols. (Oxford: 1875), II, 18; Kevin Sharpe, The Personal Rule of Charles I (London: 1992), 509–522.

CHAPTER TWO

1618–25: THE ARBITRISTA AND THE “EARL OF GUILE”

The importance of maintaining a diplomatic presence at all the Habsburg dynasty’s major centres of power had been clear to James VI and I since 1604. The signing of the Treaty of London of that year had signalled the beginning of a twenty-one year period of peaceful relations with Spain, while James’ desire for influence at the Imperial court is obvious too, especially in his efforts to brighten the prospects for his daughter following the outbreak of the Bohemian rebellion. That said, he did not appoint a permanent ambassador to the Austrian Habsburg lands at any point between 1618 and 1625. The emperor did not have a permanent representative in London either. Thus, it was surely Don Diego Sarmiento de Acuña, count of Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador in London from 1613 to 1618 and again from 1620 to 1622, who provided the clearest vantage point for James’ outlook on the house of Austria’s concerns to the east of the Rhine during the last years of his reign.1 From the very start of his first embassy, Gondomar had attempted to cultivate a ‘pro-Spanish’ faction at Whitehall. He had even become convinced that there remained a significant number of hispanophile Scots, both at the Jacobean court and north of the border. In 1617— contradicting the reports of his predecessors—Gondomar expressed his belief that by no means all the Catholic peers were pro-French, even if he felt that the Protestant bishops of the episcopate (leaving aside Presbyterian ministers, elders and their congregations) were, without exception, “seditious puritans”.2 Why did he make such an appraisal? Certainly, he had grounds for believing that two men known to have influence on the king, Alexander Seton, Chancellor of Scotland from 1605–22, and Archibald Campbell, the seventh

1

James’ Catholic wife, Anne of Denmark, may have also had a profound influence in this respect. See Maurice Lee jr., Great Britain’s Solomon: James VI and I in his Three Kingdoms (Chicago: 1990), 264. 2 Albert J. Loomie S.J., Spain and the Jacobean Catholics, Catholic Records Society, 64, 2 Vols. (London: 1973), II, xviii, 97.

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Earl of Argyll, might be friendly towards Spain: this being the principal factor in explaining why he made close acquaintances of them.3 Besides, Gondomar had good reason to take considerable interest in the position of the Catholic population in the Stuart kingdoms more generally, as potential supporters for the pro-Habsburg war effort. This became particularly evident during his second embassy, in many ways a success despite the hispanophobic atmosphere associated with the 1621 English Parliament. As shall be seen, following the termination of the Dutch-Spanish Twelve Year Truce, the count persuaded James VI and I to allow him to recruit a significant body of soldiers from both his outlying kingdoms, Scotland and Ireland.4 The paucity of Scotsmen levied for Spain after 1618 and their confinement to the southern Netherlands (a region that has been neglected by those historians who have touched on seventeenthcentury Scottish links with the Low Countries, such as Dunthorne and Stevenson) should not lead to the assumption that all Scotland’s contacts with the hispanic world had been broken.5 By contrast, evidence from the years up to 1625 shows some continuity in the relationship. Some of the cultural influences of the hispanic world remained, exemplified by the likes of George Jameson.6 More immediately significant for this study, educational and religious contacts were maintained too. The activities of the Catholic exiles became

3

Gondomar wrote: “Even the Chancellor [Alexander Seton, earl of Dunfermline], who is the person who governs the realm [Scotland], when he was here bemoaned the unhappy state of that kingdom to me. [He said] that he has always remained a Catholic and is to die as one . . .” 30 December 1617, London, Count of Gondomar to Philip III, printed in Loomie, Spain and the Jacobean Catholics, II, xviii, 97. In addition, Lady Drummond was said to be a pensioner of the king of Spain, while Ludovick Stuart, the duke of Lennox, was reputed to be an hispanophile as well. 4 Loomie, Spain and the Jacobean Catholics, II, xv–xviii; Charles H. Carter, The Secret Diplomacy of the Habsburgs, 1598–1625 (New York: 1964) and the same author’s ‘Gondomar: Ambassador to James I’ in Historical Journal, 7 (1964), 189–208. 5 Dunthorne, ‘Scots in the Wars of the Low Countries’; Stevenson, ‘Flemish Dimension of the Auld Alliance’. Concepcion Saenz of the University of Edinburgh, is researching towards a PhD on the theme of post-Reformation Scottish-Spanish relations. 6 See Chapter One above. Art historians are divided as to how much Jameson’s subsequent portraits show the influence of Rubens, although he appears to have restored his garden in the Woolmanhill area of Aberdeen in a distinctly Flemish style. Jameson subsequently administered the street decorations on Charles I’s coronation visit to Edinburgh in 1633. These included the depiction of likenesses of 109 members of the Stewart line. He then travelled to Italy and was listed as a “malcontent” by the covenanters in 1641. See Macmillan, Scottish Art, 9.

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channelled more and more through the Jesuit-controlled Scots College at Douai. At least 55 students enrolled there in the five years after 1620 (all but a few of Scottish birth), thereby outnumbering their compatriots registered simultaneously at comparable national institutions in Rome and Paris.7 Despite the escalating economic crisis in Castile—a consequence both of a long-term decline in profits from imports of south American silver and royal overspending—the Spanish crown continued to send financial support to the Douai college every year.8 Furthermore, while many of the students there moved on to one or other of the Scottish Benedictine foundations in the Rhineland or else quickly returned to Scotland, the college register provides biographical details of some adventurous souls who continued their travels in far-flung parts of the Spanish monarchy. John Seton of Fyvie left Douai to enter the Society of Jesus at Tournai in September 1621 then went to Portugal, while a William Grant, “hic Laeslaeus” from Strathspey became a Jesuit at Tournai then ventured to Castile before working for the mission in Scotland. In addition, a James Innes from Elgin made his way to Naples after leaving the college in 1623.9

1618–22: Exiles and sojourners As far as is known, none of the Douai alumni exercised any political power in the Spanish dependencies. Indeed, for evidence of Scottish input on Habsburg policy-making after 1618, it is essential to return to the frenetic activity in Madrid that followed the out-

7 New efforts to supervise attempts to spread the Catholic faith in Scotland followed the foundation of the Congregation for the Propagation of Faith in Rome in 1622. Although there were Scottish Capuchins, Franciscans and Benedictines on the continent, the Jesuits continued to maintain the most significant of the Catholic missions to Scotland. Nevertheless, for the activities of Franciscans in the Lowlands, see Chapter One above and, for the missions to Scotland more generally, Cathaldus Giblin, O.F.M., Irish Franciscan Mission to Scotland, 1619–1646 (Dublin: 1964); Cuthbert, Capuchins, 335–7; Anson, Underground Catholicism, 16–7; Forbes Leith et al. Records of the Scots Colleges, 1–15. 8 AGRB T100/26, 1618–19, f. 283, 7 March 1619. The sum was said to be 11,000 reales per annum, although with the frequent debasements of Spanish currency, the real value of this is difficult to estimate. 9 Grant was listed as “Strathpaeyensis”. See Forbes Leith et al. Records of the Scots Colleges, 1–15.

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break of the Bohemian rebellion. Evidently, the Elector Palatine’s titles and lands were not under threat as a result of the defenestration: Frederick V was only one of many candidates who were being suggested for the Bohemian throne at that stage and so the implications of the uprising remained unclear. But one Scottish Catholic played a significant part in developing the Spanish approach towards both the Austrian Habsburg lands and the Jacobean kingdoms at this time. A recent historian, R.A. Stradling, has gone as far as to claim that William Semple (whose early career has already been traced) was the “godfather” of the reconstituted Spanish armada of the early 1620s.10 It is probably a fair judgement. Semple can certainly be counted as one of the most forward thinking of the arbitristas. These were a shadowy group of intellectual theorists and commentators who became unique in that they were allowed to submit highly critical assessments of the economic and moral standing of the Spanish monarchy during the latter part of Philip III’s reign. Recent historians such as Angel García Sanz, have been wary of what they see as the excessive reliance of scholars on the biased written reports (arbitrios) they provided for the crown. Not only that, but some Spanish writers have detected in the focus (particularly from anglophone historians) on the transmission of foreign influences to Madrid by these means, xenophobic assumptions and unacceptable stereotypes relating to the hispanic world view.11 In any case, it is an unfortunate consequence of such important revisions that Alcalá-Zamora and Stradling would seem to be the only historians of the monarchy who have treated Semple’s groundbreaking contribution to Castilian foreign policy in anything like the depth it deserves. Even the English-language studies of Elder and Matthew on the subject of post-Reformation Scottish-Spanish links, are unhelpful on this theme.12

10 Stradling considered him “the true doyen of the arbitristas del mar”. See Stradling, Armada of Flanders 25. 11 Angel García Sanz, ‘Castile 1580–1650: economic crisis and the policy of ‘reform’,’ in I.A.A. Thompson and Bartolomé Yun Casalilla, eds. The Castilian crisis of the seventeenth century (Cambridge: 1994), 13; I.A.A. Thompson and Bartolomé Yun Casalilla, ‘Introduction’ in Ibid., 3. 12 There are several references to Semple’s career in the 1618–25 period in Alcalá-Zamora, España, Flandes. However, the topic is barely touched on in Paul C. Allen, Philip III and the Pax Hispanica, 1598–1621 (London: 2000). None of the other accounts relating to Semple’s political activities go beyond 1603, while Maurice

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Semple’s prominence at court during the latter years of Philip III’s reign is surprising for several reasons. One point that is clearly crucial in this respect is that, by 1618, the colonel was in his mid-seventies. Perhaps more important than the inevitable debilitations brought about by old age, recent years had brought worsening financial difficulties for him. Given the effects of the Castilian economic downturn, his position might seem to have remained comparatively favourable due to the wealth that he had been able to accrue from his wife, Doña Maria de Ledesma: along with the dowry she had brought to their marriage, Doña Maria’s previous husband had left her a substantial amount of money in his will. But this income had dried up some years previously. Semple had been forced to sell some of his wife’s property in Madrid in 1610 and, even then, had remained unable to provide dowries for two of her daughters from an earlier marriage.13 Partly as a result, his house in the Calle Jacometrezo in central Madrid—a gift provided in 1613—had fallen into a state of disrepair, the colonel remaining under obligation to fulfil an aposento agreement with the king’s authorities whereby he had to provide free accommodation there for other royal servants.14 On top of all these problems, it is generally accepted that Philip III was much more private and formal in his approach to political life than his father, thereby presumably limiting the opportunities for foreigners to obtain influence. Elliott has referred to the “humiliating pacifism” associated with his rule, particularly the earlier years of the reign, despite the horrific consequences of policies such as the expulsion of the Moors and the reformation of the system of royal councils, the responsibility for which lay largely in the hands of his long-term favourite ( privado) the duke of Lerma.15

Taylor’s insightful book focuses on the implications of Semple’s life for Scottish Catholicism alone. See Elder, Spanish Influences; Matthew, Celtic Peoples; Taylor, Scots College in Spain, 1–28. 13 Doña Maria de Ledesma had paid 100,000 reales of dowry upon their marriage in 1594. She had apparently also been awarded 3,000 reales per annum through the sales tax of Burgos after her first husband’s death. As a result, he tried, apparently unsuccessfully, to persuade the crown to have his aposento annulled. See Taylor, Scots College in Spain, 22. See also Chapter One, footnote 100 above. 14 According to Taylor’s source, Semple should have received a yearly income of 50,000 reales as payment for his services at Lier in 1582. Taylor, Scots College in Spain, and Chapter One above. 15 Semple’s relationship with Lerma, or with his son and rival, the duke of Uceda, is unclear.

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After 1618, however, the outlook changed for the colonel. The king no longer had a right-hand man to fall back on, a political vacuum that allowed some of the more talented arbitristas to assert themselves on the scene. Leading courtiers in Madrid became willing to reward clients who could come up with grandiose ideas that might save Spanish ‘reputation’ and end the growing sense of resignation to the inevitability of a recession.16 Although Philip III continued to ignore the bulk of mundane Castilian political debate, the submission of detailed arbitrios became a favoured means by which a lesser courtier might attract attention. Semple showed great skill in manipulating this system in order to develop a new audience of potential patrons including the king himself. The colonel (as with several other of the arbitristas) learnt to make the most of circumstances which, according to Elliott, had given the majority of the native Castilian nobility “little temptation to linger in so lugubrious a court”.17 In terms of his career, there is no question but that Semple backed the right cause that year: that is, the rising anti-Lerma, pro-Zúñiga party, a faction that supported intervention abroad. The colonel advised the king that there were just two realistic choices for the monarchy. The first of these was to focus all efforts on replenishing her land forces in western Europe prior to the ending of the Twelve Year Truce. The other option, one that Gondomar seems to have suggested as early as 1616, was a restrengthening of the navy and a concentration of Castilian energies on maritime concerns at a global level. As Stradling has noted, Philip III invited Semple before a junta to discuss these issues.18 But the colonel had also written to the king

16 Many Spanish writers have questioned the whole notion of Spanish ‘decline’ in the seventeenth century in recent years. A recent expert has called for a reexamination of the Castilian court as “an integral part of a tactic of economic management and political advance” throughout this period. See Bartolomé Yun Casalilla, ‘The Castilian aristocracy in the seventeenth century: crisis, refeudalisation, or political offensive?’ in Thompson and Yun Casalilla, eds. Castilian crisis, 299. 17 Philip III was notorious for his long absences from court and had even relocated to Valladolid for several years at the turn of the century. Madrid remained a “court without a king” for substantial periods, even after the king moved his entourage back to the Castilian capital in 1606. See Elliott, Spain and its world, 149, 154; Elliott, Imperial Spain, 1469–1716 (London: 1963), 315; Henry Kamen, Spain, 1469 –1714 (London: 1983), 200. 18 This was presumably the Junta de Reformación of that summer. See Stradling, Armada of Flanders, 26.

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regarding the dilemma as early as January. From this report, it is clear that he already favoured the latter policy, quite justifiably, because as J.H. Elliott has recently pointed out, the Spanish fleet “had been allowed to rot in the dockyards for lack of money” since 1598.19 Of course, Spain had to prepare for renewed hostilities against the United Provinces on land, argued Semple, but vengeance on these “rebels, fisherman, a godless people” could be wreaked most effectively at sea. More to the point, the anti-Dutch campaign might, he suggested, be combined with the dispatching of a new armada to invade and recatholicise Scotland via her east coast ports.20 There are a few indications to suggest that Semple was not the only Scotsman negotiating in Madrid at this time, and that he may have been working in tandem with some of his compatriots in order to bring about a new Spanish approach towards the Stuart kingdoms. Unfortunately, it is not clear what his relations were with James VI and I’s resident ambassador in Madrid from 1615–22, Sir Francis Cottington, but he certainly became familiar with David Colville, the Fife-born scholar who had recently taken up a position as Librarian to Philip IV.21 The colonel forwarded Colville’s correspondence to Pope Urban VIII’s later agent in London, George Con from Turriff in Aberdeenshire, a man who was then in Rome.22

19

Elliott, Imperial Spain, 321. Gondomar was realistic about the chances of a programme of recatholicisation in Scotland. See 30 December 1617, London, Gondomar to Philip III printed in Loomie, ed. Spain and the Jacobean Catholics, II, 97. More immediately, Semple expressed his support for the continued arming of the cosarios, Spanish-backed privateers operating from Naples, who were being used against Venice in a naval war in the Adriatic. Philip III had been trying to supply the imperialists with military assistance for this conflict since December 1615. However, the uskok war ended just a month after Semple submitted this arbitrio. Still, the colonel could take advantage of the fact that the outbreak of the rebellion in Bohemia from 23 May had led to further questioning of Spanish foreign policy, not only with respect to central Europe, but as regarded the North Sea world too. See AGS, Est. 2034, f. 116, 15 January 1618, Madrid; Stradling, Armada of Flanders, 25, 37, 39. 21 Colville remained in this post until 1626. See Chapter One above and Durkan, ‘Three Manuscripts’, 51. 22 Gordon, Catholic Church in Scotland, 537; Durkan, ‘Three Manuscripts’, 51 and ‘David Colville’ 140. See also Appendix 1 below. Besides cataloguing part of the Arabic collection at the Escorial, Colville had done the same for some of the Greek manuscripts, some of which he seems to have taken with him to Rome in February 1627. From there he went on to Milan, where he died in 1629. Colville’s Greek language materials passed into the hands of the Ambrosian Library in that city. Semple may also have known Thomas Dempster, who taught for short periods in Florence, Pisa, Sienna, and the Papal States until 1625. See John Durkan, ‘Note 20

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Another Scot arrived on the continent in the summer of 1618 who was to become a highly visible figure in the hispanic world, yet whose connections with the maverick Semple and the Scottish Catholic network more widely, remain mysterious. This was Gondomar’s earlier acquaintance, Archibald Campbell, the seventh Earl of Argyll (1567?–1638), a man commemorated for his travels by a poet from Banff, Alexander Craig: Now Earl of Guile and Lord Forlorn thou goes, Quitting thy Prince to serve his Spanish foes, No faith in plaids, no trust in highland trews, Chameleon-like they change so many hues.23

Any sense of purpose beyond that of the mercenary is difficult to detect in Argyll’s actions. The earl had stated previously that he wished to leave Scotland, if simply for the purpose of “visiting Spain for his health”.24 The real reasons, however, were a pressing need to repay debts on his estates alongside a perhaps more pious urge to serve the Catholic cause following his conversion on a 1597 visit to Rome. In 1610, he had married for a second time, on this occasion Anne Cornwallis of Brome Hall, member of a prominent English Catholic family from Suffolk.25 Both Argyll’s “desire to leave quickly from this Island” and he and Anne Cornwallis’s finances had been the subject of a letter of Gondomar’s sent from London in December 1617.26 In June the following year, the Spanish ambassador wrote again to Philip IV, reporting Argyll’s wish to “to go and take the waters of Aspa”.27 Of on Scots in Italy—1’, in IR, 22 (1971), 12–18 and Chapter One above. Scottish exiles may still have been based in other Habsburg-governed areas of Italy, particularly Naples, Sicily and Milan. Unfortunately, any form of quantitative analysis is beyond the scope of this chapter. But, for instance, a letter survives dated 23 March 1629, from a Donald MacDonald, “formerly a Captain in the army of the king of Spain at Naples”. See Giblin, Irish Franciscan Mission, 122. 23 Quoted in Sir John Scot of Scotstarvet, The Staggering State of the Scots Statesmen, for one hundred years, viz 1500 to 1650 (Edinburgh: 1754), 6. 24 See his DNB entry. 25 Anne Cornwallis later published a Spanish translation of some works of Augustine. She was the grandaughter of Sir Charles Cornwallis, the Stuart ambassador to Spain from 1605 to 1609 and, from then until 1612, treasurer of Prince Henry’s household. See Sir Charles’ and Argyll’s DNB entries. 26 30 December 1617, London, Gondomar to Philip III in Beretta, ed. Documentos inéditos, I, 173. 27 26 June 1618, London, Gondomar to Philip III in Beretta, ed. Documentos inéditos, I, 361.

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more importance to Philip III than a spurious description of the earl’s health and preferred medication by that time was presumably Gondomar’s statement in the same letter that Argyll had access to “many safe havens” in Scotland and Ireland, two countries where he held “great authority”. Gondomar stated over-optimistically that the earl could provide 10,000 men for the Habsburgs with ease. Obviously, the Spanish were beginning to make preparations so as to secure Scottish help for a possible intervention in the war in the Empire and, further down the line, for the resurgence of their war with the Dutch.28 Argyll and his wife left for the continent at some point in the summer or autumn of 1618, around the same time that Gondomar became ill and returned to Madrid from his first embassy.29 It is not clear whether the two men travelled together. In any event, the earl was soon in the Spanish Netherlands from where, in November, the authorities reported that he had become involved in suspicious discussions with two proclaimed “traitors” of Scotland. The first of these was Sir James MacDonald of Dunnyveg, who, within the year following his part in a rebellion against the Campbells in the West Highlands in 1615, had arrived in the southern Low Countries. The second man was Raghnaill Og, a kinsman of Iain Lom ( John MacDonald), the bard of Keppoch.30 The departure of the MacDonalds

28

Ibid. W.B. Patterson, King James VI and I and the Reunion of Christendom (Cambridge: 1997), 299. 30 Between 1616 and 1618, MacDonald of Dunnyveg had visited Rome for a time. See Annie M. MacKenzie, ed. Orain Iain Luim: songs of John MacDonald, Bard of Keppoch (Edinburgh: 1964); David McRoberts, ‘The Scottish National Churches in Rome’ in IR, 1, no. 2 (1950), 118–9; RPCS, 1616–19, 467–8. For more detail on the remnants of Clan Donald South, and its links to the European wars, see Jane H. Ohlmeyer, Civil War and Restoration, 599. See also AGRB, T100/26, 1618–19, f. 297, 27 March 1619 on the subject of “don Alexandro Macdonel escoces” and his desire to go to Scotland. There were also close, if recently-cemented and fragile family ties between Argyll, MacDonald and both John O’Neill, the third earl of Tyrone and titular commander of the Tyrone regiment, and his cousin Owen Roe O’Neill, acting head of the Irish tercio in the Spanish Netherlands. Certainly Argyll and Sir James MacDonald of Dunnyveg were related. Lady Agnes Campbell of Argyll had married Dunnyveg’s grandfather. When he died in 1565, she had wed Turlough Luineach O’Neill just four years later. The latter was a cousin of the exiled Hugh O’Neill, second earl of Tyrone, and veteran of the Nine Years’ War, who died in exile in Rome in 1616. The third earl, still alive, had been a page to Isabella in 1613. Meanwhile, Argyll had been given overlordship of the Clan Donald hereditary lands in Jura and Kintyre by James VI and I in 1607. See McDonnell, 29

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had captured the attention of many at home, even if it seems that, upon news of their arrival, they did not attract the level of scorn directed at “the earl of guile”. On 16 February 1619, the burgesses of Edinburgh denounced the convert earl as a traitor and rebel at the market cross, while another source claimed that James VI and I was “sorely troubled” by his actions.31 Such expressions of tension between Scottish nobility and crown were nothing compared to the breakdown of authority in central Europe. As a consequence, the Stuart king sent James Hay, Viscount Doncaster, on a mission to the king of Bohemia, Ferdinand. After holding discussions with the Archduke Albert in Brussels in May, and the prospective emperor in Salzburg in July, Doncaster travelled on to Frankfurt to discuss the crisis with Oñate, conversations that became heated.32 By August the Bohemian insurgents had obtained the support of Transylvania, while an equally dramatic event followed Doncaster’s negotiations that gave further urgency to the need for diplomacy. In October, Emperor Ferdinand II as he had become— although deposed from the Bohemian throne just two months earlier— promised the duke of Bavaria that the Upper Palatinate and Frederick’s electoral title would be transferred to him as soon as was practicable.33 There appears to have been no question of Argyll and his forces making the long trek east to Bohemia. However, in June 1619,

Wild Geese, 29; J. Michael Hill, Fire and Sword: Sorley Boy MacDonnell and the Rise of Clan Ian Mor, 1538–1590 (London: 1993), 136. 31 7 March 1619, London, Antonio Donato, Venetian Ambassador in England to the Doge and Senate, in CSPV, 1617–19, 485. See also Argyll’s DNB entry. The seventh earl’s wife had written from Flanders earlier in February. See PRO SP77/13/ f. 115. 32 Patterson, King James, 301. 33 Parker ed. Thirty Years War, 50. Support for the Palatine family henceforth grew, particularly in the Stuart kingdoms. Steve Murdoch has argued that “An assault by the Empire on Bohemia was more than an attack on Protestantism, it was also a direct act of aggression against the House of Stuart”. See Murdoch, ‘Scotland, Denmark-Norway’, 235. But despite the powerful popular view in the Three Kingdoms, this is not how James VI and I perceived the situation. However sympathetic to the plight of his daughter and to the fate of Calvinism in the Empire, he never supported Frederick’s claim to the Bohemian throne. He concluded this having apparently studied Bohemian constitutional law in some detail. See Lee, Great Britain’s Solomon, 275. The king may also have been influenced by one of his Scottish courtiers, James Maxwell. Maxwell later authored a controversial pamphlet which questioned the legality of the Elector Palatine’s rights to the Bohemian crown. See 27 November 1620, ‘Submission of James Maxwell’ in CSPD, 1619–22, 194 and Chapter Three below.

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Doncaster reported his “misfortune” at having come across the earl while in Brussels, despite his attempts to “shun him [Argyll] too as he did his country”. Doncaster dismissed Argyll as a “fugitive” who “be of late fallen into much contempt” in the Spanish world, adding that the earl and his wife were considered “no lesse unworthy to be honored with any countenance from her Highness [the Infanta Isabella]”.34 In truth, Argyll’s poverty did not last. Archduke Albert had written to Philip III as early as May 1619 on the subject of the money which was being paid to the earl to provide for “the army”.35 This implies that Argyll had already taken military command in the Spanish Netherlands although his service was clearly not active at that time and he contributed only by draining the precious finances of the administration there. Philip III replied to Albert soon after, stating that he was unhappy that the earl had continued his sojourn, not only since it annoyed James VI and I but because it was costing the Spanish a small fortune.36 Besides, when Gondomar wrote an account of the expenses of his recent embassy in London, he included the sum of 1,600 reales that had been spent by the Spanish monarchy on unspecified “gifts” and lodgings for their principal Scottish guest in Dunkirk.37 In September 1619, the archduke reported to the Spanish King that the earl had decided to go to Castile himself so as to “kiss the Royal feet”.38 Indeed, by October, William Turnbull was able to forward the following news from Brussels: the Earl of Argyle, decryed and scorned at home for his weaknes, is here caressed beyond the bounds of reason; gratifyed with an annual pension of £1,500 sterling: and nowe permitted to repaire into Spaine, where he is to meet the Conde of Gondomar, the Synon [?] of our Fatherlande, and to treat for the command of a Regiment.39

34 9 June 1619, Brussels, Viscount Doncaster to Sir Robert Naunton in S.R. Gardiner, ed. Letters and other Documents illustrating the Relations between England and Germany at the commencement of the Thirty Years War, Camden Society, 2nd Series, 90 (1865), 103–5. 35 30 May 1619, Mariemont, Archduke Albert to Philip III in Lonchay et al. eds. Correspondance de la Cour d’Espagne, I, no. 1395. 36 25 June 1619, Belem, Philip III to Archduke Albert, in Lonchay et al. eds. Correspondance de la Cour d’Espagne, I, no. 1410. 37 1 July 1619, ?, Gondomar to Philip III in Documentos inéditos, I, 361. 38 The Spanish text states, to “. . . besar los reales pies”. See 17 September 1619, Mariemont-Saint-Arthur, Archduke Albert to Philip III in Documentos inéditos, I, 222. 39 16 October 1619, Brussels, Mr. William Turnbull to Sir Dudley Carleton in Gardiner, ed. Letters and other Documents, 66–7.

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Argyll’s arrival in Madrid to offer his services por la Posta de Flandes (presumably the command of the Scottish companies in the exiled Irish earl of Tyrone’s regiment) is noted in two letters from Gondomar, one to Philip III and the other to the Spanish secretary of state, and both dated 28 October.40 Gondomar wrote again soon after, if only to confirm that the earl’s wife was receiving a Spanish pension as well, hers amounting to £1,500 per annum.41 It remains unclear as to whether Argyll met William Semple when he was in the Castilian capital.42 The lack of evidence would seem to suggest that the affairs of the colonel and the other Scots there remained quite separate from that of their financially burdensome compatriot. Whether or not this is the case, they remained active in politics without any assistance from him. In August 1619, William Baldwin mentioned the latest movements of Semple and his nephew Hugh (by then in his early twenties) in a letter to Gondomar: Baldwin stated that the two men had consulted with Philip III over the importance of achieving certain objectives for their coreligionists at home.43 Scotland was not all they had in mind. In a paper of December 1619, Colonel Semple recommended that his Spanish Habsburg masters pursue a closer alliance with the Pope and other Catholic princes including Savoy, but to the exclusion of France and Venice. A coalition could then be formed on the pretext of defending Catholicism within the Holy Roman Empire. In keeping with his earlier position, Semple also stressed the necessity of maintaining the ineffable reputación de españa at sea. In some detail, he advocated the equipping of a new armada of 100 ships. These could, he argued, be

40 28 October 1619, Madrid, Gondomar to Philip III and Gondomar to Ciriza in Documentos inéditos, I, 217, 224. 41 4 November 1619, Madrid, Gondomar to Ciriza in Documentos inéditos, I, 224. Following this, there seems to have been some disagreement at court about the couple’s financial status, this being around the time that the new Stuart ambassador, Sir Walter Aston, reached Madrid. Aston arrived on 11 November. See 10 January 1620, Valladolid, Gondomar to Ciriza in Documentos inéditos, I, 243. 42 According to Semple, writing the following year, Argyll had been in Flanders in the 1590s, from where he had gone on to Rome. See AGS, Est. 2035, f. 120, 17 September 1620. 43 ? August 1619, Madrid, William Baldwin to the Count of Gondomar, printed in Loomie ed. Spain and the Jacobean Catholics, II, 176. He stated: “. . . the Bishop of Glasgow, his ambassador in France, Lord Lethington, his agent in Flanders and Lord Semphill, the nephew of Colonel Sempill, who is still living today and whom his Majesty sent to stay at this court, promised everything that could be wished in the question of religion”.

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formed into four separate squadrons: the second of those mentioned being of most interest here in that it related closely to events within both the Empire and Scotland.44 Semple suggested that this particular fleet embark from the port of Ferrol near La Coruña on Spain’s north-western coast, for “the northern seas” where it could be employed to “disturb the trade and fisheries of the enemies in those parts”. The colonel referred explicitly to Dutch and English merchants as the principal opponents of Spain in the Baltic and North Sea region, advice that proved to be before its time.45 Argyll could not offer this kind of wide-ranging expertise to his Habsburg patrons.46 Indeed, the earl seems to have reconciled himself quickly with James VI and I since at the end of March 1620, he and one or other of the MacDonalds were reported to be returning across the Channel.47 Clearly, it is MacDonald of Dunnyveg who is the subject of a letter of Gondomar’s, written upon his own return to London that month. Gondomar described a “Magdonel”, both Escoces y Irlandes yet “a man of great quality and valour” who was admired in both nations. He noted that, unlike Argyll, MacDonald was a lifelong Catholic who, equally importantly, had access to ships. Gondomar was of the understandable impression that tensions might emerge between his men and those of Argyll should they be forced to travel to the Spanish dependencies together.48 In May 1620, the

The first would be employed in “el mar de sur” (the south sea), including the East Indies, for use against the Dutch and English fleets. The third would be used to protect “las costas de Castilla y las de indias occidentales”, (the coast of western Spain and the entire American colonies). The fourth would be used in “el estrecho de gibraltar ” (the straits of Gibraltar). See AGS, Est. 2034, f. 113, ? December 1619. 45 He may have also been aware of the situation in Scotland, where Dutch fishermen visited the Northern Isles each year. For instance, the Dutch had one of their main bases on the island of Stronsay in Orkney. See Chapter Three below. 46 The earl had written to the Spanish king himself on 27 October 1619, giving a brief, if vague summary of the “movements of the Germans for the Palatine” and of some rumours he had heard of the “worries of Italy”. See ‘Copia de Carta que el Conde de Argail Escrivio a su Magd, a 27 de octubre 1619’ in Documentos inéditos, I, 219. 47 Sir James certainly went back to London that year. See 8 May 1620, London, Girolamo Lando, Venetian Ambassador in England to the Doge and Senate in CSPV, 1619–21, 251. Argyll’s wife may have stayed. See AGRB, T100/27 1619–22, f. 126, 22 May 1620 is a confirmation of the payment of 500 escudos a month by the pagador to the countess of Argyll. 48 29 March 1620, London, Gondomar to Philip III in Documentos inéditos, I, 287. Moreover, the Irish Franciscan mission to the Highlands and Islands had begun the previous year with the dispatch of three priests from the Irish College in Louvain. 44

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Venetian ambassador at the Stuart court remained unconvinced as to the likelihood of the two bodies of Gaelic recruits arriving in the Habsburg lands at all, reporting that, Argyll at least, had returned for a very different reason. According to him, the earl had not made his retreat homewards either for a short-term visit to his relatives or for the purpose of levying men, but “due more to the very scanty entertainment he received from the Spaniards”.49 Colonel Semple showed his twin concerns for Scotland and for Spanish policy towards central Europe once again during the first half of 1620. First, he arranged to have the yearly remittance of the Spanish monarchy for the Scottish priesthood raised to 55,440 reales, after reassuring his patrons that the number of active Catholic priests in his home country was on the increase.50 Second, he had more audiences with the aging Philip III during which he continued to promote his international maritime agenda.51 It is notable that his arbitrios began to demonstrate a subtle change of emphasis with respect to Spanish strategy in northern Europe. Semple now stressed the importance of obtaining support in the Baltic for the ‘northern seas’ enterprise as soon as possible, so as to create a counter to the Dutch: a sensible proposition since the United Provinces relied heavily on the ports of Pomerania and Poland to provide timber, tar and hemp for their fleet. Such an alliance would also have implications for the land war in central and eastern Europe.52 Indeed, the range of the

One of these men was a Scottish laybrother, John Stuart. By 1623, Stuart had been banished from the Stuart kingdoms, yet there remained a further twelve Gaelicspeaking friars in Scotland. See Giblin, Irish Franciscan Mission; Anson, Underground Catholicism, 20. 49 This seems to contradict those records which state that he received a monthly salary of 100 escudos by order of the captain-general in the Spanish Netherlands. See 8 May 1620, London, Girolamo Lando, Venetian Ambassador in England to the Doge and Senate in CSPV, 1619–21, 251. Lando stated that “his antagonist, the Earl of Argyle is coming hitherward from Spain”. The younger MacDonald went back to London and died in 1626. A companion of his from the Tyrone regiment, Sorley MacDonald, went on to the Austrian Habsburg lands in 1620 and fought in the Imperial army at the White Mountain. See Hector McDonnell, The Wild Geese of the Antrim MacDonnells (Blackrock: 1996), 26–7. 50 Taylor, Scots College in Spain, 23. 51 Stradling, Armada of Flanders, 25, 37, 39. 52 It is unclear from research to date, whether Semple left any evidence as to knowledge of the activities of James Murray, the man simultaneously employed as naval engineer and naval and military commander to Sigismund III in PolandLithuania. Murray was a leading figure in the construction of the Polish navy from 1620. See Biega…ska, ‘James Murray’, 1–2.

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colonel’s knowledge would seem to have broadened ever further, even if sympathy for the troubled Elizabeth Stuart and her family remaining conspicuous by its absence. Thus, on the one hand, one of his papers from 1620 covered the interests of la casa de Austria en el ymperio, tackling themes ranging from a proposal to divert Spanish arms to the Lower Palatinate to the threat of Prince Gabriel Bethlen’s Transylvanian army in the Austrian Habsburg lands and the need to secure the support of the wavering duke of Saxony for the proImperial cause.53 On the other hand, two other submissions of his concerned Philip III’s maritime interests alone, recommending the construction of adequate sea defences in the Spanish Netherlands and the equipping of twenty-four light ships for the approaching resumption of war with the United Provinces.54 Perhaps it was in recognition of the encroaching renewal of hostilities with the Dutch, that his tone changed much more profoundly in a submission from August 1620. Semple now advocated not only a wider Spanish declaration of war “against all the heretics of Germany, the United Provinces and England” but an abandonment of support for the land campaign in central Europe.55 Despite this dramatic turnaround, the colonel did at least remain staunch in his commitment to the Scottish Catholic cause, an approach that clashed with the naive approach to the issue that Argyll had espoused. The same month, he provided evidence that further assistance had arrived from his home country. Alan Hamilton, un cavallero escozes, had turned up in Madrid on 23 August “on behalf of the Catholic nobility and the priests who are suffering in that kingdom”.56 Two months on, Semple confirmed that the reason that Hamilton had been sent to Spain had been “to put forward some cases”. The colonel recommended that he be given 40 escudos of entretenimiento a month both for his unspecified assistance in Ireland and with respect to his work for the Scottish mission.57 This would form only a part

53

AGS Est. 2034, f. 112, 17 July 1620, Madrid. AGS Est. 2034, f. 114, 12 Feb 1620, Madrid; ff. 108, 109, 30 August 1620, Madrid; Straub, Pax et Imperium, 167–8. 55 AGS Est. 2034, f. 109, 30 August 1620, Madrid. 56 Semple wrote: “En 23 del pasado . . . llegado a esta corte llamado Halano Hamilton señor de Forguslei en Escozia de parte de la Nobleza Catolica y religiosos que estan padeciendo en aquel reyno”. See AGS., Est. 2035, f. 120, 17 Sep 1620, Madrid. Hamilton is not mentioned in Balfour Paul’s Scots Peerage. 57 AGS, Est. 2035, f. 125, ?, Madrid. Semple wrote again on the subject of 54

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of the secret expenses ( gastos secretos) for sustaining two priests in Scotland and for the employment of six other lay priests (seglares) “regarding the secret correspondence from that kingdom”.58 Understandably, James VI and I became deeply angered with the Habsburgs following the Spanish invasion of the Lower Palatinate. Unrest began to manifest itself at the popular level in the Three Kingdoms too, especially amongst the Scottish population. In the summer of 1620, approximately 3,500 soldiers from Scotland and England—led by Sir Andrew Gray and Colonel John Seton—arrived in Bohemia to serve against the imperialists.59 As Murdoch has argued, these levies show that the anti-Habsburg cause attracted considerable popular support, as an expression of pro-Palatinate sympathies.60 But they may also demonstrate that economic circumstances were such, that some were persuaded to take foreign service for lack of an alternative. James, for one, refused to abandon a diplomatic approach involving the house of Austria. In June, Sir Henry Wotton arrived in Vienna as his envoy. Soon after, two other Stuart representatives, Sir Edward Conway and Sir Richard Weston, conducted negotiations in Brussels, Heidelberg and Prague.61 If a Palatinate restitution was to be advanced, the Stuart king reckoned that it still might prove fruitful to use tried and tested forms of mediation with the Habsburgs rather than a large-scale campaign of violence. In the meantime, the wayward earl of Argyll had finally returned to the Spanish Netherlands. On 30 October 1620, Van Male, Archduke Albert’s ambassador in London stated that Sir James MacDonald, having been “reconciled a few days ago in the good graces of this

Hamilton’s mission in January the following year. See AGS, Est. 2035, (undated/ unfoliated). 58 AGS, Est. 2035, f. 126, 13 December 1620, Madrid. On 13 December, Semple claimed that there were 83 Scotsmen or women receiving monthly payments from the authorities in the Spanish Netherlands. Perhaps Semple was referring to some of the veterans of the three companies of Scots who had transferred Lier, Bruges and Guelders into Spanish hands, thirty-eight years previously. The term which he used, entretenidos, was not only employed to describe those receiving pensions for military service. 59 Poli“enskÿ, Thirty Years War, 99. 60 Steve Murdoch, ‘The House of Stuart and the Scottish Professional Soldier 1618–1640: A Conflict of Nationality and Identities’ in Bernard Taithe and Tim Thornton, eds. War: Identities in Conflict 1300–2000 (Gloucestershire: 1998), 3–55. 61 These two were dining in the Hradschin palace with Frederick and Elizabeth on 3 November, as the battle of the White Mountain raged nearby. See Poli“enskÿ, Thirty Years War, 99.

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King [ James VI and I]” had “revealed to him strange designs” of the earl. He added: “this King appears to be warned and persuaded that His Catholic Majesty has some enterprises and designs to execute in Scotland and Ireland, from which secret grumbling appears to have resulted here”. Van Male’s tone implied that this was not something that the Habsburgs had been aware of, as does his conclusion that “for more certain that this would have been an invention and stratagem of the malintencionados [those with ill intentions]”. Argyll’s stance with respect to this group remains difficult to ascertain, although Colonel Semple was presumably one of the subversives being referred to.62 The prospect of renewed Spanish warfare with the Dutch continued to be reflected in Semple’s arbitrios during the following year. On 16 March 1621, despite the dramatic events in Bohemia, the colonel stood strong on his revised naval strategy, proposing a series of measures for increasing Habsburg maritime forces. One of his suggestions raised the possibility of an “application of ecclesiastical monies” to allow for the Spanish navy’s full armament against the Dutch. Semple also addressed the necessity of tackling overspending at court in what emerges as a clear critique of government at the highest level.63 The death of Philip III did little to change his views. Without doubt, the colonel’s new master began to take on board some of what he had been arguing for with respect to the maritime arena, although it is difficult to say whether this was a result of his successive arbitrios or of a growing realisation as to the inevitability of Spain’s continuing involvement in a pan-European conflagration. Regarding Semple’s earlier proposal with respect to the Baltic, for instance, Castilian foreign policy had already caught up with him. The pace of naval reconstruction began to quicken at last under the influence of Olivares.64 Although it only seemed to thwart the colonel’s ambitions as regarded an invasion of Scotland in 1621, Spanish support for the Imperial cause looked set to continue, both at sea and on land.65 62 30 October 1620, London, Jean-Baptiste Van Male to Archduke Albert, London, printed in Carter, Secret Diplomacy, 150–1. 63 AGS, Est. 2035, f. 124, (n.d.), Madrid, ‘Sobre los contienen unos papeles del Coronel Semple’. 64 In August 1621 the Spanish were victorious against a Dutch fleet off Gibraltar. See Stradling, Armada of Flanders, 37, 39. 65 J.H. Elliott, Count Duke, 219; Alcalá-Zamora, España, Flandes; Rodenas Vilar, La Politica Europea de España.

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1622–3: For Spain or the Empire: The soldiers of the Argyll regiment Leaving Semple, Argyll and MacDonald’s role in court politics aside for a moment, it is worth pointing out that, although at least seventeen Scots served as colonels in the various pro-Habsburg armies during the European land wars of 1618–48, the numbers of them serving as ordinary soldiers probably never exceeded the hundreds throughout.66 In addition, there appears to be no evidence of large numbers of Scottish recruits to the Army of Flanders having transferred to serve the imperialists in central Europe, for instance in September 1620 during the invasion of the Lower Palatinate, or at the White Mountain two months after.67 Nevertheless, one significant source for Scots in military service in the Spanish Netherlands throughout the period is the ‘Register of Orders’ issued by the Captain-General in Brussels, material that is today held in the Archives Générales du Royaume (Algemeen Rijksarchief ) in the same city. An analysis of the Register is worthwhile, since it reveals that Argyll and MacDonald were only the tip of a much larger body of Scottish soldiers who based themselves in the Spanish Netherlands after 1618. The Brussels administration recorded three captains as receiving regular monthly salaries the following year: James Maitland, the Baron “de Lidingtone” (Lord Lethington), who was allotted 40 escudos a month, a ‘Guillelmo Carpentin’ (William Carpenter) and a Robert Hamilton.68 Moreover, early in 1620, when

66 See Appendix 2 and my article, ‘Alternative Diplomacy? Scottish exiles at the courts of the Habsburgs and their allies, 1618 to 1648’ in Steve Murdoch, ed. Scotland and the Thirty Years’ War (Leiden: 2001), 56–71. 67 Recruits from Scotland were a significant component of the 4,000 from the Stuart kingdoms who served General Spínola there from 1623 on. As Geoffrey Parker has shown, the Army of Flanders consisted of 29,210 recruits in 1619, 88,280 in 1640 and had fallen again to 65,458 in 1647. However, at the battle of Rocroi in 1643, only five out of the twenty infantry regiments were made up of Spanish recruits, the others consisted largely of Walloons recruited in the Spanish Netherlands, Germans, Italians and men from the Franche-Comté. Parker’s analyses show how numbers from the lands of the Stuart monarchy reached a peak in 1623, after which they certainly fell, although they again reached the same level in the 1630s. The recruits were a mixture of soldiers from the Three Kingdoms. Some of them had mutinied from the Protestant armies in the Netherlands before 1605. They were supplemented by predominantly-English recusants, and, after 1604, by many others, directly recruited from throughout the isles. The percentage of Scots that served Spínola probably remained much lower than the numbers of Irish and Englishmen alongside them. See Parker, Army of Flanders, 29, 52–3, 272. 68 The Register of Orders mentioned the persecutions which Lethington (the son of William Maitland) had suffered for the catholic cause “with much injury to his

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William Semple wrote a letter referring to the “Captaines of the three companies of Scots” to be recruited for the Spanish Netherlands, he actually gave four names, three of them quite different: one was Guillelmo Carpintin, the others being a William Hamilton, an Alan Semple and a John Brown.69 Little is known about the latter two. As for Carpentin and Hamilton, it is clear that the former had served the Spanish along with Semple at Lier in the 1580s. By December 1620, his son Juan ( John) had taken charge of a company too, having been sent on a journey to Germany to acquire ammunition and supplies in June.70 William Hamilton, meanwhile, was the son of Robert, his father having also served alongside Semple at Bruges and Antwerp in 1582.71 Philip III wrote to Archduke Albert, in November 1620, on that very subject.72 Furthermore, following the renewal of the war with the Dutch, the ailing governor of the Spanish Netherlands provided a report for the Spanish king in return, suggesting that much more substantial numbers of Scots were now likely to become involved. The archduke’s letter referred to “the levy and maintenance of the three companies of Scottish infantry in the Spanish Netherlands”.73 On 6 May 1621, he issued fresh patents relating to the recruitment of two of these groups, each of 200 infantry, for

hazienda”. He had been on the continent since 1613. In 1618, Lethington had pleaded in a letter to an Irishman, Father Francis Nugent, that the Capuchin mission be firmly established in Scotland. See AGRB, T100/26, 1618–19, f. 313, 6 March 1619; AGRB, T100/26 1618–19, f. 393, 4 August 1619; Cuthbert, Capuchins, 335. ‘Orden para que el Capitan Guillermo Carpentin se le par sueldo los entretenimiente al Castillo de Amberes’; AGRB, T100/27 1619–22, f. 1, 22 August 1619; Cuthbert, Capuchins, 335. 69 7 January 1620, ‘Colonel Semple: draft copy of the proposal of the captains of three companies of Scots to be maintained in the Spanish Low Countries’, in SCA CA/4/3/5; Parker, Army of Flanders, 29, 52–3, 272. 70 AGS, Est. 2035, f. 126, 13 December 1620; AGRB T100/27 1619–22, f. 138, 18 June 1620. 71 AGS, Est. 2035, f. 126, 13 December 1620. Philip IV wrote to Isabella as late as July 1622 about unspecified favours being given to the two veterans of 1582, Guillelmo Carpentin and Robert Hamilton. There were other Scots there too. See AGRB T100/27 1619–22, f. 60, 16 Jan 1620. This is an extension of the licence conceded to ‘Don Jorge Car’ (George Kerr?) in September 1619, so that he could return to Scotland for 4 months “a sus negocios” (for business). See also AGRB T100/27 1619–22, f. 117, 29 April 1620. This refers to “Matheo Alano [Matthew Alan?], escoces”, a Catholic who had come to serve there. 72 5 November 1620, Prado, Philip III to Archduke Albert in Lonchay et al. eds. Correspondance de la Cour d’Espagne, I, no. 1515. 73 30 April 1621, Brussels, Archduke Albert to Philip IV, in Lonchay et al. eds. Correspondance de la Cour d’Espagne, II, no. 20.

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Tyrone’s regiment: one in the name of Juan Carpentin, the other for William Hamilton.74 These companies were both reported as having been “recently levied” on 6 June.75 The third patent in question was issued on 8 January 1622 to Alan Semple.76 Little is known of any of these captains or their soldiers. But the numbers of Scots in Spanish service looked set to grow much more quickly after February 1622. That month, the Venetian ambassador in London wrote an account of how Argyll intended “to levy 20 companies here and is drawing up his list of officers” (the Spanish monarchy having claimed to James VI and I that these infantrymen would be used in Sicily to serve against the Ottomans).77 Three days later, another Venetian source confirmed that Argyll had obtained leave to drum up recruits in both England and Scotland.78 In fact, the Brussels administration only awarded Argyll his patent as regimental commander (Maestro de Campo) on 2 March.79 At that time, a Captain John Blunt was listed as sergeant-major and a Timothy Helches as doctor, while the same patent listed eight other company leaders.80 But it was not until 20 April that the Scottish Privy Council

74 AGRB, T100/27, 1619–22, f. 306, 6 May 1621. This is a patent regarding two companies of 200 men each. 75 AGRB, T100/27 1619–22, f. 328, 6 June 1621. This refers to the above two companies of Hamilton and Carpentin “which have recently been levied by order to serve His Majesty”. See also AGRB T100/27 1619–22, f. 378, 2 August? 1621. This document refers to a George Gordon from Juan Carpentin’s company who is to receive 2 escudos a month. This sum may have only been a ventaja (wage supplement) since, up until 1634, the average monthly salary for an infantrymen there was 3 escudos a month. See Henry, Irish Military Community, 10. 76 AGRB, T100/27 1619–22, f. 451, 8 January 1622. A letter from a Walter Bruce, written from the Hague on 10 March that year, claimed that a group from the Stuart kingdoms then in the service of the United Provinces had “meant to betake themselves to the town of the enemy, or to the Archduke”. See 10 March 1622, The Hague, Walter Bruce to the Council of State, in Ferguson ed. Scots Brigade, I, 338. 77 11 February 1622, London, Girolamo Lando, Venetian Ambassador in England to the Doge and Senate, CSPV, 1621–23, 233. See also Appendix 2. 78 14 February 1622, The Hague, Christoffaro Surian, Venetian Secretary in the Netherlands to the Doge and Senate in CSPV, 1621–3, 237. 79 AGRB, T100/27 1619–22, f. 467, 2 March 1622. 80 AGRB, T100/27 1619–22, f. 467, 2 March 1622. The register included a ‘Patente de Sargento Mayor del Tercio en persona del Capitan John Blunt’ as well as a ‘Patente de Capitan George Haye’. The other captains proposed were listed as Jacques Paton, Carlos Morgan, Ricardo Mornington, Captain Rugier Tervite, Ricardo Tristene, Gualtero Minoris and Juan Jurd. AGRB T100/27 1619–22, f. 474 refers to Helches. A ‘Juan Fuerd’ ( John Ford?), Alexander Wood and Thomas Brown were each recommended salaries of 25 escudos per month, the Register stating that

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reported that Lord Vaux had begun to recruit substantial numbers of ordinary soldiers in England: alongside those levies being made by Argyll, they believed this would add up to a total of 8,000 men who might leave for Spanish service in the Netherlands.81 On the same day as the Council’s report, Thomas Locke listed the captains who had so far been enlisted by Argyll and Vaux for the Habsburg cause. Emphasising that the soldiers might serve “under the King of Spain or the Emperor” he gave a description of some of the tensions that had become evident: The 8,000 voluntaries are almost raised and are under the Earl of Argyle and Lord Vaux . . . The Spanish ambassador Gondomar is about to depart; he is grown very choleric; he beat a Scotsman the other day openly with his fists for saying he had been ill treated in Spain. The Scotsman, though he took it patiently was committed to prison.82

Leaving aside worrying incidents like this, the estimate of numbers levied—at least for the Argyll regiment—was a gross exaggeration. Argyll’s tercio proved to be by no means exclusively Scottish, in any case, but rather an amalgamation of several units of soldiers and captains from throughout the Stuart kingdoms, some of them having already served in Tyrone’s regiment. The reason for this would seem to be simply that, as was the case before 1622, the recruiting agents found it easy to find company heads but much more difficult to attract ordinary soldiers.83 For instance, on 28 April 1622, the captain-

the latter two had served for 20 years assisting the sergeant major of “the same tercio”. A Thomas Valvin and Alan Masterson were also recommended salaries of 15 escudos each per month. See AGRB, T100/27 1619–22, f. 475. At least one of the Scots already in the Spanish Netherlands seems to have balked at the prospect of Argyll’s arrival if not at serving the Habsburg axis elsewhere. It was reported on 4 March 1622, that an Alexandro Blair, had been in the service of the Spanish crown for sixteen years but had now left to “serve as a colonel of the King of Poland”. Blair had written to the military authorities in Brussels, offering to provide them with a Captain of one of his companies. See AGRB T100/27, 1619–22, f. 471 “Blair . . . ha escrito y le ha proveedo(?) po Capn de una compa de su regimento”. On 4 July the next year, it was mentioned that the same man had returned to the Spanish Netherlands to serve in the company of Scottish infantry of Juan Carpentin. See AGRB T100/28 f. 405, 4 July 1623. Another report mentions the issue of a licence to Captain Blair to go to Scotland in 1634. See AGRB T100/33, f. 90, 26 April 1634. 81 20 April 1622, RPCS, 1622–5, 378. 82 20 April 1622, Thomas Locke to Sir Dudley Carleton in CSPD, 1619–23, 378. 83 30 March 1622, London, John Chamberlain to Carleton, in CSPD, 1619–23, 365. Chamberlain stated: “The Earl of Argyle had leave to raise 4,000 Scots and

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general in Brussels gave William Hamilton a licence for two months “to go to Scotland and make up the numbers for his company”.84 Some of the other captains returned home towards fulfilling similar goals. Yet the Scottish Privy Council issued further warrants to levy in the names of both a Lieutenant John Livingston on 28 April and a Thomas Henderson on 10 May, while by 6 June, a Captain John Robertson had been granted licence to recruit 200 men.85 Twelve days after that, the Council reported that Captain Hamilton had been given permission to recruit another 200 soldiers for Argyll.86 The council members also provided the information that a Colonel Brog was enlisting soldiers for the earl in Edinburgh while, on 2 July, they gave licence to a Walter Bell to serve Livingston in the Spanish Netherlands “or elsewhere”.87 By June 1622 then, the Register of Orders could state that the Argyll regiment consisted of a nominal seventeen companies. But the authorities still described only three of these as being “of the same nation”. Some of the companies were predominantly English or Irish while other Scottish soldiers served vice versa, in either the Vaux or Tyrone regiments.88 The problems hinted at earlier with respect to

English to serve Spain, but though he could get regiments of captains, he finds few private soldiers”. 84 AGRB T100/27 1619–22, f. 514, 28 April 1622; f. 516, 25 April 1622. The latter document is a licence to “don Colla Macdonel, de la compañia Infanteria Irlandesa de Tiron”. On 1 May 1622, the authorities also issued a patent to ‘Don Gregorio Suvell’, who had “served for fifteen years”. This was with respect to the levying of another company of Scottish infantry, as was a recruiting patent issued to John Robertson, who had spent 27 years “in these parts”, the first 10 years having been in Spanish service in Italy, the 17 others in “these states”. A Henry Lucy received permission to do the same. See AGRB T100/27 1619–22, f. 524, 1 May 1622. The numbers of men permitted to use the title of ‘Don’, meant that by this time it was applied to “anyone of any social pretension whatsoever” in the Spanish dependencies. See Thompson, ‘Nobility in Spain’, 184. 85 6 June 1622, RPCS, 1619–22, 730. A John Robertson, aged 14, was at Douai in 1608, and may be the same man. See Forbes Leith et al. Records of the Scots Colleges, 12. 86 This was 18 June. See RPCS, 1619–22, 739. 87 RPCS, 1622–25, iv, 137. 88 AGRB, T100/28 1622–3, f. 43, 11 July 1622. For example, Valentine Brun [Brown?] a captain in the Argyll regiment was stated to be at the head of an Irish company. Regarding Vaux’s regiment, the wage supplements awarded show that some of its 21 companies at this time had captains of Scottish background too. See AGRB, T100/28, f. 64, 9 August 1622; f. 21, 6 June 1622. At least nine or perhaps ten of Argyll’s captains would appear to have been Scottish at this stage. This

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obtaining recruits had become glaringly obvious. Argyll simply could not attract enough men in Scotland, the common view being that service in the Spanish army would be against the best interests of the house of Stuart, as represented by the exiled ‘winter queen’ Elizabeth Stuart and her husband.89 The situation seems to have been almost as bad in England. In August 1622, Captain Henry Lucy requested permission to go home, since he had “not more than 50 men for his company”.90 There had emerged some significant changes in the interim regarding the imperialist cause. As the rush to recruit for the “war for the Palatinate” had continued, a peace treaty had been signed between Gabriel Bethlen and Ferdinand II at Nikolsburg (Mikulov) on 6 January 1622: it was not to last long and was purely local in its scope. As a consequence, however, on 7 April, an Imperial Count, George Louis von Schwarzenberg had made a speech to the English Parliament on behalf of the emperor, stating Ferdinand II’s desire, “especially towards your Maiestie . . . to entertaine and cherish a more reall, sincere love and amity which is not only laudable, and fitting for great Monarchs and Kings, but also most requisite for the good and welfare of their Subjects and Country”.91 Schwarzenberg was probably attempting to set the tone for the forthcoming Brussels conference where he represented the imperialists.92 Still, peace did not

is clear from the Ventajas Ordenarias given for the Argyll regiment. The heads of the companies to be rewarded were Captain George Hay, James Paton, Juan Jurd, Gualtero Minors, Rugier Tervite (?), don Gregorio Suvel, Captain John Robertson, Henry Lucy, Henrique Gage, James Crichton, Thomas Henderson, Juan Timparley, Rugero Markham, Valentin Brun, George Shawe and Thomas Bedingfeild. See also Appendix 2 below. 89 By September, Juan Carpentin was dead and a William Auchterlonie had taken his place. One example of the emergency measures that the Spanish authorities took thereafter, was the transfer, in September, of William Isham, the chaplain of a company of English infantry, to the corresponding position in the Argyll regiment. See AGRB, T100/28, f. 96, 6 September 1622; f. 179, 18 January 1623; f. 106, 23 September 1622. 90 AGRB, T100/28, f. 72, 1 August 1622. Captain Lucy was given licence to go to England and make up his levies. 91 The Oration or Substance of that which was delivered before his Maiestie of Great Brittaine by the Emperours Ambassador, the high and excellent Lord, Count Scharzenberg . . . (London: 1622), 2. 92 Peter Pecquius, chancellor of Brabant, and Ferdinand de Boisschot represented the archduchess. The Spanish resident in Brussels, Alonso de la Cueva, marquis of Bedmar, was also present, as were representatives of Frederick V and Count Mansfeld. Sir Richard Weston and the Stuart agent in Brussels, William Turnbull, complained

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come, nor did the ever more unlikely goal of a Stuart-Habsburg alliance emerge that might have attracted a significant number of Scottish ordinary soldiers, either to the Spanish Netherlands or onwards, to the Patrimonial Lands.93

1622–5: New Scottish-Spanish intrigues Despite all the setbacks with respect to recruitment that have been considered, the Spanish could still rely on support in certain parts of Scotland during 1622. Dauvit Horsbroch has recently attempted to gauge the domestic reaction to events abroad at that point, research that has confirmed that there were some deep worries in some of the east coast ports as to the potential of localised pro-Spanish intrigues. For instance, as early as 12 January, the Privy Council reported that a Captain Harry Bruce had been involved in an incident relating to a warship that had arrived at Montrose on the east coast. They believed the ship to be Spanish and to have been delivering money, possibly along with powder and bullets, to “some friends of the King of Spain”.94 Besides, on 30 March, as news of Argyll’s plans to levy men arrived, a man named Thomson, a Scot in the service of Spain, had reported that the Spanish were preparing much more than that: a new armada to bring about the comprehensive catholicisation of the Three Kingdoms.95 None of this materialised, although in June 1622, a three-hour long, nocturnal sea battle took place between a ‘Dunkirker’ and a Dutch galleon off Leith.96 Subsequent reports of this incident give a

about the Spanish siege of the Lower Palatinate, while Sir John Digby was sent to Madrid in May to do the same. See Patterson, King James, 311. 93 Patterson, King James, 311. 94 RPCS, 1619–22, 632. Besides, a man named Anderson, “a wright in Aberdeen who had served Captaine Hurry in Bohemia” had been the subject of a report to the Burgh Council in Aberdeen in September 1620 on the subject of his “foul and disgraceful and reprochefull calumneyes and legis against the most illustrious and worthie king of Bohemia”. See Louise B. Taylor, ed. Aberdeen Council Letters, (London: 1942), I, 182. For detailed coverage of this topic, see Dauvit Horsbroch, ‘Wish you were here? Scottish reactions to ‘Postcards’ home from the “Germane Warres”’ in Murdoch ed. Scotland and the Thirty Years’ War, 245–70. 95 RPCS, 1622–5, 366. Perhaps this was David Thomson, a student at Douai in 1585. See Forbes Leith et al. Records of the Scots Colleges, 3. 96 See the report on the statement of Monsieur Hautaine, captain of The Zealand

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deep insight into Scottish perspectives on the Habsburgs. In nearby Edinburgh, suspicion was apparent from the moment the ‘Spanish’ vessel docked. On 8 October, the Privy Council reported that one of the crew of the ship, the St. Ambois, had been imprisoned upon disembarking: a reaction that should be seen not only as a consequence of the levies being made for Argyll but in the light of Tilly’s occupation of the Lower Palatinate and the continuing, unpopular negotiations of James VI and I to procure a ‘Spanish match’ that autumn. In any case, it led to a complaint being made by the captain, a Peter Wanvoir, and another member of the crew, a John Claysoun.97 Again, on 10 December, the Council reported that there had been “sindrie rancounteris” between the crew of some unnamed Spanish and Dutch vessels, not just in Leith and Edinburgh where there were riots this time, but also in Aberdeen.98 The response to the encroachment of the continental war as far as Scotland’s coast was never clear-cut north and west of the Firth of Forth. On one hand, a William Laing had to make major efforts to end hostility shown towards the Spanish in the north-east. By the time of their arrival in Aberdeen in February 1623, the strength of anti-hispanic feeling had led to an attempt to poison the crew. The ship’s captain, Anthony Rotashe, had asked an Aberdonian burgess named David Kemp to supply the crew with food, but then claimed that the meals produced had been tampered with.99 On the other hand, some others north of the Tay reserved their hostility for the Dutch instead. The archbishop of St. Andrews wrote that same year that: Thair insolence in the north partis is excedinge, open contempt of Preaching and Ministeris, insulting against the King of Bohem; and asking the Ministeris what good their prayers have done? feasting the Spaniards that ar come from Dunkirk to these partis, and scoffing al that professt religion.100

of 14 June 1622, in RPCS, 1619–22, 783–5. The incident is covered in more depth in Horsbroch, ‘Wish you were here?’, 255–7. 97 RPCS, 1622–5, 747–8. 98 RPCS, 1622–5, 117–8. 99 Rotashe made his complaint on 11 February 1623. See RPCS, 1622–5, 169, 791. 100 Original Letters Relating to the Ecclesiastical Affairs of Scotland Vol. II: Chiefly written by or addressed to His Majesty, King James the Sixth, several editors, 2 Vols. (Edinburgh, Bannatyne Club: 1851), II, 681.

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This latter source confirms Gondomar’s claim that there remained a significant body of hispanophiles in Scotland. It also seems reasonable to surmise that it might not just have been in Aberdeen and its environs that such groups could have been tracked down. In the Hebrides, for instance, they might have included some of the new converts that the Irish Franciscan mission had made since 1619, while in the Northern Isles and other locations in the north-east, there remained many merchants who were deeply unhappy about the Dutch fleet’s domination of the domestic white fish market.101 As Alcalá-Zamora has pointed out, the possibility of the Habsburgs obtaining support from Scotland’s ports had already become an important consideration in Philip IV’s maritime policy.102 Consequently, William Laing took up a more official post as Scottish agent for Spain soon after.103 From as far back as the Leith incident, Laing had been on good terms with Don Carlos Coloma, a Spanish envoy who engaged in shuttle diplomacy between Edinburgh and London during the period. On 15 February 1623, the Spanish Council of State (Consejo de Estado) reported the contents of a letter from Coloma regarding the assistance that Laing had given.104 But he was not the only Scot to have talks with the Spaniards during 1623. In 1624, Robert Maxwell, the earl of Nithsdale, wrote an account from memory of discussions he had held with both Gondomar and Coloma, “when his Hyness [Prince Charles] was in Spain”. Nithsdale’s account is interesting for another reason, since it provides the first evidence since 1618 that the issue of the Palatinate could be a major feature in Scottish discussions with the Habsburgs as well as with the ‘Protestant’ side. According to the earl’s recollections, a proposed Spanish solution to the dilemma of Frederick V and his family had been the main subject of their talks.105 The topic was certainly pertinent, if surprising, given Spínola’s depredations in the Rhineland

101

Giblin, Irish Franciscan Mission. Alcalá-Zamora, España, Flandes, 62. 103 On 2 July 1623, William Laing had requested that King James make efforts to have the ringleaders of the anti-Spanish riot in Edinburgh found and prosecuted. See RPCS, 1622–5, 150. Confirmation of Laing’s appointment as Scottish agent for Philip IV was provided on 10 January 1624. See PRO SP94/30/f. 9. 104 AGS, Est. 2516, f. 4. 105 Coloma requested that Maxwell speak to James I about their negotiations. See 23 May 1624, ‘Lord Nithsdale—Account of talk with Spanish Ambassadors’, PRO SP94/30/f. 278. 102

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and Olivares’ frequent statements during the period that he viewed the fate of the Palatinate as a matter for James and the emperor alone.106 Nithsdale’s talks may have been designed simply to deflect the blame of the Stuarts away from Spain, since Ferdinand II showed equally little interest in the issue at that point. Indeed, by March 1623, James was expressing disgust at the emperor who, in January, had confirmed the transfer of Frederick V’s electoral status and the lands and titles of the Upper Palatinate to the duke of Bavaria, for his lifetime at least.107 Returning to the Iberian peninsula, a ‘Don Roberto Bordon’ ingles, proposed in January 1623, to come to the aid of the Spanish at sea “with 1000 soldiers and 500 sailors”.108 Although Bordon’s plan came to nothing, it did not dissuade Hugh Semple S.J. from making concerted efforts that year as regards the project to open a Scots seminary in Madrid. He wrote to Philip IV on the matter, expressing his hope that it would be possible to set up the college following the completion of the long-awaited ‘Spanish match’, a wedding which he believed would take place on 8 September.109 In an effort to speed the process along, Father Semple wrote a pamphlet on the courtship of Charles and the Infanta which was published in Seville.110 But, as is well known, the young prince and Buckingham returned to London shortly after without her.111 The collapse of the ‘Spanish match’ seems to have stunned the Scots in Madrid into silence for a time. In his eventual response, however, the younger Semple advocated drastic measures. He addressed a passionate, if pessimistic call to “all richt honourable, richt wor-

106 However, the count-duke was flexible over the issue. He even suggested the marriage of Frederick’s eldest son Charles Louis to Ferdinand’s younger daughter, as a means of appeasement. See Ibid., 327. 107 Patterson, King James, 322. 108 AGS, Est. 2516, f. 1, 26 January 1623, Madrid. 109 Taylor, Scots College in Spain, 23. 110 In October, Charles and Buckingham returned from Spain to the accompaniment of celebrations in Edinburgh and elsewhere. See Parker, ed. Thirty Years War, 63. 111 The infanta was later to marry the future king of Hungary and Holy Roman Emperor, Ferdinand III, and thus continue the Spanish-Austrian Habsburg connection. By January 1624, Sir John Digby had been recalled from Madrid. Soon after, James VI and I authorised James Spence to begin the recruitment of soldiers for the king of Sweden and the termination of all levies for Spain. Gondomar’s replacements in London, La Hinojosa and Coloma, were recalled in the spring of 1624. See Elliott, Count Duke, 219.

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thie and constant Catholicks of Scotland”, in a letter dated 6 December 1624. The likelihood of a Stuart war with Spain (if not against the emperor) was by that time obvious to him as was the possibility of further, concerted campaigns against adherents of the ‘auld faith’ at home. Not only did Semple express his dismay at the failure of the courtship but he reserved a considerable amount of disgust for “the furious raig of puritanical monsters” in his native country. These men were to him the “deidly enemie to the King and al Catholicks”. Threatening to abandon his loyalty to the Stuart cause, Semple called for patience amongst the Scottish Catholic community, suggesting that their fears would be lessened if they would prepare a number of young men for the possibility of being sent to Spain to receive military training. This experience, Semple thought, could then be put to use upon their return.112

112 6 December 1624, SCA CA/4/11/8 ‘To all richt honourable, richt worthie and constant Catholicks of Scotland’. The letter reads as follows: Richt honourable, richt worthie and constant Catholicks, He that writes to you is in birth a Scotis man, in profession a priest and a Jesuit, resident in the court of Spain for the well and advancement of Catholick Religion in our countrie; and seing that adversitie is the truthstone of frindship I can not bot feil and lament youre great greivsim wounds, caused be the furious raig of puritanical monsters or ministers against the King our Maiestie, wil and contentment. This are the mobiles of your estait, the throtcutters of publick voice and concord, deidly enemie to the King (as his Maiestie confesses) and to al Catholicks. The finest remeid that I find for the present in this countrie is to traine up your soldiery in al gud disciplin of vertue, maners and learning that efter returning home they may confront the calumnies, detect the knavery(?) and confound the follies of their vain and fantastical fellows. I hop that al men wil approve and advance this action, whae love their King, their Countrie and Catholick Religion. We neid not mony, for this riche country wil afford us plenty; but only fin, proper and noble young imps to plant in a fair orchard and pleasant paradise. And this upon my advertisement, I hop you sal send me. Bot I desire now to come heir but those whom I sal cal upon in particular having notice of al those who are fitest for the purpose, and so I request you to informe the beirer of them who are the mightiest for our turn; for if I be not deceaved, this remeid with tyme will hail your wounds. Perfidy(?) and other superficial things will double the danger and prolong the pain. Be marriage we expected this Libertie in Religion bot I feare that thes fair flours wither without fruit because the cold winter comes on as the sun—in his course. Notwithstanding, be of good courage, for eftir a frozen winter cums a flourishing spring, fir purifies the gold and the fir of your trubles are forging golden crowns of immortal glorie. The soldat in the tym of battel schaws his valour and the pilot in the tempest his dexteritie. Imitat both of them, fechting out as you have begun for so, if not in lif, at leist in death you will obtain a noble victorie crowned with eternal peace and prosperitie. In the narrow and tempestuous sies of this short and painful lif, we discover alredie the

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Father Semple’s forecast of war was grim, while its call for loyalty to “their King, their Countrie and Catholick Religion” (i.e. the Stuart, Scottish and Catholic causes) soon became an irreconcilable one for the exiles in Madrid. But in some ways, his judgement as to the international situation proved to be prophetic. From 1618 to 1625, isolationism had not been an option for the Spanish monarchy. Both the Bohemian rebellion and the prospect of the recommencement of war in the Netherlands had refocused the attentions of Castile on northern, western and central Europe.113 Without doubt, William Semple for one, had become convinced that the fate of the Spanish cause and of Scottish Catholicism depended on the construction of a much looser international coalition which, at home, might cement a locally based, yet essentially pro-Habsburg alliance comprising lowland earls and merchants alongside disenfranchised Clan Donald members and Franciscan-influenced Gaels. This motley group might then join a more dependable body of Irish, and perhaps also English Catholics.114 Undoubtedly, a pan-European, maritime agenda had become more significant for Spain too, since the rise of Olivares in 1621. There was also a recognition that this might involve Scotland and Ireland

firm land of promise and the safe ports of everlasting felicitie. In the mein tyme despair not of God’s providence, live quyetly in peic as weil amongst your selfs as with the puritans, giveing everie one that wch is dew to him as Christ conquested the warld with ane crosse, albeit he was omnipotent and not with ane sword, to give us example of patience and how we suld overcom our enemie; besides this ane blunt sword in ane weak arme wil never cut ane hard harness. And so mak use of the buckler of patience and not of the arrow of anger, feiring and loving God above al things nixt your King, then your Contrie, mair than privat commoditie. Keep correspondence with your friends at home and abrod, for many cols make ane great fir and many threids a great cable; ane bairne may break ane threid, bot a giant cannot a cable; thrie drops of water wil quensch ane cole but mak ane great fir burn faster. The rest I remit to the beirer and me to your good prayers, Madrid, December 6, 1624, Your servant in Christ Jesus, F. Hew Sempil, Jesuit. 113 Burkhardt’s argument, that the hegemonic aspirations of the two branches of the Habsburg dynasty remained an important feature, would appear to be confirmed. See Burkhardt, ‘Summitless Pyramid’, 56. 114 Colonel Semple had become unhappy about the activities of exiles from the other two Stuart kingdoms in Spain and the Spanish Netherlands. He had already written to Philip III on 29 December 1622, commenting on the multiplying numbers of “vagabond” English and Irish students now emerging from their colleges in the Spanish dependencies. See Thomas S. Flynn, O.P., The Irish Dominicans, 1536–1641 (Dublin: 1993), 144.

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as it had done in the 1580s and 90s. Presumably that was why the Madrid court was dispensing patronage as late as 1625 to the two Semples and the earl of Argyll. According to I.A.A. Thompson’s argument, Castilian contemporaries believed that the crown relied on “men of middling origins and professional formation for the real work of government” during this period.115 William and Hugh Semple would seem to have fit the bill. It may prove impossible to establish whether Olivares’ control over government (the count-duke filled the post-1621 court with members of his own family) led, in a direct way, to their rise in status or, more generally, whether Philip IV’s greater willingness to employ writers and intellectuals than his reclusive father, actually benefited their careers up to 1625. Nonetheless, their lack of regional affiliation and the colonel’s background as a successful arbitrista had allowed them to confirm their importance to the centralised administration in Madrid long before that, during the uncertain period in Spanish politics from 1618–21. Plainly, Argyll had been able to reinvigorate and consolidate his career on the same basis: the securing of international assistance for the troubled dynasty, in his case through the strategic adoption of the hispanophile perspective.116 He had skilfully exploited the opportunities that had become available for developing closer relations between the Stuart kingdoms and Spain, even if the Habsburg cause had remained unpopular in most parts of Scotland, and his regiment, from February 1623, consisted of only fifteen, undermanned companies.117 The earl, unlike the Semples, also had ancestral nobility in his favour, surely a factor in his receiving the Order of the Golden Fleece during 1624. At first sight, it might have seemed a fitting reward for his services to the Spanish monarchy, but it was a decision that his Castilian masters would soon live to regret.118

115

Thompson, ‘Nobility in Spain’, 201–2. Elliott, Spain and its world, 159. 117 AGRB T100/28, f. 219, 8 February 1623. The companies were now headed by the following men:—the earl of Argyll, Captain James Crichton, Walter Minons, Henry Lucy, Thomas Henderson, William Auchterlonie, Henrique Vadge, Thomas Benningfield, Guillermo Jonsone, John Robertson, Gregor Seton, Gregorio Suvell, Ricardo Mornington, James Paton, Alan Semple. The Spanish made moves to replenish the regiment with Scottish recruits four months later, when a Gregor Leslie received permission to return to Scotland. AGRB T100/28, f. 231, 2 March 1623; f. 371, 14 June 1623 are a licence for four months for Gregorio/Georgio Leslie and an extension of this licence for a further two months. 118 See his DNB entry. 116

CHAPTER THREE

1625–33: MILITANCY OR LOYALISM?

On 26 July 1625, just three months after the accession of Charles I, the earl of Kellie wrote a letter containing the following sentence: “You can not believe the alteration in the opinion of the world touching his Majesty”.1 Kellie’s statement suggests a perception that a quick shift had occurred in continental thinking towards the Stuart monarchy: a correct assumption to make regarding the Spanish Habsburg world.2 Hispanic influences became less marked at Whitehall after James VI and I’s death, even amongst those with Catholic affiliations. A francophile group rose to prominence instead following Charles’ marriage to the late Henry IV’s daughter, Henrietta Maria. But there remained also a more general xenophobia at the Stuart court that could be targeted at both major continental rivals of the dynasty. This would restrict the scope of Caroline diplomacy considerably throughout the second half of the 1620s.3 The collapse of the ‘Spanish match’ created an unsettled political climate in London which, within months, led to the declaration of war on Philip IV. On 1 November 1625, the duke of Buckingham ordered the dispatch of an Anglo-Dutch fleet to Cádiz, a decision that has been considered nothing more than “ludicrous” by J.H. Elliott. The petulance of Charles and Buckingham soon became directed towards France as well, contributing to an equally rash decision, in 1627, to commence a second war in support of the Huguenots of La Rochelle.4 Olivares could not have hoped for better luck.

1 26 July 1625, the earl of Kellie to the earl of Mar, quoted in Conrad Russell, The Causes of the English Civil War (Oxford: 1990), 185. 2 In February 1625, Gondomar was again named ambassador to the Stuart court but he did not go. Besides, some evidence of an increasing tension in Stuart-Spanish relations can be detected much earlier, immediately following the breakdown of the ‘Spanish Match’ negotiations. See Chapter Two above. 3 There were still at least 1,100 English Roman Catholics at seminaries, convents, monasteries and colleges in the Spanish Low Countries, however. See Caroline Hibbard, ‘Early Stuart Catholicism’ in Journal of Modern History, 52 (1980), 30. 4 Elliott, Imperial Spain, 330.

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Suspending his disbelief at the Stuart monarchy’s ineptitude, the count-duke not only worked to keep this second conflict alive, but was also able to venture the hitherto-inconceivable proposition of a combined Franco-Spanish attack on the Stuart kingdoms.5 With or without French assistance, Olivares believed that he might obtain the help of a substantial body of Scottish and Irish Catholics in an assault on England from the north and west. It will be shown in this chapter that he may have been right. Scottish discontent with the policies of the Stuart monarchy certainly became much more palpable after Charles I’s accession, sometimes bringing together unlikely allies. Yet in contrast to the broad (and growing) swathe of disaffected Presbyterians, the equally alienated Catholic community became increasingly divided in its approach.6 The later careers of the earl of Argyll and William Semple will be explored so as to demonstrate this. Previously underresearched (the former’s activities after 1625 have barely been touched on by previous scholars, and the latter’s final years only briefly accounted for in the works of Alcalá-Zamora, Stradling and Taylor) the analysis that follows will emphasise the polarisation that occurred both at home and on the continent.7 In short, Argyll reconciled himself with the interests of the Stuart monarchy, whereas Semple and his circle did not. As has been shown, the colonel belonged to a more fanatical body of Scottish recusants, who had remained apparently unmoved by the cause of Elizabeth Stuart or her family. For a few years after 1625, the potential merging of opposition to Charles I from within the Scottish and Irish Gaelic worlds (to some extent under Semple’s direction) rocked the Stuarts. But despite his development of another, new approach from 1627 involving the Northern Isles of Orkney and Shetland, the increasing financial and military problems that

5

Henry Kamen, Spain, 1469–1714 (London: 1983); Elliott, Count Duke, 329. Fifty-two students registered at the Scots College in Douai from 1625–33. Perhaps as a result of the impact of Henrietta Maria and her Catholic entourage on Charles I, the 1625–9 period was one in which the accounts of Jesuits operating in the Scottish Lowlands were generally quite optimistic. The Franciscan mission continued to report some success in the Western Isles too. However, they and the Dominicans, who began a mission to the north-west in 1633, were thwarted by lack of money and of Gaelic-speaking missionaries. See Anson, Underground Catholicism, 29–30, 39–40; Forbes Leith et al. Records of the Scots Colleges, 1–15. 7 However, see the references in Alcalá-Zamora, España, Flandes and in Stradling, Armada of Flanders, 25–39; Taylor, Scots College, 1–30. 6

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beset the Spanish monarchy would limit his political influence profoundly from then on. At the Stuart court, the tensions amongst the various competing factions increased after the end of the French conflict and the commencement of the period of Charles’ personal rule in 1629, while the war with Spain dragged on until the signing of the Treaty of Madrid in 1630.8 Thereafter, Caroline foreign policy continued to centre on the importance of achieving a restitution of the Palatinate, although the proposed methods by which this might be obtained became increasingly diverse and the advice to ambassadors contradictory.9 Philip IV helped in no way in his repeated claims to be powerless in Imperial affairs.10 Not only that, but the rise of a ‘Puritan’ party, suspicious of all ‘popish’ influences, became so significant at Whitehall that any large-scale, combined Scottish-Irish action backed by Spain would remain confined to the drawing board.11 This makes it all the more intriguing that the Spanish Netherlands became a focus of Scottish aspirations again from 1630, if only briefly, as relations between London and Madrid began to improve.

8

Caroline Hibbard, Charles I and the Popish Plot (Chapel Hill: 1983), 29. The Treaty of Madrid of 15 November 1630 and then Sir Francis Cottington’s secret, unratified Palatinate agreement of August 1631, “established a Caroline policy of pro-Habsburg neutrality and war profiteering”. See L.J. Reeve, ‘Quiroga’s Paper of 1631: a missing link in Anglo-Spanish diplomacy during the Thirty Years War’, in EHR, 101 (1986), 915. 9 The factions now veered from a pro-Spanish position supported by the Lord Treasurer, Richard Weston, earl of Portland, the secretary of state, Sir Francis Windebank, and the former Spanish ambassador, Cottington, to the pro-French policy advocated by Henrietta Maria. At the other extreme, Sir Thomas Roe, John Durie, Elizabeth of Bohemia and Sir Robert Anstruther, were amongst those advocating a more fervently Protestant solution. The latter group had sought assistance from Denmark-Norway till 1629, but now looked to Sweden and the Lutheran princes of Germany for help. See Hibbard, Charles I, 29; Sharpe, Personal Rule, 509–522. 10 15 November 1633, London, Juan Necolalde to Windebank in ClSP, I, no. 327; Albert J. Loomie S.J. ‘The Spanish Faction at the Court of Charles 1, 1630–8’ in Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, vol. 59, no. 139 (May: 1986), 37–49; Parker, ed. Thirty Years War, 63. 11 Michael van Cleave Alexander, Charles I’s Lord Treasurer: Sir Richard Weston, Earl of Portland (Plymouth: 1975); Sharpe, Personal Rule, 509–522.

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1625–7: Colonel Semple’s Scottish-Irish agenda and the dissipation of the Argyll regiment after Cádiz The prospects for the small band of Scottish militant Catholics in Madrid remained relatively bright following the English assault on Cádiz. Certainly, their attitudes did not change immediately. William Semple, for one, continued to support hostilities against the Dutch (now allies of the Stuarts) by promoting a naval war ahead of a campaign on land: a guerra ofensiva por mar y defensiva por tierra.12 His confidence in Spain’s international standing is understandable since, despite the fact that actual revenues from American silver had continued to fall, 1625 has been considered an annus mirabilis for the monarchy.13 Further interventions in central Europe appeared feasible, with Olivares considering the development of a pan-Habsburg naval alliance with the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth, as suggested by the colonel several years earlier, to be worthy of his time and effort.14 All in all though, it seems that William Semple devoted more and more of his energy to improving the fortunes of Catholics in the Three Kingdoms, rather than to Spanish foreign policy in any wider sense. His spirits may have been raised in this respect by the renewed efforts of the earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnell to promote a Spanish invasion plan for Ireland. Moreover, a proposal came from the Spanish Netherlands in September 1625, recommending that Sir James

12 See also the letter, probably written by Semple, ‘Discurso General sobre el Remedio de los Males que Padecía la Monarquía de España por los años de 1625, por medio de una guerra ofensiva por mar y defensiva por tierra’, transcribed in Alcalá-Zamora, España, Flandes, 490–7, 155, 173. Stradling concluded that Semple’s involvement in Spanish maritime policy negotiations was not so significant by this time and that, to some extent, the “grizzled Scot” in Madrid had been replaced by the English exile, Anthony Sherley. See Stradling, Armada of Flanders, 39. 13 Not only did they capture the fortress of Breda from the Dutch in June, but their navy combined with the Portuguese to defeat the Dutch at Bahía. While Olivares developed his plans for a ‘Union of Arms’, Philip IV considered a scheme to colonise Australia. See Kamen, Spain, 207. 14 Olivares sought compromise with the Lutherans until 1626, the result of a paper written by the Imperial ambassador Khevenhüller in May 1625, proposing a non-confessional League of Alliance with Saxony. Moreover, in January 1626, following the efforts of the previous year, a Flemish noble, Jean de Croy, Count of Solre, was sent to Warsaw to negotiate for the acqusition of ships in the Baltic. The count-duke may also have been aware that another Scot, James Murray, had already built and launched some seven vessels on behalf of the Polish navy from his shipyard at Putzig (Puck), north-west of Danzig. See Elliott, Count-Duke, 231, 272; Parker ed. Thirty Years’ War, 230.

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MacDonald of Dunnyveg and Randal Arranagh, the first earl of Antrim, both then living in London, be sent large sums of money to contribute towards assisting a combined Scottish-Irish naval assault on England.15 The Spanish assumed that these two might be willing to adopt an anti-Stuart line now in support of a general Clan Donald uprising that would have far wider implications in their respective home countries, Scotland and Ireland.16 Olivares considered one strategy whereby MacDonald and Antrim would attempt to combine support in from los montañeses escoses [the Scottish Highlanders] and the clans of the Western Isles (especially in Islay and Mull, but even in Lewis) along with that of the disaffected Irish.17 Regarding Semple’s more limited goal of improving facilities for his compatriots on the continent, Philip IV also gave the appearance of being quite forthcoming. The Spanish king wrote to Urban VIII on 13 July advocating that the proposed Scottish seminary in Madrid receive financial support from the Papacy. Semple wrote to the Pope on the matter too.18 But the colonel still had to depend on a tiny number of his compatriots for support with respect to these issues: in the Spanish Netherlands, a Capitan Colvil [Captain Colville] was active, while in Scotland, George Kinghorne S.J. attempted for a time from February 1625, to establish secret correspondence between the Catholics in Spain and the priesthood at home.19 The secrecy of these new enterprises, both the pan-Gaelic initiative and the more modest proposals for the Scottish mission, could not be maintained at a time of increased anti-Spanish feeling at the

15 There were new references emanating from the ‘Old Irish’ community that year as to their desire to have Philip IV crowned king of Ireland. See T.W. Moody et al., A New History of Ireland, 9 vols (Oxford: 1986), III, 234. 16 McDonnell, Wild Geese, 29. 17 Evidently, the success of the Irish Franciscan mission in the Highlands and Islands, particularly the work of Father Cornelius Ward, had been noted in Madrid. However, neither the dissatisifed merchants of the Northern Isles nor the lowland Catholic earls seem to have been mentioned on this occasion. See Alcalá-Zamora, España, Flandes, 222, 173; Anson, Underground Catholicism, 24. 18 Taylor, Scots College, 23. 19 Presumably ‘Colvil’ was related to David Colville and had contacts at Douai. See AGS, Est. 2516, f. 110. (n.d.); John Durkan, ‘David Colville: An Appendix’, 140. According to Durkan, David Colville died in Rome towards the end of the 1620s. However, another source would seem to suggest that he continued to work for Philip IV from 1627–38. I am grateful for this information to Concepcion Saenz. See also AGS, Est. 2516, f. 111, ‘Misión de Jorge Kingorn, jesuita, a Madrid’—?, 1625.

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Stuart court. One double agent proved especially informative. William Gordon, who had been in Spain fourteen years earlier and had more recently served during the Digby embassy, wrote to the Stuart secretary of state from Madrid in September 1625, on the subject of what he claimed was the latest development in an international Jesuit plot. He noted the arrival of “a young Scottish gentleman” at Colonel Semple’s house. Gordon stated that—since the Scotsmen there did not suspect him himself as a spy as his family was Catholic—he had been able to learn from Hugh Semple that the young hispanophile in question was a “Mr. Lockhart” from Ayr. Gordon believed that Lockhart would encounter some problems since he could speak no Spanish: a remark which seems unusual since both the Semples in Madrid must have had a fluent command of the language and would presumably have been able to interpret for him. That said, Gordon reported how Father Semple had revealed to him that the goal of Lockhart’s mission was to canvas the opinions of Olivares and other leading Spanish ministers with respect to “some great commission from Scotland”. He also confirmed the presence of George Kinghorne, a man who was arranging, in a similar manner, to hold talks with Olivares. In fact, Kinghorne had arrived in Spain as early as June, carrying letters relating to the poverty of the Scottish kingdom, a state of affairs which, he claimed, might lead to the major part of the Catholic nobility at home offering to send their sons to the Spanish dependencies as Father Semple had suggested the previous year.20 Gordon asserted that the Semples planned to dispatch Kinghorne for Scotland, where he would call at the houses of William Lang, Thomas Lang, Mr. Alexander Irving, Mr. William Pope and a Mr. Alexander Pope in Aberdeen. He also added that another hispanophile, a Colonel Markham, was plotting with the Madrid circle in relation to Ireland.21 It is telling that, even as these talks were going on, other Scottish exiles in the hispanic world were trying to return home. Lady Anne Maxwell (possibly of Lincluden) wrote to Philip IV, asking for “some meanes” to be provided for her to make her way back to Scotland. She reported that she had left the Stuart kingdoms about three years

20

For more on Kinghorne, see Alcalá-Zamora, España, Flandes, 222. 8 September 1625, Madrid, William Gordon to the Secretary of State, PRO SP94/33/ff. 104–107. 21

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previously, “her whole estates taken away from her as being a Catholick and her father and a brother of hers put to death and beheaded for the Catholick cause and for having served under his Catholick Majestie Fillip the second”.22 An analysis of the fortunes of the Argyll regiment in the Spanish Netherlands gives further confirmation that Scottish-Spanish political relations became the strictly covert concern of a few marginalised zealots after Cádiz. There seems to have been little support amongst any of Argyll’s men for the Habsburg land wars from that point on, the soldiers of his regiment finding it preferable in the circumstances to conform with the Stuart agenda and seek employment elsewhere. Albert Loomie printed the list compiled by Sir William Turnbull, Charles I’s ambassador to the Spanish Netherlands in December 1625. According to Turnbull’s notes, the Argyll regiment consisted of fifteen companies.23 Supplemented with more accurate information from the Register of Orders, it is clear that the numbers of Scots serving in the Spanish Netherlands began to fall very shortly after that. The Captain-General’s office seems to have been flooded with applications for licences to return home. For example, on 11 May 1626, the Brussels administration gave the forty-year old James Douglas from William Hamilton’s infantry company, permission to leave, purportedly to take care of some money he had inherited following the death of his father and older brother.24 The

22 ?, 1625, ‘Lady Anne Maxwell—Memorial to the King of Spain’, PRO SP94/33/ff. 179, 253. Her family background is difficult to confirm although on the damaged original manuscript she refers to herself as a Countess of “Yncluden” (Lincluden?). She was presumably a daughter of the eighth Lord Maxwell, who had been involved in the ‘Spanish Blanks’ affair in the 1590s. See Keith M. Brown, ‘Making’, 161 and Chapter One above. 23 Turnbull’s letter was dated 26 December 1625. Argyll remained Colonel. The others listed on this occasion were Sir William Ever (Sergeant Major), George Russell (Auditor) and Captains Thomas Bedingfield, Valentine Brun, James Crichton, William Hamilton, Thomas Henderson, Thomas Howard, John Hunt,—Jonson, Gregory Lovell,—Monington, William Auchterlonie, James Paton, Paul Raddock, Anthony Penruddock (?), John Robertson, George Shawe,—Semple, John Temperley. See A.J. Loomie S.J., ‘Gondomar’s selection of English officers in 1622’ in EHR, 88 (1973), 581. On 12 March 1626, Philip IV wrote to Isabella about “the choice of the five English and Scots made for the Infanta”, also stating his wish that Colonel Stanley be given a commanding position. See 12 March 1626, Monzon, Philip IV to Isabella, in Lonchay et al. eds. Correspondance de la cour d’Espagne, II, no. 835. See also Appendix 2 below. 24 AGRB, T100/30, f. 37 (n.d.).

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following day, the authorities issued a further order allowing a Patrick Maclaren, aged twenty-seven, from the same company, to return for reasons of ‘negocios’ or business.25 On 16 May, a Thomas Mackay and a Gilbert Scrimmesser (Scrimgeour?) both aged thirty-four, and a Matthew Varecht (Wright?) aged twenty-eight, were both given leave, while a further four Scottish soldiers received authorisation to do the same later that month.26 Following that, an Alexander Stuart, who had come from Scotland only in May to serve in the infantry regiment of Captain Paul Raddock, was issued with a passport in July; a John Semple given license to return home in August for a period of six months; and a William Auchterlonie in September, for four months.27 Thus, it is clear that the drop-out rate amongst the Scots in the Army of Flanders increased dramatically during 1626: a movement presumably linked to the commencement of the StuartOrange campaign against Spain the previous year. It is difficult to draw firm conclusions as to their thinking, since the subsequent career of any of the above men has proved impossible to trace. But there is no evidence of the majority of Scottish soldiers having experienced persecution in the Spanish Netherlands on account of their background. It would appear that, after 1625, the Spanish were unenthusiastic, if not actually hostile, as regards their soldiers from the most northerly Stuart kingdom. For the Irish ‘wild geese’ in the Spanish Netherlands, the issue of whether their loyalty should lie with the Stuart crown or elsewhere divided many amongst the ‘Old English’ from the ‘Old Irish’ from 1625–30.28 It seems plausible to speculate that the Scots who returned home may have begun to identify their aspirations in tandem with those of the former group amongst their neighbours across the North Channel. Whatever the motivation, the effects had become considerable by the end of 1626. Either that year or in 1627, Argyll chose to return to London himself, signalling the end of the Scottish regiment in the

25

AGRB, T100/30, f. 39, 12 May 1626. These were William Campbell, aged 28, Duncan Campbell, aged 27, “Arsbal Dobles” (Archibald Douglas?) and Hector Mecquelar [Mackellor?], aged 26, all from Hamilton’s company. See AGRB, T100/30, ff. 35 (n.d.), 58, 97. 27 AGRB, T100/30, ff. 53, 108. Stuart had spent some time in a prison in the United Provinces, while Auchterlonie was referred to as the “Baron de Telli” in this document. See AGRB, T100/28, ff. 16, 117, 149. 28 Henry, Irish military community; Argyll’s DNB entry. 26

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Army of Flanders. Hispanophobia had not been a purely post-1625 phenomenon in Scotland or elsewhere in the Three Kingdoms. But as the earl and many other members of his regiment had realised, service to the Spanish crown had now become irreconcilable with loyalty to the Stuart monarchy. The two Semples must have been disturbed and deeply confused. Fears of Spanish designs on the Three Kingdoms remained to the fore in Scotland. The Privy Council even expressed concern as to the possible disembarkation of a new armada in July 1626, when reports reached them of “great preparatioun of men and shipping in Spayne for the persute and invasion of this iland”. Orders were given for the defence of Scottish, English and Irish ports against the arrival of a fleet and to enable the recruitment of “fyve hundreth able seamen” so as to prevent what was believed to be a conjunction of forces coming from Spain and the Spanish Netherlands.29 There is plentiful evidence that the Council had concerns that a body of Spanish sympathisers would actively assist the Habsburg cause within the realm. The issue was discussed in some depth, it being reported that Charles I was worried that “the enemie wes to invade this kingdome praesooming of a pairitie”. Considering the discussions had been made in the absence of two notorious members with a history of strategic hispanophilia, the marquis of Huntly and his son, Lord Gordon, the Council seems quite optimistic in its conclusion on 20 July 1626, that it could “consave favourablie of all thair [the Catholics] fidelities” in case of an assault.30 The question remains as to whether some Scottish Catholics at home had, indeed, still seen their interests best served by maintaining a commitment to the Habsburg dynasty at the expense of their own royal family. There are signs that they did. Although the group in question had been forced further underground, the Privy Council realised that it was becoming a major challenge to draw a dividing line between the more staunch, subversive recusants of francophile or hispanophile sympathies, besides a much larger body of more obedient followers of the

29

See four entries on this topic from 11–20 July 1626, printed in RPCS, 1622–26, 333–336. 30 RPCS, 1622–6, 336. This coincides with the rise of the “Clanranald crusade”. See Allan I. Macinnes, ‘Catholic Recusancy and the Penal Laws, 1603–1707’ in Records of the Scottish Church History Society, 1 (1987), 45.

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old faith. Clearly, the Scottish Catholic community had become deeply divided, a large section having chosen to identify themselves with the cause of the Stuarts to the detriment of the initiatives of William Semple. Hence, it is difficult to know if the Council’s confidence was misplaced. Of course, similar divisions affected the Irish Catholic population in the period. The most crucial issue for the ‘Old English’ had become the restoration of Ireland’s special trading privileges with Spain, lost since November 1625.31 Wisely though, since popular support for the Habsburgs had apparently grown both in Ireland itself and amongst Irish expatriate groups on the continent, Colonel Semple had continued to maintain a group of confidants from amongst the more militant hispanophiles amongst them.32 Indeed, the colonel’s decision to draw up revised plans in Madrid detailing a proposed Spanish military advance on England, were made simultaneous to the renewal of ‘Old Irish’ efforts to bring about Philip IV’s intervention. One of the proposals that emanated might have appealed especially to Semple. This advocated that Charles I be deposed as king of Scotland and his nearest claimant, the duke of Hamilton, be crowned in his place, with Ireland placed under Spanish control.33 With the collapse of the Argyll regiment and all other forms of support from Scottish Catholics apparently slipping away then, Irish assistance would continue to feature prominently in Semple’s plans for a time. The ambition of the colonel and his hosts to raise a rebellion in the Highlands and Islands must have seemed a great deal more threatening when assessed alongside the prospect of a vast mobilisation of the Irish in Flanders and elsewhere.34 It is not known if Semple expected support from Argyll as regards his efforts to bridge the gulf separating the various factions of Catholics in the Three Kingdoms. He would have been wrong to do so, since the earl had once again proven to be a chameleon in his instincts. Back in London, he took an increasingly divergent line regarding Spanish connections with his home territory on the west coast of

31

Moody et al., New History, III, ‘Papel de Semple para que se sus correspondientes en Escocia’, ?, 33 McDonnell, Wild Geese, 29. 34 Moody et al., New History, III, 32

604. compruebe el valor de las gestiones de dos de 1626. See Alcalá-Zamora, España, Flandes, 191. 604.

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Scotland. The rewards of obsequiousness at Whitehall had evidently compensated for the constraints of courtly life on his political career. The earl did not lose all contacts with the hispanic world. On the contrary, it became common knowledge that he was providing confidential information regarding the current invasion proposals to Charles I. Even Olivares knew. He wrote to the Infanta, stating that “care must be taken that the earl of Argyll obtain no information of the project, for if he should, it may be looked upon as finished, on account of his continual correspondence with England”.35 Some new developments came in January 1627, when the Spanish chief minister claimed that there were plans to send 3–4,000 weapons to Derry, in the Irish MacDonnell hinterland, “so that in case the Scotch of the Islands of the Hebrides asked for arms they could be supplied with them”.36 Obviously, the possibility of gaining support in the Highlands and Islands and the north of Ireland for an assault on England had been examined, but could still not be confirmed. With such a promising offer on the table, Semple stressed that a degree of assertion might be all that was necessary to ensure commitment there. Obstacles must have come in Olivares’ way though, since a letter of Semple’s just five days later stated the necessity of the Spanish “taking the initiative” in the Hebrides.37 Still, the echoes of these new calls from Madrid seem to have resounded across the North Sea. Further false alarms were sounded among Stuart representatives as to the imminence of a Spanish invasion of England via Scotland and Ireland.38 The collapse of Argyll’s regiment aside, the deepening Spanish connection with both Irish and Scottish sections of the Gaeltacht alarmed Charles I, as did the fact that Philip IV—confident enough to postpone the minting of copper vellón coins in January 1627— continued to look for new recruits from throughout the Stuart kingdoms that year.39 All things considered, it seems clear that, where

35 19 January 1627, Madrid, Olivares to the Infanta in Jennings, ed. Wild Geese, no. 983. 36 Ibid. The itinerant Irish agent, Braddagh O’Hagan, was in Derry that year carrying letters from Tyrone and may have been involved. See McDonnell, Wild Geese, 30. 37 24 January 1627, he states the need to “poner la mano en las cosas de Escocia”. See Alcalá-Zamora, España, Flandes, 226. 38 Alcalá-Zamora, España, Flandes, 155. 39 Henry Kamen, Spain, 1469–1714 (London: 1983).

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they could be found, Scottish soldiers had become valued once more. In May 1626, the Infanta had referred to the importance of Scotland “both as regards this enterprise and the enterprise against England”. She had also stated that “the Scotch are wilder and more hardy than the Irish”.40 But as late as September 1627, Semple was corresponding on Scottish-Irish initiatives with Olivares. It is worth noting that any concern for Spanish responsibilities in the Patrimonial Lands was conspicuous by its absence in these letters as had been the case since 1620. As Semple recognised, the state of Catholicism in the Three Kingdoms had begun to require his undivided attention.41

1627–30: The founding of the Scots College in Madrid and the Spanish designs on the Northern Isles Central Europe continued to loom large in Spanish foreign policy during the late 1620s, even though Semple and many others amongst Philip IV’s advisers argued that Castile could no longer afford to provide financial support for the Imperial cause if economic and political stability was to be maintained at home. Since 1625, the populations in Bohemia and elsewhere in the Empire had suffered the consequences of the brutal policies of the emperor and Wallenstein: up to 40,000 of his and Tilly’s combined Imperial-Catholic League army fought against Denmark-Norway in 1627.42 Their military breakthroughs, achieved by the ruthless use of contributions, drove the Danes out of Silesia and made it possible for Ferdinand II to give permission for a Spanish naval base to be established in the Baltic. In no sense was the suggestion put forward for the benefit of their sometime-allies in Warsaw.43

40 23 May 1627, Brussels, the Infanta Isabella to Philip IV in Jennings, Wild Geese, no. 1001. 41 28 September 1627, Colonel Semple to Olivares in SCA CA/4/20. 42 Simon Adams, ‘Tactics or Politics? “The Military Revolution” and the Hapsburg Hegemony, 1625–1648’ in Clifford J. Rogers, ed. The Military Revolution Debate (Oxford: 1995), 254–257. 43 Poland-Lithuania faced the Swedes alone at the naval battle of Oliwa in November 1627. James Murray, although captain of the 1623-built ship Król David (King David) refused to participate there due to a dispute over command. See Biega…ska, ‘James Murray’, 3–5. Meanwhile, Wallenstein seems to have been happy to allow the Spaniards a base in the western Baltic and even perhaps to fight the Dutch for East Friesland that year. See Mann, Wallenstein, 365–6.

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Semple chose to concern himself with other issues besides the faltering steps of the house of Austria towards establishing a base on the Baltic.44 Perhaps the continuing delays in organising the necessary backing from the Highlands and Islands and from Ireland for the proposed invasion affected him, since he appears to have concentrated his energies for a time on preparing to establish the Scots College in Madrid. He and his wife eventually signed the deed of foundation for this institution on 10 May 1627. The document referred to the colonel as a gentilhombre de la boca de Su Magesdad (gentleman of the table to Philip IV) and confirmed Olivares as the patron of the college.45 Although the earlier application to Pope Urban VIII for financial support had been unsuccessful, the deed also specified that 500 ducats of rent would be provided from the bishopric of Cádiz, in addition to the 1,900 ducats of annual pension with “which by various decrees, His Majesty has favoured the said Colonel William Semple for one lifetime”.46 Semple had obviously decided, not for the first time in his career, to accept the generosity of his Spanish masters, this being a time when, buoyed by a temporary economic recovery, the possibility still existed of Castile being successful in administering radical financial reform. Sometime during 1627, the colonel affirmed his commitment to the situation in Scotland in a material sense, when he sent an unspecified monetary donation to Father William Leslie, head of the

44 A.J. Loomie S.J., ‘Olivares, the English Catholics and the Peace of 1630’ in Revue belge de philologie et d’histoire, 47, no. 4 (1969), 1157. Meanwhile, the Italian peninsula remained another pressing concern for Spain, especially after the duke of Mantua died in December 1627, an event which led to a new Franco-Spanish conflict over his succession. With the Stuart kingdoms and Spain still offficially at war, Charles I sent the Scottish merchant James Hannan, a long-term acquaintance of Buckingham’s, on a fact-finding mission to Madrid that same month. Hannan had been based in Madrid during Sir John Digby, the first earl of Bristol’s embassy of 1622–4. See Bell, Handlist, 258–9; Loomie, ‘Olivares’, 1157. 45 An Irishman, Dermot O’Sullivan Bere, the earl of Berehaven had risen to the same position in 1624. See Stradling, Spanish Monarchy, 66. 46 The witness to the signing was a Steven de Llano. It is unclear how this money would be spent after his death, although 800 ducados from the pension would certainly go to Doña Maria. A translation is printed in Taylor, Scots College, 287–92. Clearly, the college proved to be a significant boost for the hopes of the Scottish Mission. For example, in 1627 an Alexander Fraser from Aberdeen was there. He then went on to Douai and then to an unspecified location in Germany. In 1628, a Reginaldus (Ranald?) MacDonald, “montanus” (Highlander), aged 26, arrived with a commendation from Colonel Semple. MacDonald left for Scotland in 1629.

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mission. Presumably, he believed that the cultivation of a new or reconfigured body of Scottish hispanophiles might still bring recusants at home around to the prospect of a Scottish-Spanish alliance. That said, Father Leslie was wise to express only his hope, and not his expectation, that Semple “take measures to make this bounty perpetual”.47 Despite the founding of the Madrid college, stresses seem to have increased between the Scots in the Castilian capital and the priests of the Scottish mission during 1628, with the latter feeling ever more neglected. In truth, Semple became helpless to intervene once Spanish financial sources began to dry up, although this did not stop Scottish Catholics from pointing the finger at him. For example, in reference to the problems regarding the annual pension that was, in theory, paid by the Spanish to priests working in Scotland, Father John Macbreck reported in April 1628 that in fact, “most years we do not get it at all”. In this letter he also stated the following: Colonel Semple, with too great solicitude and restless ingenuity, is perpetually contriving new methods of settling this affair, and changing his mind again next day, or next year . . . On this account, it is important the business should be definitely concluded, for he is nearly 80 years of age and might die before anything is done—in order that provision be made for the future.48

The colonel’s continuing importance as a broker for the Scottish Catholic community at the Spanish court is clear. But Macbreck’s increasing frustration at the infrequency of the payments from Madrid is equally obvious, if unfairly directed at Semple, at a time when the Spanish economy was sinking into deep depression. His knowledge of the coastline of Scotland might still prove useful for the cause of the Spanish, as they well knew. Alcalá-Zamora has shown how Philip IV took a renewed interest in 1628 with respect to an earlier brainwave of Semple’s: that of destroying the Dutch fishing fleet in the Northern Isles of Scotland. With the panGaelic initiatives having apparently reached a dead end by then, the Spanish monarchy began, for the first time since 1588, to consider

47 22 June 1627, Father William Leslie to the General of the Society of Jesus [Father Vitelleschi], in Forbes Leith, ed. Memoirs, I, 3. 48 17 April 1628, Antwerp, Father John Macbreck to Father Vitelleschi, the General of the Society of Jesus, in Forbes Leith, ed. Memoirs, I, 11.

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seriously the potential importance of Orkney and Shetland to their plans: these strategically-situated islands might yet prove to be an alternative starting point for a full-scale invasion of England.49 The far north of Scotland, in any case, became a major concern for the monarchy for a few months. One estimate suggests that several thousand foreign seamen, mostly Dutch, but some from the Spanish dependencies (France, England and Scotland as well) continued to pass through the region each year, paying duties in exchange for the use of ports—such as on the Orkney island of Stronsay—as fishing bases, while renting buildings so they could set up booths and market their goods locally. It is not clear if the Spanish were correct in the belief they had held for several years, that they could exploit local antagonism to the Dutch in their favour. The attitudes of Orcadians and Shetlanders to the rival nations who lived amongst them would still seem to be unknown.50 But any commitment towards developing Semple’s plans there, as with the proposals for the Highlands and Islands, remained short lived. A combination of falling revenues from the Americas, the outbreak of war in Mantua, a streamlining of expenses at the Madrid court, and increasing domestic unrest ruined their chances. Besides, by September 1628, there were only eight students at the Madrid college, with Semple complaining to Olivares that their meagre pension was not being paid and that some royal servants were still living at his Calle Jacometrezo house, making it impossible for him to support himself let alone any of the youngsters. The annual subsidy for Scottish priests had not been provided either.51 To all appearances then, and despite Semple’s selfless persistence, the Spanish had made little progress during 1628 as regarded the situation in Scotland. Consequently, there seems to be no evidence

49

Alcalá-Zamora, España, Flandes, 155, 329. French, ‘Belgian’, English and Scottish fishermen also based themselves there. See Fenton, Northern Isles, 603. Moreover, the Spanish proposed to send a fleet to Shetland in late 1628, and presumably on from there. Indeed, one galleon made its way north, but was driven to Orkney by bad weather. A report of 23 January 1629 stated that a ship had landed there with “prohibited goodes and divers letters of advise”. See Earl of Stirling’s Register, 335; Alcalá-Zamora, España, Flandes, 329. In November 1629, Semple’s “propositions for Scotland” were mentioned once more in the State papers. See 9 November 1629, “concerning the propositions of Semple for Scotland” in Van Durme, Les Archives générales de Simancas, II, 254. 51 The colonel also called once again for the subsidy to be renewed in a letter to Olivares, dated 11 September 1628. See Taylor, Scots College, 24–5. 50

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of any significant Scottish activity at all during 1629–30, either on the Iberian peninsula or in the southern Netherlands. This is despite the diplomatic reshuffle that led to James Hay, the earl of Carlisle, being sent to Brussels as Stuart envoy in early 1629, and the choice of Rubens and Coloma respectively, as the Archduchess Isabella and Philip IV’s first envoys in London for more than five years. Elsewhere, treaties at Lübeck and Altmark ( July and September 1629) brought the Danish-Imperial and Polish-Swedish conflicts to an end, while Sigismund III sent his entire fleet to Wismar on the German Baltic coast.52

1630–3: New connections in the Spanish Netherlands Notwithstanding the financial crisis in Castile, and an apparent apathy amongst both staff and students at the Madrid college, this was not the end of Scottish intrigues with Spain during the Thirty Years’ War. By 1630, a new means for improving the education of the students in Madrid had emerged. Colonel Semple finally received permission that year to build a chapel, thus worsening his already serious debt but demonstrating his allegiance to the cause of Scottish Catholicism above all other political matters.53 Wider issues continued to affect his actions, of course. Negotiations in Madrid brought the five-year Stuart-Spanish conflict to an end on 15 November.54 Peace with Philip IV, and Richelieu’s apparent

52 Wallenstein hoped to be successful in his requests to both Philip IV and the Infanta Isabella for galleons to be sent to him on the Baltic coast. These would have had to travel through the Danish sound. According to Mann, he used “the camouflaged agency of a Scottish merchant” in the United Provinces in an attempt to obtain money, materials, or shipwrights there. By July 1628, Wallenstein had been named as admiral of the Imperial fleet and was based in Holstein. At the end of that year, there had been an estimated 12 ships at anchor in Wismar, a figure which by January 1629 had increased to 25. These included 8 Polish vessels led by the 400 ton, 33 gun, King David, then anchored in Wismar harbour. See Mann, Wallenstein, 453–4. 53 The chapel had cost 124,000 reales by the time it was finally completed several years later. By 1631, Semple was in debt to 240,000 reales, a sum which carried with it an annual interest of 16,500 reales. Hence, he was wise to abandon a plan for the establishment of another Scots college in Seville. See Taylor, Scots College, 25. 54 This treaty “established a Caroline policy of pro-Habsburg neutrality and war profiteering”. See Reeve, ‘Quiroga’s Paper’, 915.

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ambiguity towards the fate of the religion internationally, improved the position of the ‘Spanish faction’ at Whitehall at the expense of the francophiles.55 There emerged a greater tolerance towards the Spanish in London than before, a situation which may have acted as a magnet for others within the more hispanophobic areas of Britain and Ireland.56 Despite the improved conditions for those Scottish hispanophiles based in London, in Scotland itself, the continuing conflict between dynastic and religious loyalties split Catholics ever more into two opposing groups following the signing of the treaty. The first group certainly renewed close ties at times with the pro-Spanish courtiers in London, but they did this now in the hope of enforcing concessions from Charles I by persuasion alone (the path which Argyll had chosen since 1626). The second group (of whom Colonel Semple remained a prime example) rejected cooperation with the Stuart monarchy entirely, and continued to endorse more radical methods, aimed at bringing about a recatholicisation of Scotland. Within months, the new power of the hispanophiles in London was having an effect on Charles I, and thus complicating matters further for both bodies of Scottish Catholics. The king gave permission for Spanish men and money (and presumably arms) to be transported to the south coast of England, from where they could be taken to Dover, then ferried to the Spanish Netherlands in English ships.57 With the Habsburg land corridors from the Rhineland under threat following the Swedish army’s occupation of much of northern Germany, the usefulness of this for the Spanish can scarcely be overestimated. In addition, Cottington, the former ambassador to Spain, signed another, highly secret treaty with Spain in January 1631, whereby Philip IV agreed that he would now try to ensure a restitution of the Palatinate in exchange for the military assistance of the Stuarts against the Dutch.58 55 The pro-Spanish contingent still included Cottington, Sir Arthur Hopton and Sir Francis Windebank. Moreover, between 1630 and 1635, the Spanish diplomatic corps were the only foreign national Catholic group to keep their chapel in London continually open. Those of the French, Imperial, Savoy, Venetian and Portuguese all closed periodically during this time. See Albert J. Loomie, S.J. ‘London’s Spanish Chapel before and after the Civil War’ in Recusant History, 18 (Catholic Record Society, London: 1989), 402. 56 The third earl of Tyrone went to Madrid that year, in order to promote this once more. See McDonnell, Wild Geese, 29. 57 Elliot, Count Duke, 535. 58 Albert J. Loomie S.J. ‘Olivares’, 1154–1166; ‘The Spanish Faction at the Court

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A lot has been mentioned as to the changing fortunes of the Scots in Madrid. But the Spanish Netherlands began to take on perhaps more importance than the Iberian peninsula for some time after that, as a centre for Scottish hispanophiles of both anti-Stuart and loyalist opinion. For instance, some students continued to go to the Douai college. There were also further reports about Dunkirkers heading to the north of Scotland in the summer of 1631.59 Not only that, but a few motley Scots turned up at the Habsburg court in Brussels seeking patronage.60 These individuals are worthy of closer examination. Some information came to Charles I in January 1631 from a Hugh Ross, based in Dunkirk. The details related to James Maxwell, from Little Airds near Kirkconnell in Kirkcudbrightshire, who had recently been employed as “Antiquary, Genealogist and Historian” to Philip IV.61 Ross reported in his letter that Maxwell “hath lived in the court of Brussels for some years past” and had “some matters

of Charles 1, 1630–8’ in Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, 59, no. 139 (May: 1986), 37–49; Hibbard, Charles I, 268. All the same, the Spanish king’s relationship with Charles I remained uneasy. The Stuart king perhaps showed his true colours that year when he gave permission for the marquis of Hamilton, along with several thousand others from Scotland and England, to serve in the army of Gustav II Adolf. Henceforth, ‘Captain Luckless’ became ever more unlikely to pursue his weak claim to the Scottish throne as the Irish exiles had suggested he might in the 1620s. 59 Mann, Wallenstein, 453; Alcalá-Zamora, España, Flandes, 332–3. Colonel Semple wrote to Olivares speculating as to Argyll’s position in August. See 20 August 1631, Colonel Semple to Olivares in SCA CA4/6/14. The Swedes blockaded the multinational pro-Habsburg fleet in Wismar at the end of the year. 60 These all followed the arrival of the new Stuart agent, Sir Balthazar Gerbier, in June 1630. 61 27 November 1620, ‘Submission of James Maxwell’ in CSPD, 1619–22, 194. Maxwell had graduated from Edinburgh University in 1601 as a contemporary of John Napier of Merchiston, but had moved to London in 1604. He specialised in Mathematics and Prophecy, but also wrote substantial tracts on the ‘British age’ and in defence of episcopacy. Maxwell seems to have viewed the Union of the Crowns as a first step towards the reunion of Christendom and the overthrow of the Ottomans. A 1615 publication of his referred to the Austrian Habsburgs as the main defence against “the Common enemies of the Christian name”. It was Maxwell’s belief that Charles I would play a crucial role in converting the Jews, while he predicted that a major battle would take place against the Ottomans on the Rhine. This remarkable polymath has been described by Arthur Williamson as “neither politique, cowardly, nor crypto-Catholic”. Williamson wrote that “. . . no Scot at this time ever pushed this commitment to an imperial Britain to more extreme conclusions than James Maxwell”. See Arthur H. Williamson, Scottish National Consciousness in the Age of James VI (Edinburgh: 1979), 103–4. Maxwell may be the same man referred to in Chapter Two above. Certainly, genealogists were in considerable demand in Spain during the period as increasing numbers sought to enter the nobility. See Thompson, ‘Nobility in Spain’, 186, 192.

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of importance to impart to his Majestie and more particularly, some secrets concerning professt; suche as shal be plausible and profitable both to Princes and peoples”. Ross requested that £30 be provided to pay for him to come to London so that he could reveal all he knew.62 Maxwell himself wrote to Sir Dudley Carleton two months after, adding the information that he had recently been “called to the Emperour’s court about a certain businesse by his owne order”. He reported that Ferdinand II had offered him “spiritual preferment” and the position of official Imperial Antiquary and Genealogist as well as a pension of “1000 crowns”, following the death of the present incumbent (Sebastian Tegnangel, a man who was also the curator of the Imperial court library).63 This was simple fallacy. The resident historian in question did not die until 1636, perhaps explaining why Maxwell discounted any claims of Catholic piety in the nature of the service he provided to his Habsburg patrons. Besides, he wrote another letter in April, this time to the hispanophobe Archbishop Laud, the contents of which would surely have surprised his former employers in Madrid: Maxwell claimed that his life was in danger in Brussels now, due to his Protestant faith.64 Soon after, Brussels became the setting for other, Scottish-flavoured Stuart diplomacy. On 28 September, Charles I sent Sir William Balfour of Pitcullo in Fife, a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber, to Brussels, to “pay compliments” to Marie de Medici, then in exile from her French homeland. Balfour stayed there until late October during which time his activities are mysterious.65 But, on 20 November, Charles I dispatched another Scot, William Murray, the first Earl of Dysart, to the aging archduchess’s court. From then until late December, Dysart conducted negotiations on behalf of the Stuarts, again ostensibly with the French queen mother.66

62

28 January 1631, Dunkirk, Hugh Ross to ?, PRO SP77/20/f. 1A. 1 April 1631, Brussels, James Maxwell to Lord Dorchester, PRO SP77/20/ f. 16. 64 30 April 1631, Brussels, James Maxwell to Bishop Laud in CSPD, 1631–3, 25. Maxwell seems to have gone to London as planned. He was nicknamed ‘Mountebank Maxwell’ by Laud. See his DNB entry. 65 Balfour later became a supporter of the Scottish National Covenant, in which capacity he fought for the parliamentarians in England in the 1640s. See Bell, Handlist, 268 and Appendix 1 below. 66 Murray was a gentleman of the bedchamber and remained in royal service throughout 1640s. In 1645 he was with Henrietta Maria in Paris. By 1648, he was back in Scotland as an ‘engager’. Bell, Handlist, 111, 268 and Appendix 1 below. 63

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A Catholic priest, Gilbert Blackhall, arrived in Brussels around the same time as Dysart. Although he was no politician, Blackhall has left a detailed account that covers his sojourn there, shedding light on the latter days of Isabella’s administration. More importantly for Scottish history, his diary is the clearest guide to the complex systems by which Catholic exiles procured royal patronage in the Spanish Netherlands. In it, the priest explained his methods as an informal broker, trying to arrange a pension for his employer (Lady Isobel Hay, a daughter of Francis Hay, the ninth Earl of Errol) so she would not have to return to Scotland. Blackhall outlined her reasons for this. Lady Hay had not wanted to marry a heretic at home and “she did not know any Catholicke fitte for her then in Scotland”.67 Therefore he tried to obtain a benefice for her in the town of Mons as recompense, by arranging an interview with the Infanta. While preparing himself for this appointment, Blackhall passed himself off as an Italian, so as to arouse less suspicion. He also got to know something of court ceremony in order to make more of an impression, stating: “I did go every daye to the court, to see and learn the ceremonyes that were used at the audience”.68 He made friends with the archduchess’s chamberstaff too. The description he gave of his preparations for the audience demonstrates his belief in the importance of face-to-face communication as a means of securing influence at the Brussels court: When I had wel considered what I was myndful to say to her Majestie concerning the Ladye Isabel Hay and had repeated it to my owne selfe over and over again so often, that I was not affrayed to stutter or stand dumme, I being every day in the chamber of audience, did speak to her maister-household.69

The eventual meeting with the Infanta lasted only half an hour, but Blackhall reported success in his approach. She invited him back a week later. In the same account, he added an interesting aside, perhaps referring to James Maxwell: I know two of our countriemen, one a gentleman of good qualitie, and the other a marchant, you have heard of them both, who might

67 Gilbert Blackhall, A Brief Narration of the Services done to Three Noble Ladies, 1631–1649 (Aberdeen, Spalding Club: 1864), 19. 68 Blackhall, Brief Narration, 28. 69 Ibid.

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Blackhall’s hopes of persuading Isabella to make further concessions seemed to have ended with the archduchess’s death soon after. He proceeded to consult other members of the government, with little hope of success, as other Scots on the fringes of the Brussels court had already warned Lady Hay: for our own contrie people, who wer ther, did much discourage her, alledging that the Spaniards promised much, but performed little . . . No bodyes wordes in that sorte did trouble her or me so much as the counsel that Alexander Davidson did give her. For of the rest some were disgusted with the Spaniards, who did not give them what they desired, whether with raison or not, for all demanders pretend justice in their demands.71

Blackhall’s persistence eventually proved effective, however. The Archbishop of Mechelen gave Lady Hay a pension and she returned to Scotland.72 As a reflection of his own standing, Blackhall also claimed that the archbishop had asked him to be confessor to the “Inglish nonnes of the new monasterie” there, an offer which he had refused, on confessional grounds alone.73 He soon returned to

70

Ibid., 35. Ibid., 28. 72 Curiously, it seems she never married. Scots Peerage, IV, 577. 73 This was presumably the Englishwoman Mary Ward’s 1609 founded Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary. See Guilday, English Catholic Refugees, 164–214. The archbishop thought Blackhall had declined due to the “antipathie betwixt your nations”. He told Blackhall the following, according to the latter: . . . now that should cease, being both under one king, and in some manner one nation . . . as we are now with the Hollanders, and the Spanyards some time with the Portugals, whose enmity do yet continou although now under one king. I [Blackhall] said my lord, if ther were no other thing but the antipathye of our nations, which is wearing away, I could embrace that condition; but the antipathie of opinions engendereth more animosity, the diversity of humeurs. Blackhall subsequently went on to the chapel of “Notre Dame de bone successe” where he said “the first Messe, every morning”. A statue in this chapel was said to have come from Aberdeen: 71

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Scotland, in any event, long-term patronage having evidently become difficult to arrange under the new, Spanish-oriented administration. As E.H. Kossmann bluntly stated, after 1633 there was “no court life of any importance” in the Spanish Netherlands. Certainly, its brief period of significance as a centre for Scottish clientage, as exemplified by the experiences of Maxwell and Blackhall, had come to an end.74 Back in Madrid, on 10 February 1633, a copy of Semple’s will was produced, although unsigned by the colonel himself on account of his now “being impossibilitated of his hand”. In fact, he was paralysed in both arms and legs, although (according to the documentation studied by Maurice Taylor) otherwise “living in fairly comfortable circumstances, the owner of a carriage and two horses and with several servants, including Martin, his gentleman’s gentleman, and Donald, an old Scots retainer”. Nothing is known either of the lives of these individuals or of what had happened to transform Semple’s desperate financial straits of a few years before. Even the exact date of the veteran colonel’s death later that year at the age of eightysix or eighty-seven is unknown.75

a statu of our Ladye, which was brought from Aberdein, in the north of Scotland, to Ostend by a merchant of Ostend, to whom it was given in Aberdein. And that same day that the shippe in which it was did arrive at Ostend, the Infanta did win a battle against the Hollandres, the people thinking that our Ladye, for the civil reception of her statu, did obteane that victorye to the princesse, who did send for the statu to be brought to Bruselle, wher the princesse, with a solemne procession, did receave it at the port of the toune, and place it in this chappel, wher it is much honored, and the Chappele dedicated to Our Ladye of bonne successe, which befor was pouer and desolat, now is riche and wel frequented. The common belief of the vulgar people ther is, that this statu was throwen in the sea at Aberdein, and carried upon the waves of the sea miraculously to Ostend. See Blackhall, Brief Narration, 43–45. 74 E.H. Kossmann, ‘The Low Countries’, 370. For Cottington’s efforts to promote an anti-Dutch alliance once more in 1632, see Loomie, ‘Spanish Faction’, 38. 75 A Juan Fernandez de Parra, the administrator of both the colonel’s houses and of the college in Madrid, signed the will on his behalf. The witnesses were Dominique Francis, Michael Fernandez and Juan Fernandez of Ruypetroz, Balthasar Nuñez and Dominique Landero. See Miscellaneous Papers, 130. Semple claimed in the contants to have been made a “prince in Italie” by Philip IV, but asked that this title be “beneficed and sold and the price therof let it be for said Scots colledg”. Any remaining money from his Italian title, would presumably be used to provide the colonel’s widow, Doña Maria, with her annual allowance of 8,800 reales, part of an agreement dating back from the deed of foundation of the college. 3,000 and 2,000 reales had also to be paid respectively and on an annual basis (as the result

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Looking at the situation as it stood in 1633, Semple’s work of a lifetime might appear to have been in vain. The Catholic community in Scotland had become divided as never before and the coffers of the Scots College in Madrid lay empty.76 His bookish nephew seemed to have lost both the passion and the political skills he had shown in 1624, along with the commitment that both he and the colonel had earlier acquired through bitter experience. It is worth asking from what date the weakening of the Scottish presence in the Spanish dependencies can be said to have commenced. In answering this, the period following the outbreak of the Stuart-Spanish Habsburg war would seem to have been crucial. Argyll’s Scottish tercio had fallen apart, as a result of which the earl, recognising the glaringly obvious irreconcilability of serving both Philip IV and Charles I, had gone to London to live out his days in acceptable anonymity. For reasons beyond his control, the older Semple’s plans to secure new sources of assistance from both the Highlands and Islands of Scotland and from Ireland had similarly vanished by 1627. The same fate had befallen his proposals regarding Orkney and Shetland within two years of that, 1627–8 being years that, experts agree, had “probably offered the last real chance for a programme of retrenchment and reform in the Spanish monarchy”.77 There had then occurred a series of setbacks in quick succession: the end of the Baltic design, the outbreak of the Mantuan war, and the loss of the American fleet. The eventual outcome had been a climate of “frenetic apprehension” in Castile that had led to an atmosphere of increasing xenophobia.78 This may have been one

of claims made soon after his death) to Semple’s two surviving, Spanish-born sons, Francis, (also known as Francisco Fernandez, and whose mother seems to have been a Michela Fernandez) and Andrew (also known as Andrés de Tovar). This was despite the fact that both of them seem to have been living elsewhere in the lands of the Spanish monarchy. Evidently then, Colonel Semple left substantial debts. For further details, see Taylor, Scots College, 25, 29, 304–5. 76 In 1632, Colonel Semple had written to Philip IV about the payments of money for the Scots College which were overdue. In November that year, a disappointing total of three new students had finally arrived in Madrid. All had previously been at Douai and were from south-west Scotland: Thomas Brown of Lochhill in Galloway, Frederick Maxwell, a son of the earl of Herries of Terregles, and John Paterson of New Abbey, also in Galloway. See Taylor, Scots College, 26. 77 Elliott, Imperial Spain, 330. Kamen argued that 1627–8 was “the crucial turning point of Olivares’ ministry”. See Kamen, Spain, 203. 78 This became highlighted through events such as the arrest of the, apparently

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factor prompting Scottish hispanophiles to move on to Brussels instead. Evidently, the early 1630s had brought increasingly difficult times for natives and foreigners alike in Madrid, and the Scots were no exception. In the light of this, the continued presence of their circle at Philip IV’s court over the fifteen years after 1633 seems extraordinary.

innocent, duke of Aerschot, a Walloon nobleman and courtier on 15 April 1634, at a royal meeting in the Alcázar, on the charge of having started the conspiracy in Flanders two years earlier. See R.A. Stradling, Philip IV and the Government of Spain (Cambridge: 1988), 105; Kamen, Spain, 217.

CHAPTER FOUR

AFTER 1633: PRO-PALATINATE INITIATIVES

The situation for Scottish hispanophiles reached an impasse with the death of William Semple. None of the numerous rounds of plots that the colonel had initiated at the Madrid court had succeeded in attracting sufficient support: a painful conclusion to make but one that must have been increasingly obvious to him from 1625, the date from which the weakness of the anti-Stuart cause as a motivating factor for the majority of his fellow nationals with pro-Spanish sympathies can be confirmed. Most important amongst those members of the Catholic community who had rejected his agenda thereafter had been a group of moderates. These individuals might have been prepared to ally themselves with Philip IV at certain times but not if that entailed their being identified as outright opponents to the Caroline regime. Consequently, over the next four or five years, the shifting band of Scottish fanatics who struggled on in Castile had remained concerned with pursuing objectives that were completely at odds with those of most of their compatriots: the promotion of Habsburg-backed naval and military strategies involving the Highlands and Islands and the Northern Isles, and more generally, a drastic programme of recatholicisation for their home country. After 1630, the more quiescent Scottish Catholics at home might have re-established contacts with the troubled Spanish monarchy had they chosen. Charles I’s apparently pro-Habsburg sympathies at that time (as much a result of his perception as to the unreliability of France and of strengthened Stuart contacts with the Austrian Habsburg court as of any influence from Madrid) had seemed to many to herald a brighter prospect, and allowed a much more diverse body of Scottish clients and Caroline agents to emerge at the early 1630s Brussels court. But the significant role played by the nearby Douai college as a centre for Catholic students after that date aside, the Scots in Brussels had already begun to dissipate by 1633, as Castile applied what strength it still had, over the governance of the Spanish Netherlands.1

1

The college in Douai continued to play a role as a meeting point for Scottish

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With these factors in mind, the aim of this chapter becomes a relatively modest one: to trace the decline of Scottish-related intrigues in the Spanish dependencies from that year down to 1648, a period during which increased economic difficulties in the Americas, the outbreak of the Franco-Spanish war, and a wave of internal rebellions on the Iberian peninsula, would combine to impede all remaining attempts to bring about Philip IV’s intervention in Britain and Ireland. Add to this the effects brought about by the signing of the Scottish National Covenant in Edinburgh and the subsequent outbreak of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms from 1638, and it is clear that circumstances ensured that the affairs of the Scottish hispanophiles became more parochial in nature. The Madrid circle would have been better to ignore continuing talk in the corridors of power regarding grand, international alliances linking the harbours of Scotland’s coast and/or the ports of Ulster, and of new armadas disembarking from Cádiz, La Coruña, Dunkirk or Danzig. The vision of a Habsburgbacked naval invasion of their home country may have still been tantalising, but it remained nothing more than that. The commitment of Hugh Semple S.J., new rector of the Scots College in the Castilian capital, would seem to have wavered for some time.2 That said, a later section of the chapter will show how, after the rise of the covenanters, his negotiating skills came to the fore once more.3 In a curious twist to the story, Father Semple finally joined cause with a handful of other Scottish Catholics who had

Catholics on the continent. Somewhere in the region of 40 students registered there from 1635–48, many of them on their way to or from Madrid. See Forbes Leith et al. Records of the Scots Colleges, 1–15. 2 Resigned towards the pursuit of less ambitious goals than those of his uncle, his name is notable by its absence from diplomatic correspondence for some time after 1633. But Hugh Semple seems to have remained staunch in his faith, and the factors outlined above are good enough reasons in explaining his lack of prominence on the political scene. Father Christopher Lowe, Procurator General of English Jesuits in Madrid, writing in 1675, stated that although Father Semple often faced xenophobia at the hands of his Spanish patrons, he resisted the command of a General Caraffa to abandon his Jesuitism. Instead, he “stood up against ye Spanish Fathers and gott the upper hand of all”. See Taylor, Scots College, 36. 3 On 23 July 1637 (o.s.), the Wars of the Three Kingdoms began in Edinburgh, after riots broke out following the reading of the new, Anglican prayer book in the High Kirk of St. Giles. In February the following year, a broad alliance of interests within Scotland drew up a solemn oath in the form of a National Covenant. By November, they had rejected episcopacy following a heated meeting of the Scottish General Assembly. Allegiance to the covenant and acceptance of crown authority subsequently became irreconcilable.

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been developing a range of initiatives—most clearly since the mid1630s—in support of a Spanish compromise over the Palatinate. With confusion surrounding the issue, the years after 1638 remained an uncertain time for this group. The diplomatic weight of the Irish Confederacy in Kilkenny from 1642 allowed some more assertive schemes to develop throughout the Three Kingdoms towards bringing the Spanish Habsburgs to a coalition with a variety of the conflicting parties. Nonetheless, despite the shifting perspectives that led to Philip IV backing the independents in England from 1644, it shall emerge that Spain’s negotiations in Scotland remained overwhelmingly with the disunited royalist, and hence pro-Palatinate camp. The determined if faltering efforts of Randall MacDonnell, second earl of Antrim, and his kinsman Alasdair MacColla, to reduce the power of the Campbell house of Argyll, show many important connections with the activities of Scottish sympathisers of Elizabeth Stuart and her family in the hispanic world down to 1648.

1633–8: The beginnings of Scoto-Spanish diplomacy for the Palatinate With all land routes from Castile to the Spanish Netherlands blocked, Charles I raised the possibility of a naval alliance with Philip IV on 27 July 1633. Specifically, the Stuart king returned to the policy instigated by Cottington in 1631, that of him directing the passage of traffic between the Iberian peninsula and the Spanish Netherlands through his control of access to/from the ports of southern and south-east England. Specific rights would be given to the Spanish, in return for Castilian money, the profits from which would not only allow for the construction of a new Stuart fleet but might have two other important effects. A confirmation of the agreement of 1631 could act as a major boost to the communications strategy of the beleaguered Spanish Habsburgs.4 It might also open the possibility for a more open-ended approach in the Stuart king’s attempts towards ensuring a restitution of the Palatinate lands and privileges.

4

From the disappointing response to this proposal in Madrid can be traced the origins of Charles’ ‘ship money’ tax, the implications of which for the international situation will be assessed in Part Two. See also Simon Adams, ‘Spain or the Netherlands? The Dilemmas of Early Stuart Foreign Policy’, in Howard Tomlinson, ed. Before the Civil War: Essays in Early Stuart Politics and Government (London, 1983), 84.

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Charles I may have still believed that an increased maritime presence in the North Sea might be sufficient threat to enforce concessions from a range of continental powers over the latter issue. But while Frederick V’s death in late 1632 may have cleared the way for the late elector’s backers to make a stronger claim in the person of his eldest son, Charles Louis (Frederick had been banned from the Empire after 1620) the Protestant rulers of northern Europe had become either helpless, distracted or disinterested in the situation by that time. For instance, although the new head of the regency Swedish government in Germany, Axel Oxenstierna, acknowledged the legitimacy of Charles Louis’ claim to electoral status at Heilbronn in May 1633, he would only agree to restore the prince to his rightful privileges in exchange for a substantial payment and a promise that the rights of the Lutheran church would be recognised in the Upper Palatinate immediately upon his return.5 With Catholic Bavaria occupying large sections of this region such an outcome remained unrealistic. Charles I would have to develop an alternative approach, for which the house of Austria would remain near the top of his list of likely allies.6 The situation facing Spanish-sympathising Catholics in England, Wales and Ireland remained confused for some time after that. In England and Wales, a postponement of all Spain’s efforts to recruit soldiers and a lull in hispanophile intrigues from the summer of 1633 coincided with a short-term change in Charles’ policy reflecting a growing fear of Philip IV’s designs. At Whitehall, the Spanish king’s ambassador, Juan de Necolalde, expressed his concern that few remained of the ‘Spanish faction’ as early as November that year.7

5

Oxenstierna had asked for 60,000 reichsthalers. See Loomie, ‘Spanish Faction’, 18; Sharpe, Personal Rule, 509–522. 6 Despite the desires of Saxony and Brandenburg for peace, the Heilbronn League of 1633 sought to reconfirm the commitment of a number of other Protestant princes to the Swedish presence in Germany. Further west, Stuart relations with Denmark-Norway had cooled after the Treaty of Lübeck, while France had signed a treaty with Duke Maximilian I as early as 1631 that acknowledged Bavaria’s electoral status at the Reichstag. In addition, Muscovy resumed hostilities with the Poles over Smolensk in October 1632, a conflict that lasted until 1634. See Loomie, ‘Spanish Faction’, 41; Ranke, History of England, II, 18; Sharpe, Personal Rule, 509–522. See Murdoch, ‘Scotland, Denmark-Norway’, 90, 105, 167; Sharpe, Personal Rule, 93; Reeve, ‘Quiroga’s paper’, 915. 7 15 November 1633, London, Necolalde to Windebank in ClSP, I, no. 327.

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By December 1634, when Walter Aston, Baron of Forfar, left for Madrid to serve as the permanent Stuart representative, Necolalde could see more clearly that the pro-Spanish group were a weakened force. The death of the earl of Portland in early 1635 only highlighted the fact that the success or otherwise of the Spaniard’s mission would depend on the mercurial character of Charles I and the impact of his so-called ‘ship money’ fleet (a topic that will be covered in Chapter Six).8 It must have seemed an equally ominous sign to Necolalde when, away from the aulic setting, anti-Spanish voices grew more distinct again that spring.9 But some relatively flimsy evidence from London should not lead to generalisations with respect to the rest of the English kingdom, where the situation is much less clear. Moreover, the negative disposition of Londoners towards Spain unsurprisingly presents a very different picture to that of the Irish at that time. There were still several Irish regiments in the Army of Flanders in 1634 for a start. One Irish colonel, Garret Barry, published a discourse on the subject of military discipline in the Spanish Netherlands that year.10 This begs the question as to whether a strategically motivated hispanophilia could still be detected amongst a significant section of the Scottish population. Initially, the evidence for the emergence of a reordered pro-Spanish network appears persuasive. As has been shown, Philip IV’s potential to influence the emperor towards a Palatinate restitution had been recognised by the earl of Nithsdale as early as 1623.11 Many other Scots seem to have come to the same conclusion eleven years on, as dissatisfaction began to spread regard-

8 The first demand appeared in October 1634. In May 1635, a second writ was issued, while in October that year, the tax was extended to inland counties of England. Clearly, Charles I had recognised the threat and diplomatic weight which a strong naval fleet in the North Sea could provide against all the major warring naval powers. See Gardiner, History of England, 8, 82–4. 9 When John Coke visited the three ambassadors from Catholic Europe then in the capital in April 1635 he expressed his deep unease, having heard reports that “English, Scottish and Irish priests and pensioners” had been performing Englishlanguage masses in their chapels. Coke blamed Necolalde personally for this and made efforts to try and suppress the practice. See Loomie, ‘London’s Spanish Chapel’, 406. 10 Five Irish regiments fought in Spanish service between 1632 and 1646. Two of these were made up of ‘Old Irish’ recruits (Tyrconnel, Tyrone). The others were led by Thomas Preston, Patrick Fitzgerald and John Murphy. See Thomas Bartlett and Keith Jeffrey, A Military History of Ireland (Cambridge: 1996), 295. 11 See Chapter Two above.

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ing the apathy of the major continental powers with respect to the situation. Necolalde later recalled offering £250 to the earl of Stirling in 1634 “who at first had been willing to grant a levy” for Spanish service. Not only that, but a Henry Oxenstierna blamed his failure to obtain Scottish and English levies that March, on unnamed “Spanish partisans”.12 Scottish recruits continued to serve in small numbers in the Spanish Netherlands too. George Kerr led a company of Scots infantry there that spring. Kerr, who had spent 16 years “in this position” (presumably as a captain) received licence to make a new levy in September.13 Three months later, Necolalde described Alexander Gordon, a relative of the earl of Sutherland, as “a man of quality and of business”. The Spaniard believed that Gordon would be able to levy fifteen companies of Scottish infantry the following summer with the help of “his father who is rich”.14 Of course, it would be wrong to assume that the selection of examples cited above typified Scottish Catholic opinion in 1634, either north of the Tweed or in exile. There is also no concrete evidence to put any of the developments mentioned down to the emergence of a self-consciously Spanish-friendly, pro-Palatinate party.15 Indeed, perhaps recognising the limited popularity of a francophobic stance amongst their Catholic compatriots, the views of the Scottish exiles

12 It has proved impossible to confirm the relationship of Henry Oxenstierna to the famous Swedish governor and commander of that surname. A new series of talks between the earl of Portland, Cottington, Windebank and Necolalde in April 1634, raised the possibility of a Stuart-Habsburg alliance once more. See Loomie, ‘Spanish Faction’, 40–1; Ranke, History of England, II, 18; Sharpe, Personal Rule, 509–522. 13 AGRB, T100/33, ff. 64, 69, 79.—6 March 1634. Kerr led a company who were serving in Tyrone’s regiment. See also AGRB, T100/33, f. 166—21 Sep 1634. This refers to the ventajas ordinarias for Kerr’s newly levied company. 14 AGRB, T100/33, f. 212–1 Dec 1634, London, Juan Necolalde to the CardinalInfante. Necolalde stated that, despite Spanish levies having been refused by Charles I in the summer of 1634, some Scotsmen had spoken to him on behalf of Alexander Gordon, recommending the recruitment of a tercio north of the border. Gordon had subsequently written to the Spanish ambassador, as had another ‘cavallero’ with a similar proposition. See also AGRB, T100/33, f. 217 in which it is stated: ‘Lo que pide el Sr. Alexandro Gordon, Domino(?) el Conde de Suterland para la leva de un tercio de Escoceses para el servicio de Su Magesdad en Flandes’. 15 See AGRB, T100/33, f. 90—26 April 1634. This is a licence to Captain Alexander Blair from Captain William Hamilton’s company, to return to Scotland; Ibid., f. 106, refers to a Maurice MacDonnell/MacDonald. Moreover, on 6 May 1634, Alexander Seton requested payment of 3,062 florins for services given to the Infanta Isabella in 1632. See AGRB, T315, Registre 302, f. 107.

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in Madrid remain elusive at this point. Hugh Semple and his circle actually shied away from any deeper political or military involvement for a time, especially following the outbreak of the FrancoSpanish war. To all appearances, Father Semple had chosen a life of relative obscurity rather than seeking his fortune on the field of battle: little would seem to be left from the period up to 1638 to remind future historians of the man who had tried to drum-up the support of all “richt honourable” Scottish Catholics.16 Still, with Olivares keen to court intellectuals, new opportunities appeared for this former incendiary to further a much more reliable vocation as a scholar.17 Semple wrote a number of mathematical and historical works in the Spanish language around that time.18 On top of that, he received promotion to a professorial post in mathematics at the Jesuit college in Madrid, the Colegio Imperial de San Isidro.19 For a number of reasons, Father Semple’s new employment and change of residence became a sore point for the financially stricken community at the Scots College in the capital. First, his accommodation fees at the Colegio Imperial (and presumably those of a Father John Seton S.J. who took his lodgings there too) had to be provided for in entirety from the college’s funds, an income which, at that 16 The failure of the Spanish marriage in 1623 had certainly derailed some of his plans. However, his status at the Spanish court, perhaps merely as a token member of the specifically Castilian, ‘moral’ nobility (nobleza de costumbres) had obviously begun to rise from 1623, apparently due to his intellectual abilities alone. In a paper of that year, he had been commended for his knowledge “con eminencia” of Hebrew, Greek and Latin. Semple also had a command of Spanish, Italian, French, English and Scots. Moreover, the paper also stated that he had written a great deal on “Mathematico, Geometria, Sphera, Astronomia, Judicaria, Perspectiva, Fortificacion y Machina”. See AGS Est. 2516, f. 52, 1623?. See also Durkan, ‘Three Manuscripts’, p. 51. For Philip IV’s wish to encourage more writers to court, see Elliott, Spain and its world, 159; Thompson, ‘Nobility in Spain’, 179. 17 Olivares was, according to J.H. Elliot, “quick to realise that the talented authors, playwrights and artists who clustered around the fringes of the court could do much to present the world with a favourable image of the King and vindicate the record of his ministers. Living in hope and expectation of reward, they were all too ready to oblige”. See Elliott, Count Duke, 176. 18 Hugh Semple S.J. completed his first major mathematical work in time for publication in 1635. See Hugh Semple S.J., De Mathematicis Disciplinis Libri Duodecim ad Philippum IV. Hispaniarum et Indiarum Recem Catholicum (Antwerp: 1635). His career at this time seems to fit with Olivares’ simultaneous plans to promote intellectual and physical training programmes for the nobility. See Elliott, Spain and its world, 157. See also Maria Candelaria Mestre, ‘Fundación y Desarrollo del Colegio Escocés en España’, Ph.D. Thesis, University of Madrid (1960), 53–4; Durkan, ‘Three Manuscripts’, 51 and Hugh Semple’s DNB entry. 19 Taylor, Scots College, 23.

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time, consisted of the meagre rental payments from tenants at the Calle Jacometrezo house. In Semple’s defence, the last of the royal servants that his late uncle and he had been obliged to accommodate as asiento guests at that property since the 1610s had left, creating more space for students to be housed: Father Semple must have assumed that a new influx of Scottish youths would arrive as a result and, in so doing, increase the resources of the community.20 But as at Douai, there remained a shortage of new recruits to the Madrid college from 1635, as much due to the impact of the Franco-Spanish war on communications as anything else.21 Semple must have also been aware that the payment of his board was not the only extraneous drain on the college’s finances. According to the terms of the late William’s will, the college had to pay his widow Doña Maria an annual allowance from their funds. The salary of the administrator had also to be covered from this last sum, as did yearly payments to one of the deceased colonel’s illegitimate sons, Francis, then living in the Spanish Netherlands.22 Undoubtedly then, by the tactlessness of his actions, Father Semple gave the appearance of being selfish: a perception that did not help an already deteriorating situation. Many contemporaries began to criticise his rectorship, it being alleged, for instance, that he only offered mass in the Scots Chapel on feast days. If the accusation is correct, it only confirms what appears to have been a dire state of affairs for an institution that had held such enormous potential for the Catholic population of Scotland.23 In their continuing wish to bring about the recatholicisation of their home country above anything else, Hugh Semple and the Madrid-based Scots had been of little use to Charles I towards fulfilling his main foreign policy goal. They surely had little concern for the international reputation of the house of Stuart and therefore, can have found little scope for optimism in the British king’s diplomatic strategy, since he remained focused on testing out the dedication to the Palatinate cause of several powers at least as uncommitted, if not more so, than Spain.24

20

Ibid. Forbes Leith et al. Records of the Scots Colleges, 1–15. 22 See the details of Semple’s will given in Chapter Three above. These payments were still being made in 1640. See Taylor, Scots College, 29. 23 Taylor, Scots College, 29. 24 It is not clear as to whether aspiring politicians in Rome had built on the 21

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It was in 1636 that Charles Louis’ fate finally began to emerge as a major factor in producing a new wave of Scottish hispanophile activities.25 The year began with Necolalde reporting some details to Philip IV’s younger brother Ferdinand, the Cardinal-Infante and governor of the Spanish Netherlands, regarding a “proposition of Colonel Bruce for reducing the rebels to obedience”. Whether this was Henry Bruce, the veteran of Imperial service (and possibly the individual responsible for the pro-Spanish activities in Montrose of 1622) or what his exact intentions were in intervening at that moment are unclear.26 But a Captain Douglas was reported to be levying a tercio for Spanish service that March too.27 Scots also became linked to a re-emerging ‘Spanish faction’ at Whitehall around that time. Although this group had no obvious leader by then, Aston in Madrid urged Charles I towards pressurising the king of Spain, with some promising results.28 Indeed, Olivares made efforts to restore Cottington’s secret treaty of 1631, or at least enforce Charles I’s promises of three years earlier, the possibility being considered that the Spanish might be able to persuade the emperor to arrange a restitution of the Lower Palatinate to Charles Louis in exchange for two things: the intimidation of Dutch ships by the Stuart navy in the English Channel and confirmation of the rights of Iberian merchants to unload at Plymouth, transport their “goods” overland and make the short crossing from England’s south-east coast to Flanders.29 More significant work completed since 1633 by Robert Philip and Sir Robert Douglas, two Scots employed by Charles I with the task of building up closer links with Urban VIII’s court. See Gordon Albion, Charles I and the Court of Rome (London: 1935), 117. The large numbers of Scottish Catholics in Poland-Lithuania, had international connections that may be worthy of further investigation as well. Several Scots continued to attend the Jesuit seminary at Braunsberg. See Fischer, Scots in Germany, 292–4. Nonetheless, the surviving letters of Scottish recusants sent from the commonwealth, unlike those of their compatriots in Rome, do not seem to refer to any efforts to promote a Palatine settlement. See Forbes Leith, ed. Memoirs of Scottish Catholics; Narratives of Scottish Catholics; Hay, ed. Blairs Papers; Peter F. Anson, Underground Catholicism In Scotland (Montrose: 1970). 25 A Don Juan Fernandez de Bobadilla had taken charge at the college in Madrid following the colonel’s death. Besides him, it is clear that Father John Seton was also assisting Hugh Semple in the administration. 26 4 January 1636, London?, Juan Necolalde to the Cardinal-Infante, ‘sobre la propuesta del Coronel Brus para reduzir a los rebeldes a la obediencia’, in AGRB T100/366, f. 4. For more on a Colonel Bruce in Imperial service, see Chapter One above and Chapter Five below. 27 AGRB T100/366, f. 133. 28 Hibbard, Charles I, 25. 29 Loomie, ‘Spanish Faction,’ 47.

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in this regard are the contents of a Spanish state paper of 6 July 1636, which reported that a man named Walter Stuart had held discussions “about various matters” with the count of Oñate (whom Philip IV had recently appointed as ambassador extraordinary to Charles I) at the north-western port of La Coruña.30 Another paper of five days later revealed that Stuart was the captain of an ‘English’ galleon there, The Victory. According to one source, he had set sail for Dover that same month, carrying Oñate along with 500 chests of silver to the value of £250,000.31 If this is the case, Stuart must have moved on quickly to the Spanish Netherlands, since a report from November 1636 referred to his recent discussions with the marquis of Mirabel, a member of the Consejo de Estado “about a treaty for the Palatinate”. Stuart certainly went to London following that.32 On 5 December, Don Juan de Tassis, the ambassador of the Spanish Netherlands at Whitehall, confirmed that he had arrived there and was requesting an audience with the exiled Marie de Medici so that he could provide her with news about an agreement that had been reached with “the Cardinal”.33 Besides Walter Stuart, an individual referred to as the “Conde de Puxam” or “Buxam” appears in two dispatches of Oñate’s from London addressed to the Cardinal-Infante during the winter of 1636–7.34 The man concerned was the Scottish earl of Buchan.35 In 30 He is referred to as “Don Gualtero Stuardo” and was said to be carrying an order on behalf of Charles I. See AGS, Est. 2521, (n.f.) and Appendix 1 below. 31 AGS Est. 2521, (n.f.). 32 20 November 1636, Chelsea, Don Juan de Tassis to the Cardinal-Infante. Tassis reported that Stuart had spoken to Mirabel “sobre al tratado del Palatinato” but had not arrived in London yet. See AGRB T100/268, f. 84. 33 5 December 1636, Chelsea, Don Juan de Tassis to the Cardinal-Infante. In this letter he reported Stuart’s arrival in London, where he had asked to see Marie de Medici. See AGRB T100/380, f. 100. Besides these promising developments, one anti-Habsburg army clearly could not take the loyalty of some of its British and Irish forces for granted that winter. A Dutch source reported on 19 January 1637 that the passports of all those men from Charles I’s kingdoms then serving in the United Provinces would henceforth have to be signed by their colonels, so as to ensure that they were prevented from “taking service elsewhere”. See 19 January 1637, ?, C.V. Bevera to the States General, in Ferguson, ed. Scots Brigade, II, 426, 449. 34 28 December 1636/10 January 1637, Chelsea, the count of Oñate to the Cardinal-Infante, AGRB T100/380, ff. 183–4. Oñate seemed impressed to learn that Buchan was a cousin of the duke of Lennox. See Appendix 1 below. 35 30 March 1623, Theobalds, Thomas Erskine, earl of Kellie, to the earl of Mar and 22 April 1623, Windsor, the Same to the Same, in Rev. Henry Paton, ed. Report on the Manuscripts of the Earl of Mar and Kellie, preserved at Alloa House, Clackmannanshire,

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the spring of 1637, Buchan became deeply involved in pro-Palatinate plotting with the Spanish Habsburgs. First, in April, he informed Urban VIII’s agent in London and fellow Scotsman, George Con, that Philip IV had offered Charles I temporary possession of Dunkirk, in return for assistance with a proposed naval assault on the Dutch coastal towns to the north.36 Then, on 22 May, the Cardinal-Infante received two further reports of his, stating more clearly his objectives. On top of that, Oñate informed him that he was due to meet up with the earl in London soon, to speak about “the matter of the levies for the Swedes”.37 Buchan must have convinced the Spaniard of his strong disapproval of this, since Don Juan de Tassis, another Spanish agent in London, gave a briefing to the Cardinal-Infante, stating that the Scot was actually coming across the Channel to see him on behalf of Charles I, with an aim to discussing the papers concerning their “secret treaty”. The details of the Oñate-TassisBuchan plan remain obscure the, but can presumably be linked with the agenda of Walter Stuart. In any case, Buchan informed Tassis soon after of his belief that the response from Charles I to their proposals had been positive, despite the fact that the Stuart king had allowed the Swedes to make levies in the meantime.38

2 Vols. (London: 1930), I, 159, 162. Notwithstanding the hispanicised spellings of his name, there is some further confusion as to his identity. Caroline Hibbard is one scholar who has frequently referred to the earl in her work. According to her, this ‘John Erskine’ was a “free lance diplomat” who had visited Spain in 1623 and was a member of Charles I’s bedchamber in 1637. According to Hibbard, he spent most of his life in the 1630s in London and Paris, dying in 1640. See Hibbard, Charles I, 76–7. Other reliable sources, however, refer to the earl of Buchan of the time as James Erskine, a second son of the earl of Mar, and a former member of James VI and I’s privy chamber. Keith Brown has written the following: “Few aristocratic families were as intimately identified with King James as the Erskines”. Many of them, including at least two brothers had positions at court in the Caroline period. See Keith M. Brown, ‘Courtiers and Cavaliers: Service, Anglicisation and Loyalty among the Royalist Nobility’, in J. Morrill, ed. The Scottish National Covenant in its British Context (Edinburgh: 1990), 173–4. 36 Con led many influential members of the court of Charles I further down the path towards a Habsburg alliance at that time. Indeed, besides his involvement in these negotiations, he tried to befriend both Charles Louis and Rupert in London, and moreover, to convert both of them to Catholicism in the hope of gaining support from the Catholic powers for a Palatinate restitution. To Elizabeth of Bohemia’s horror, Prince Rupert proved quite enthusiastic, unlike his brother. Con had no success in his attempts to persuade Charles Louis to spend some time in Italy or at the Imperial court. See Hibbard, Charles I, 77. 37 22 May 1637, Chelsea, Oñate to Cardinal-Infante in AGS Est. 2521, (n.f.). 38 Tassis wrote on the theme ‘del tratado secreto’. See AGRB T100/381, ff. 145, 149, 184. Nevertheless, the Stuart king’s continuing lack of commitment to either

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Both Stuart and Buchan’s pro-Palatinate treaties remained unformulated, although additional reports circulated relating to the Scots in the Spanish dependencies during the autumn of that year. A letter survives from Charles I, dated 21 October, concerning the earl of Crawford’s transfer to the Spanish army.39 By 26 January 1638, this “drunken young mercenary” had become a colonel of a vast tercio, apparently consisting of 3,000 men.40 On the eve of the Scottish revolution, a group of Scots were still serving Philip IV: on a pretext of loyalty to the house of Stuart that would soon prove expedient.

1638–40: Allies against the covenanters? New pro-Palatinate intrigues in the Spanish dependencies Sir Arthur Hopton took over from Aston as Charles I’s official representative in the Castilian capital in March 1638: an embassy that proved to be as unsuccessful as that of his predecessor, domestic concerns having distracted both the Spanish Habsburgs and the Stuarts ever more from a resolution to the Palatinate issue.41 The commencement of hostilities in Scotland, Catalonia, Portugal, and Ireland over the next three years, proved that the fragile grip of both dynasties on their respective territories had begun to slip away. Nevertheless, during the crucial months in Scottish history that followed, the activities of exiled recusants in Madrid (and tactical hispanophiles elsewhere) merit more attention than they have received to this date.42 The signing of the National Covenant in February

side was evident and Buchan seems to have withdrawn from the political arena for a time. The last known word of his intrigues during 1637 dates from 8 June, when Oñate reported the news of some earlier negotiations, and of the concessions made to the Swedes. 8 June 1637, Chelsea, Oñate to Estado about “lo que le paso con el Conde Buchan sobre haver concedido en Inglaterra a los suecos leva para 40 hombres”, in AGS Est. 2521, (n.f.). 39 21 October 1637, Hampton Court, Charles I to Philip IV, in AGS Est. 2521, (n.f.). See also his DNB entry. 40 ‘Coronel D. Luis Lindsay, cavallero escoces’ was mentioned as having written “el memorial incluso” although this has been misplaced. See AGS Est. 2521, (n.f.); Brown, ‘Courtiers and Cavaliers’, 177. For his arrival from Polish service, where he had been since 1632, see Chapter Six (footnote 74) above. 41 An increasingly pro-French party emerged in Catalonia, while discontent brewed in Portugal in the wake of the 1637 anti-tax riots in Évora and elsewhere. See Sánchez-Marcos, ‘Struggle for Freedom’, 209–10. 42 Some of the important material from Rome is assessed in Albion, Charles I, 117ff.

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1638 had an impact on Scottish-Spanish relations within months, when the marquis of Hamilton warned the Presbyterian oligarchy of the possibility of Spanish forces in Flanders being employed against them.43 Although the marquis’ commitment to such a policy would seem unlikely, it was no idle threat. Increased Spanish interest in Scotland had been detectable in recent years in the wake of the submissions of Stuart and Buchan. More evidence of this came in November 1638, when the Cardinal-Infante wrote to Charles I on the subject of a work which had appeared denouncing Walter Stuart’s transport of money from La Coruña two years previously.44 Whether Stuart had been diverting Spanish silver into the wrong hands or not, the topic had obviously become pertinent and was mentioned again, this time by the new Spanish ambassador to London, Alonso de Cárdenas, in a letter to the Cardinal-Infante.45 Moreover, in January 1639, a Colonel Gage reported that the governor of the Spanish Netherlands might be able to arrange a swap: supplying Charles I with a force of veterans for his Scottish campaign in return for permission to make a substantial levy from his kingdoms.46 Plainly then, the Cardinal-Infante and Cárdenas had been made familiar with Stuart and Buchan’s pro-Palatinate machinations and of the implications of their moves for a possible alliance linking the royalists in the Three Kingdoms and the Spanish monarchy. Hence, they had begun to toy once again with the potential benefits of providing assistance to Charles I. So the pressure for the Stuart monarch to move closer to the Habsburgs continued after 1638, even if the Castilian court seems to have underestimated the scale of the problems facing him in his most northerly kingdom. While Philip IV expected military assistance in his own backyard, he also insisted that the English ignore Scotland and demonstrate their willingness to join up with the Spanish-Imperial force for a combined invasion of France.47 43 The marquis of Huntly boycotted the Glasgow Assembly that year, and had obtained 28,000 signatures for the ‘King’s Covenant’ by late September, despite the fact that many Catholics were unwilling to sign it. See Keith M. Brown, Kingdom or Province? Scotland and the Regal Union, 1603–1715 (Basingstoke: 1992), 115. 44 AGRB T100/295, f. 79. 45 AGRB T100/368, f. 190. For Cárdenas, see Albert J. Loomie, ‘Alonso de Cárdenas and the Long Parliament, 1640–8’ in EHR, vol. 97, no. 383 (1982), 289–307. 46 Hibbard, Charles I, 126; Gardiner, History of England, 8, 386. 47 Castilian resentment at the amount of money going to support their cousins

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Charles Louis’ decision to join the earl of Craven that year, in assisting the French assault on Westphalia, must have quickly turned the Spanish away from a resolution of the Palatinate issue.48 But the Scots in Madrid seem to have only gradually realised the urgency of the situation facing them, since it was late 1638 before any new schemes began to emerge from there. Reflecting the uneasy but unavoidable alliance of Catholic sympathisers at home behind the Stuart monarchy, Hugh Semple finally joined cause with the pioneers of the pro-Palatinate/hispanophile approach. In offering his backing for their desperate attempt to find common ground with Charles I, Semple’s motivation was simply to ensure that measures be taken to prevent the undermining of their common religion. On 17 November, Hopton wrote from Madrid to the secretary of state, Sir Francis Windebank, stating that Father Semple was being employed in “the business of the Palatinate”.49 Three days later, Hopton mentioned that he had seen Semple, along with Olivares.50 Buchan made connections with Father Semple and his colleagues soon after that. Having left London in February 1638 along with his brother Alexander, the earl joined them in the Castilian capital later that year.51 Once there he must have informed Semple of the latest developments regarding the enforcement of the National Covenant in their home country (and presumably of Charles Louis’ emerging Protestant, francophile sympathies). The two of them eventually began to work in tandem and—with the approval of Charles I—instigated a new round of negotiations. For example, an Estado paper dated 3 December 1638, enclosed a copy of a letter of Windebank’s to Buchan. In this message, he reported his anxiousness to hear news from the earl. Windebank also stated that Charles I was preparing to respond to some unspecified propositions made by Cárdenas on the subject of the situation in Scotland.52 The former ambassador,

in central Europe also grew. Their lack of faith in obtaining significant Imperial support was apparent, for which Trautmannsdorf, the emperor’s ambassador in Madrid, was made a scapegoat. See Sharpe, Personal Rule, 544. 48 In fact, Charles Louis had shown signs of a desire to serve on the anti-Habsburg side from the winter of 1636–7 when Charles I had provided him with some money to make levies. See Hibbard, Charles I, 75. 49 17 November 1638, Madrid, Hopton to Windebank in ClSP, I, no. 1146. 50 20 November 1638, Madrid, Hopton to Windebank in ClSP, I, no. 1148. 51 Alexander Erskine served in the French army. See Hibbard, Charles I, 76–7. 52 AGS Est. 2521, (n.f.).

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Necolalde, mentioned the Semple-Buchan discussions too, in a letter dated early the next month.53 During the first days of 1639, another Spanish state paper appeared on the subject of Buchan, this time referring to his pro-Palatinate diplomacy in the kind of terms more usually associated with James VI and I. The Spanish appear to have construed the earl’s mission as nothing less than an attempt to bring about “a universal peace” in Christendom.54 Without doubt, the means by which he hoped to fulfil these objectives conflicted with those of the fiercely Protestant royalists at Whitehall. Yet on 23 January, Buchan replied to Windebank from the Castilian capital, expressing optimism about a recent meeting he had held with Olivares.55 Two days later, the Spanish authorities forwarded the details of a dispatch that the earl had delivered to them, alleging also that he had shown them copies of Windebank’s originals.56 Again, these developments should not be written off as simple paper shuffling and court gossip. Buchan claimed to have reached the verge of a major breakthrough over the Palatinate. On 26 January, Hopton wrote to assure Windebank that the earl would be “getting 4,000 ducats out of this King [Philip IV] through Father Semple”.57 Thus, it must have been infuriating when the negotiations stalled once again on the point of a major step forward regarding the two main issues. But, that winter, a Spanish armada had yet to descend on Scotland and the Palatine problem remained unresolved. Buchan and Semple continued to ensure that Philip IV be made aware of the threat to Scottish Catholicism. Presumably as a result of this pressure to intervene on the side of the royalists, the Spanish king expressed his approval of the Scots College in Madrid on 17 January 1639. He also made reference to the steadfastness of Catholics in Scotland, specifically “the many gallant services rendered to Spain and to religion by William Semple and so many of his country men”.58 Philip IV must have been aware that his most illustrious Scottish adviser had been dead for six years: the remark certainly

53

AGS Est. 2521, (n.f.). This was Oñate’s description. See AGS Est. 2521, (n.f.). 55 23 January 1639, Madrid, the earl of Buchan to Windebank, PRO SP94/41/ f. 37. 56 AGS Est. 2521, (n.f.). 57 26 January 1639, Madrid, Hopton to Windebank in ClSP, 1, no. 1177. 58 Taylor, Scots College, 31. 54

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gave the impression of having been token in nature and offered little of substance. Indeed, the signs coming from the Spanish became perceptibly less promising after Buchan and Semple fell out with one of their most important correspondents that March: a breakdown with Windebank is clear from a letter of the latter’s to Hopton, in which he accused Buchan of having forged his credentials to treat with Spain.59 Not long after, Windebank informed the ambassador that Charles I had “no confidence” in Semple either, even if—with land routes to the southern Netherlands still blocked and the Dutch naval presence increasingly threatening—Philip IV had become more dependent on Stuart maritime assistance in the North Sea than ever before.60 The sheer desperation of the Spanish Habsburgs led to new attempts to bring about Philip IV’s support for a maritime assault on the covenanters. In February 1639, the Stuart king requested the assistance of a body of 6,000 men from the Army of Flanders for use in Scotland, a suggestion that Olivares and the Cardinal-Infante seem to have been quite open to, on the basis that Whitehall grant the assistance of the ‘ship money’ fleet in return for any forthcoming engagements against the United Provinces. If the Spanish were to arrive via Ulster and/or the Hebrides, as was being proposed, Clan Donald support would have to be confirmed as soon as possible.61 Any Irish collaboration with this agenda seems curiously absent in the sources for the first months of 1639.62 Although the position of those ‘Old English’ soldiers then serving the Spanish is unclear, the deteriorating situation in Scotland actually encouraged some

59

15 March 1639, London (?), Windebank to Hopton, in ClSP, 1, no. 1206. 19 April 1639, Madrid, Hopton to Windebank, in ClSP, 1, no. 1225. 61 This reflected the fact that Charles I had become prepared to reward backers for the anti-covenanting effort in whatever way he could. That same month, the Cardinal-Infante stated that he was willing to provide troops for the Stuart cause. See Sharpe, Personal Rule, 829; Simon Adams, ‘Spain or the Netherlands’, 86. 62 This is despite a depressing scenario for all potential royalists in Scotland. The man they might have assumed would lead them, the marquis of Huntly, signed a version of the National Covenant by early April and was then taken to Edinburgh by Montrose where he backed down when asked to sign a more detailed version. Not only that, but Huntly’s second son, the earl of Aboyne, left Aberdeen by sea for Newcastle in April, leaving Thomas Urquhart of Cromarty, Ogilvie, John Gordon of Haddo and George Gordon of Gight to lead the cause. While royalists in the north east “argued and wavered”, however, George Con continued to collect money from Catholics elsewhere. See Edward J. Cowan, Montrose: For Covenant and King (London: 1977), 77. 60

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dissatisfied ‘Old Irish’ earls to exploit Charles’ preoccupation with his northerly kingdom. Madrid and Brussels became the focus of plots against the Caroline administration that year, the earl of Tyrone suggesting in May that the Spanish send a force of 5,000 men to liberate Ireland from Charles’ rule.63 But from the early summer, the evidence points to a new and noteworthy feature of the period down to September 1640: a temporary renewal of the Irish element in those Clan Donald connections with the Olivares regime that had caused such fear in the 1620s when employed as a threat against the Stuart monarchy. May 1639 was the month that the veteran of the 1636 Scottish-Spanish plots, Sir Henry ‘Crowner’ Bruce, returned to command in Flanders. Bruce arrived there having recently made his way back from a mission to Ulster, where the Stuart king had sent him along with his nephew, a Captain John Reade. The reason for the Ulster visit had been to make arrangements for the formation of the proposed assault on Scotland with the earl of Antrim.64 While the outcome of Bruce’s mission had proven inconclusive, the ending of the first Bishops’ War by means of the ‘pacification’ of Berwick of 20 June led to Olivares proposing a new pact of mutual assistance with Charles I that summer.65 Of course, this alliance did not materialise over the remainder of 1639–1640. Although Hugh Semple believed until September of the latter year that he would be sent to London to negotiate over the Palatinate, his letters that month are the last record from Spanish sources of any Scottish intrigues relating to Charles Louis or any other of the children of the ‘winter king’.66 Scotland and Ireland aside, the Spanish dependencies continued for a time to be the location for discussions with specifically “AngloHabsburg overtones” too.67 During 1639, the Spanish had called for the assistance of a fleet to escort 10,000 of their troops, then waiting at the port of La Coruña, on their voyage to Flanders. Charles

63

Ohlmeyer, Civil War, 84. For Bruce in 1639, see Ohlmeyer, Civil War, 84; Hibbard, Charles I, 117 and Chapter Seven below. Meanwhile, another Scottish-Irish connection, the Irish Franciscan mission to the Hebrides, had begun to lose momentum due to a shortage of funds. See Anson, Undergound Catholicism, 42. 65 Aboyne had eventually returned from Newcastle to lead the royalist force, but it had been routed at Brig o’ Dee, by Aberdeen, on 19 June. 66 4 September 1640, (s.l.), Windebank to Hopton, in ClSP, I, no. 1408. 67 Hibbard, Charles I, 137. 64

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I’s attitude to this can be detected in his decision not to intervene so as to prevent an English merchant in Cádiz, Benjamin Wright helping in the transportation of 1,500 of the soldiers.68 That summer, the Stuart king continued to give his indirect backing to an arrangement that might provide him with a sum of £150,000 as payment, while, by June, the Spanish had begun minting coins in England, there being clear evidence that Castilian money was delivered over the coming weeks and months, along with a trickle of new recruits, as far as the Flemish coast. Hence, having left Cádiz on 18 May, the Spanish did not divert en masse for the Western Isles and Ulster as Bruce must have hoped, but the tacit assistance of Charles I in recent months had obviously given the Spanish hope of largerscale English assistance in the run-up to what looked likely to be an approaching naval showdown with the Dutch. To their utter dismay, however, not only did the Stuart king stand aside as his nephew Charles Louis prepared to take charge of an anti-Habsburg army following the death of duke Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar, but he did nothing to stop Admiral Tromp defeating the Spanish at the Downs in October, an encounter that is generally considered to have been a notable entry in a catalogue of disasters for Philip IV and his navy.69

1640–8: Spanish connections with the Scottish campaigns of Montrose and Clan Donald Any lingering hopes of Habsburg assistance for the Scottish Catholic cause were dashed not only by the failure of Charles I to intervene decisively at the Downs but also by the commencement of two rebellions on the Iberian peninsula: the first in May 1640 in Catalonia, fomented by the French; the second in Portugal, in December the same year, signalling the beginnings of a process that would lead eventually to the restoration of the native Braganza dynasty on the throne.70

68 Wright had apparently been transporting Spanish money since 1630 and did so till 1644. See Paul M. Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery (London: 1976), 42. 69 Sharpe, Personal Rule, 832; Parker, Thirty Years’ War, 153. 70 Catalonia had made very little contribution to the Spanish army in the wake of Olivares’ attempted ‘Union of Arms’ after 1625. The enforced billeting of Castilian

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Although the loss of faith in Charles I combined with the outbreak of these two rebellions confirmed the irrelevancy of the proPalatinate Scottish group in Madrid, again this did not lead to the end of all political connections between Spain and Scotland. Granted, little traffic, human or otherwise, flowed in either direction during the 1640–2 period. There existed only the likes of the earl of Crawford who, almost uniquely amongst the Scots in the hispanic world, made his way back home to side with the royalists for a time: a handful of Scottish Catholics simultaneously fled the covenanted state for the Spanish dependencies too. Meanwhile, the evidence in the Habsburg world is of a declining group of men losing faith in their ability to change the situation at home.71 Hence, the apparent confidence of the Spanish authorities in Madrid and Brussels with respect to their plans to levy Scottish and Irish troops after that date seems breathtaking, any enthusiasm that Philip IV may have had for an intervention on the side of the Stuarts having surely waned. Yet in June 1640, the Cardinal-Infante’s agent in London, Salvetti, reported that ‘Crowner’ Bruce was due to be sent to Ireland once more, this time to mediate in an attempt to recruit 10,000 infantry for Spanish service.72 Perhaps Salvetti intended to send such a vast number of men directly to Catalonia. Whatever the case, it seems a wildly over-optimistic offer. Then, in April the following year, the Cardinal-Infante spread the news that the seventh earl of Herries, had been given permission to levy and transport a new body of soldiers from Scotland to the Low Countries: this time a comparatively modest target of 2,000

troops had been only one of many violations of the principality’s constitution that had created tensions. Further to this, more Spanish soldiers had been placed there in a display of gross insensitivity during 1639. Unsurprisingly, the Catalans eventually declared their allegiance to Louis XIII. See Sánchez-Marcos, ‘Struggle for Freedom’, 210. 71 By October 1641, Crawford had become deeply implicated in ‘The Incident’, a failed initiative to capture the eighth earl of Argyll and the marquis of Hamilton and deliver them to Charles I. The background to this event is informative. Crawford, who sympathised with Montrose, decided to challenge Hamilton to a duel having allegedly offered to murder not only him, but Argyll and Lanark too. Later, he joined the king’s army in England and fought at the battles of Edgehill and Marston Moor. Without doubt, Crawford is one of only a few Scots in the hispanic world who are known to have returned to Scotland to fight in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. See Brown, ‘Courtiers and Cavaliers’, 190. 72 Cárdenas, for one, had become increasingly cool towards Charles I since the Downs disaster, when the expected naval support had failed to materialise. See Hibbard, Charles I, 156.

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men from amongst the disaffected Catholic population.73 As late as 1642, an anonymous source mentioned the possibility of a substantial number of soldiers being raised in Scotland for service in one or other of Philip IV’s internal wars.74 Although it was obviously a depressing outcome for Semple and his small body of supporters, the Spanish had actually become sidelined from the course of events elsewhere in Europe since 1640 and, by the end of 1642, a messy chapter in Stuart-Spanish Habsburg diplomatic relations had come to a desultory end.75 Recognising that the barriers in the way of an alliance in support of the two centralised monarchies had become insurmountable, Father Semple and the remainder of those Scots in Madrid reverted to a more realistic agenda, the ensuring of the very survival of Scottish Catholicism. Not only that, but they focused on this objective now (as had William Semple in earlier times) irrespective of whether it distracted them from the fate of Charles I and/or his eldest nephew.76 The Stuart

73

5 April 1641, Brussels, the Cardinal-Infante to Philip IV, in Lonchay et al., eds. Correspondance, III, no. 1265. The Cardinal-Infante reported that Cárdenas had concluded an agreement in London with the earl of Herries, “a Scottish gentleman authorised by Charles I to go to Spain with 2,000 Scottish soldiers”. He also stressed his willingness to provide finances to support this project. See also 28 April 1641, Brussels, Cardinal-Infante to Philip IV, in Jennings, ed. Wild Geese, no. 1751 and 2 June 1641, Brussels, Cardinal-Infante to Philip IV, in Lonchay et al., eds. Correspondance, III, no. 1303. In the latter document, he stated that he had received “the instructions that are given relative to the levy being made in England by the earl of Herries”. 74 In March 1642, an anonymous Catholic prelate wrote the following: “If any Scotchman desire to raise soldiers to serve the King of Spain, exhort them to do it, and advertise the Spanish ambassador in London”. He also recommended “the Ambassador [Cárdenas] to communicate with Father Heugh Sempil . . . to continue his [Semple’s] good offices for the conservation and augmentation of the Roman Catholic religion in Scotland”. See CSPD, 1641–3, 305. 75 There seems to have been little interest in Madrid from Scotland in August 1640 when the marquis of Montrose and seventeen other nobles signed the ‘Cumbernauld Band’, thereby providing the first evidence of a conservative element within the covenanting movement. Simultaneously, Alexander Leslie prepared to cross the Tweed, at the head of a Scottish covenanting army. The Second Bishops’ War began with the rapid advance of the covenanters to Newburn and their occupation of Newcastle. In lowland Scotland, Caerlaverock castle, the seat of the staunchly Catholic earls of Nithsdale, finally fell after a lengthy siege. Only Edinburgh castle still held out against the onslaught. 76 They had been devising various new plans since 1641, in their efforts to improve the bleak situation for followers of the old faith at home. For instance, Father Semple had sent “ecclesiastical equipment and 200 gold coins” through Patrick Carr O.F.M. to Patrick Hegarty, prefect of the Irish Franciscan mission to

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dynasty’s faith in Spain’s determination to sort out the Palatinate issue began to dissipate. Making matters worse, Charles’ cries for Spanish Habsburg support in both Ireland and England went unanswered, after he was forced to raise his standard at Nottingham that year. The possibility of the Spanish making pacts with other parties in the Three Kingdoms remained another matter. In Ireland, in May 1642, the Catholic laity and clergy joined together at Kilkenny for the first time. The first general assembly of the confederates there convened that autumn to seek support, not only via official residents of the three major Catholic powers, but through the efforts of their own agents in Paris, Rome and Madrid.77 Colonels Thomas Preston and Owen Roe O’Neill left their command in the Spanish Netherlands and returned home to fight.78 In England meanwhile, Spanish interests had fallen ever more into the hands of Cárdenas. Still smarting at Charles’ failure to support the Spanish at sea in 1639, his willingness to negotiate with the more extreme English parliamentarians, the independents, became obvious from 1644.79 Consequently, Philip IV’s posture of ‘neutrality’ in relation to the civil wars in all three Stuart kingdoms could more accurately be described as inconsistency. Most essential to the Spanish remained the availability of the connection linking them via the North Sea to the Spanish Netherlands. Scotland that year. The two other Franciscan veterans, Fathers Cornelius Ward and Brady, had both retired from the Scottish mission by this time. See Giblin, ed. Irish Franciscan Mission, 184–5. In October 1642, he tried to secure a grant from Philip IV so as to provide for the appointment and maintenance of a new bishop for the Hebrides. Semple recommended Hegarty, who had worked on the mission since 1623, as a suitable candidate for the bishopric. Clearly, he did not wish to replace Hegarty as prefect of the mission, however, as had been suggested by the Congregation for the Propagation of Faith in Rome. Moreover, Semple had recently reported that a Father Carr had been captured in England, along with the money and equipment that had been sent from the continent. For that reason, he had forwarded a further 100 gold pieces through Anthony Docherty, O.F.M., for use in the Hebrides. Apparently unbeknown to Semple, Hegarty was by that time imprisoned, while a further setback occurred the same year, 1642, when Bobadilla, the administrator at the Scots College in Madrid, died. Semple took over the management and, ignnoring the debt problem there for which he had been partly responsible, bought two houses in Madrid from the Count of Molina, for the price of 27,000 reales. See Gordon, Catholic Church, 612; Taylor, Scots College, 28, 31; Giblin, ed. Irish Franciscan Mission, 184–5. 77 Jane H. Ohlmeyer, ‘Ireland independent’, 89–112; Micheál Ó Siochrú, Confederate Ireland, 1642–9: A Constitutional and Political Analysis (Dublin: 1999). 78 Moody et al. New History of Ireland, III, 296. 79 Loomie, ‘Alonso de Cárdenas’.

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But whether parliamentarians or royalists controlled access through the Straits of Dover was irrelevant, so long as they allowed the passage of Castilian ships and bullion to Flanders. This non-committal stance becomes apparent with reference to a series of events in the Low Countries in 1644, when English royalist agents were able to arrange the hire of 13 ‘Dunkirker’ ships and their captains. They employed these privateers to try and prevent trading links between the parliamentarians and the Spanish Netherlands, despite Cárdenas having already advised the authorities there to accept the English Parliament’s representatives in Brussels, Walter Walker and John Thelwell.80 The Long Parliament had also just granted the Spanish permission to levy 2,000 infantry in England.81 Even the most limited support for Charles I could no longer be depended on from Madrid. One (presumably unanticipated) effect of this confusion in Spanish policy towards the Irish confederates and the British royalists is that the development of Scottish-Irish initiatives relating to Clan Donald and Spain actually began to accelerate.82 Both Loomie and Sanz have made it clear that caution should be taken in reading too much from the discussions of the Irish and Scottish nobility with Philip IV’s representatives from this period.83 From May 1643, however, two Scottish earls, Aboyne and Nithsdale, had been in communication with the earl of Antrim on the subject of his long-postponed levy. Antrim’s connections with the Spanish monarchy had continued to function during the early 1640s, to some extent independent of the ambitious diplomatic networks being developed by the Irish confederates. As Cárdenas must have realised, the earl remained head of the powerful, if dispossessed Clan Donald South, making him a more likely organiser of military support for the Spanish than anyone else in the Stuart kingdoms at that time.84 Indeed, the Spaniard

80

Loomie, ‘Alonso de Cárdenas’, 298. Porfirio Sanz, ‘England and Spanish Foreign Policy during the 1640s’ in European History Quarterly, 28, no. 3 (1998), 299. 82 Interesting to note from this time are the passports issued by the Brussels authorities to two women, an Isobel Stewart and a “Jacomina Macdonat” (MacDonald?). See AGRB T100/44, f. 82, 21 May 1644. These were given so as to allow them to visit Spain and “visit their husbands”. 83 Loomie, ‘Alonso de Cárdenas’, 289–307; Sanz, ‘England and Spain’, 291–310. 84 The confederates had their own envoy in Madrid from that year. This was the former Vicar-General of the Irish forces in the Spanish Netherlands, the 81

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seems to have believed that the recruitment of a substantial body of Irish and Scottish levies might still be possible, if done in an underhand manner. Such a contingent would not only supply much-needed new blood to the Army of Flanders but might also avoid accusations that the Spanish were siding too heavily with the parliamentary cause in the Three Kingdoms. In any case, there were clear signs of efforts being made in this direction in November 1643, when Antrim offered an unnamed Spanish envoy in Ireland a force of 6,000 men “from the Isles of Scotland”. The estimate was not quite as unrealistic as the 10,000 mentioned by Bruce three years earlier, although a body approaching anything like this number (the earl exaggerated its potential numerical strength considerably) would still have vastly outnumbered anything that had been obtained from the Stuart kingdoms previously.85 More evidence of the growing importance of Antrim and of the apparent marginalisation of Hugh Semple S.J. and his colleagues in Scottish-Spanish affairs came in August 1644. That month, Alasdair MacColla—shortly to commence his long campaign alongside the leader of the lowland royalists, the marquis of Montrose—wrote to Philip IV, stating his belief that it was necessary to have a Scot on the ground in Madrid, both to negotiate on behalf of the Catholic nobility at home and to help the Spanish recruit troops in Scotland as had happened in bygone years through William Semple.86 Father Semple’s presence seems to have been deemed irrelevant. That said, MacColla did not go himself, even to Brussels. For a year and more after that, he remained embroiled in the civil war in Scotland, where under his and Montrose’s command, the prospects for all opponents of Clan Campbell and those hostile to the radical element within the covenanting movement more generally, momentarily brightened.87 It seems extraordinary that the unrealistic offers of the earl of Antrim and his kin should have continued to command so much Spanish attention. Philip IV seems to have been persuaded only Franciscan, Hugh Bourke. Moreover, Miguel Gallo, the first of four Spanish envoys to be sent to Kilkenny during the 1640s, arrived in Ireland. See Ohlmeyer, ‘Ireland independent’, 95. 85 The envoy in question may have been Francesco Foissotte. See Chapter Nine below and Ohlmeyer, Civil War, 154. 86 SCA CA/4/9/11. 87 David Stevenson, Highland Warrior: Alasdair MacColla and the Civil Wars (Edinburgh: 1994); Cowan, Montrose.

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slowly that his offers were unrealistic. On 12 March 1645, while the Montrose-MacColla campaign continued apace, the Spanish king wrote to Francesco Foissotte, a Burgundian diplomat who had visited Kilkenny as his special envoy to the Irish Confederacy in 1643. He advocated caution regarding the levy of any Scotsmen:88 As to what you said of the person who offers a levy of 6,000 Scots, it would not seem that the proposal should be entertained . . . [due to the] doubt of its accomplishment and also because in this number of Scots, if there were any Catholics, they would be very few and to bring them to Spain would not suit.89

It is not clear if the recruiting agent being referred to is Antrim or MacColla. Understandably, the more promising option of approaching the confederates in Ireland remained the Burgundian’s preferred choice.90 This continued to be true despite there being, by that year, just one Irish regiment in Spanish service, the survivors of the others having returned to take up the confederate cause.91 Certainly, as Jane Ohlmeyer’s work has shown, there remained no feasible way in which a levy could have been made amongst Clan Donald of anything like the 6,000 recruits that the earl had suggested. Following further negotiations, however, Antrim’s brother and agent Alexander, promised to muster a tercio of some 1,200 men himself, in return for Spanish arms for the use of the MontroseMacColla army then rampaging through central Scotland.92 Furthermore, the earl too, revealed that some of his more ambitious proposals had been genuine enough. Antrim made the decision to travel to the Spanish Netherlands that year, having been offered the use of two Dunkirkers of 160 tons each, in return for 2,000 “well seasoned veterans” for Spanish service.93 On 2 June 1645, he received his

88

Foissotte continued his duties in Ireland until 1652. See Ohlmeyer, ‘Ireland Independent’, 96. 89 12 March 1645, Joriza, Philip IV to Francesco Foissotte in Jennings, ed. Wild Geese, no. 1868. 90 J.V. Poli“enskÿ, War and Society in Europe 1618–1648 (London: 1978), 125. As regards England, the Spanish were furious with the English royalists for having established trading relations with Portugal. 91 Harman Murtagh, ‘Irish Soldiers Abroad, 1600–1800’, in Thomas Bartlett and Keith Jeffrey, eds. A Military History of Ireland (Cambridge: 1996), 295. 92 Ohlmeyer, Civil War, 154. 93 Some Scottish soldiers arrived in Flanders from elsewhere following this agreement, perhaps in anticipation of the arrival of these levies. See Ohlmeyer, Civil War, 156.

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commission as colonel of the supposed regiment, while it was arranged to have an arms dealer from Dunkirk, Martin Clausen Van der Ripen, transport the recruits from the North Channel to the Netherlands. Once again, it is remarkable that, with much of Clan Donald remaining bogged down in Scotland fighting bloody battles on behalf of Charles I, Antrim left the Netherlands in July having apparently persuaded his Spanish Habsburg hosts that the next body of soldiers to arrive for Spanish service would greatly exceed the numbers that he had been able to provide up to that point.94 Nothing like 2,000 men from Clan Donald left Ireland and Scotland for the continent that summer or over the three years that followed. The single-minded earl of Crawford returned all the way to the Iberian peninsula but this was not until October 1645, following the decisive defeat of the Montrose-MacColla army at Philiphaugh the previous month. The royalist disaster at Naseby on 14 June (o.s.) may have led to some soldiers from elsewhere in the Stuart kingdoms volunteering to join him: once back in the Spanish dependencies, Crawford obtained command of a regiment described as having been ‘Irish’.95 But as regards the securing of any significant Scottish-Irish involvement in Spanish intrigues from the middle of that year, a breakthrough must have seemed ever more unlikely. Even Antrim, increasingly estranged from the royalist party, reverted to promising smaller levies for the Spanish after that. In the autumn of 1646, he gave his backing to a more realistic transportation of 1,200 men, presumably veterans of the 1644–5 campaign.96 MacColla too, despite the death and dissipation of many in the ranks of his

94 27 July 1645, Saragossa, Philip IV to the marquis of Castel Rodrigo in Jennings, ed. Wild Geese, no. 1878. 95 In London, defeat at Naseby led to many further attacks on royalists and hostility against the representatives of their presumed allies that summer. For instance, Cárdenas went to Westminster to protest that a rioting mob had broken into the house of the Imperial ambassador, Lisola, in London and looted his chapel in search for the hidden belongings of English Catholics. See Loomie, ‘London’s Spanish Chapel’, 411. 96 Meanwhile, a new Spanish envoy, Diego de la Torre had arrived at Kilkenny in March 1646, although Dermot O’Sullivan Beare—a man of Irish birth but who had been educated in Spain—quickly replaced him. See Ohlmeyer, ‘Ireland Independent’, 97. Yet Philip IV apparently avoided taking the risk of seeking closer relations with the confederates, despite the fact that the Kilkenny assembly now had the support of Antrim and was pursuing an increasingly pro-Spanish diplomatic strategy.

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army, made further plans himself in 1647, regarding the possible shipment of a separate body of Gaelic recruits for the service of Philip IV. Jean de Montereul, the French ambassador to the covenanters, explained in March that year that, as a result of the collapse of the Montrosian campaign, MacColla remained “ready to leave Scotland, provided he be allowed to go to Spain and to take his people with him”.97 In these troubled times for Scottish hispanophiles, a single case survives to suggest a more consistent and reliable Scottish involvement at the Spanish Habsburg courts. This relates to one of William Semple’s illegitimate sons, Francis, who attended the peace negotiations at Münster in 1647. Francis Semple had been brought up in the Spanish dependencies. Although his relations with his academically minded Jesuit cousin and with the other Scottish exiles in Madrid are unknown, he served as secretary to one of the Spanish envoys at the peace talks during that year.98 Consequently, he also

97

J.G. Fotheringham, ed. The Diplomatic Correspondence of Jean de Montereul and the brothers De Bellièvre, French Ambassadors in England and Scotland, 1645–1648, 2 Vols. (Scottish History Society, Edinburgh: 1898), II, 50, 140–1. In Ireland that year, the growing, ‘Ormondist’, pro-French party began to bring about some changes in confederate foreign policy, which badly affected the prospects of further Irish and perhaps also Scottish assistance for Philip IV. Although James Preston levied 500 men for Spain in May 1647, these soldiers seem to have gone into French service instead. Antrim’s levy was sabotaged, while, the next month, some more recruits of his actually refused to go to the continent, presumably once again due to the prevalent pro-French sympathies in Ireland at that time. As for MacColla, his proposed force, the numbers of which were unknown, had been prevented from going to the Spanish Netherlands in May too, purportedly due to the actions of Argyll. It is not clear if he went on to play a part in Antrim’s initiatives later that summer. But all plans involving MacColla would come to an end following his death in November 1647. See Sanz, ‘England and Spain’, 301; Ohlmeyer, Civil War, 177, 196. For Montrose in the Habsburg lands in 1648, see Chapter Nine below. 98 This was Joseph de Bergaigne. Francis Semple had married a Charlotte Duquesnoy in Brussels in 1637 and continued to live there, having a large family. On 13 April 1639, he received a letter of recommendation for the post of steward/commissioner at the office of the veedor general of the Army of Flanders, a job which would have involved checking on fraud and abuse. See Lonchay et al., eds. Correspondance de la cour d’Espagne, III, 301; Taylor, Scots College, 29. While at Münster, Semple received a salary of 30 escudos (the equivalent of 375 reichsthalers at that point), according to Franz Bosbach, Die Kosten des Westfälischen Friedenskongress (Aschendorf/Münster: 1984), 176. On 20 December 1646, William Semple’s widow, Doña Maria de Ledesma, died in Madrid. She was buried alongside him in the chapel of the Scots College in Madrid. Although the outbreak of new revolts, in Sicily in May 1647, and then Naples, two months later, rocked the Spanish monarchy, the Scots College in Madrid received several new students that year. They

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fell into contact with the count of Peñaranda, Philip IV’s chief plenipotentiary in Westphalia.99 Perhaps some of the family talent for negotiation passed down to him. Scottish-Spanish links had become dissipated, sporadic and politically irrelevant by 1648, the end point in a process that can be traced back to the death of William Semple. This chapter has shown how, despite Colonel Bruce, Walter Stuart, the earl of Buchan and Father Semple’s various attempts to promote a settlement of the Palatinate issue that might be favourable to moderate Catholics in the Spanish Habsburg and Stuart kingdoms, nothing had been done by the mid-1640s to prevent the Scottish and Irish supporters of Antrim, MacColla and Montrose from sacrificing their lives on behalf of a doomed cause at home. This reveals just how ineffectual Scottish efforts to promote a serious bilateral programme with the Spanish had become. By October 1648, Semple and the other Scots in the hispanic world had long since lost any meaningful influence at court in Madrid. Nonetheless, a number of their compatriots had risen in an outstanding manner at the Imperial court of Philip IV’s cousins by that time, one of them having made a more significant impact on European politics than any of them ever had or would.

had arrived by sea to San Sebastián and Bilbao and were lodged across the street from the institution itself. Still, Father Semple S.J. and his compatriot’s activities at that time do not seem to have influenced the political scene as they had done in the 1630s. See Taylor, Scots College, 31–3. 99 See ?, 1648, Brussels?, Archduke Leopold Wilhelm to Philip IV, in Lonchay et al., eds. Correspondance de la Cour d’Espagne, IV, no. 154.

PART TWO

THE AUSTRIAN HABSBURG LANDS: WALTER LESLIE AND HIS CIRCLE

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INTRODUCTION

THE END OF ASPIRATIONS TO UNIVERSAL EMPIRE? THE HABSBURG ALLIANCE, 1633–48 A brief survey of the pro-Habsburg alliance in the fifteen years after 1633 is now required. This will shift the focus away from the dependencies of the Spanish with which Part One was concerned and towards the Holy Roman Empire, thus providing the necessary background for an analysis of Scottish activities in the Austrian Habsburg lands during the second half of the Thirty Years’ War. Several important changes occurred in the ‘Madrid-Vienna axis’ during a fifteen-month period from February 1634 through to May 1635. First, Ferdinand II ordered Wallenstein’s assassination, a response to the revelation that he had been intriguing with representatives of two enemy powers: Sweden and Saxony.1 The Habsburg dynastic alliance held and perhaps even strengthened for a while after the general’s death, with the influence of the Spanish ambassador to the Imperial court, the count of Oñate, becoming considerable once more. Oñate’s diplomacy played a large part in producing a turnaround by 6 September 1634, the date that Spanish and Imperial contingents came together at Nördlingen (led by the Cardinal-Infante and the king of Hungary respectively) to achieve a decisive victory over an alliance of Protestant powers.2 As has been mentioned in Part One, another significant move came that winter when Cardinal Richelieu ordered the French invasion of Heidelberg, the capital of the Lower Palatinate, following his securing of new treaties of assistance with the United Provinces and Sweden. Finally, on 19 May 1635—upon learning of the capture of the francophile elector of 1 See Chapter Five below. On top of that, Count Eggenberg, the emperor’s closest adviser (and perhaps the nearest to a favourite or valido at the Imperial court of the 1620s) died. See Robert Bireley, S.J., Religion and Politics in the Age of Counter Reformation (Chapel Hill: 1981), 208. 2 In fact, this new strength had been shown as early as the end of 1633 when Oñate had travelled back to Vienna. Besides, in Brussels, an era had finally come to an inglorious end with the Archduchess Isabella died around the same time. Don Francisco de Moncada, the marquis of Aytona, was governor of the Spanish Netherlands from December 1633 down to November 1634.

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Trier by Spanish forces—Louis XIII declared war on Spain, a crucial date as regards the conflicts of western Europe. Yet if the ‘Thirty Years’ War’ is analysed in relation to the Holy Roman Empire alone, an event occurred on 30 May that year, which proved to be a more significant turning point than any of these developments. This was the signing of the Peace of Prague, a treaty that ended seventeen years of internal strife between the Austrian Habsburg emperor and the majority of the princes of the Empire.3 The Prague settlement has often been viewed as evidence of a longoverdue spirit of religious compromise at the Imperial court. From this perspective, the threat of direct French intervention had only hastened the conclusion of negotiations with representatives of the leading, post-1631 opposition within the Empire, talks that had been taking place since November 1634.4 In other words, the postponement of the 1629 Edict of Restitution for forty years and the establishment of the year of 1627 as a status quo from which all lands lost by the church within the Empire would be repossessed, were clear concessions, carefully considered so as to attract Saxony, Brandenburg and most other predominantly-Lutheran territories back to Ferdinand II’s side.5 But from a Calvinist viewpoint, the Prague treaty cannot be assessed in such a positive manner. Above all, the terms blatantly disregarded the claims of the Palatinate family, the emperor humiliating Charles Louis in his confirmation of the duke of Bavaria’s permanent and hereditary rights to the seventh seat at the Reichstag.6 It will probably remain impossible to assess which of these two events—the outbreak of the Franco-Spanish war or the Peace of Prague—had the greatest impact on Spanish-Austrian Habsburg relations after 1635. Although the opinion that holds the ‘German’ war to have merged so as to become one aspect of a wider crisis enveloping the Habsburg, Bourbon and Vasa kingdoms is, in many respects,

3 Robert Birely has stated that the Peace of Prague ‘ended the holy phase of the war’. See Robert Birely, ‘The Thirty Years’ War as Germany’s Religious War’ in Konrad Repgen, ed. Krieg und Politik, 1618–1648: Europäische Probleme und Perspektiven (Munich: 1988), 100. 4 These were the so-called ‘preliminaries of Pirna’. 5 At the conclusion of negotiations at Prague, only two leading German princes, Bernhard of Saxe Weimar and William of Hesse-Kassell refused to sign. 6 Still, with aggressive neighbours at all sides, it is clear that the Empire would not have survived if this appeal for concord had failed. See Parker, Thirty Years’ War, 127–129.

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validated by such evidence, it is equally apparent that the FrancoSpanish conflict in western Europe ran on until 1659, largely irrespective of developments in the Empire. What is important for the purposes of this book is that the new situation upset the balance of power within the pro-Imperial axis. Despite Olivares’ intention to establish an anti-Dutch “League of Alliance” with Ferdinand II, convincing arguments have been put forward to suggest that the Austrian Habsburgs became prepared to pursue policies at Madrid’s expense from that time on.7 As Hildegard Ernst has pointed out, relatively little research has been done as regards the strength or otherwise of the dynastic connection during the period.8 The works of Burkhardt, Chudoba, Elliott and Koenigsberger shed some light on Spanish attitudes towards the Holy Roman Empire from a longer-term perspective. It is clear from the conclusions drawn by these four experts, that Philip IV became deeply upset by the more parochial concerns of his cousins in Vienna, expecting greater support from them in his own time of need after 1640.9 Otherwise, the study of Ródenas Vilar ends in 1630, while Eberhard Straub’s work is similarly focused on Spain alone and concludes with the Peace of Prague.10 From the central European perspective, the situation is even more obscure. Ernst’s own book is a groundbreaking contribution since it relies on neglected material from the Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv in Vienna, and covers the entire 1632–7 period in depth. Yet for the crucial decade following the death of Ferdinand II in the latter year, there is only one brief article

7 John Elliott, ‘War and Peace in Europe, 1618 to 1648’ in Bussman and Schilling eds. 1648: War and Peace in Europe, I, 34. 8 Little work has been completed on the continuing significance of the Polish Vasas to this bloc. W∑adys∑aw IV continued a long series of Polish Vasa-Austrian Habsburg marriages when he wed Ferdinand II’s daughter, Cäcilia Renate, that year. See Ernst, Madrid und Wien, 3; Frost, ‘Poland-Lithuania’, 202. 9 Johannes Burkhardt, ‘The Summitless Pyramid: War aims and peace compromises among Europe’s universalist powers’ in Bussman and Schilling eds. 1648: War and Peace in Europe, 51–60; Chudoba, Spain and the Empire; Koenigsberger, Habsburgs and Europe, especially the last two chapters; John H. Elliott, ‘Foreign Policy and Domestic Crisis: Spain, 1598–1659’ in Repgen, ed. Krieg und Politik, 198. The last author’s biography of Olivares is also helpful in showing the shift of focus as a result of the internal revolts. See Elliott, Count Duke. 10 Ródenas Vilar, La Politica Europea; Straub, Pax et Imperium. However, see also Ramón Menéndez Pidal, ed. Historia de España, 25 Vols. (Madrid, 1982), XXV, 730; Alcalá-Zamora, España, Flandes.

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by the same author to go on.11 Much remains to be discovered as regards attitudes at the Austrian Habsburg court towards their responsibilities in western and southern Europe during the years leading up to 1648. Besides the slowly-emerging chasm separating the emperor from the king of Spain and the new possibilities for international alliances provided by Charles I’s ‘ship money’ fleet (constructed from the money raised by means of a special tax imposed on maritime ports before being extended to landward regions of England in 1635) domestic developments affected the imperialist position from the summer of 1635. Not only was there a large-scale peasant revolt in Styria in Inner Austria but, in September, Sweden and Poland-Lithuania signed a truce at Stuhmsdorf. Henceforth, and despite the loss of any meaningful support from the princes of the Empire, Sweden and Transylvania were able to resume the fight in the Patrimonial Lands.12 Any Imperial intervention on the Iberian peninsula remained impossible with these two insurgent armies to contend with once again, due to the backing of both France and the United Provinces for the ‘Protestant’ cause.13 Herein lies the explanation as to why a more moderate strand of opinion becomes detectable at the Imperial court, at least in the hands of diplomats such as Count Maximilian von Trautmannsdorf, a man who felt little loyalty towards the Castilian monarchy, even when the Iberian peninsula began to be consumed by war. Trautmannsdorf, a former Lutheran from Graz, had played a crucial role in the Prague negotiations. One nineteenth century writer considered him “the greatest diplomat in Austrian history” if mainly due to his role there and his eventual, high-profile participation as Imperial representative at the Westphalian negotiations.14 But no fulllength biography has ever been written of the count and he is rarely mentioned at all in English language sources for the latter half of

11 This traces the dissipation of Spanish subsidies for the Imperial cause up to 1642. See Ernst, ‘Spanische Subsidien für den Kaiser, 1632 bis 1642’ in Repgen, ed. Krieg und Politik, 299–302 and the same author’s Madrid und Wien. 12 It was not until March 1636 that Ferdinand II actually declared war on France. By this time Cardinal Richelieu had recruited Bernard of Saxe-Weimar to his cause and signed a new treaty of assistance with Sweden. 13 Burkhardt, ‘The Summitless Pyramid’, 56. 14 This is a quote from Mathias Koch writing in 1865, cited in Birely, Religion and Politics, 19.

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the 1630s.15 This is despite the fact that it was his influence as the “most trusted adviser” of the king of Hungary which set the Austrian Habsburgs on a course towards finding a more comprehensive peace settlement within the Empire after 1635, even if the aging emperor steadfastly refused to bow to pressure to adopt a more conciliatory stance in his latter years, or to block those ‘Spanish’ influences that had, during the 1620s, been channelled through his Jesuit confessor Father Lamormaini and Count Eggenberg.16 Spanish and Imperial troops in conjunction proved a threatening presence once more towards the end of 1635, in Alsace, Lorraine and the Rhineland. Early the following year, Philip IV’s forces in the southern Netherlands even invaded France, where they were joined by both an imperialist contingent (under Gallas, who was already occupying Franche Comté) and Johann von Werth’s Bavarian cavalry. This reinforced pro-Habsburg alliance defeated the French at Corbie on 15 August 1636, an action that led to panic in the streets of Paris.17 But the good fortunes of the house of Austria were not to last long enough to lift the mood of either the emperor or the king of Spain as the Regensburg meeting of electors opened in September 1636. By that time, the French had recaptured Corbie and the Spanish-Imperial alliance had been confirmed as a half-hearted one. Reflecting the uncertainty of the military situation, this prestigious international gathering proved to be a disappointment. Not only were the imperialists soon suffering the effects of another crushing defeat at the hands of the Swedes at Wittstock (4 October 1636), but a further factor acting against attempts to negotiate a broader settlement had emerged. This was the growing likelihood of domestic unrest in the Stuart kingdoms, a prospect that began to dominate Charles I’s attentions and led, as was shown in Chapter Four, to

15 English language accounts are thin on the ground. See Birely, Religion and Politics, 19–20, 220–3; C.V. Wedgwood, The Thirty Years’ War (London, 1938), 310, 381, 427; G. Pagès, The Thirty Years War, 1618 to 1648 (London, 1970), 151, 221. German surveys treat his earlier career with the respect it deserves. See, for instance, Volker Press, Kriege und Krisen, Deutschland 1600–1715 (Munich, 1991), 230, 242. 16 Eggenberg died in 1634. Yet Trautmannsdorf ’s efforts to divert the new emperor from a pro-Spanish policy met with considerable opposition from many others at court after that, particularly from the Empress and Ferdinand II’s brother, the Archduke Leopold William. See Birely, Religion and Politics, 381. 17 Parker, Thirty Years’ War, 136.

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his pro-Palatinate negotiations losing the urgency with which they had earlier been pursued. With these issues still unresolved following the end of the meeting, relationships between both branches of the house of Austria and the Caroline court became so strained that an offensive alliance between the Stuarts and the French seemed likely.18 As for Philip IV, as was also shown in earlier chapters, a number of military setbacks in western Europe began to increase tension in his relations with the Imperial court around that time.19 This is most obvious with respect to the Spanish Netherlands, where, in 1637, the Dutch reconquered the town of Breda from the CardinalInfante. The situation only went from bad to worse there. After the captain-general’s death four years later, Don Francisco de Melo, the marquis of Tor de Laguna, replaced him as governor and head of the Army of Flanders. Melo proved unable or unwilling to assist the Archduke Leopold William, Ferdinand III’s brother, commander-inchief of the Imperial army since 1639.20 This narrow focus on the Low Countries was understandable. But it can be seen partly as a consequence of the governor’s failure to elicit the trust of the imperialists, that the Spanish suffered further disaster against Mazarin’s French army in May 1643, at Rocroi in northern France.21 Melo was recalled and Don Manuel de Moura y Cortereal, the marquis of Castel Rodrigo, called up to replace him.22 For the king of Hungary, elected ‘king of the Romans’ and then— following the death of his father in February 1637—raised to become Emperor Ferdinand III (r.1637–57), the outcome of the full Imperial Diet that commenced in Regensburg in September 1640 appeared of greater urgency than any western European affairs. Yet by the time this session ended in October the following year, it had proven as unsuccessful as the electoral meeting of four years earlier. Subsequently, the imperial lands suffered misfortunes of equal, if not greater consequence to those afflicting the Spanish Habsburgs.23 For

18

Hibbard, Charles I, 120, 124. For instance, 1638 was the year that France and her pensioner, duke Bernard of Saxe-Weimar, retook Breisach. See Parker, Thirty Years’ War, 153. 20 Matthias Gallas took over from Leopold William in the Imperial army soon after. 21 Richelieu had died in France earlier that year and been replaced by an equally ambitious and capable leader, the Italian, Cardinal Mazarin. Richelieu’s death was quickly followed by that of Louis XIII. 22 Chudoba, Spain and the Empire, 249. 23 The chances of aid for Spain from the Empire were hindered ever further by 19

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instance, the seemingly unstoppable Swedish army defeated Leopold William’s outnumbered force at Breitenfeld in Saxony in November 1642.24 Continued incursions, not only by the Swedes (under Banér, Torstensson and later Wrangel), but by the Transylvanians (under Rákóczi) from the east, remained major threats. In March 1645, a pincer movement involving these two powers resulted in another comprehensive defeat for the emperor at the battle of Jankau ( Jankov) just outside Prague.25 Peace negotiations had already commenced in the Westphalian towns of Münster and Osnabrück by then. But with Austrian Habsburg foreign policy the subject of intense disagreements after Jankau, the emperor had hesitated over choosing a representative. Disputes had broken out since 1643 between moderates like Trautmannsdorf (now director of the Imperial Privy Council) on one side and Spanishconnected courtiers on the other, the latter group generally stressing the continuing importance of the dynastic alliance. “Conciliatory inclinations” eventually prevailed, however, the absence of financial resources or effective military leadership from the Spanish monarchy proving as crucial in formulating Imperial opinion as the traumatic effects of battlefield humiliation.26 It was the autumn of 1645 when Ferdinand III finally dispatched the pragmatic Trautmannsdorf for the discussions in Münster, a recognition that a policy based on religious toleration had become the only feasible approach that might salvage a continuing role for the Habsburgs as a figurehead the signing of a separate truce of neutrality between Brandenburg and Sweden. See Parker, Thirty Years’ War, 151. 24 As for Charles I at that time, domestic revolts troubled him on two fronts with the signing of the Scottish National Covenant in 1638 and then unrest in Ireland with the outbreak of the ‘Ulster rebellion’ on 22 October 1641 (o.s.). Within a year, the Catholic confederates there had begun, following the Scottish covenanters, to pursue their own foreign policy, as determined at regular assemblies in Kilkenny. The wars soon spread to England. In 1642, the first battle of the ‘English Civil War’ took place at Edgehill. The Stuarts had effectively become excluded from the European arena. See Ohlmeyer, ‘Ireland independent’, 89–112. 25 It may have been only Ottoman preoccupation with a war against Venice over Crete that saved the imperialists from even greater humiliation. This prevented the sultan from supplying the Transylvanians with arms from the end of that year, although the Swedish assaults continued. See Parker, Thirty Years’ War, 158. Besides, Philip IV’s marriage to Ferdinand III’s daughter, Maria Anna, may seem to have reconfirmed the significance of the Spanish-Austrian connection, but the marriage was symptomatic of nostalgia borne of desperation rather than a signal of renewed Habsburg striving for international hegemony. 26 The absence of a biography of Ferdinand III makes an analysis of this issue very difficult. See his entry in NDB and Chudoba, Spain and the Empire, 249.

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within the Reich. The talented Spanish representative, Don Gaspar de Bracamonte, the count of Peñaranda, joined Trautmannsdorf in the Westphalian town, although the two men did not see eye-to-eye: Peñaranda had to busy himself with trying to force a compromise agreement with the Dutch, an issue of little relevance for the bulk of the Empire, where the withdrawal of the Swedes from Bohemia continued to prove the most important, yet elusive goal. By 1647, Ferdinand III had completely abandoned the Spanish cause, Castile being virtually penniless and Philip IV preoccupied with internal conflicts. A succession of internal revolts had spread to the Italian peninsula by then, engulfing both Naples and Sicily. Thus, the emperor recalled Archduke Leopold William from the Spanish Netherlands for a time, and even gave Imperial command to a Calvinist, Peter Melander, Count Holzapfel, an action that would have been unthinkable at the start of the conflict.27 Another Imperial veteran, the Italian general Ottavio Piccolomini, returned from western Europe too. Still, by the summer of 1648, with the Imperial army consisting of only an estimated 496 companies, the imperialist effort in Bohemia had become limited to enforced recruitment from among the population of Prague, in an effort to expel the Swedes from the city. The last battles of the Thirty Years’ War ended with a citizen-led defence of the Bohemian capital on behalf of the Austrian Habsburgs. University students were at the forefront of the Imperial contingent on Charles Bridge. A great deal of suffering had been inflicted on the Bohemian crownlands and on other parts of Europe in the preceding thirty years, a period during which the interests of the Spanish king in Madrid and of the Holy Roman Emperor had veered apart. Such a state of affairs could scarcely have been predicted in 1618. But the prospect of a Habsburg universal empire had obviously been a mirage. Assumptions of a common interest based on the dynastic link that connected the rulers of Austria Hispanica and Austria Germanica, would never be made so unquestioningly again. Following Ernst’s approach, the remainder of the book will address this divergence from the perspective of the eastern branch of the dynasty. The concentration on the court of the Austrian Habsburgs

27 Leopold William soon made his way back to the Spanish Netherlands once more. See his NDB entry.

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will help account for the development of the political role of Scotsmen such as Walter Leslie. Study of Leslie and the secretive, international circle of correspondents that he was able to gather around him, will emphasise ( just as the activities of William Semple, Hugh Semple S.J., Walter Stuart and the earl of Buchan have demonstrated in the western and south-western European arena) that the political participation of geographically-distant representatives of the Scottish diaspora in Europe, should not be ignored, as it has been to date. The nature of the involvement of the Three Kingdoms within both Habsburg military strategy and in pro-Palatinate diplomacy during the decade and a half after 1633, particularly following the signing of the Scottish National Covenant in February 1638, has remained fundamentally misunderstood, as a result.

CHAPTER FIVE

1633–5: THE ASSASSINATION OF GENERAL WALLENSTEIN

By the autumn of 1633, the nature of Scottish activities at the Habsburg courts had changed. The presence of a group of Scotsmen in the lands of Philip IV’s cousins becomes increasingly clear from that date, although their movement there should not be interpreted as a reaction to the problems facing the exiled Catholics in Madrid following the loss of their leading light, William Semple: Scottish hispanophiles continued to pursue a number of his earlier objectives, both on the Iberian peninsula and elsewhere. Indeed, the rise to prominence of a small group of officers at the Imperial court was in no way a response to the frustrations of those Scottish Catholics who remained in the dependencies of the Spanish monarchy, but should be viewed in the context of a long tradition of Scottish settlement east and south-east of the Rhine basin (See Chapter One above). It will become apparent that, for the Scots in the Patrimonial Lands (unlike their compatriots in the Spanish dependencies), the Palatinate cause may have been a unifying force from the very earliest stages of the Thirty Years’ War. Certainly, at the key turning point of 1625, when the expedition to Cádiz had signalled the renewal of Stuart-Spanish Habsburg hostilities, Charles I had backed down from declaring war on the emperor. Although the Stuart king would continue to make do without a voice on the ground in the Austrian Habsburg lands for some time after that, the prevarication of all other major powers regarding the Palatinate issue gradually led him to the conclusion that a more considered approach to the emperor would have to be made. The increasing divergence in the foreign policies of the two Habsburg branches apparent, Charles had eventually decided (several months prior to the signing of the ‘AngloSpanish’ treaty of Madrid in 1630) that, for the first time in eight years, an extraordinary ambassador would have to be sent to meet Ferdinand II. He had chosen the experienced Scottish envoy Sir Robert Anstruther for the task.1 Although the trip had been unsuc1

On 25 August 1630, a document previously seen by Cottington had been pre-

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cessful, Charles had not given up hope of obtaining a compromise agreement with the emperor after that, and had sent Anstruther back to the Imperial Diet in 1631.2 Anstruther was not unusual as a Scottish diplomat serving the Stuart monarchy at that time. In proportion to the country’s population, Scots still outnumbered representatives from Charles’ other two kingdoms in his diplomatic corps, both in official and unofficial positions.3 It is likely that those military entrepreneurs who had become based in the Patrimonial Lands would have proved useful inside agents for their king, in any case.4 By late 1633, the promotion of closer ties between Charles I and Ferdinand II, could have been considered to be in the interests of all those Scots abroad for whom service to the Stuart court was either traditional or else appeared the most promising means towards fulfilling their personal ambitions.5

sented to Anstruther by the Spanish Capuchin Friar, Diego de Quiroga. This outlined Philip IV’s terms for the restoration of the Elector Palatine to his lands. However, Stromberg, the Imperial envoy in Madrid, had made his belief in the necessity of Stuart diplomacy in Vienna clear to Charles I’s ambassador there, Sir Arthur Hopton. In effect then, Anstruther’s 1630 embassy was an admission that Palatine-related diplomacy in Spain had become futile. See Reeve, ‘Quiroga’s Paper’, 913–925. 2 Charles I eventually recalled Anstruther and dispatched Henry Vane to negotiate with Sweden in October 1631, offering Gustav II Adolf financial backing in return for support with respect to the Palatinate. However, Vane achieved little and in January 1632, he was advised to treat with Bavaria instead, since it was now obvious that Sweden’s terms were “as severe as the Emperor’s”. The need for closer relations with Ferdinand II was recognised again at this time by the unknown author of a manuscript in the State Papers relating to the Empire. See ‘Notes on position of the Prince Palatine’ and ‘Propositions for Germanie’, PRO SP81/41/f. 334r–336v; Sharpe, Personal Rule, 81; Steve Murdoch, ‘Robert Anstruther: A Stuart Diplomat in Norlan Europe, 1603–1625’ in Cairn, 1 (Aberdeen: 1997), 46–56; Murdoch, ‘Scotland, Denmark-Norway’, 92. The deaths of both Gustav II Adolf and of Frederick V late in 1632 would only emphasise the potential influence of a more permanent Stuart representation at the Imperial court. 3 Murdoch, ‘House of Stuart’, 37–51. 4 Charles I and his wife had certainly begun to ponder the benefits of employing Scotsmen in Rome to negotiate on behalf of the young Charles Louis. It would seem that the question of the Palatinate was not uppermost in the thoughts of the two men they employed with the task of building up closer links with Urban VIII’s court. Sir Robert Douglas and Robert Philip of Sanquhar put much more effort into encouraging the appointment of a cardinal for England upon the hoped-for conversion of Charles I. See Chapter Four (footnote 24) above and Hibbard, Charles I, 43–47, 51, 92–104, 124; Albion, Charles I, 117ff; 8 January 1639, Rome, Sir William Hamilton to ?, PRO SP94/41/f27. 5 This was realised by the Venetian ambassador in London in April 1634 when he stated that “it might prove of advantage to the Prince [Charles Louis] one day that he had so far done nothing to offend the Emperor”. See 7 April 1634, London,

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With these factors in mind, an alternative explanation can be sought for the involvement of a Scottish element in a plot designed to exploit the tense relationship between General Wallenstein and the emperor from that autumn. It is clear from the work of German, Austrian and Czech historians that, during the period from the Imperial victory at Steinau in Silesia in October 1633—after which Wallenstein began new initiatives with Saxony and Brandenburg, two allies of Sweden—down to the end of February 1634, the significance of a handful of Scottish officers in the Patrimonial Lands increased dramatically. As has been shown to have been the case for their compatriots in Madrid and Brussels, close access to powerful patrons at court and an astute understanding of the Machiavellian nature of international politics, would allow a small number of them to demonstrate that they could become something much more than Habsburg “fighting machines”. They proved themselves to be politically motivated figures, seeking to influence the course of the European war at the highest level.6 Important ‘pull’ factors existed for them as for other foreigners in Bohemia. In response to Ferdinand II’s post-1620 programme of confiscations and censorship, most non-Catholic landowners there had fled for their lives. The crownlands had become the setting for an influx of ambitious and often ruthless officers, seeking to become members of the Hofadel.7

Vincenzo Gussoni, Venetian ambassador in England to the Doge and Senate, in CSPV, 1632–6, 209–210. 6 Henry, Irish Military Community, 49. The ‘Austro-Irish’ would outnumber the Scots and make a considerable impact on their adopted homeland. By the eighteenth century, branches of families such as the Taaffes, Butlers, Wallises (or Walshes) and Browns (Brauns) had established themselves in Bohemia and elsewhere. M. Walsh drew up a list of 244 Irish or Scottish individuals, nearly all of them having arrived in Imperial service in this later period of the Turkish Wars and the War of the Spanish Succession. Some of these families were still living in the former Habsburg lands at the outbreak of the First World War. See James O’Neill, ‘Conflicting Loyalties: Irish Regiments in the Imperial Service’ in Irish Sword, 17 (Dublin: 1988); R.D. Fitzsimon, ‘Irish Swordsmen in the Imperial Service of the Thirty Years War’ in Irish Sword, 9 (1970), 22–31; M. Walsh, ‘Further notes . . .’, in Irish Sword. 6 (Dublin: 1964); Christopher Duffy, The Wild Goose and the Eagle: A Life Of Field Marshall von Browne, 1705–1757 (London: 1964); Brendan Jennings, ‘Irish Swordsmen’ Studies, 36 (Dublin: 1947) and ‘The Irish Franciscans in Prague’ Studies, 28 (Dublin: 1939). 7 These “rootless condottieri” included the Italian general, Ottavio Piccolomini (perhaps the most successful and prominent), along with the Spaniard, Balthasar Marradas, based at Hluboká, near Pilsen. Others among them were Matthias Gallas, Johannes

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June–December 1633: The rise of Walter Leslie and John Gordon and the fall of General Wallenstein The Austrian astronomer and pioneer of the theory of elliptical planetary motion, Johann Kepler, had once predicted that March 1634 would be a month of trouble and distress for General Wallenstein. The forecast proved to be accurate, allowing for just a few days miscalculation in its timing. Prophecy aside, some important questions remain unanswered regarding the general’s fall. Fortunately for this analysis, a great deal can be discovered about the Scottish participation through an analysis of the numerous sources that have been printed relating to the subject.8 Central European historians have always been puzzled as to why Wallenstein chose an Irishman to accompany him in seeking an escape through the garrison town of Eger (Cheb), that February, although they have generally left the issue at that. Clearly, the general hoped that he would be able to command the loyalty of Eger’s Scottish governor and his second-in-command, at a time when the rest of the Imperial Army had turned against him. Yet few have raised the question as to what made Wallenstein apportion higher value to the superficial gestures of loyalty of these three men from the Stuart kingdoms than those of many other of his lower officers. The issue remains especially intriguing since the surviving documentary evidence indicates that both the Scottish pair, Walter Leslie and John Gordon, and the Irish colonel, Walter Butler, had established close contacts with the leaders of the pro-Imperial party by that time. These three seem to have played an integral part in the development of the plans to oust the general from the early stages. Moreover, a case can be made for suggesting that their tactical interventions into the realm of high politics were comparable in

Aldringen and Rimbaldo Collalto. Poli“enskÿ describes this disparate group as “descending like vultures” into the Austrian Habsburg lands. However, despite widespread contemporary unease regarding the apparent pervasiveness of the ‘Spanish’ at the Imperial Court, it is clear that only four Spaniards actually acquired land in Bohemia between 1620 and 1634. See Poli“enskÿ, Thirty Years’ War, 126, 164. 8 For a detailed analysis, see Mann, Wallenstein, 834–852; Hess, Biographien und Autographien; Bílek, Beiträge zur Geschichte Waldstein’s; Hallwich, ed. Wallenstein’s Ende; Briefe und Akten zur Geschichte Wallensteins, 1630–4, 4 vols. (Vienna: 1912) and his Fünf Bucher Geschichte Wallenstein; Srbik, ed. Wallenstein’s Ende; Suvanto, ed. Wallenstein und Seine Anhänger.

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importance to those made by Colonel Semple in Spain during the years preceding. As Fritz Redlich has written, “military entrepreneurship and command in top brackets during the Thirty Years’ War was overwhelmingly a Protestant affair”.9 The same author has demonstrated how this can even be applied to ‘Catholic’ armies such as the emperor’s: a mixture of confessional backgrounds had been a feature of the upper ranks on the Imperial side prior to the outset of Wallenstein’s first generalship in 1625, while from that date down to 1634, an absence of religious attachment to the pro-Habsburg cause in central Europe may have actually aided the chances of officers being appointed to top positions. It is certainly no exaggeration to state that it was Wallenstein’s promotion of a motley assortment of foreigners that enabled the Imperial programme to continue.10 Irrespective of religious background, he ensured a high degree of loyalty amongst his officers through the promise of substantial material rewards. Redlich used the term ‘military enterprising’ to describe the kind of profit-motivated system that evolved. Under Wallenstein, regimental colonels (Obersten) received not only an official wage amounting to around 500 florins per week (approximately 400 reichsthalers in the mid 1620s) but were given extensive powers in other respects, as outlined in their initial contract of appointment (Bestallung). Once appointed as a colonel (Oberst), each holder of a Bestallung may have wished to be omnipresent but, in the field, and also with respect to recruitment, he frequently had to delegate authority to the regimental second-in-command, the lieutenant-colonel (Obristleutnant). A lieutenantcolonel could also be promoted to the position of Inhaber, however, a form of regimental ‘ownership’ or ‘quasi-property’ awarded to de facto regimental leaders.11

9

Redlich, German Military Enterpriser, I, 166. Although Lutherans from within the Empire were recruited, it seems to have been only later that Calvinist officers from anywhere but Scotland served in the Imperial Army. The foremost of them was General Peter Melander (1585–1648), who rose from lowly origins to Venetian service in 1620, then switched to Hessian service in 1631 and finally to Imperial service in 1640. He became Commanderin-Chief of the Imperial army in 1647. See Redlich, German Military Enterpriser, I, 425–430. 11 The Bestallung included with it a lump sum and also a recruiting patent and thus offered each holder a considerable degree of independence of control. With several hundred Imperial regiments to maintain, many colonels were appointed to 10

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For ambitious young foreigners, there were clearly attractions in such a system. Regarding Scottish beneficiaries, between 1618 and 1633, perhaps five or six had risen to the position of Inhaber, men who had been sent to command mixed companies of soldiers throughout the Empire.12 First, in 1618, Griffin Markham (possibly of Scottish background) had been an officer, based at the town of Budweis (’eské Budîjovice) in south Bohemia.13 Under Markham’s command, Budweis had remained in Imperial hands throughout that year.14 Soon after, there is the case of Captain (Hauptmann) Henry Bruce. Bruce, whose distinguished earlier career has already been mentioned, received appointment as commander at Nikolsburg (Mikulov) on the MoravianAustrian border in January the following year.15 His policies there as bailiff to the Spanish-born Cardinal-Bishop of Olmütz, Franz von Dietrichstein, were brutal.16 By 15 April 1620, Bruce had moved on

the head of more than one regiment and thus received a number of Bestallungen, giving them nominal authority over the recruitment and maintenance of a body of several thousand men. In practice then, multiple ‘propriety’ inevitably led to absenteeism. See Redlich, German Military Enterpriser, I, 217–221. 12 Ernst Schmidhofer, ‘Das irische, schottische und englische element in kaiserlichen heer’, Ph.D. Thesis, University of Vienna (1971), 42–60. Wallenstein’s cosmopolitan army probably consisted of over 100,000 men by the late 1620s although they were an unwieldy mass. These were usually separated into the major classes of Deutsche knechte, used for those companies largely recruited from within the bounds of the non-Habsburg regions of the Holy Roman Empire, Hochdeutsche Knechte, from southern Germany and the Habsburg hereditary lands, Wallonische Knechte, from the Low Countries, Hispanische fuss from Spain, and Hayduck and Polacken zu Fuss from Poland, Royal Hungary, modern-day Serbia and Croatia. See Fritz Redlich, ‘The German Military Enterpriser and his work force’ in Vierteljahrschrifte für Sozial und Wirtschaftgeschichte, 2 Vols. (Weisbaden: 1965), I, 456. 13 See the references to him in DBBT, II, nos. 174, 211; Poli“enskÿ, Thirty Years War, 102, 104–5. According to Schmidhofer, Markham was Scottish. See Schmidhofer, ‘Das irische’, 43. 14 The imperialists were eventually defeated at Budweis towards the end of the year. See Schmidhofer, ‘Das irische’, 3. 15 Bruce wrote dispatches from there to his secretary. See 17 January 1619, Nikolsburg, Henry Bruce to Secretary Jan Horskÿ in DBBT, II, no. 515. See Chapter One above for his earlier career. 16 Dietrichstein was then a powerful individual at court, who was later to be appointed governor of Moravia and in the 1630s, made director of the Imperial Privy Council. See his letters in DBBT, II, no. 87, 526. Following the commencement of Tiefenbach’s lengthy siege of 1619, Dietrichstein escaped Nikolsburg to the safer confines of Vienna. From there he pleaded to Bruce to ensure that the 30,000 guldens worth of wine on his estate be protected from the invaders at all costs. If this were not possible, Dietrichstein threatened to flee even further, to Spain. Bruce persecuted Jews and Anabaptists while employed there. He also plundered a neighbouring town and held its governor to ransom, before eventually capitulating in

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to The Hague in the United Provinces, from where it was reported that he planned to travel to Amsterdam to “receive monies . . . . . . which he hath exchanged to a good sum from Vienna, as that which he saith he hath profited in the wars”.17 Two men of unconfirmed nationality, a Captain Thomas Farmer and a Colonel Richard Wallaston, also appear in Imperial sources in 1620 alongside a growing number of Irish ordinary soldiers.18 But, it was military entrepreneurship during the first years of Wallenstein’s leadership that allowed two other, unquestionably Scottish officers to make a mark.19 Colonel

January 1620. He fled from there to Prague and then onwards to The Hague. See Poli“enskÿ, Thirty Years’ War, 121 and the same author’s Tragic Triangle, 166, 181, 182, and his ‘A Note on Scottish Soldiers’, 110. 17 Sir Dudley Carleton reported from The Hague that, although he was a “hot Papist” with Jesuit sympathies, ‘Colonel Bruce’ had expressed a wish to serve the cause of Elizabeth Stuart, a motivation which he could no longer reconcile with his service to the emperor. Nevertheless, although Carlton confirmed that Bruce “would not bear arms against his Maiesties son-in-law”, this statement lies uneasily alongside his claim in the same letter that Bruce’s “coming away” was “not altogether voluntary” and may have been purely “upon disgrace”. Carlton stated that “Parsons, the English Jesuit’s books are his chief study”. See his letter of 15 April 1620 to Secretary Naunton, printed in Ferguson, ed. Scots Brigade, I, 224. Bruce subsequently crossed the channel with the reported aim of raising a regiment for the service of the Palatinate, thus, presumably against his former employees. His experiences, along with other evidence relating to the several thousand men who British and Irish recruiters levied for the Elector Palatine, show that the pro-Palatinate cause attracted considerable popular support at home. That same summer, approximately 2,500 Scottish troops (from a total of 3,500 from the Stuart kingdoms) arrived in Bohemia to serve against the imperialists. They were led by two Scotsmen, Sir Andrew Gray and Colonel John Seton. See Poli“enskÿ, Thirty Years War, 99. 18 From the summer of 1620, fifteen companies of General Bucquoy’s second brigade of Walloon and Irish troops (soldiers who had previously served under Colonel Edward Geraldine) had made the long trek eastwards from the Spanish Netherlands. One such Irishman, Sorley MacDonnell, received the praises of Ferdinand II for his role at the White Mountain, following which he was appointed commander of a number of Irish recruits serving under General Tilly, the head of the army of the Catholic League. See Henry, Irish Military Community, 49; Poli“enskÿ, Thirty Years’ War, 102, 104–5; Brendan Jennings, ‘Irish Swordsmen’, 402; McDonnell, Wild Geese, 27, 28; Stradling, Spanish Monarchy, 17, 21; Schmidhofer, ‘Das irische’, 3, 43. See also the account of the Jesuit, Henry Fitzsimon, who wrote a diary of life in the Imperial army under General Bucquoy from June 1620 until the latter’s death in July 1621. See Hogan, ed. Words of Comfort, 83–4, 93, 97. For Butler during this period, see Hess, Biographien und Autographien, 392. As for other Scottish participation, in 1623, the Register of Orders in Brussels reported that a Scottish captain named William Campbell had recently left the Imperial regiment of Guillermo Verdugo to serve in the Army of Flanders. See AGRB, T100/28, f. 227, 20 February 1623. 19 The English officer Sydenham Poyntz served as an Imperial sergeant-major (Wachtmeister) in Wallenstein’s army from that year, was imprisoned by the Ottomans

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Daniel Hepburn was one of them. Hepburn had been in Polish service, from where he transferred to Wallenstein’s army in 1625, becoming Inhaber of his own Hebronisch regiment.20 He adapted successfully to the general’s methods thereafter. Besides obtaining a Bestallung, Hepburn used a number of less scrupulous methods to further his career. Leaving aside the possibility of his having made a small fortune through loot, ransom, fraud, embezzlement and private business (methods tolerated and even advocated by his commander), he became skilled in extorting so-called ‘contributions’ (kontributionen), a means of enforcing subsidies from surrounding communities while on the move.21 Hepburn also exemplified the general’s policy of in 1626, then resided temporarily at a convent in Vienna, before marrying a rich German heiress. He fought at the battles of Breitenfeld (1631), Lützen (1632) and Nördlingen (1634) and married twice, in 1633 and 1635. See Rev. A.T.S. Goodrick, ed. The Relation of Sydenham Poyntz, 1624 –1636 (Camden Society, Third Series, London: 1908), 14. A Solomon Adams and a major named Chamberlain served in the Imperial army too. Besides, a James Hunter, born in Uppland in Sweden and the son of a Scot, worked at the Imperial Electoral College in Vienna from 1627. He received an appointment to the Regensburg diet in 1630 but was then fired by Ferdinand II. See S. Murdoch and A. Grosjean, Scotland, Scandinavia and Northern Europe 1580 –1707 (Aberdeen: 1998), revised and published on the Internet at <www.abdn.ac.uk/history/datasets/ssne>. 20 Redlich, German Military Enterpriser, I, 186. He would seem almost certainly to have been of Scottish descent. His “Hebronische” regiment is described as consisting of 1000 arquebusiers, but it appears that it also contained a large body of dragoons. The picture is further complicated by sources referring to another mixed regiment, consisting of four companies of arquebusiers and ten of dragoons, which Hepburn subsequently commanded against the armies of Denmark-Norway and Sweden—in Poland, Bohemia, Schleswig and elsewhere in the Empire. One of Hepburn’s regiments certainly fought Count Mansfeld’s army at Dessau Bridge on 25 April 1626, where the colonel claimed six standards and received a letter of gratitude (Dankbrief ) from the emperor before being moved to Hungary by Wallenstein. Hepburn is mentioned along with a fellow Scot named Watt or Wadt, by the later Irish chaplain to the British and Irish forces in the Imperial army, Thomas Carve, (sometimes referred to as ‘Carew’) in his 1639 account of his experiences in Imperial service. See Thomas Carve, Reysbüchlein dess ehrwürdigen Herrn Thomae Carve, Irländers, dess edlen gestrengen Walteri Deveroux kajs. Maj. wohlbestelten Obristen/Feldt-Caplans darinnen allerley Glaub und denckwürdige Historien und Kriegsverlauff von Jahr 1630 bis 1638, verfassere sonderlich aber die ritterliche Thatten Butleri, Gordon, Lesly, und andrerer wie auch die harte, ernsthaffte Belagerung und Eroberung der Festen stade Breysach, auss dem Latein: ins Teutsch übersetzt durch P. R. (Mäyntz: 1640). Carve/Carew’s original works were edited in the nineteenth century. See Michael Kerney, ed. Thomæ Carve, Tipperariensis, Sacellani Majoris Anglorum, Scotorum et Hibernorum sub exercitu Caesareae Majestatis Militantium, cum Historia Facti Butleri, Gordon, Lesley et Aliorum . . .’, (London: 1859) and Fitzsimon, ‘Irish Swordsmen’ 31; Alphons von Wrede, Geschichte der k. und k. Wehrmacht, 5 Vols. (Vienna: 1898–1905), III, part 2, 186, 420. 21 These were a mixture of “traditional estate approved war-taxes”, ransom demands and other impositions. The payment was often made in food or other

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multiple ‘proprietorship’ in 1628, when he was moved once again, to the head of another two regiments.22 He died in August of that year, in debt to Wallenstein, who experienced difficulties in trying to recover the money from his widow.23 Less documented than Hepburn’s is the early career of Thomas Henderson, who arrived in Imperial service in 1627.24 His first posting is confirmed by a letter of his to the Imperial War Council (Hofkriegsrat) that year. In 1628, Henderson received appointment as colonel of an infantry regiment.25 The rewards of the Imperial system had been sufficient motivation to attract an assortment of Scots to the position of Inhaber during the 1620s then, while, as Hepburn’s example illustrates, the command of an Imperial regiment could also work as an “instrument of social mobility” beyond the military sphere. This increasingly emerged as a major issue in the growing conflict between Ferdinand II and Wallenstein. Regarding the former, all foreign officers must

provisions and the profits pocketed by self-interested colonels. Besides this, trade in armour and weaponry—which for Wallenstein developed from a considerable industrial base on his Friedland estate—were also exploited by colonels on a smaller scale, as was the practice of unterstecken, whereby enemy soldiers were released by officers and then recruited to serve in their own armies. Hepburn, for one, accumulated large stores of fodder during 1626—barley, rye, wheat and peas—which he sold in large quantities to the Bishopric of Halberstadt. He also lent 2,000 reichsthalers to a village or town called Schwanebeck, which apparently already owed him 3,000 reichsthalers in kontributionen. Hepburn arranged a mortgage agreement with the authorities there to ensure that the debt was paid. See Redlich, German Military Enterpriser, I, 309, 324. The colonel received another Bestallung in early 1627 to lead both a dragoon regiment and a regiment of central-European infantry. He marched with these regiments to Poland in March that year, then to German Pomerania, where he apparently bought 137 horses and made levies. Hepburn fought against an army of German mercenaries there—perhaps those arriving from battle against Koniecpolski—services for which he received the thanks of the duke of Pomerania. See KA Bestallungen (appointments to the rank of Colonel), 1627, 1112, 1150; 3 March 1627, Stettin, duke Bogislav of Pomerania to ‘Colonel Hebron’ in DBBT, II, 423. 22 The appointments were made on 21 and 30 April respectively. The regiments both consisted of arquebusiers and numbered 1000 and 600 men each. They presumably followed him back to Halberstadt, then to Mecklenburg, and on to Kosel in Silesia in July. See KA, Bestallungen 1628, 1131. 23 Both her identity and the eventual outcome of this financial dispute, remain obscure. See Wrede, Geschichte der k. und k. Wehrmacht, III, part 2, 420; Francis Watson, Wallenstein: Soldier under Saturn (London: 1938), 226. 24 Although there was a colonel of that name who had recruited and served in Argyll’s regiment in the Spanish Netherlands five years earlier, there is no evidence that this was the same man. See Chapter Two above. 25 ? 1627, Henderson to Hofkriegsrat, KA, HKR-Prot, Exp. 1627, f. 390; Schmidhofer, ‘Das irische’, 43; Wrede, Geschichte der k. und k. Wehrmacht, II, 31.

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have become aware that there lay the remote possibility of reward for dutiful service by means of a place in the international ranks of the Hofadel. For instance, although not ennobled himself, Richard Walsh, an Irish military veteran, had held a court position as an Imperial Chamberlain (kammererherr) in the 1620s, following his marriage to a Bohemian countess.26 A programme of catholicisation was certainly still to the forefront of Imperial policy during the summer of 1633, although it remained unclear as to whether Ferdinand II would be prepared to continue extending his patronage to foreign soldiers, especially those of non-Catholic sympathies.27 Evidently though, service to Wallenstein did not necessarily imply ‘loyalty to the emperor’ (Kaisertreue) or vice versa by that point. With the new stresses emerging between Ferdinand II and his generalissimo, it cannot be confirmed as to whether those from the Stuart kingdoms identified themselves with the emperor’s aims at that stage (that is, with his attempt to create a catholic-reformed, cosmopolitan Habsburg ‘empire in the east’) or with the increasingly divergent, if non-confessional concerns of the Imperial military commander. However, the answer would emerge soon after. An analysis of the socio-economic and religious background in the Three Kingdoms provides the essential context to a re-evaluation of Scottish (and Irish) involvement in the general’s fall.28

26

Described as a “persecuted Catholic”, yet apparently of Scottish ancestry, Walsh had left Ireland with his sons Oliver and Theobald in either 1612 or 1622. Moreover, one of Richard’s brothers, Thomas, was already in Germany in 1610, while another half brother had been born to a German mother. Richard Walsh followed these family connections with the Empire, serving as an Imperial Chamberlain (Kammererherr), a member of the Imperial war council (Hofkriegsrat), a sergeant major-general (Generalfeldwachtmeister) and eventually colonel (Oberst) of an infantry regiment during the 1620s. He was also a governor (Kommandant), based on the south-eastern HabsburgOttoman frontier at Szatmár (Satu Mare, now near the Romanian-Hungarian border) before his eventual death at Magdeburg in late 1632 from wounds inflicted at the battle of Lützen. He may have been helped in his pursuit of Imperial titles through his marriage to an Imperial countess, Barbara Schlick of Weißkirchen and Bassano. Moreover, his son Oliver and two granchildren, Franz Ernst and Georg, went on to achieve renown within the Imperial army. Archival sources exist for the family in the ‘Wallis Family Archive’ (Rodinnÿ Archiv Wallisu) at the Moravian Regional Archives in Brno. See Barker, Army, Aristocracy, Monarchy, 38, 53–54; V. Hussey Walsh ‘The Austrian Branches of the Family of Walsh’ in The Genealogist, 17 (1901), 217–224; ‘The Austrian Branches of the Family of Walsh (continued)’ in The Genealogist, 17 (1901), 79–88. 27 Poli“enskÿ, Thirty Years War, 74, 153; Evans, Making, 161. 28 The plot to oust the Bohemian Imperial generalissimo and his last remaining

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The elevation in status by 1633 of two other Scottish imperialists had occurred—like those already mentioned—as the result of seemingly haphazard career moves. First was John Gordon. Gordon’s family were a cadet branch of the famous north-east based earls of Huntly, and came from Milton of Noth, near Rhynie in Aberdeenshire. The young John’s father and namesake had served somewhere in mainland Europe before being killed in the Low Countries in 1584, giving some support to the claim of a nineteenth-century scholar that there were four men named Gordon in high positions in the Imperial army after that. It is not at all clear when the younger John arrived in central Europe.29 He may have followed his father by serving in the Army of Flanders to begin with, although this evidence has to be balanced with some sources from his later life, which imply that he was a staunch Calvinist.30 In May 1626 though, John Gordon was the subject of correspondence between the Imperial Council of War and Colonel Merode, a later imperialist recruiting agent in the Spanish Netherlands.31 Soon after, his life became connected with that of the second individual concerned, Walter Leslie, second son of the third marriage of the tenth Baron of Balquhain.32 Once again, religious affiliations were obviously significant in Leslie’s case, if con-

allies had its origins as early as his first dismissal in 1630. This action had led to the suicide of his banker Jan de Witte a year later. Recalled after the brutal sacking of the town of Magdeburg and Imperial defeat at Breitenfeld, Wallenstein’s second generalship had been shrouded in controversy from the start. Meanwhile, Markham, Bruce and Hepburn had all died or moved on by this point, while Colonel Thomas Henderson’s activities for several years after 1628 have proved impossible to confirm. See Mann, Wallenstein, 516–7. 29 Grant claimed that there was a colonel, two lieutenant-colonels and a watchmaster of that name in Imperial service. See James Grant, Memoirs and Adventures of Sir John Hepburn (Edinburgh: 1851), 189. John Malcolm Bulloch thought it likely that John Gordon had been educated at Aberdeen Grammar School and had left Scotland as a young adult. See J.M. Bulloch, ‘The Famous Assassination of Wallenstein’, in The Gay Gordons (London: 1908), 32–43. 30 A correspondent of Wallenstein had made a complaint to the General about Gordon’s “Calvinische geist” while Father John Seton complained in 1638 that, unlike his kinsmen, “Colonel Gordon is not yet a Catholic”. See J.M. Bulloch, The Gay Gordons (London: 1908), 33. 31 See ? May 1626, Imperial war council (Hofkriegsrat) to Colonel Merode about “Joan Gordon” in KA, HKR-Prot., Reg. 1626, f. 237. 32 His mother was Jean Erskine, a daughter of Sir Alexander Erskine of Gogar. The Leslie family had no recognised head, split as it was between the Fife base of the earls of Leven and the north-east base at Balquhain and Fetternear, led by John Leslie, the tenth Baron of Balquhain. Besides the Balquhain branch were strongly Catholic Leslie families at New Leslie, Conrack and elsewhere. Other Leslie

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fusing for future historians. Not only must the Balquhain Leslies have been familiar to the Gordons of Milton of Noth—their ancestral home lying just a few miles to the east—but like the earl of Huntly and the majority of his followers in the north east of Scotland, many of them continued to follow the Catholic religion.33 That said, financial impoverishment brought about by the tenth baron’s extravagant lifestyle, perhaps provides a more convincing explanation than spiritual considerations as to why many members of the family went into exile in Catholic Europe.34 Walter Leslie, for one, had crossed the North Sea by 1624, to serve in the Protestant army of the United Provinces. In 1628, he had been at Stralsund, in northern Germany, serving either the Danes or the Swedes.35 Having transferred to the Imperial army, Leslie had fought alongside Gordon in Mantua from the summer of 1630.36 Upon Wallenstein’s recall in December 1631, both had joined the general’s forces in northern Germany in the effort to repel the Swedes.37 In July 1632,

households were Protestant. See Alasdair Roberts and Ann Dean, ‘The Leslies of Balquhain and the Burial of Bishop Hay’ in Recusant History, 22 (1995), 536–548. 33 Their allegiance to the Catholic cause could be considered that of the politique. For instance, the tenth baron had sided with the earl of Argyll upon his defeat by Huntly at Glenlivet in 1594. From the first few years of the seventeenth century, the Balquhain Leslies were on good terms with their Gordon neighbours. 34 See Chapter One above. The tenth Baron apparently refused to ride anywhere without twenty of his vassals by his side. His eldest son led the family further into debt and had been forced to ‘wadsett’ or mortgage most of the family property to a neighbouring family, the Abercrombies, by the mid-1620s. The eleventh baron’s eldest son succeeded him and fought for the covenanters until he retired to ‘Germany’ in 1647, while another son, Andrew (Walter’s nephew) was already there. Walter’s half-brother William and brother Alexander, both had continental connections too. They became thirteenth and fourteenth baron respectively. See ‘Conclusion’ below and Colonel K.H. Leslie, Historical Records of the family of Leslie, (hereafter His. Rec. Les.) 3 Vols., (Edinburgh: 1869), III, 54–92; Roberts and Dean, ‘The Leslies of Balquhain’, 536–548. 35 See Leslie’s NDB entry. He may have been fighting for the Imperial army as early as 12 September 1627, according to the letter of a Scot in Swedish service, James Spens, to Axel Oxenstierna. This document refers to an “enemy commander” named Leslie. I am grateful to Dr. Steve Murdoch for this information. 36 See Hallwich’s entry on Leslie in the ADB. 37 Grant’s account also refers to a Colonel Grahame, who apparently fought for the imperialists on 10 January at Wismar on the Baltic coast, commanding 3,000 men, but who was then taken as prisoner to Greifswald. See Grant, Memoirs and Adventures, 154. Further details about him have proved impossible to find. However, this seems to slighly pre-date the first travels to the continent of James Graham, fifth earl and future Marquis of Montrose. See Edward J. Cowan, Montrose: For Covenant and King (London: 1977).

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they had been promoted to leading positions in the infantry regiment of Count Adam Erdmann Tr‘ka, Wallenstein’s general’s brotherin-law and a man who remained Inhaber of another mixed regiment of arquebusiers and dragoons: Leslie served as a low-to-middle ranking officer (Oberstwachtmeister) at Bengtheim, still under Gordon (by then an Obristleutnant). The pair achieved some notoriety following battle at nearby Freistadt the month after, where they had taken joint command of a force of “one thousand Scottish and Irish musketeers”.38 Both were captured, an event vividly recorded by a fellow Scotsman, Robert Monro, then in Swedish service.39 Monro stated that, during their imprisonment “We made merry as friends”.40 If their captors did treat them so well, it is perhaps a sign of Swedish confidence in the military situation of the time as much as a reflection of any renown they might have had.41 In any event, John Gordon would quickly rise after that to become commander of the ‘NeuTr‘ka’ regiment, with Walter Leslie serving as his agent or spokesman (Vertreter) at court. The two men fought together once more, at Lützen in November 1632, in the aftermath of which the ‘Neu-Tr‘ka’ garrisoned the town of Eger. Leslie received a station at Eger too, again as Gordon’s second-in-command.42 Besides reflecting family allegiances in the north-east of Scotland, it is worth considering whether the grouping of Leslie and Gordon together may have been another outcome of the complex strategy pursued by Wallenstein. By 1633, his Imperial army had begun to include an ever more motley assortment of Bohemian, German, Walloon, Italian, Spanish, Croatian and French condottieri. The lists

38 According to Grant’s partisan account, much of the Imperial Army fled, while Leslie and Gordon and their musketeers “bravely stood firm”. See Grant, Memoirs and Adventures, 188. 39 William S. Brockington jr., ed. Monro, His Expedition with the Worthy Scots Regiment called Mac-Keys (London: 1999), 145; Schmidhofer ‘Das irische’, 52. See also Leslie’s NDB and ADB entries. 40 Brockington jr. ed. Monro, his Expedition, 145; Schmidhofer ‘Das irische’, 52; Redlich, German Military Enterpriser, I, 395; Marquis De Ruvigny, The Nobilities of Europe (London: 1910) 311; Fischer, Scots in Germany, 113. Some of these sources refer to a ‘James G. Gordon’ as being in Swedish captivity after Freistadt, although it seems likely that this is the same individual. 41 Their eventual release came, it would seem, only after they had received the admiration and compliments of their captors for their military prowess and bravery on the battlefield. See Schmidhofer, ‘Das irische’, 52. Grant stated that they were kept imprisoned by the Swedes for five weeks. See Grant, Memoirs and Adventures, 188. 42 See Leslie’s ADB entry.

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of officers that year give a useful insight into the national backgrounds of the 109 registered Inhaber: thirty-seven were of ‘Latin’ origin (eighteen Italians, sixteen francophones including Flemings, three Spaniards), fifty-six were from the Empire (including Bohemians of both German/Czech mother tongue), while the remaining nineteen consisted of nine Hungarians or Croats, three Danes, three from the Stuart kingdoms and one from the Swiss cantons.43 Two of the officers from Britain and Ireland can be easily identified. The aforementioned Walter Butler, came from an ‘Old English’ Tipperary family, although a distant kinsman of the Protestant and Englisheducated earl of Ormond. He was based in western Bohemia.44 The second, the Scottish colonel, John Henderson, is known to have turned up somewhere in the crownlands following service in the armies of Denmark-Norway and Sweden. He had been appointed Oberst of an Imperial dragoon regiment earlier that same year.45 The third must have been John Gordon, despite his not yet being an Inhaber.46 Looking at these appointments in the context of the cosmopolitan nature of the Imperial officerial class more generally, it seems that Wallenstein favoured his small number of Scottish and Irish officers when it came to stations on the fragile frontiers that marked Bohemia off from regions of the Reich to the west. An analysis of Leslie and Gordon’s involvement in high politics must start with a breakdown of the complex economic, religious and

43

Redlich, German Military Enterpriser, I, 166. Walter Butler’s cousin, James Christian Butler, had commanded an infantry regiment for King Sigismund III in Poland. This regiment had transferred to Imperial service in 1631. Upon his return to Polish service in 1633, James Christian had given command to Walter. See 27 October 1631, Friedland, Heinrich von Grissel to General Wallenstein in DBBT, V (Prague: 1977), 54 45 A John Henderson had been captured while fighting in Africa, and held prisoner in Zanzibar during the early 1620s. After returning home to marry Margaret Menteith of Randiford in 1625, either he or a namesake then served in the armies of Denmark-Norway and Sweden. He led a Scottish regiment in the latter force at Lützen but, by 1633, had raised a regiment for the imperialists and was serving in Bohemia. See Hess, Biographien und Autographien, 143; Wrede, Geschichte der k. und k. Wehrmacht, III, no. 2, 621. Besides John and Thomas, several other Henderson relatives served in the Imperial army around this time. For evidence of this, see 31 January 1655, Cologne, Sir John Henderson to Sir Edward Hyde, earl of Clarendon in ClSP, III, no. 37; Hallwich, Wallenstein’s Ende, I, 235. 46 Besides them, an Imperial Captain named Walter Daton is mentioned in the records of the Scottish abbey in Regensburg on 1 May 1633. See Rev. Mark Dilworth, O.S.B., ‘Two Necrologies of Scottish Benedictine Abbeys in Germany’ in IR, 9, no. 1 (1958), 202–3. 44

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political situation that had brought tragedy upon the town of Eger and its environs on a number of recent occasions. Eger was an Imperial free city that lay on the mercantile route between Prague and the cities of Nuremberg and Leipzig. Borders with its Imperial neighbours, Saxony and the Upper Palatinate, lay just a few miles away. Perhaps inevitably, cultural, political and linguistic influences from these regions were considerable, a situation that was complicated further by the fact that the whole ‘Egerland’ district held the status of being a self-governing district within the Empire. To add to the confusion, although, for ecclesiastical purposes, the town remained part of the diocese of Regensburg, pockets of it had avoided Catholic reform entirely.47 Religious tensions certainly remained to the fore in the late 1620s when the four Lutheran heads of the town council had been forced into exile in Saxony following the visit of an Imperial Commission.48 Following this, an invading army of Saxon and Bohemian emigrants had reoccupied the region in 1631, and the four councillors had returned. In July 1632, the Imperial general Holk had retaken the town for the imperialists, forcing the councillors back to Saxony again.49 Evidently then, as long as the Saxons acquiesced with the Swedes, a path via Eger remained a likely route of entry for northern invaders moving towards Prague and Vienna. Not only that, but events to the immediate west and south, had also become a concern to the Imperial administrators by 1633. Although a part of the Upper Palatinate had rapidly undergone ‘catholicisation’ in the hands of Maximilian I of Bavaria, much of the rest lay under Swedish occupation.50 With this complicated situation in mind,

47 Eger had its own estates government, while its population’s persistent attachment to Lutheranism can be seen in the unsuccessful attempts of a 1629 Imperial special commission to convert the populace to Catholicism. It seems that only twentyfour conversions were made. See Josef Jana‘ek, Albrecht z Vald“tejna a Cheb (Cheb: 1986), 19–21; Evans, Making, 198, 299. 48 Saxony’s conservative Elector, John George, was forced by the Imperial policy of catholicisation to fight on the side of Sweden from 1630—a dramatic turnaround since the Saxon administration remained anxious for good relationships within the Holy Roman Empire and had, initially, contributed militarily to the Habsburg-led army. See Ingrao, Habsburg Monarchy, 142. 49 Wallenstein had apparently recruited as many as 40,000 men in the Egerland in April 1632. He had also visited the town himself, on at least four occasions. See Jana‘ek, Albrecht z Vald“tejna, 19–21; Josef Poli“enskÿ, War and Society in Europe: 1618–1648 (London: 1978), 139. 50 The much larger Lower Palatinate further west had been in Spanish hands since the early 1620s.

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it is clear that neither the imperialists nor their enemies could take the allegiance of Eger’s populace for granted. Gordon appears in sources for the garrison on 19 July 1633 when Wallenstein, then based in Silesia, raised the possibility of appointing him as a colonel. The general must have postponed the decision since, in August, the town records continue to list Gordon as commander of four or five companies of the ‘Neu-Tr‘ka’ there. The Scotsman based himself in the so-called ‘Pachelbel house’, a grand residence in the town’s main square. From September through to November, a number of Eger residents provided contributions towards his maintenance and board there.51 By that time, Wallenstein had become embroiled ever more deeply in controversy. Believing that the uncertainty displayed by the Saxons under his former field marshall on the Baltic coast, Hans Georg von Arnim, was now resolved in favour of a peaceful resolution, Wallenstein reckoned that he could engineer a major international treaty without support from Vienna. He had met Arnim as early as 6 June, agreeing to a compromise whereby Maximilian I of Bavaria would surrender his control over the Palatinate. Ferdinand II claimed to find such negotiations unacceptable, but in truth, appears to have been perplexed as to how to respond for a time, divided over whether he should welcome the opportunities offered by the possibility of a truce with Saxony on one hand, or follow the advice of his militant Jesuit confessor Lamormaini—to persevere with a policy of confessional dogmatism—on the other. Lamormaini’s views proved more persuasive for the time being. The so-called ‘Bamberg text’, an anonymous statement outlining the mistrust of some senior Imperial officers towards Wallenstein, appeared in print in October 1633. With widespread unease amongst Imperial privy-councillors and the breakdown of the general’s negotiations with Saxony by mid-November, the pressure on the emperor to tackle the matter increased. Rumours circulated in Vienna of a conspiracy, some courtiers believing that Wallenstein was planning to lead the Imperial army over to the enemy.52

51 On 16 August an army inspection listed four compaines of Tr‘ka’s at Eger, led by Gordon. See K. Siegl, ‘Obrist Johann Gordon’ in Mitteilungen des Vereins für die Geschichte der Deutschen in Böhmen, 70 (1932), 256. 52 Mann, Wallenstein, 753–4.

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Both Spain and Bavaria soon had good reason to support his dismissal. That same month, Wallenstein responded only hesitantly to an urgent request to have his Bohemian-quartered troops sent to help defend Regensburg from the siege of Bernard of Saxe-Weimar and the Swedes: inaction based on his mistrust of what he perceived to be an overly powerful ‘Spanish’ group at court, possibly determined more specifically by his learning of the emperor’s dispatch of the duke of Feria to the Rhine lands instead of a general from the Reich as he had hoped. In December, the general received a similar appeal for military assistance from Maximilian I of Bavaria, while the Spaniards (now planning a march through Germany to assist Philip IV’s brother in the Spanish Netherlands) requested his help once more too. Wallenstein ignored both pleas. Ferdinand’s advisor, Count Trautmannsdorf, was furious, as was Count Schlick, president of the Hofkriegsrat. Together, they proposed to the emperor that the king of Hungary replace the general.53

December 1633–February 1634: The assassination plot The five main figures in the implementation of the plan to capture the generalissimo and his last faithful supporters were all generals from Spanish dependencies: Ottavio Piccolomini, Matthias Gallas, Johann Aldringen, Balthasar Marradas and Rudolf Colloredo. This group began corresponding with each other from December 1633 over the matter. Piccolomini has usually been depicted as the leader.54 That said, an intimation of the involvement of two of the officers from the Stuart kingdoms comes very shortly after. Butler corresponded with Piccolomini on the subject in late December.55 Gordon showed no signs of disloyalty to the general yet, despite spending Christmas day with Butler’s regimental chaplain, Thomas Carve.56 It is not clear if he even knew anything of the plot at this time since,

53

Mann, Wallenstein, 757. See Chapter Nine below. 55 21 December 1633, Kout, Colonel Butler to Piccolomini in Paul Wiegler, ed. Wallenstein: Geschichte eines Herrscherlebens (Berlin: 1920), 372. 56 Also with Gordon and Carve was a ‘William, Count Gall von Bourckh’, an Imperial chamberlain and veteran of Polish service and governor of Neisse (Nysa) in Silesia. This man was apparently Irish by birth, from County Kilkenny. See Schmidhofer, ‘Das irische’, 57. 54

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on 29 December, he completed a pass for an unnamed envoy, permitting him to travel to Pilsen to meet Wallenstein and requesting that all officers and soldiers allow him to pass safely “there and back”.57 However, on 3 January, Piccolomini (now being suggested as a possible candidate for a field marshallship) met Generals Gallas and Colloredo at a place named Grossglogau to discuss Wallenstein’s “treason”. Amid further rumours of the general’s close and intimate correspondence, not only with Saxony, Saxe-Weimar and Brandenburg, but also with the French and Swedes now, it is clear that the king of Hungary had begun to consider him a traitor to the Imperial cause.58 Butler’s presence at the Grossglogau meeting cannot be confirmed, although Walter Leslie’s involvement becomes apparent just a few days on from that. On 9 January, having arrived at Eger from military duty in the Upper Palatinate, Leslie followed Butler in writing a letter to Piccolomini, addressing him as einem Protector aller fremden Cavaliere (a protector of all the foreign Cavaliers). Perhaps aware of the Italian’s imminent rise in rank, Leslie suggested that he himself should also be promoted, claiming that his recent service had proved him a loyal and honest subject of the emperor and that this deserved recognition.59 In the prevailing climate of suspicion and paranoia, Butler and he had made some shrewd moves. The timing of Leslie’s letter seems hardly coincidental, since Piccolomini would have almost certainly received it before 12 January, the day that the Pilsener Schluß or ‘Pilsen agreement’ was signed, whereby forty-seven Imperial officers pledged their loyalty to Wallenstein. Amongst the signatories to offer their support were three men from the Stuart kingdoms. The first two names are unsurprising. First, there was Butler, whose dragoons were in winter quarters just a few miles further south at Kladrau (Kladruby): the Irishman could hardly be expected to act alone in betraying his general at this point. Second was John Henderson, recently appointed as Inhaber of a regiment based elsewhere in west Bohemia.60 The third of them,

57

Siegl, ‘Obrist Johann Gordon’, 258. Many amongst the scattered communities of Bohemian exiles believed he was their only means of obtaining permission to resettle their lands. See Albert E.J. Hollander, ‘Some English Documents on the End of Wallenstein’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 40, no. 2 (1958), 358. 59 See Hallwich’s ADB entry on Leslie. 60 Henderson was a regimental commander of seven dragoon companies by this time. In February 1634, they were in winter quarters in Bohemia. See Wrede, 58

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however, was an Adam Gordon, a cousin of the lieutenant-colonel.61 Thus, neither John Gordon nor Walter Leslie signed the document.62 More important to Wallenstein than a possible inconsistency of opinion amongst his Scottish and Irish officers was the fact that Piccolomini and many of the other leading ‘Latins’ had failed to ratify the agreement. Worse than that, the general would soon learn that they had become confident enough to draw up plans behind his back as to what his course of action might be following what, they believed, would be his imminent loss of status. The Italian general had called a meeting simultaneously, which had been attended by eighteen colonels. This group signed the so-called ‘Pilsen Reverse’. In this document, Generals Piccolomini, Gallas, Colloredo and a number of others proclaimed their loss of confidence in their commander and called for his arrest. They had to wait for Wallenstein’s dismissal to be confirmed first. Ferdinand II agreed to this on 24 January, and also promised amnesty to all but the highest-ranking generals who had signed the first Pilsen agreement. In doing so, the emperor left Wallenstein with no other option than to seek support from his correspondents in Saxony and Brandenburg to the north. Large numbers of his fellow Bohemians were living there and might welcome him. Unfortunately for the general, his enemies at the Imperial court had perceived this too. Besides, they knew that his most likely means of escape to Saxony would be through the town of Eger, where he would expect to find the ‘Neu-Tr‘ka’ regiment and its Scottish commander.63 Geschichte der k. und k. Wehrmacht, III, no. 2, 621; Hallwich, Wallenstein’s Ende, I, 235; Schmidhofer ‘Das irische’, 51, 57. 61 Presumably, he acted as the lieutenant-colonel’s representative at Pilsen. A captain of that surname appears to have resided in a separate house to that of the lieutenant-colonel in today’s Marktplatz in the town. He may be the Adam Gordon ‘of Ardlogie’ who had joined the Scots Men-at-Arms in France in 1625. See J.M. Bulloch, ‘The Tragic Adventures of Byron’s Ancestors: The Gordons of Gight—A Study in Degeneration’, in Aberdeen Free Press, 2 December 1898 (Aberdeen: 1898), 2 and ‘A Tragedy of the Austrian Empire: How Two Aberdonians Startled Europe’ in Aberdeen Free Press, 2 December 1898 (Aberdeen: 1898). 62 Besides showing an apparent dissatisfaction with Wallenstein, one possible explanation for their absence was suggested in a 1950s work by Heinrich von Srbik. In his account, Srbik referred to a second letter from Leslie to Piccolomini dated 13 January, in which the Scot described a meeting that he had convened as a matter of urgency with Count Tr‘ka. In February, John Gordon is recorded as commander of 1,200 infantry at the town. See Srbik, Wallenstein’s Ende, 165; Hallwich, Wallenstein’s Ende, I, 187. 63 In fact, Wallenstein must have been aware of John Gordon’s national back-

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Even if the involvement of Gordon and his companies at the Eger garrison had still to be confirmed, Piccolomini certainly had Butler and Leslie’s support by then: plainly, both had ingratiated themselves with the new field marshall and events moved quickly as a result.64 On 26 January, the Italian wrote to a fellow conspirator from Linz stating that he had “come to an agreement with numerous others . . .” who were “. . . determined to die in the loyal service of His Majesty and religion”.65 This confirmed the temporal and spiritual commitment of the ‘Spanish’ plotters to the emperor’s cause. Six days later, Piccolomini received his appointment as field marshall, while soon after, Colloredo, Gallas and Aldringen consulted Ferdinand’s confessor, Lamormaini. Perhaps aware of this, on 17 February, Wallenstein demanded that his leading generals convene again at Pilsen. However, the emperor had evidently already decided to dismiss him. He issued a patent calling for the general’s capture “dead or alive” the next day: the signal which Piccolomini and his accomplices had been waiting for. Independent of all these developments, Wallenstein called Gordon to Pilsen, to inform him (presumably aware of the importance of Eger to any escape plan) that he would be promoted to the position of colonel after all. In this desperate attempt to secure support, the general promised Gordon that, in return for his loyalty, he would be given command of a dragoon regiment further north at Zittau, on the Saxon-Lusatian border. The lieutenant-colonel stayed at Pilsen overnight and may have remained undecided until early the next day. In any case, Wallenstein’s last allies took another oath at Pilsen on 20 February, a meeting that Gordon seems to have taken no part in.66 The Scottish governor arrived back at Eger soon after,

ground long before that, for instance, when he had raised the possibility of Gordon being made a colonel in August 1633. Therefore, Gordon’s credentials as a potential ally must have seemed strong and may have influenced the general’s decison. See ‘Leslie’ in ADB. 64 There is no evidence of Gordon corresponding with Piccolomini himself even at this point. He had good reason to listen to Wallenstein, whether or not he was aware that his loyalty was unlikely to prove as profitable as the general had claimed. But by 25 January, Butler was able to report to Gallas having deliberated with Gordon in Eger. See 25 January, Eger, Butler to General Gallas in Wiegler, ed. Wallenstein, 418–20. 65 Mann, Wallenstein, 799. 66 In a register of dragoon regiments in Bohemia that same day, Butler’s regiment at Kladrau was stated as consisting of nine companies of around 900 men in total.

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ostensibly to complete his remaining duties before taking up his new post to the north.67 On the assumption that he would be commanded to proceed to Prague with Wallenstein, Butler left Kladrau on 22 February. But the Irishman received orders to divert north to the town of Mies (St®íbro) instead. He must have been given the news that the emperor’s allies had secured Prague and its environs so as to prevent Wallenstein from organising a proposed rendezvous of his Bohemian-based regiments. The confiscation of the general’s property had already begun.68 The next two days proved highly eventful. The indications suggest that Gordon had come to an agreement with the Irishman and Leslie by 23 February, since General Giulio Diodati—who had deserted Wallenstein just six days before—wrote to Gallas from Pilsen that day, stating that “Gordon has instructions from me”.69 Apparently acting under orders from Gallas, Butler’s regiment—including at least three companies headed by Irishmen (Walter Devereux, Robert Geraldine and a Captain Burke)—camped outside Mies before departing with Wallenstein at 10am the following morning. On the way to Eger, Butler sat with the general, who promised to supply the necessary finances for him to return to the Stuart kingdoms and recruit more men for his regiment, while also expressing a wish to meet Walter Leslie at Plan (Plaun), a few miles from the garrison.70 Wallenstein obviously believed—perhaps persuaded by Butler—that Gordon’s second-in-command was influential and could still be

Henderson’s seven companies were listed too. The ‘Neu-Tr‘ka’ at Eger—temporarily under Leslie’s authority until Gordon returned from Pilsen—was registered as having consisted of 1,200 infantry soldiers, organised into just seven companies. 190 of these men were stated as being under the command of John Gordon, another 200 under Leslie, and 130 men under Captain Adam Gordon. In addition, according to Srbik, seven companies of the ‘Alt-Tr‘ka’, led by an Adrian von Enckevort, were stationed just outside the town walls. The ‘Verzeichnis der effectiven Mannschaft des Trckaschen Regiments die sich in Egerer und Elbögenschen Kreis befindet’ taken on 18 January 1634 and held in the Cheb town archive, may yet provide more details about the composition of the Tr‘ka regiment at that time. See Srbik, Wallenstein’s Ende, I, 165–6; Hallwich, Wallenstein’s Ende, I, 235. 67 Srbik, Wallenstein’s Ende, I, 165–6. 68 The general made one last desperate plea for obedience, asking his loyal troops to proceed to Prague for a showdown on 22 February. He did not make it that far. See 23 February 1634, Prague, General Morzin to Gallas in Wiegler, ed. Wallenstein, 404. 69 Mann, Wallenstein, 831; Srbik, Wallenstein’s Ende, I, 317–21. 70 Mann, Wallenstein, 830.

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depended upon. According to the lieutenant-colonel’s later report, the general went ahead to organise this meeting, going as far as to discuss the “disorder and confusion” in the army with Leslie candidly, even raising the possibility of his giving up command.71 Around 5pm, Wallenstein finally arrived at Eger accompanied by a number of disordered companies totalling around 1,400 soldiers. Gordon opened the lower gates to a select group of them: the general, Butler and a few other officials and servants. He then moved out of the Pachelbel house so that Wallenstein could be accommodated there.72 The general had become extremely ill so retired immediately to his bedroom. This arranged, Gordon went to the castle to consult Leslie and Butler, at which point the latter revealed the news that, before entering the town, Wallenstein had given orders to his troops requesting that they demand the evacuation of three nearby frontier posts, leaving Eger open to imminent attack from the Swedes and Saxons just over the border. Later that evening, Leslie accompanied a courier to the Pachelbel house to deliver the emperor’s letter of dismissal, following which he was privy to the general’s furious outpourings. When Wallenstein retired to bed, Leslie returned to the castle for more discussions. Even on the morning of 25 February, one of the general’s party, Count Ilow, tried to win the two Scots and Butler over from their allegiance to Ferdinand II. They would have none of it. Wary of the Protestant sympathies of Eger’s townspeople and particularly of the new influx of soldiers at the garrison, Butler persuaded Gordon to open the gates to several Irish dragoons from his regiment who were camped outside the walls. The Irish colonel also sent his chaplain, Father Taaffe, to Piccolomini further south, with a message announcing his loyalty to the emperor.73 Ilow and three other of Wallenstein’s remaining allies (Kinskÿ, Tr‘ka and Niemann) accepted an invitation from the three plotters to a feast at the castle that evening. After being dined on snails and pike, those present joined to make toasts to the absent general. The drawbridge was closed and a signal came to a group of dragoons

71

Srbik, Wallenstein’s Ende, I, 317–21. The exiled-Lutheran, Wolf Adam Pachelbel, had been the resident of this property until his dismissal in 1629. Pachelbel had returned with the Saxons in 1631, but had once again been forced to leave after Eger was retaken in 1632. See Jana‘ek, Albrecht z Vald“tejna, 19. 73 Schmidhofer ‘Das irische’, 46; Suvanto, Wallenstein und Seine Anhänger, 364. 72

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to enter the room. They slayed all four as the Scottish and Irish conspirators watched. Immediately afterwards, Gordon sent Leslie into the streets to check that the commotion had gone unnoticed. Commanded to let in a second company of Irish troops, Leslie then assembled the town guard in the main square to inform them of what had happened. At around 10pm, a further command was given to thirty or so of Butler’s soldiers to go to the burgomaster’s house. Once there, it was a Captain Walter Devereux who, with a small group of others, found Wallenstein defenceless in his bedclothes, and stabbed him to death.74 A great number of myths have grown up around what happened next. One legend has it that an Irishman “Nielcarf [Neil Carve?]” threw the corpse from the window, after which it was brought in Leslie’s carriage to the castle.75 It seems plausible that a manure cart was used to convey the body through the streets of the town. In the first account to reach London, for example, the writer claimed that all “the dead bodies were thrown on dung carts and carried about ye streets”. Other equally colourful, if gruesome stories quickly emerged about the fateful event.76

February 1634–May 1635: Leslie, Gordon and Henderson at the Imperial court Whether the assassination of Wallenstein was a political blunder or a necessary step against a proven Imperial traitor with tyrannical aspirations will probably always be a matter for contention.77 In sub-

74

Mann, Wallenstein, 834–852. Schmidhofer, ‘Das irische’, 49. 76 17 March, 1634, Brussels, Sir Balthazar Gerbier to John Coke, in PRO SP77/24/I., f. 99–100. Butler’s chaplain, Father Taaffe, returned with haste to Eger, to find that Piccolomini’s request had already been carried out. See Taaffe’s own account, written from memory several years later. ‘Reply to the Inquiries of a Ratisbon Priest’ printed in Johann von Mailath, ed. Geschichte des Österreich Kaiserstaats, (Vienna: 1842), 367–76. 77 The verdicts of historians have differed widely on Wallenstein’s motives, from those of Heinrich von Srbik, who believed the general desired an international peace settlement above personal elevation, to those of Josef Peka®, who saw his ultimate goal as having been the destruction of the house of Austria—if necessary with the help of France and Sweden—so as to promote his own aggrandisement. See Theodore Raab, ed. The Thirty Years War: Problems of Motive, Extent and Effect (Boston: 1964). 75

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sequent centuries, the general has been claimed as both patriot and traitor by nationalists of many backgrounds.78 One obvious sign of his historical significance is the large amount of fiction that his fall has inspired, most famously the play written by Friedrich Schiller in the late eighteenth century.79 Despite this, and the large amount of primary sources that have been published by historians over the centuries that have followed, it remains difficult to achieve a balanced assessment of the implications of the assassination for Leslie, Butler, and Gordon.80 A deeper analysis of contemporary evidence (pamphlets and eyewitness accounts) is required to give a more convincing insight into the events surrounding the aftermath of the events at Eger. The quality of the reports written by the conspirators themselves is high. The details given in their self-publicising accounts have remained largely undisputed by later commentators. For instance, Gordon and Butler wrote a letter to Ferdinand II the following day.81 The Irishman sent a separate message to Gallas too, while Piccolomini learnt the news no later than 27 February. Both Gordon and Butler provided lengthier accounts for the emperor as well: on 27 February, the lieutenant-colonel sent Leslie to Vienna with his apologia, while the next day, Butler sent the Irish captain Dennis MacDonnell with his report.82 In truth, none of these descriptions can be relied on

78

Francis Watson, Wallenstein: Soldier under Saturn (London: 1938), 23. Friedrich Schiller, Wallenstein: a dramatic poem, trans. A.F. Murison (London: 1931). The mystique had attracted the interest of writers long before that, even in the Stuart kingdoms: Henry Glapthorne dramatised the assassination as early as 1640 in a play of five acts that was performed in London. See Henry Glapthorne, The Tragedy of Albertus Wallenstein . . . Duke of Friedland, [In five acts and in verse.] (London: 1640). 80 See footnote 8 above. 81 See their letter, 26 February 1634, Eger, KA Alte Feldakten 1634 2/105. 82 Both the ‘Relation’ brought by Leslie and Gordon’s separate apologia, entitled Warhaffte Relation all des jenigen, was sich von dem 24. Februar biss. den 28. eiusdem bey dess herzogen von Fridtlandts und seiner adhaerenten ankunfft und darauf erfolgter execution begeben und zugetragen, are printed in Srbik, Wallenstein’s Ende I, 145–159, 313–21. Gordon’s account seems to have been changed by Piccolomini before it ever reached Vienna. However, a copy of it even reached their eirenicist compatriot John Durie soon after. See 8 April 1634, Sampson Johnson to Durie, in The Hartlib Papers, University Microfilms (Ann Arbor: 1995), 42/13/9B. Johnson believed the Austrians “gott as great a victory by his death as ever by any one mans”, before informing Durie that he was enclosing an “apologia, as set forth by Gordone for the comitynge that fact on Wallenstein”. Besides these, A.E. Hollander found another account relatively recently, amongst the State Papers at the Public Record Office in London. 79

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entirely even if they are fairly consistent in the detail. However, they need not have worried about complete corroboration: Ferdinand II had every intention of rewarding them for their loyalty.83 Reading Gordon’s apologia, it would appear that his leadership skills were proven in the days after the assassination.84 Certainly, there was no mutiny as was feared and Eger remained quiet. To Gordon’s credit, word of the general’s death does not seem to have spread, the town council only being informed of the events by the conspirators’ appointed speaker, a man named Steinheim, on the evening of 27 February (the same day that Leslie left for Vienna).85 Moreover, the Scottish governor and Colonel Butler’s awareness of the intricate details of Wallenstein’s last plans demonstrates the sophistication of the trap they had laid. It emerges that the plot did not end on 25 February after all. On 28 February, Butler dispatched some of his dragoons to capture duke Francis of Saxe-Lauenberg, a Swedish-sympathising German who had been sent from Regensburg to meet the fleeing general at the Upper Palatinate border. Either Butler or Gordon then summoned a party to pursue General Arnim, who they had learnt was waiting for Wallenstein in southern Saxony. One of the two also drafted a fictitious letter purporting to be from Count Kinskÿ (whose signet they had obtained after his death) asking for Arnim to make his way quickly for a rendezvous with Wallenstein, although on this occasion the courier seems to have arrived too late: he reached the border on 2 March, by which time Arnim had heard the news of Wallenstein’s death and fled back to Dresden.86 Such actions—as described by Gordon—were interpreted in a variety of ways. Some of the first to learn seem to have had the plot This purported to be an English translation of the original report of ‘Denis MacDonnell’. It had apparently been transferred there from the papers of Viscount Conway and Killultagh, and was originally “couched in Spanish” by a John Pinzell de Rumeran a Biscani. In it, MacDonnell flatters the involvement of the Irish and Scottish soldiers involved. See ‘A Relation exhibited at Vienna to his Imperial Maiestie in 1634 by Captain Denis MacDonnel, Irish, of the Regiment of Collonel Butler’, printed in Hollander, ‘Some English Documents’, 381–389; Mann, Wallenstein, 845, 867; Redlich, German Military Enterpriser, II, 348; Schmidhofer, ‘Das irische’, 49, 56. 83 6 March 1634, Vienna, Ferdinand II to General Carretto, printed in Hallwich, Wallenstein’s Ende, I, 509. Schmidhofer, ‘Das irische’, 45. Other, contemporary reports relating to Wallenstein’s death are printed in Wiegler, ed. Wallenstein: Geschichte eines Herrscher Lebens, 414–418. 84 Srbik, Wallenstein’s Ende, 313–321. 85 Jana‘ek, Albrecht z Vald“tejna, 31. 86 Mann, Wallenstein, 853.

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and its outcome conveyed to them in a manner that gave an overriding impression of honourable intentions amongst the conspirators. Clearly, public knowledge of what had happened could not be kept secret for long, and spread quickly throughout the Patrimonial Lands after Walter Leslie arrived in Vienna with his apologia on 3 March (MacDonnell presented Butler’s version of events when he reached the Imperial court the next day). Their part was noted soon after in Prague, by Father Gerald Fitzgerald of the Irish Franciscan Abbey in the city. Fitzgerald stated: “It has made our country and nation, otherwise quite unheard of here, most famous and well known, so that whatever else we may meet with the Emperor, it will not be a rebuff ”.87 But the tone of uncertainty in Fitzgerald’s assessment was understandable. The initial prints from the Bohemian presses did not portray the Scottish and Irish in nearly such flattering terms: some pamphlets were highly critical. Indeed, many Bohemian propagandists perceived the plot to have been an entirely ‘Spanish’ one, regardless of the actual background of the assassins. Even the fact that only one person from outside the Stuart kingdoms, an Italian, was known to have participated did not prevent this perception from being formed.88 Some noted with suspicion the fact that no ‘German’ soldiers had been involved, while one publication referred to the assassination as a “Murderous Outrage”, the author employing the form of a trial to investigate the motivations of the exotic assassins. John and Adam Gordon both featured in this last pamphlet along with Butler and Leslie, all of them attempting to vindicate themselves from the charge of homicide. The author had the accused give a weak defence of their actions and concluded them to be guilty of perjury. They were then handed over to Nemesis, to be killed as murderers.89

87 From a letter of his to Father Luke Wadding. See R.D. Fitzsimon, ‘Irish Swordsmen’, 30; B. Jennings, ‘The Irish Franciscans in Prague’ in Studies, 28 (1939), 210–22. Six years later, the Latin language account of the Irish chaplain, Thomas Carve, was published in German. However, it was written as a diary and for an international audience too. Carve’s glowing admiration of Leslie and Gordon (“both loyal and persistent Cavaliers of the Emperor”) was clear. See Carve, Reysbüchlein, 8. 88 Mann, Wallenstein, 856–883. 89 Relation auss Parnasso, über die Einkommene Avisen der Mörderischen Gewalthat und Meuchelmords verübt an Kaj. Majest. Generallissimo Hertzogen von Friedland, General FeldMarschall Christian von Ilo, Obristen Graff Wilhelm Kinsky . . . . . . durch Obristen Butler/Johann Gordoun, Tertzkischen Obristleutnant/Waltern Leslie, Tertzkischen Majorn/ und Adam Gordoun Tertzkischen Capitän und deroselben auszgesprengte vermeinte Apologian (Vienna?: 1634).

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Away from the gossip-filled streets and the hostile publishers, however, their rewards came from Ferdinand II: by means of castles, court positions and military appointments. First and foremost, came the property. Josef Poli“enskÿ stated that, after the fall of Wallenstein, “Bohemia and Moravia remained the material base which underpinned the activities of the Habsburgs and their diplomats and generals”.90 The Scottish and Irish assassins fit this description like a glove.91 Although Piccolomini took the lion’s share, it is striking to note just how much of the initial pay-off went to the two Scots, (if not to Butler, to his chagrin).92 Much was apparently made of the fact that Leslie had been first to arrive in Vienna, although the quality of his prizes is unsurprising when it is considered that he had been involved with Piccolomini and the other plotters from the start, perhaps to an even greater extent than Butler.93 The emperor awarded Leslie with possession of the castle of Neustadt an der Mettau (Nové M^sto-nad-Metují) in north-west Bohemia—a sizeable estate that had belonged to Count Tr‘ka—along with some lands around Slavetín further west (See Map 2 and Appendix 3 below).94 The two estates were valued at 132,000 gulden and 15,641 florins respectively.95 John Gordon obtained two properties a few miles to the south, at Smidar and Skrivany(Skrwan). Together these seem to have been worth a slightly higher sum: 178,000 gulden and 128,323 florins each.96 Gordon

90

Poli“enskÿ, Thirty Years’ War, 290. James Van Horn Melton, ‘The Nobility in the Bohemian and Austrian Lands 1620–1780’, in H.M. Scott, ed. The European Nobilities in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, 2 Vols., Longman (Harlow: 1995), II, 110–43. 92 See ? 1634, Vienna, Colonel Arnoldi to Schlick, printed in Hallwich, Wallenstein’s Ende, I, 538. In this letter, the writer comments on the glory and esteem attached to Leslie and Gordon at the expense of the other participants. He states that “. . . was massen erstgennanter Obrister empfindet, daß man allhier dem hr. Leslie und Obersten Gordon die Ehre und Dank einzig und allein gebe, seiner aber—als welcher das Directorium bei der Friedtländischen Execution gehabt . . .” 93 References to the value of their rewards were given in three separate currencies, not only in reichsthalers and florins but also in the gulden of the Austrian Habsburg lands, See ‘Notes on dates/currency’ above. 94 Both he and Gordon also later obtained property in Silesia, now in modernday Poland. Leslie had land in the district of Glatz (Klodzko?), while Gordon’s later will refers to property in “Niss” (Nysa?) and “Lignitz” (Legnica?). See Miroslav Baroch and Ludvík Schmid, ‘Rod Leslie’ in Heraldika a genealogie, 22/II (Prague: 1989), 93. 95 This being a time of runaway inflation, it is difficult to assess the real worth of their rewards. Redlich, German Military Enterpriser, I, 348. 96 Bílek, Beiträge zur Geschichte Waldstein’s, 180; Mann, Wallenstein, 867; John Malcolm 91

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also seems to have received some land of Tr‘ka’s in the area around Königgrätz (Hradec Králové).97 The mysterious Adam Gordon received a small property too.98 As for money, according to one source, both Leslie and John Gordon obtained a separate payment of 120,000 florins on professing their commitment to Catholicism, although this seems unlikely due to the financial straits of the Viennese court.99 Clearly, Butler had to plead his case to a much greater extent than the two Scotsmen.100 The emperor eventually decided to award him Wallenstein’s estate at Hirschberg (Doksy) and the castle and park of Neuperstein (Novy Ber“tejn).101 Hirschberg was where Wallenstein had kept his library and had a much higher value than Leslie or Gordon’s prizes, at 225,000 gulden.102 Nevertheless, Butler had to pay one month’s wages to his former regiment for their part in the plot. Some of this went to Robert Geraldine, the man who had commanded the six dragoons at Eger castle on the fateful night. Geraldine received a payment of 2,000 reichsthalers on 8 March.103 Other gifts went to the actual assassins. Walter Devereux received 1,000 reichsthalers on 8 March, along with a Tr‘ka estate valued at 40,000 florins in the region of Czaslau (’áslav) in eastern Bohemia (See Map 2).104 Bulloch, ‘A Scoto-Austrian: John Gordon, the Assassinator of Wallenstein’ in Transactions of the Banffshire Field Club, 1916–1917 (Banff: 1917), 27. 97 Hess, Biographien und Autographien, 40. 98 For more detail regarding Adam Gordon’s property at “Haslau” (perhaps a derivation of Czaslau?), see Schmidhofer, ‘Das irische’, 54. 99 It is more likely that Redlich’s version is accurate in stating that the Emperor demanded that Gordon be required to pay the remaining florins from his own pocket to Colonel Baron Hans Christoph von Löbl, the commander of the Vienna garrison. See Redlich, German Military Enterpriser, I, 348–9. 100 Butler had to submit further written requests before being promised the titles of Imperial Count and Imperial Chamberlain, threatening to switch to Polish service in the process. He continued to express unhappiness that so much of the glory seemed to have gone to Leslie and Gordon. See 25 February, Eger, Butler to Gallas, and 27 February, Butler to Emperor Ferdinand II, printed in Wiegler, ed. Wallenstein, 418–19. 101 Bílek, Beiträge, 180. According to one Irish writer, the emperor gave Wallenstein’s Friedberg estate to James Butler, presumably the veteran of Polish service of that name. See M. Walsh, ‘Further Notes on some Irishmen in Imperial Service’ in Irish Sword 6 (1964), 46, 70, 166. 102 Bílek, Beiträge, 180; Mann, Wallenstein, 867. 103 Geraldine received 25,847 florins. See Srbik, Wallenstein’s Ende, I, 202; Redlich, German Military Enterpriser, I, 352, Schmidhofer, ‘Das irische’, 50. 104 Redlich, German Military Enterpriser, I, 348. According to Srbik, Devereux received three properties at “Dobrowitow”, “Chlum” and “Krchle” or “Krchleby”, valued together at 76, 795 florins, on 29 May 1636. See Srbik, Wallenstein’s Ende, I, 212. I have been unable to locate these places.

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Each of the twelve dragoons who had accompanied him received 500 reichsthalers as well.105 Denis MacDonnell was duly rewarded with 1,000 reichsthalers and a further estate in Czaslau, this one worth 30,000 gulden.106 On top of these initial offerings of confiscated properties, the emperor provided remuneration in the form of titles, another attempt to compensate for his financial constraints by alternative means.107 Along with an increasing number of appointees to the status of Imperial Count, the Grafenstand, a rising number of awards to lower court positions had been made in recent times. The post of Imperial chamberlain (kammererherr), for instance, was one title which Ferdinand II had so frequently bestowed that the ‘real’ (würklich) holders had to be distinguished from the others.108 On his arrival in Vienna, the emperor appointed Leslie as a kammererherr and gave him “die golden ketten”, an honorary Imperial golden chain. Devereux and Butler received the same.109 Gordon appears to have received the chain alone, although he was also created an Imperial baron (Freiherr) slightly later, according to Srbik.110 It was Butler whose arguments eventually proved most persuasive over this matter. He was appointed to the Grafenstand later that year.111 It would be wrong to think that the attractions of life at court ended the battlefield careers of the assassins all of a sudden, since further rewards arrived in the form of military titles: Ferdinand II bestowed these to the Scottish and Irish officers alike. Strangely, the first beneficiaries of such promotions seem to have been those who had scarcely been involved. The emperor transferred five companies of Ilow’s dragoons to Colonel John Henderson’s command on 6 105

Mann, Wallenstein, 867. Burke received property there too, although Devereux later acquired his and MacDonnell’s estates from their heirs. See Redlich, German Military Enterpriser, I, 348. See Appendix 3 for more detail. 107 The new ‘court nobility’ or Hofadel became concentrated in certain areas of north-western and southern Bohemia. Although they comprised only 28% of noble families in Bohemia by 1656, they controlled a larger number of holdings than the old nobility. See Poli“enskÿ, Thirty Years’ War, 214. 108 This weakened the social exclusivity that had been associated with this position prior to 1620. Appointments to the Privy Council suffered from the same overfrequent use, part of a more general ‘inflation of honours’. See Barker, Army, Aristocracy, Monarchy, 193. 109 Schmidhofer, ‘Das irische’, 50. 110 Srbik, Wallenstein’s Ende, I, 424. 111 Schmidhofer, ‘Das irische’, 50. 106

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March, while the newly-propertied Adam Gordon, received command of an additional company very shortly afterwards.112 Regarding the actual conspirators, Leslie’s rewards were more spectacular than Gordon’s or Butler’s in this respect: Ferdinand II gave him a seat on the Imperial War Council and promoted him to the position of both Lieutenant Field Marshall (Feld Marschall-Leutnant) and ‘Captain of the Bodyguard’ (Leibgarde-Trabanten-Hauptmann) to the king of Hungary.113 On 16 April, he was given command of two new regiments, one of Tr‘ka’s and a second that had been led by a Colonel Schaumburg. As a ‘multiple owner’, Leslie would be able to go further down the path which Daniel Hepburn had pursued under Wallenstein. The capable Gordon’s military rewards were less outstanding. The regimental lists of 15 March and 12 April suggest that he had to remain with the garrison at Eger for some time afterwards.114 Their military promotions ensured, the conspirators had mixed fortunes on the battlefield in the ensuing months. That summer, Leslie and his new Lesslische regiment fought at the siege and eventual fall of Regensburg.115 Reichsgraf Walter Butler may have been there too since, from May 1634, he was once again commanding twenty companies of dragoons.116 For John Henderson, it was slightly different. In the turmoil of the Swedish assault at Landshut in July he was shot and fell into the hands of the enemy, although they released him two months later.117 Following that, he joined Leslie and Butler 112

Hess, Biographien und Autographien, 40; Schmidhofer, ‘Das irische’, 54. KA HKR-Prot., Reg. 1634, f. 212. Ferdinand II looked carefully at the possibility of transferring both Leslie and Butler after the events at Eger. See 17 March 1634, Vienna, Ferdinand II to Gallas, “der Obr.[Obristwachmeister] Leslie sich auch erklert von denselben abzuweichen verbleiben mögen”. See also 8 April 1634, Vienna, Francesco del Carretto to Piccolomini in DBBT, V, no. 276. 114 Some of the fragmentary evidence suggests that he lived there in some luxury. A delivery note dating from 7 May 1634, outlines that from 11 August 1633 to 6 May 1634, 250 pike and 447 carp were delivered to his residence. Another note from the town archives shows that, down to 22 June 1634, large quantities of beer were brought too. The whereabouts of his regiment are unclear at that point. See Siegl, ‘Obrist Johann Gordon’, 268. 115 31 July 1634, Otto Heinrich Fugger, Count of Kirchberg and Weissenhorn to Maximilian I, in Briefe und Akten zur Geschichte des dreissigjährigen Krieges, Neue Folge, Die Politik Maximilians I. von Bayern und seiner Verbündeten, 1618–1651 (hereafter Briefe und Akten), several editors, 9 Vols. (Munich: 1907–82), II, no. 64; 4 August 1634, the king of Hungary to Ferdinand II, in Ibid., II, no. 70. The second letter states that the regiment under Leslie were falsely registered as a regiment of the former Catholic league army. 116 Hess, Biographien und Autographien, 396. 117 Ibid., 144. 113

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to fight at the decisive Spanish-Imperial victory at Nördlingen.118 Henderson led ten companies of dragoons there, the fate of which are unknown.119 Moving on from Nördlingen, on 2 November, Henderson (his dragoon regiment serving elsewhere in the Empire) benefited indirectly from his countrymen’s endeavours once more, when Ferdinand II sent him as an Imperial envoy to Augsburg.120 With the French preparing to join forces with the Swedes, it had become imperative for the emperor to achieve a settlement with the Lutheran princes of the Empire. Thus, the object of Henderson’s mission was to offer incentives so as to lure one of the Swedes’ major allies, the duke of Saxe-Weimar, back onto the Imperial side: the duke would be given unspecified rights in Franconia and unlimited command over 20–25,000 men, in return for the payment of 20,000 reichsthalers that he owed to the bishoprics of Bamberg and Würzburg.121 Henderson’s endeavours were entirely unsuccessful in this regard. On 13 January 1635, he wrote from Gross-Heubach to General Piccolomini, regarding the troubled course of the negotiations.122 Evidence regarding Gordon and Leslie’s military actions that winter is more scattered. Gordon renewed correspondence with Piccolomini in early 1635. On 18 April that year, he wrote a letter to him concerning his financial problems.123 Leslie made levies for one of his regiments in the Nuremberg area in January although, shortly after, the same body were defeated at the hands of the Swedes. The enemy also stole some of his silver and took his personal secretary prisoner.124 Leslie was at Rathenow in Brandenburg in the run-up to the peace of Prague of 30 May, a treaty which could not have come quickly enough for the imperialists.125

118

Ibid., 396. Leslie’s infantry regiment fared badly there, at least according to the king of Hungary’s report. According to another source, however, Leslie received an Imperial letter of thanks (dankschreiben) and the command of a new regiment of dragoons in the aftermath 4 August 1634, the king of Hungary to Ferdinand II, in Briefe und Akten, II, no. 70; Wrede, Geschichte der k. und k. Wehrmacht, III, no. 2, 621. See also his ADB entry. 120 Wrede, Geschichte der k. und k. Wehrmacht, III, no. 2, 621. 121 Hess, Biographien und Autographien, 145–6. 122 (n.d.), ?, the king of Hungary to Colonel Henderson, in DBBT, V, 354. This letter is also printed in full in Briefe und Akten, no. 192. 123 Otto Elster, Piccolomini-Studien (Leipzig: 1911), 41. 124 Hess, Biographien und Autographien, 404; Elster, Piccolomini-Studien, 40–41. 125 See his ADB entry. For the treaty, see previous chapter. 119

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As for the Irish, Count Walter Butler died on Christmas Day 1634, at Schorndorf, in the presence of an Irish military chaplain, Patrick Taaffe, Thomas Carve and Walter Devereux.126 Nonetheless, his will shows that he had acquired substantial amounts of money, perhaps as a consequence of his marriage to a Countess Anna Maria von Dohna, who received his estates at Hirschberg and Neuperstein.127 The colonel left two sizeable sums—20,000 guldens and 30,000 florins respectively—to the Irish Franciscans in Prague and to Walter Devereux, who took command of the Butler regiment.128 Robert Geraldine received appointment as Devereux’s sergeant-major soon after, while some of the other Irish veterans of Eger remained in Bohemia as well.129 Even with this evidence, in many cases, of new-found status, there is little to suggest that the lives of the Scottish and Irish assassins had become entirely comfortable in the period up to May 1635. With war still raging nearby, there had been little opportunity for living the easy life on their expansive new estates. At least one of the promises made to Gordon, for example, remained unfulfilled. It was only on 4 July 1635, that the emperor finally allowed him to take over his estates at Smidar and Skrivany.130 Gordon may not even have received written permission to gain entry to them until 16 October that year.131 If so, his base presumably remained Eger throughout this period, the ‘Neu-Tr‘ka’ having been transferred to the Upper Rhine.132 Yet it is clear that their prizes—in the forms of property and both aulic and military promotions—had transformed their lives for the better. For comparison, it is worth considering how their rewards 126

Schmidhofer, ‘Das irische’, 53. See Butler’s DNB entry; Hess, Biographien und Autographien, 396. 128 Jennings, ‘Irish Franciscans’, 210–222; Hess, Biographien und Autographien, 396. 129 The ‘Butler regiment’ continued to function and maintained some of its Irish personnel. See ? January 1635, Neusenstein, “the members of Butler’s regiment” to Ferdinand II, KA, Alte Feldakten, 1/5. Geraldine became commander of a separate body in 1635. See Wrede, Geschichte der k. und k. Wehrmacht, III, no. 2, 620. A MacDonnell/MacDonald took control of the regiment in 1639. See Mann, Wallenstein, 845, 867; Redlich, German Military Enterpriser, I, 348; Schmidhofer, ‘Das irische’, 42, 49, 50, 56, 182; Barker, Army, Aristocracy, Monarchy, 182. 130 HHStA, Kriegsakten, 1635–39, f. 114. 131 Jaroslav ”µula, ‘Hospodá®ská korespondence Václava Králíka, komendátora novomîstského panství, s Walterem hrabetem z Leslie v letech 1635–1643’, in Stopami Dîjin Náchodska, Sborník Státního okresního archivu Náchod, 4 (Náchod: 1998), 207. 132 Wrede, Geschichte der k. und k. Wehrmacht, II, 51. 127

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compare with those given to some other foreigners on the fringes of the assassination plot. Shadowy figures such as a Johann Putz von Adlersthurm and a Carlo Villani had consulted with Tiefenbach, Desfours, Morzin, Gallas and the other generals and sub-ordinate officers of Piccolomini’s party in the run up to the assassination, but were still awaiting the distribution of their prizes three years later.133 In retrospect, it seems clear that of all the intriguers from the Stuart kingdoms, Walter Leslie had been the most successful in exploiting his role. His court status as a chamberlain was by no means an outstanding one. But during the winter of 1633–4, he had found new patrons and allies in Vienna, who would prove to be highly significant for his future career. As the next chapter will show, Leslie seems to have been able to link himself within an even wider circle of acquaintances by the summer of 1635, and to have integrated within the lower ranks of the enlarging ‘Austro-Bohemian’ noble class.134 Was it the promise of material rewards alone that had made he, Gordon and their Irish co-plotters so decisive? Clearly, had the two Scotsmen escaped to Saxony with Wallenstein, they would have been met by an army full of fellow nationals. Deeper motives than that may have been a factor for them, however. Leslie and Gordon’s subsequent actions will suggest that wider issues—family, friends and political contacts in the Stuart kingdoms—were often at the forefront of their thinking. But the cause of Elizabeth Stuart may have touched them already. It certainly seems plausible that they had become aware of the growing perception in London, since Anstruther’s embassy, of the need to apply diplomatic pressure at the Imperial court over the Palatinate issue.135 In his comprehensive account of the Habsburg monarchy in this period, R.J.W. Evans depicted the post-1620 foreign ‘mercenary’ settlers as having been “largely inactive”, at least beyond the military sphere.136 Evans provided a great deal of evidence in support of this

133

Poli“enskÿ, War and Society, 211–12. Using data from the Bohemian archives including a 1654–6 tax roll, Poli“enskÿ estimated that seventy-six new noble families became established in Bohemia between 1635 and 1638. Although this is not nearly as large a number as appeared immediately after 1620, it compares to only nine between the years of 1632 and 1634. Thus, a significant percentage occurred as a result of involvement at Eger. See Poli“enskÿ, War and Society, 211–12 and Appendix 3 below. 135 See previous chapter. 136 Evans, Making, 203. 134

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statement. The Scottish officers at Eger simply do not fit this picture. This chapter has attempted to show them in a different light to highlight other, equally important aspects of their careers: most importantly, the political connections that they had made at court since 1633. Links might yet be found with the activities of their compatriots at the Scottish religious foundations elsewhere within the bounds of the Holy Roman Empire.137 Many of the Irish ‘mercenaries’ maintained close relationships with their fellow expatriates in the Patrimonial Lands at that time. Regarding Butler and his regimental chaplain, Thomas Carve, it is clear that they desired to maintain close contacts with a community of “Irish savants, physicians and men of affairs” in Prague and Vienna. Military, political and spiritual spheres of life were surely bound up for Scottish emigrants and exiles in the Holy Roman Empire too.138 Evans also concluded that the majority of the ‘military entrepreneurs’ in the Austrian Habsburg lands did not assimilate into civilian society. Not only that, but according to him, even the exceptions who did achieve influence at court “wielded little political influence”.139 May 1635 is simply too early a date from which to judge this claim with respect to the Eger group. Still, other accounts have been equally critical of the foreign entrepreneurs regarding their actions once transplanted from the battlefield. James Van Horn Melton’s account of the ‘Austro-Bohemian’ military enterprisers portrayed them as “for the most part political outsiders” who “were viewed with considerable condescension by native magnates”.140 Leslie, for one, does not fit this mould either. It is certainly difficult to depict him as a marginalised ‘alien’, as his cultivation of new friends and allies at court would soon demonstrate. Another disputable assertion is that of Thomas Barker, who considered most of the members of the new,

137 For example, regarding the fate of the Scottish religious foundations in Würzburg, Erfurt and Regensburg during this period, see Dilworth, Scots in Franconia. 138 Christopher Duffy, ‘More Light on the Irish in the Service of Imperial Austria’ in Irish Sword, 15 (Dublin: 1983), 267–70. 139 Evans, Making, 203. The evidence suggests that in the period from 1627–56, of the four hundred individuals to receive the incolat in Bohemia, representing 334 ‘new’ noble families, eighty one such families did not remain. Looking at the 1635–8 period, it seems that from forty eight ‘new’, ‘Austrian’ families, fifteen had disappeared by 1656. The Leslies remained in central Europe until 1802. See Poli“enskÿ, War and Society, 212. 140 Melton, ‘The Nobility in the Bohemian and Austrian Lands’, 115.

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aulic nobility to have been “mediocre, unimaginative managers of property”.141 While this does seem to be true in the majority of cases, it is again an unfair accusation to make against the Scottish and Irish officers, given the impact of war and the existence of a body of primary evidence that Barker has not used. Leslie’s renovations at his Bohemian castle did not begin until later, while little material apparently survives relating to John Gordon’s properties. Adam Gordon’s and Henderson’s residential details are even more elusive. For the Irish too, Count Butler had no chance to prove otherwise at Hirschberg or Neuperstein. To conclude, a large number of knightly and other confiscated holdings had been subdivided in Bohemia before 1634: an estimated one-half to three-quarters of property there had changed hands in the fourteen years prior to the Wallenstein assassination.142 Along with Moravia, it had been cleared of Protestant opposition. It had not been long before incoming foreign ‘vultures’ had begun to make elaborate, baroque alterations as a conspicuous expression of their new-found status, a development that was later referred to by Emperor Leopold I as the “construction worm”. For them, conspicuous consumption served as a necessary “symbolic justification for the maintenance and acquisition of status”. After 1634, a second wave of ambitious incomers had arrived, headed by a group hailing from the furthest reaches of the Stuart kingdoms. Ever since, the role of Scottish and Irish intriguers at the Imperial court has been a misunderstood one. It may be true that they became part of a totally disparate group at court: the Hofadel class that they aspired to being an “agglutination of bewilderingly heterogeneous elements” most of the members of which did not inhabit their new homes for more than a generation or two. Without disputing the broad accuracy of such a description, the life of Walter Leslie and his circle in the Patrimonial Lands proved exceptional in this, and many other respects.143

141

Barker, Army, Aristocracy, Monarchy, 11. The Austrian lands were spared such enormous social change. See Melton, ‘The Nobility in the Bohemian and Austrian Lands’, 113. 143 Evans, Making, 447. 142

CHAPTER SIX

1635–7: AN “ANGLO-AUSTRIAN” ALLIANCE?

On 9 February 1636, the Habsburg-loyal Bohemian count, Vilém Slavata, wrote to a friend on the subject of the end-of-winter celebrations that had just taken place in Vienna. Slavata noted that on the last day of the festivities, Walter Leslie, a ‘real Imperial Chamberlain’ (würklich kammererherr), had taken part in an elaborate court masque in the guise of a fisherman.1 Clearly, Leslie (an individual whose life historians have largely chosen to ignore) had found a place—just two years after the Wallenstein assasination—within high aristocratic circles in the Austrian Habsburg lands.2 The fate of John and Adam Gordon and John Henderson is more difficult to ascertain. One reason for the paucity of accounts covering the fortunes of the Scottish group as a whole after 1634 is that historians of central Europe have generally assumed that the commitment of all the foreign military entrepreneurs who served in the Imperial army during the Thirty Years’ War was negligible. According to this version of events, the apparently amorphous body of men who became involved in the Wallenstein assassination had been motivated solely by self-interest, thus did not establish roots in their adopted homeland of Bohemia and quickly moved on. Amongst the body of adventurers that flocked to Ferdinand II’s court after February 1634, the Scots have, almost without exception, been deemed unworthy of deeper analysis. Walter Leslie is certainly the only one of the Scottish veterans of Eger for whom detailed descriptions of character (mostly negative) emerge from a survey of the most well-known German-language printed primary sources relating to the 1635–48 period. Only four

1 9 February 1636 (s.l.), Vilém Slavata to Jindrich Lib“tenskÿ z Kolovrat in Rodinnÿ archiv Slavatu, box 22 (n.f.), Státní Oblastní Archiv v T®eboÏni, pracovi“te Jind®ichµuv Hradec, Czech Republic. I am grateful to Petr Mat"a for this and three other references (in the course of this chapter and the next) to material from this archive. 2 Melton, ‘Nobility in the Bohemian and Austrian Lands’, 115.

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days after the assassination, a leading Imperial officer, General Carretto, had described him as a “witty and honest man” who, although still “not catholic”, would, he believed, prove to be a loyal servant of the emperor.3 But this brief outline does not fit with the fragmented picture of his post-1635 life, on those rare occasions that it has been portrayed by historians of the Habsburg monarchy. They have commonly viewed Leslie as merely one of the more charismatic of several career-minded foreigners at the Imperial court of the late1630s and 40s. Reflecting a consensus, Henry F. Schwarz published a work in 1943 in which he stated that: “There can be little doubt that Walter Leslie was essentially an unscrupulous adventurer, out to make his fortune”.4 Typical though Schwarz’s assessment may be—a perspective mirrored even in Schmidhofer’s detailed analysis based on the records of the Kriegsarchiv in Vienna—such judgments are partial and unfair, since vital primary sources for the post-1635 period have been ignored.5 There is, in fact, a vast range of documentary material that survives and that could provide much greater insight into Leslie’s life from that time onwards. Additionally, although a more favourable account would have to rely on sources that relate to the non-military aspects of his career, this is unsurprising since, from then on, Leslie’s fortunes were largely made off the battlefield. Relevant material for a study of these aspects of his life is scattered throughout Europe, reflecting the increasingly cosmopolitan nature of his surroundings. Personal correspondence can be found, not only in the Rodinnÿ archiv Leslie (Leslie family collection) at Zámrsk in north west Bohemia, but in many other regional archives of the Czech Republic, and in various repositories in Austria and Britain. All of this suggests a more complex personality than that of the stereotypical European mercenary of the seventeenth century: a unique individual who had found a prominent place within a transplanted social and political setting. Herein lies a further problem. No analysis of the politics of the Austrian Habsburg administration during the second half of the Thirty 3 Caretto wrote: “Der Leslie ist ein witziger und redlicher Mann”. See Leslie’s NDB entry. 4 H.F. Schwarz, The Imperial Privy Council in the Seventeenth Century (New York: 1943), 277. See also Leslies NDB and DNB entries. 5 Barker and Schmidhofer’s analyses are both essentially military histories, thus they confirm the generally unfavourable judgement of earlier historians such as Schwarz. See Barker, Army, Aristocracy, Monarchy; Schmidhofer, ‘Das irische’.

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Years’ War has ever been made. This is partly due to the dearth of publications relating to Emperor Ferdinand III with which potential researchers would need to begin any comprehensive study.6 As a consequence though, the implications of Redlich’s argument, in relating military entrepreneurship in the Holy Roman Empire to the development of political careers at the princely or Imperial level, have yet to be fully appreciated for the years after 1635.7 For a start, Leslie’s status as a ‘real’ Imperial Chamberlain in early 1636 reflects an important development in the hierarchical structure of Austrian Habsburg wartime administration. As was mentioned in the last chapter, the distinction between these men and the other chamberlains had been drawn by Ferdinand II, the intention being to distinguish those trusted with access to his person from a far more numerous body of lesser courtiers.8 Leslie’s development of his political role also led to his circle of friends and acquaintances becoming almost pan-European in its scope. Comprehensive research into this would entail a number of historiographical and linguistic challenges that have never been taken up, an aim beyond the scope of this book. Yet his activities clearly relate to a much wider historical public than to those concerned with Viennese court culture. Most pertinent in this respect is the fact that he spent a great deal of the next thirty-two years working abroad as an envoy for Emperors Ferdinand II, Ferdinand III and Leopold I. In the period up to 1648, these missions included separate visits to two Castilian dependencies—the Spanish Netherlands and Naples. Through such connections, Leslie’s political objectives invite comparison with those of Walter Stuart, Hugh Semple and the earl of Buchan in late 1630s Madrid. In addition to his elusive links with the Scots in Spain, however, he also developed much stronger ties with the Caroline court from 1635–7, connections which historians of the Stuart kingdoms have similarly failed to recognise.9 Even in

6

See his NDB entry for sources. For a starting point, see Redlich, German Military Enterpriser. 8 Due to the drain on Imperial finances brought about by the war, the emperor had been forced to bestow this prestigious title on many less influential soldiers as recompense. See John Spielman, The City and the Crown: Vienna and the Imperial Court 1600 –1740 (West Lafayette: 1993), 58; Barker, Army, Aristocracy, Monarchy, 193. 9 Even those accounts which assess Stuart diplomacy in the Habsburg world in some depth do not recognise the significance of Leslie’s role in this. See Gardiner, History of England, VIII; Sharpe, Personal Rule, 509–22. Leslie’s conversion to Catholicism 7

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the wake of a number of revisionist interpretations of the political workings of the Caroline regime, the international arena in which many courtiers of the time operated remains only partially explored. Future studies of the early modern Stuart court might benefit from taking more account of continental connections, the significance of which, Jane Ohlmeyer has already demonstrated in the case of the second earl of Antrim.10 The example of Leslie makes it clear that the contacts maintained by others spread even further. It should be apparent that the responsibility for the absence of fair and balanced accounts of Leslie and the other Scots in the Patrimonial Lands does not lie solely with historians of the Austrian Habsburg monarchy. Political historians of the Three Kingdoms too, have failed to pick up on the important element that he and his network added to diplomacy at the Habsburg courts and to Scottish political thought in the run up to the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. In an attempt to evaluate the degree of importance of the Scottish presence in these regards, this and subsequent chapters will rely on a large body of the lesser-known primary sources that have been mentioned. These materials will help to elucidate Leslie’s emerging role—and to a lesser extent those of a number of his compatriots in the Austrian Habsburg lands—as agents, not only for the increasingly divergent interests of the Habsburgs, but also for the house of Stuart (in a manner which would have appalled William Semple if not his nephew, Hugh, or the likes of Walter Stuart and the earl of Buchan). They will also provide the resources for a case study of the dwindling supplies of patronage that were available to displaced foreigners at the major dynastic courts of Europe after 1635. May 1635–April 1636: Leslie’s first contacts with the Caroline court From Walter Leslie’s perspective, one important outcome of the Peace of Prague was that he assumed an important role in Imperial foreign policy-making for the first time. To a great extent, he achieved this as a consequence of his relationship with Field Marshall Picco-

may have helped him here, since most of those with whom he was to establish correspondence with in London had pro-Spanish tendencies. See Hibbard, Charles I, 29. 10 Ohlmeyer, Civil War; R. Malcolm Smuts, ‘Introduction’ in Smuts, ed. Stuart Court and Europe, 1–20.

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lomini. This is despite such initial evidence as has been supplied by the American historian Thomas Barker, who suggests that Leslie played a “nefarious role” in the decision to transfer the Italian veteran to Spanish service in the aftermath of the battle of Nördlingen.11 Although the emperor had yet to declare war on France, the potential threat of Richelieu’s navy to both Charles I’s monarchy and the Holy Roman Empire had emerged as a new, common factor which seemed likely to draw the Austrian Habsburgs and the Stuarts together. This might appear to have been a remote possibility, since the French needed only to pass through disputed Alsace and Lorraine to reach Ferdinand II’s territories by land. Besides, the emperor would not be able to rely on Philip IV’s assistance there now since the latter’s troops had become tied up fighting Richelieu’s army, the French having blocked the ‘Spanish road’. Additionally, since the death of Wallenstein, the prospect of a Habsburg naval presence in the Hanseatic towns had proven to be chimeric.12 But with the central regions of the Empire increasingly united behind the emperor and the Habsburg naval presence negligible, it seemed probable that France might seek direct involvement in a maritime attack on the Empire via the North Sea and the Baltic, as had proved so successful for the Swedes in recent times. Richelieu may have already considered just how he would go about securing a French passage through the English Channel and the Danish Sound. So there were clearly potential benefits for the imperialists in moving towards a closer relationship with both Charles I and Christian IV of Denmark-Norway after the Peace of Prague. The indirect assistance of the Stuarts in particular, by means of a maritime attack on France and/or the United Provinces from England, would have been an effective way to begin a campaign. The emperor was also doubtless aware that he could use the fate of the Palatinate as a bargaining tool towards this end, even if persuading the Stuart king that the French and Dutch were a serious threat to his kingdoms might

11 Certainly, the Italian general was serving in the Spanish Netherlands with a body of 12,000 men during 1635, a force which united with a Spanish contingent to fight against a combined Dutch-French army. If Leslie had been able to wield influence over the important decision to have Piccolomini moved, it surely shows that he had established a reputation at court as an expert in international affairs by that time. See Barker, Army, Aristocracy, Monarchy, 99. 12 Parker, Thirty Years’ War, 146; Ernst, Madrid und Wien, and 157–67 above.

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prove to be a more difficult task.13 Without question, for all Charles Louis’ supporters in Britain and Ireland too, there was an increased possibility that they might be best served by looking to the emperor for a favourable resolution.14 Although enthusiasm as regards the pursuit of closer Stuart-Austrian Habsburg relations remained tempered by the realisation that a restitution would push Bavaria away from the imperialists towards a French alliance, no other European potentate could offer any hope towards restoring the lands and status of the Palatinate to the position as it had stood prior to the war.15 Charles I would have been aware of the complexities of the situation by May 1635, when he issued his second writ of ‘ship money’.16 The timing of the new tax was perfect. Extended to landward regions of England and Wales for the first time, it allowed him to offer new incentives, not only to Spain as Chapter Four showed, but to the emperor. To the opposing side too (especially the French and Dutch) it offered the possibility of a newly strengthened Stuart navy playing an important part on their behalf.17 At a time when the Three Kingdoms still seemed to the rest of Europe to be “a haven of peace and prosperity” then, Charles I knew that he had the power to draw all of his continental rivals into a closer relationship, should he wish.18 Anstruther’s Imperial diplomacy may have reached an impasse, but the need for further pressure to bring about Imperial interven13 Some Jesuits in Prague performed a play around that time, celebrating King Charles as the “restorer of universal peace”. Thereby they added weight to the claims that a closer alliance should be sought. See Birely, Religion and Politics, 19. 14 See Murdoch, Scotland, Denmark-Norway, 92. 15 Certainly, as early as October 1634, the Venetian ambassador to the Empire had also detected that there was a new closeness in the relationship between Whitehall and the Hofburg, which appeared to be arousing the concern of the duke of Bavaria, “for fear of some agreement prejudicial to him about the Palatinate”. 7 November 1634, Vienna, Antonio Antelmi, Venetian Secretary in Germany to the Doge and Senate, CSPV, 1632–6, 292. 16 Gardiner, History of England, VIII, 84. 17 The impact on the Spanish monarchy is covered in Chapter Four above. See also Loomie, ‘Spanish Faction’, 37–50; ‘London’s Spanish Chapel’, 402–17; ‘Alonso de Cárdenas’. See also E.A. Beller, ‘The Thirty Years War’ in The New Cambridge Modern History: The Decline of Spain and the Thirty Years War, multi-volume (London: 1970), IV, 346. 18 For a man as impetuous as Charles Stuart, it was difficult to decide which of these powers his threats should be used against at any one time. For a few years, he offered the lure of maritime assistance at various times to the houses of Bourbon and Orange too, in the hope of obtaining concessions from them over the Palatinate issue. See Loomie, ‘Spanish faction’, 43; Hibbard, Charles I, 19; Gardiner, History of England, VIII, 82–4; Reeve, ‘Quiroga’s paper’, 913–925.

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tion over the Palatinate finally persuaded Charles I to send a permanent representative to Vienna. The man he chose for the task was a mysterious character: John Taylor was openly Catholic and half-Spanish. Thus, he obviously had good credentials as an hispanophile. Besides, Taylor was multilingual and had been employed on a number of low-key foreign missions, including periods in Brussels and Madrid, since 1627. From July 1634, he had worked as an interpreter, firstly for the Stuart agent in Madrid, Sir Arthur Hopton, and, from December 1634, for Sir Walter Aston, baron of Forfar, Charles I’s ambassador to the Spanish monarchy.19 Taylor set out for the Imperial court in August 1635. At the outset, Charles I instructed him “not necessarily to insist upon the restoration of the Upper Palatinate” but to press “for that of the Lower, or at least that it be temporarily sequestered to some neutral prince, and to endeavour to win the Spanish representatives to favour the sequestration”.20 The initial signs were not promising. Although Taylor was encouraged by a meeting which he had arranged with General Piccolomini and the Cardinal-Infante while en route, he reached Vienna only on 22 November: a result of considerable difficulties which he had experienced on a perilous stretch of the journey between Cologne and Passau, during which he stated that he had seen “nothing but desolation; the people being almost dead . . .”21 Following the ambassador’s arrival in the Habsburg lands there is evidence of more optimism in the Stuart kingdoms. Perhaps as a reflection of this confidence, the seventeen-year-old Prince Palatine and his younger brother Rupert were warmly welcomed in the English capital following their arrival during the same month, even though their views as to the best means of achieving a restitution were unclear at this stage.22 Moreover, the emperor’s “Declaration of Friendly Feeling” in December must have convinced Charles I that

19 Taylor appears to have been a relative of the veteran Spanish agent, Henry Taylor. Still, some at court were opposed to his promotion to the Imperial post from the beginning. See M.R. Trappes-Lomax, ‘Who was John Taylor the diplomatist?’ in Recusant History, 7, no. 1 (1963), 43–45; Albert J. Loomie, ‘Canon Henry Taylor’, 221–237. 20 13 October 1635, Genep, Captain Shaw to ? (Windebank?) in ClSP, I, no. 546. 21 28 November 1635, Vienna, Taylor to Windebank in ClSP, I, 369. 22 Puritans and Catholics both tried to persuade them to follow their own suggested approaches. See Hibbard, Charles I, 51; Ranke, History of England, II, 23–24.

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there were grounds for hope with Ferdinand II at a time when the issue of their respective futures remained at the forefront of the public’s attention.23 Notwithstanding these positive developments, as has been shown in Part One, the increasing influence of Laud and Henrietta Maria had led to the growth of a francophile group in London at the expense of the pro-Spanish faction. This clique felt uneasy about the diplomatic approach that Taylor was pursuing, an understandable assessment since the Palatinate was clearly far from the top of the Imperial agenda. On the contrary, the need to keep Bavaria on the side of Imperial policy remained of paramount importance to the financially-stricken emperor. For this reason, Ferdinand II had allowed Maximilian I’s position within the Empire to strengthen in July 1635, when he had agreed to the Bavarian duke’s request to take his daughter’s hand in marriage. The timing was significant, another important test of Maximilian’s Imperial loyalty being due to come soon. Ferdinand II had become frail, and leading courtiers predicted that he would put forward his son, the king of Hungary, to be elected as ‘king of the Romans’ at the forthcoming Electoral Diet in Regensburg. Should the Bavarians fail to support the young Ferdinand as a candidate, it would seriously threaten his chances of being elected. John Taylor must have been aware then that Ferdinand II, even had he been sympathetic towards Charles I’s demands, had no other means to satisfy the duke’s ambitions than through continued recognition of Bavaria’s electoral status and possession of the Upper Palatinate at the very least.24 It is important to recognise the lack of Scottish involvement in Stuart-Imperial diplomacy at this stage. The Swedish army remained a more immediate threat in the Empire, their incursions keeping the Scots in the Patrimonial Lands busy for some time. Although Walter Leslie made his way back to Vienna from Rathenow in Brandenburg for a spell in July 1635, having led his dragoon regiment there, he soon returned to the battlefield again, this time at the head of 5,000

23

Bavaria notwithstanding, it is clear that Ferdinand II had no strong objection to a restoration of the small Calvinist enclave within the Empire by that time, if only support could be obtained against the French. See the declaration printed in ClSP, I, no. 619. 24 Birely, Religion and Politics, 219.

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men from General Hatzfeld’s unit.25 John Gordon too, cannot have been of any great assistance to Taylor. His name turns up in the Eger town archives on 26 February 1636, when he appears to have still been living there.26 At some point that year, Gordon left control of the troops in his regiment to his cousin Adam and took charge of a dragoon regiment on the Saar.27 Evidently, Taylor might have been better off looking to Madrid for support with respect to his pro-Palatinate diplomacy.28 Despite the apparent lack of interest from the Scottish imperialists, however, the ambassador was quick to report some successes in his mission.29 In January 1636, he declared himself hopeful that Ferdinand II was preparing to allow the Lower Palatinate to be restored to Charles Louis.30 Taylor believed that the Prince Palatine’s eighteenth birthday in February 1636 had made the question of a resolution much more pressing.31 The ebullient tone of Taylor’s letters is probably misleading. He certainly continued to claim that the ultimate goal of his mission might be achieved, showing constancy in his faith that, if Charles I

25 Hess, Biographien und Autographien, 405; Wrede, Geschichte der k. und k. Wehrmacht, II, 8; Schmidhofer, ‘Das irische’, 190. 26 An accounts book mentions the payment of a bill for nine litres of beer which had been delivered to him there. See Siegl, ‘Obrist Johann Gordon’, 268. 27 John Henderson’s activities at this time are even more obscure. See Wrede, Geschichte der k. und k. Wehrmacht, II, 51; Barker, Army, Aristocracy, Monarchy, 50. 28 See Chapter Four above. 29 2 January 1636, Vienna, Taylor to Windebank, in ClSP, I, no. 618. 30 Gardiner, History of England, VIII, 101. 31 However, aware of this potential source for dissension within the Empire, Ferdinand II had already proposed something slightly different. On 4 January, he suggested that Charles Louis lead an army himself and thus make a closer ‘offensive and defensive’ alliance with the House of Austria, in return for which a “not contemptible”, yet unspecified part of the Palatinate would be restored to him. Presumably, this would have involved the young prince joining his forces with those of the imperialists in Germany to fight against Richelieu and Oxenstierna. In any case, it seems highly unlikely that Charles Louis would have supported any plan to join forces with the army of the man who had forced him and his family into exile in 1620, no matter what the prize. Nevertheless, all Stuart envoys in Europe were certainly made aware of Charles I’s wish to encourage a more supportive stance towards the Austrian Habsburgs in the early months of 1636. For instance, the instructions for Joseph Averie, then acting as Stuart agent in Brandenburg and Saxony stated: “Wee doe find the Emperor and al the House of Austria disposed graciously towards our nephew”. See ? January 1636, ‘Instructions for our trustie and well-beloved Joseph Averie Esquire’ in PRO SP81/43/f. 135r; Ranke, History of England, II, 23–24; Hibbard, Charles I, 51.

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was to be promoted as the chief arbiter of a Europe-wide peace, the best way of going about this was through pursuing an “AngloAustrian” pact, one that would, of necessity, be “offensive” in the short term. But this would require the involvement of Charles Louis on the Habsburg side as had been suggested by the emperor and, in the absence of any new proposals that might satisfy Bavaria in that regard, Ferdinand II had shown signs of procrastination. Not only that, but Charles’ apparent neglect in the financing of all his continental ambassadors highlighted a more general apathy at the Stuart court, born of frustration. Taylor’s excessive enthusiasm would seem to have become a legitimate cause for concern in London.32 Walter Leslie’s offer of assistance was timely.33 The first record of his discussions with Taylor comes from Vienna, in a letter dated 26 January 1636. This reveals that Leslie had taken the opinion, perhaps independently, that such an alliance as suggested by the ambassador, remained feasible. With some delight, Taylor reported soon after to the secretary of state, Sir Francis Windebank, that his new, Scottish acquaintance considered the interests of the Prince Palatine and his family to be of the utmost importance to the restoration of equilibrium within Christendom. The only way this crucial issue could be resolved was, as he and Leslie had agreed, by means of a Stuart-Austrian Habsburg military alliance, the force of which would have to be directed against France. Only following that could a lasting peace be made.34 Taylor became full of praise for Leslie then, even if the latter had more frivolous social engagements to attend to at that time.35 Within the next month and a half, and following introductions from the ambassador, Leslie had begun correspondence with three prominent Stuart courtiers. First, in a dispatch dated 29 February,

32

Gardiner, History of England, VIII, 101. Leslie seems to have been in Bohemia earlier that winter. On 14 January 1636, his ‘komendatore’ at Neustadt, Václav Králík, paid a sum to a Count Werdemann, a financier in Prague, from whom he had borrowed money. Leslie also had a property in the Old Town in the Bohemian capital at that time. See ”µula, ‘Hospodárská korespondence’, 207. 34 26 January 1636, Vienna, Taylor to Windebank in ClSP, I, no. 639. 35 In the last week of January and first two weeks of February, Leslie celebrated the end of winter carnival with some Bohemian noblemen friends, including Count Slavata’s son Jáchym Oldrich, in Vienna. See 26 January 1636, Vienna, Vilém Slavata to Jindrich Lib“tenskÿ z Kolovrat; 9 February, Vienna, the same to the same, in Rodinnÿ archiv Slavatu, box 22 (n.f.). 33

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he offered his services as an agent to Sir Francis Cottington, the chancellor of the exchequer: Leslie paused during his introductory lines, to mention his having been responsible for introducing Taylor to many prominent and influential figures in Vienna.36 A month on, he recommended to Cottington that, given current international events, it would be in Charles I’s interests to send ambassadors immediately to all the major political centres on the continent.37 On 10 March, he wrote on similar themes to Sir Francis Windebank, commending Taylor’s services in Vienna and stressing his own poverty, thereby flagging up the diplomatic advantage that the Stuart monarchy had gained by recruiting such a talented spy as himself.38 But Leslie’s correspondence with Lord Basil Feilding, Stuart ambassador to Venice and Turin since 1634, proved to be more personal in nature than that with either Cottington or Windebank. It also covered a strikingly wide range of themes. Feilding, a nephew of Charles I’s earlier favourite, the duke of Buckingham, was a keen art collector with a Europe-wide network of contacts, a circle that included a number of Scots.39 Although he requested that John Taylor perform the same task for him in Vienna, Feilding’s interest in Imperial

36 29 February 1636, Vienna, Leslie to Cottington in ClSP, I: 657. For Cottington, see Martin Joseph Havran, Caroline Courtier: The Life of Lord Cottington (London: 1973). 37 27 March, 1636, Vienna, Leslie to Cottington in ClSP, I, no. 687. Ferdinand II finally declared war on France that same month, while Piccolomini and his force joined up with the army of the Cardinal-Infante to invade Picardy, which lay on the French border with Spanish Flanders. 38 10 March 1636, Vienna, Leslie to Windebank in ClSP, I, no. 657. 39 Feilding traced his ancestry back to Emperor Rudolf I of Habsburg and employed a Nathaniel Wanley to write a family history. It had become fashionable to employ genealogists for such purposes. See Stone, Crisis of the Aristocracy, 25. For art collecting at the Stuart court, see Linda Levy Peck, Northampton: patronage and policy at the court of James I (London: 1982) and several other essays in the collection edited by the same author, The Mental World of the Jacobean Court (Cambridge: 1991). Cottington and Windebank were both involved in genealogy too. See Loomie, ‘Spanish Faction’, 40. Regarding Scotsmen in this circle, James Graham, Fifth Earl and later First Marquis of Montrose had recorded Feilding’s interest in art, upon meeting the ambassador on his first round of continental travels. Moreover, the marquis of Hamilton was Feilding’s son-in-law, and likewise an enthusiastic collector for whom the earl procured paintings from Venice. See Hilary L. Rubenstein, Captain Luckless: James, First Duke of Hamilton (Edinburgh: 1975), 44–47. Another Scottish connection was Feilding’s secretary in Turin, Peter Morton, whom he employed as his agent while absent from the city. The involvement in this group of Robert Philip and Sir Robert Douglas, two Scots who had been working in Rome with Charles I’s approval, towards improving relations with the Papal court, cannot be confirmed. See Albion, Charles I, and Chapter Four (footnote 24) above.

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politics becomes as clear as his passion for art in his subsequent actions. He may have even have been the man responsible for recommending the hispanophile for the embassy in the first place. In any event, Feilding claimed to enjoy Habsburg ancestry himself and— whether or not his genealogical claims had any truth in them—it is certain that he had been able to benefit from Imperial patronage already, having studied in Strasburg as a young man. Following his time there, he had apparently been appointed to the position of kammererherr to Ferdinand II. Besides, Feilding had married a Catholic, Anne Weston, daughter of the earl of Portland. Thus, his sympathies were certainly not at odds with those of the emperor.40 Consequently, he and Taylor wrote regularly on the themes of both art and politics. At the outset, Leslie had some work to do to persuade Feilding of his usefulness. In his first letter, dated 11 March, he warned the Englishman as to the danger of promoting a Stuart alliance with the Swedes, whom he clearly viewed as being opposed to the interests of the Palatinate. Leslie explained that, even in the wake of their temporarily flagging fortunes in the Empire, Chancellor Oxenstierna still had “noe desire to peace”. As to Frankenburg, Oxenstierna’s ambassador in Vienna, Leslie considered him “weak”.41 This may not have been enough to impress Feilding since, on 18 March, Taylor wrote another letter to his fellow diplomat, this time stating: “I pray you to esteem very much your correspondence with Colonel Leslie— I were nothing here without him . . .”42 In another, from just one week later, Taylor’s praise for Leslie went even further: He concluded: “. . . there is none in this court that doth know more of affaires and is more trusted”.43 Recommendations such as these, convinced Feilding to take Taylor’s advice. Consequently, Leslie provided him with some more precise information on 20 March, this time on the subject of Imperial mil-

40

See Feilding’s DNB entry. 11 March 1636, Vienna, Leslie to Feilding, printed in S.C. Lomas, ed. Report on the manuscripts of the Earl of Denbigh (hereafter Denbigh papers), (H.M.C., London: 1911), 19. Leslie was quite pessimistic about realising a peace settlement, with or without the contribution of Charles I. At the same time he had wise words to write on the need to transport sufficient corn from the Danube to the imperialist troops in the north in the summer. Leslie wrote: “I assure myselfe who sal have most to eat, sal be master of the feilds”. 42 18 March, 1636, Vienna, Taylor to Feilding, in Denbigh Papers, V, 20. 43 25 March 1636, Vienna, Taylor to Feilding, in Ibid., 21. 41

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itary operations, specifically the need to counter the advance of the German duke, Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar. To do this, he recognised the urgency of transporting corn from the Danube to the devastated Rhineland.44 He was also able to provide details of the progress that the Saxon army were at that time making against the Swedes.45 Furthermore, Leslie made the suggestion that Charles I make a pact with Denmark against Sweden. The approach was of most obvious appeal to the pro-Habsburg camp of course, but might, he stressed, also allow the Stuart monarchy to instigate a wider peace: . . . the King most take good heed that the King of Denmark with the sea touns make no particular leage or acord for themselves without his majestie [Charles I], els his Majestie will run hazard to lose the esteme he hath with other princes at this Court; bot if he be the bringer and persuader of the King of Denmark, other princes and steats to this leag, he alone sal have the honor and obliedge this house for ever, and which is more, be accounted a law giver to Christendome.46

These first letters to Feilding provide the most intricate details of Leslie’s plans for a Stuart-Austrian Habsburg alliance. It is plain to see from the contents that he and Taylor were seeking, not only to assist in diplomacy over the Palatinate issue, but to influence political life in the Stuart kingdoms more widely. In short, they hoped to encourage Charles I towards closer relations with Denmark-Norway and the Hanseatic towns of northern Germany, so as to create a league that would pit these powers together in a broad alliance alongside both branches of the Habsburgs, and in opposition to France and Sweden. According to Leslie, it was urgent for Charles I to improve what he claimed to be the flagging international standing of the Stuart monarchy in the wake of the Peace of Prague. That achieved, the best means towards ensuring a lasting peace would be to move Caroline foreign policy towards a warmer relationship with the Empire. Feilding needed no further encouragement to induce him to take note. In the following months, he used Leslie as a regular source of information on the emperor’s court and for advice on the war situation more generally, from the imperialist perspective. For instance,

44 45 46

20 March 1636, Vienna, Leslie to Feilding, in Ibid., 21. 20 March 1636, Vienna, Leslie to Feilding, in Ibid., 21. 30 March 1636, Vienna, Leslie to Feilding, in Ibid., 21.

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in April 1636, Leslie reiterated to him the need for Charles I to take a lead in creating an anti-French bloc. He wrote: . . . for present, nothing hurts more then that Denmark wil make leag with the King of Spaine and whole house of Austria without ons thinking of the King of Ingland, which doeth extreamlie hurt his Majesties reputation and crydet in this Court, and al the Courts in Germanie.47

Leslie also touched on Charles Louis’ situation, specifically in relation to another dramatic development. This was the disturbing news that the emperor’s daughter was expecting a child to Maximilian I, following their wedding the previous autumn.48 Cottington, the former Spanish resident, seems never to have taken Leslie’s advice so seriously. He apparently did not even respond to the initial offers of inside information from Vienna. Perhaps this explains why, on 9 April, Taylor felt the need to reassure him of the potential value of Leslie as a correspondent.49 But Cottington does not seem to have replied to this letter either, possibly reflecting his estrangement from the hispanophile group at court around this time. His coolness could also be justified on the grounds that Taylor and Leslie had achieved very little, in practical terms, during the preceding months.50 Another reason for Cottington’s reticence might have been that he was aware that their proposals, no matter how earnestly expressed, failed to tackle the issue of Bavaria’s opposition to any proposed restitution of the Palatinate. Maximilian I, not Ferdinand II, remained the main obstacle in the way of a Palatine settlement. Leslie and Taylor had no suggestions as to how the duke might be satisfied by anything other than continuing recognition of his present status.51 For Taylor, Feilding, and to a lesser extent Windebank and Cottington, Leslie had been able to provide not just petty court gos47

? April 1636, Vienna, Leslie to Feilding, in Ibid., 26. Ibid. Leslie also reported the failing health of Ferdinand II and the preparations to have his son, the king of Hungary, elected as emperor, all useful information for Feilding. 49 9 April 1636, Vienna, Taylor to Feilding, in ClSP, II, no. 94. 50 That said, both Taylor and Leslie continued to appear convinced that Charles Louis might be restored at least to the Lower Palatinate and to his Imperial title, if Charles I would only press the issue further with the emperor rather than the French, and direct the new ‘ship-money’ fleet with haste against Richelieu’s navy. See Taylor’s notes from January to May 1636, ‘Aufzeichniß d. Ablegaten Taillerus’ in HHStA, Kriegsakten 1635–1639, ff. 116/149–150; Sharpe, Personal Rule, 531–532. 51 See Taylor’s DNB entry. 48

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sip but generally accurate, if in some instances naïve, accounts of the international political scene, along with detailed information about the inner workings of the Imperial court. Presumably it was his knowledge of those events that might have implications for the cause of the Palatinate family that had led them to value his assistance in the first place. If so, they would do so again. By April, an Imperial ambassador, Clement Radolt, had arrived at Whitehall, the emperor’s first ambassador in London since 1622.52 Some of the explanation for this new closeness in Stuart-Habsburg relations lies in Leslie’s activities over the preceding months.

May 1636–January 1637: Leslie, the earl of Arundel and the Electoral Diet at Regensburg Leslie had proved himself to be a useful Stuart agent by May 1636 then. John Taylor wrote to Feilding stating: “The good offices that Colonel Leslie hath performed to the business heare have been very well taken and esteemed in England”.53 But it was not long before 52 See Radolt’s reports from London, from 2–30 May 1636 in HHStA, Staatenabteilung Grossbrittanien, II Korrespondenz, K.18, Berichte an Ferdinand II, ff. 24–123. 53 13 May 1636, Vienna, Taylor to Feilding in Denbigh Papers, V, 27. More generally though, it was a time of uncertainty for Palatinate supporters at the Catholic courts of Christendom. The Spanish dependencies aside, George Con, for instance, had been appointed secretary to Urban VIII’s nephew, Cardinal Francisco Barberini in the early 1630s. However, his aims had remained tied up with the fate of the Scottish Catholic community. Con sought new challenges following his appointment as Papal agent to the Stuart monarchy in 1636. He left for London that July. Once there, he began to form a new, “court Catholic party” of Scottish, Irish and English Catholics around Henrietta Maria. Scottish nobles such as the earls of Douglas, Abercorn, Nithsdale and Winton were some of its most fervent members, men who remained in London because of the relatively generous treatment they could expect there. See Hibbard, Charles I, 43–47, 51, 92–104, 124; Albion, Charles I, 117ff; Forbes Leith et al. Records of the Scots Colleges, 10. Also in London and sympathetic to the Habsburgs were a number of exiled, anti-Richelieu partisans of the French queen mother, Marie de Medici, united in their determination to persuade the queen to move away from her assumed supportive position towards the French commander. Thus the members of this motley group could perhaps be widened to include Spanish diplomats and other hispanophiles from the Stuart kingdoms. Besides, in Rome, Sir William Hamilton stepped in to replace Con, Douglas and Philip that summer as well. Hamilton, brother of the earl of Abercorn, a Scottish peer (who was also baron of Strabane in Ireland, and a brother-in-law of Lord Feilding) became deeply involved in negotiations there over the Palatinate. Hamilton’s relationship with Arundel is an important one since the first object of his mission was

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he met an individual whose overriding aim was to reinvigorate proPalatinate diplomacy. This was Thomas Howard, the fifth Earl of Arundel and Surrey, Charles I’s choice of ambassador to the 1636 Electoral Diet at Regensburg. Arundel’s background was very urbane, in many ways similar to Lord Feilding’s. Not only that, but his family had military and kin connections with central Europe.54 The earl had gained renown in his home country for his collection, the ‘Arundel Marbles’, acquired in Italy after 1613.55 He had visited Rome again in 1632 and accompanied Anstruther to The Hague the same year in an effort to try and persuade Elizabeth of Bohemia to return to the Stuart kingdoms.56 Arundel had also continued to pursue his other passion: his personal collection of Flemish paintings had gradually grown to become the largest of any in the isles. Indeed, the earl had begun to employ agents on the continent for the purpose of acquiring the works of the great masters, both for his own pleasure and on behalf of the king and others.57 This made Arundel an obvious choice as Stuart ambassador to the emperor and so it was that, on 22 March 1636, Charles I finally selected him for the mission to Ferdinand II.58 He set off only in to try and obtain support in Rome for a restitution. See 8 January 1639, Rome, Sir William Hamilton to ?, PRO SP94/41/f. 27. See Chapter Four (footnote 24) above. 54 A volunteer in the Imperial Army, the previous earl appears to have captured a Turkish standard in 1595, to much acclaim from Emperor Rudolf II. See De Ruvigny, Nobilities of Europe, 212. A Thomas Arundel of Wardour had also been created a Count of the Holy Roman Empire in 1595 for his “gallantry in forcing the water tower at Gran [Esztergom] Hungary”. See his DNB entry. 55 During that period, Arundel had been closely linked with a disparate group of English Catholic exiles, some of them Jesuits but also such men as the puritan ambassador to Rome, Sir Henry Wotton. 56 Mary S. Hervey, The Life Correspondence and Collections of Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundell (Cambridge: 1921), 311. 57 By 1655, nine years after his death, an inventory of Arundel’s collection listed 598 paintings and 200 other objets d’art. See Hugh Trevor-Roper, From CounterReformaton to Glorious Revolution (London: 1992), 118–9. 58 Joseph Averie was sent to the Lutheran states simultaneously. See 11 April 1636, “Instructions of Averie for the Electors of Brandenburg and Saxony” in PRO SP81/43/f. 153. It stated: “from the Emperor wee now receave overtures for the restitution of our nephew to his dignity and estate and that to this end a special Legate is apointed unto us and that wee at the Emperour’s motion now dispatch an Ambassador thither with powers to negotiate and conclude: they promising wee shall receave more than wee expect . . . we intende by our Ambassador [Arundel] to negotiate not only for our nephew’s interests but for the common peace wherein his particular wil bee also concluded”.

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June, by which time the news of the duke of Bavaria’s wife’s pregnancy had probably arrived in London. On 1 June Leslie wrote to Feilding, mentioning that he had conversed with Maximilian I himself over the issue of the rights of his offspring to the Palatinate lands and titles, and giving the appearance of greater optimism about the prospects for Arundel’s mission.59 Following that, Leslie went on to the Bohemian Regional Diet, after which very little is known of his whereabouts for almost three months.60 Arundel’s movements are well documented, however. One of his travelling companions, William Crowne, wrote a detailed diary account of their trip up the Rhine, during which they were accompanied by around fifty others including Wenceslaus Hollar, a Bohemian artist of Catholic background. The earl employed Hollar to record their various travels in pictorial form.61 Ignoring the emperor’s earlier suggestion that Charles Louis join forces with the imperialists, Charles I had asked Arundel to seek a peaceful agreement but “not to engage us by any federation into an actual war, or to breach any peace or violation of our treaties with our neighbours”. The Stuart king had stressed his desire “to join with the Emperor and his House in a strict league for the common peace”. This would, of course, be a “defensive” alliance rather than the one that had been advocated by Leslie and Taylor.62 59

PRO SP99/37/f. 218. The diet convened on 7 June 1636. On 7 July, the evidence from Králík at Neustadt, suggests that Leslie was absent from his Bohemian property. The former was negotiating with “Gordon” ( John?) over the repayment of a loan. See ”µula, ‘Hospodárská korespondence’, 186–189. 61 Hollar went on to settle in England until the 1640s. His awareness of the developments in his homeland is obvious in an undated drawing of his which makes a perceptive analogy between events in Bohemia and the wars in Scotland, Ireland and England. This unusual visual comparison of the course of events in Bohemia and in the Stuart kingdoms is kept in the British Museum. See Anthony Griffiths et al. Wenceslaus Hollar: Prints and Drawings (London: 1983), 42. Three of Arundel’s future appointments to the College of Arms certainly joined the embassy, including his secretaries Edward Walker and Sir John Borough, his own son William, as did one of Sir Francis Windebank’s sons. See Sir John Borough, ‘A summary relation of the principal occurents happening in the embassage collected by Sir J. Borough’, in PRO SP80/10, f. 55. 62 The instructions stated: “we will assist the Emperor and his House as far as without breach of treaties we may be able, and to this end will maintain a powerful fleet at sea, and will suffer our people to serve him where we see cause; and all this with the consequence may very well deserve not a partial and ambiguous, but such a total and absolute restitution as we desire, and without which we shall be forced to join with some other party for the advancement of this justice and 60

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Having arrived in Linz in Upper Austria on 14 June to a reception on the banks of the Danube, Arundel attended a number of banquets before arranging to meet with the aging emperor to discuss the pressing issues.63 The first two audiences were on 16 and 18 June, while they met again on at least two other occasions between 28 June and 6 August.64 Despite the volatility of the situation, the imperialists seem to have seen the presence of this respected diplomat as a significant opportunity for establishing a new peace settlement.65 For instance, Arundel received favourable treatment from the emperor’s confessor, Father Lamormaini, and from the Jesuit community, who entertained and dined him. From Linz he went on to Vienna and then to Prague. In the latter city, Arundel visited Frederick V’s art collection, which still lay abandoned in the Hradschin, observed the baroque architecture of Wallenstein’s grand palace and toured the nearby site of the battle of the White Mountain.66 But the most important part of his mission took him in mid-July to Regensburg. Arundel settled down to negotiations there on the Palatinate, although his frustration at the empty nature of the imperialists’ stance towards his proposed peace settlement soon became clear. John Taylor joined him at some point during August, a month of some optimism for both branches of the Habsburgs due to the victory at Corbie. Initially commended by Arundel for his “zeal”, the earl became worried when he learnt that Taylor had continued to write to Windebank in the interim, encouraging the foedus defensivum et offensivum (defensive and aggressive alliance) with the emperor, believing him to remain supportive of a restitution. Clement Radolt wrote a number of letters to Ferdinand II that month from London too, expressing his hope that Arundel would be persuaded of the wisdom of Taylor and Leslie’s proposed treaty and that it might still

public peace, which we are unwilling to prosecute to the disadvantage of that House which we and our progenitors have so much honoured and esteemed”. Quoted from Gardiner, History of England, VIII, 158–9. 63 14 June 1636, Linz, Vilém Slavata to Adam z Vald“tejna and 18 June 1636, the same to the same, in Rodinnÿ archiv Slavatu, box 18 (n.f.). 64 In early July, the earl upset his hosts, the representatives of the Estates of Upper Austria, by failing to turn up at a hunt and a banquet. See 28 June 1636, Linz, Vilém Slavata to Adam Pavel Slavata and 5 July 1636, the same to the same, in Rodinnÿ archiv Slavatu, box 23 (n.f.). 65 14 June 1636, Vilém Slavata to Adam von Wallenstein in DBBT, VI, 100; 8 July 1636, Regensburg, Arundel to William Petty in BL, Add MSS 15, 970, f. 45. 66 8 July 1636, Regensburg, Arundel to William Petty in BL, Add Mss 15, 970, f. 45.

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be put into place.67 To Radolt’s delight and Arundel’s dismay, Taylor continued to toe the pro-Habsburg line. The earl even left Regensburg for Hungary for a few days while the diet was still in progress, as a display of his anger both at Taylor and at the stubbornness of the electors over the issue, most obviously that of the duke of Bavaria himself.68 Arundel is recorded as having met Leslie soon after his return. The two men dined together in Regensburg on 4 September along with the Countess of Tyrconnell (the wife of the exiled Ulster earl) and another Imperial veteran from the Three Kingdoms, Sir Griffin Markham.69 Certainly, for an aspiring socialite like Leslie, keen to show his refined tastes in courtier circles, the cultured earl was a useful acquaintance.70 However, according to Arundel’s biographer David Howarth, the two men warmed to each other as friends, an impression that is backed up by Crowne’s account.71 It is difficult to assess at this stage since, while John Taylor continued to write to Windebank encouraging a “strait friendship” with the emperor, Leslie had returned to the battlefield by 4 October to fight at Wittstock, against the Swedes, the French and Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar.72 The battle was an enemy victory and Leslie’s regiment came close to total annihilation.73 That aside, Leslie’s presence at Wittstock provides evidence of how Scottish activities in central Europe continued

67

1 August 1636, Radolt to Ferdinand II in HHStA, Staatenabteilung Grossbrittanien, II Korrespondenz, K.18, Berichte an Ferdinand II, f. 1. 68 20 August 1636, Regensburg, Taylor to Windebank, ClSP, II, 112. Windebank also forwarded some of Leslie’s letters to Charles I that month. See 14 August 1636, Haines Hill, Windebank to Charles I, in ClSP, I, 617. 69 Crowne, True Relation, 47. Markham had served in the Imperial army much earlier and was known for his knowledge of the German courts. He had connections with the Spanish court too. He received a pension of 600 florins from them while serving the imperialists in 1636. His royalist sympathies later led to him writing to his friend the marquis of Newcastle, on his regrets at being too old to fight for the cause of Charles I. See Ernst, Madrid und Wien, 278; and his DNB entry, also Chapter Five above. 70 For a discussion of the importance of art collecting at court as a means of gaining respect in European diplomatic circles in the period, see R. Malcolm Smuts ‘Art and the material culture of majesty in Early Stuart England’, in Smuts, ed. Stuart Court and Europe, 86–113. 71 For their friendship, see David S. Howarth, Lord Arundell and his Circle (London: 1985), 2, 144, 195. 72 7 October 1636, Regensburg, Taylor to Windebank, ClSP, I, 106. 73 Leslie’s six companies of dragoons were “badly battered”. Just 200 of them were left for garrison service in Silesia shortly after. See Barker, Army, Aristocracy, Monarchy, 49; Wrede, II, Geschichte der k. und k. Wehrmacht, 626.

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to have an important military aspect in the late 1630s. Indeed, Crowne’s account of Arundel’s embassy remains as interesting for the evidence it supplies on the Scottish, Irish and English contingent in the Imperial army as anything else.74 On several occasions in the diary, he commented on his and Arundel’s surprise at finding so many officers from the Stuart kingdoms enjoying the hospitality at Regensburg: He [Arundel] . . . dined with his Excellency [Markham] and many Scottish and Irish colonels hath visited his Excellence and dined with him likewise: and they say a great part of the Emperour’s Army be our King’s subjects.75

In his account of the arrival of the king at the diet, Crowne again noted a Scottish group. He stated: “In the afternoone, the King of Hungary came [to Regensburg], being sent for by the Emperor from the Army, to be elected King of the Romans, accompanied with divers Colonels and Commanders of Scotch and Irish”.76 In addition, not only does the diary reveal that Leslie and Arundel dined

74 Eight Imperial regiments were formed in Silesia in July 1636 from veterans of Polish service, the officers of which “were mostly Scottish and Irish”. They were led by Ludovick Lindsay, the sixteenth Earl of Crawford, who had served in Poland against the Turks for at least four years. The other officers included an Adam Gordon, perhaps the cousin of John Gordon who had been at Eger, a Cochrane and a Matthison (presumably also Scots) along with the younger of the two Irish veterans named James Butler and an Edmund Butler. The emperor apparently discharged some of these recruits following their return from service in the Upper Rhineland in September 1636. See Wrede, Geschichte der k. und k. Wehrmacht, II, 67. However, Crawford’s regiment and others from this group, comprising 4,480 men, moved on to serve the Habsburgs in the Franche-Comté. They were there from October 1636 to April 1637. James Butler received money to pay eight regiments at his base in Villers (?) on 13 October of the latter year. In 1638, Crawford made a written complaint to Philip IV in which he claimed that his own regiment had received no payment since they had been mustered in Silesia and that he had had to supply them from his own pocket. He stated that, following the march to western Europe, only 300 men had remained from a total of 1,100 in April 1637, most of them shoeless and with only poor clothing. Crawford demanded 60,000 ducats as compensation, a claim with respect to which Oñate was consulted. The Spaniard recommended that Crawford be recompensed with a much smaller sum. See Ernst, Madrid und Wien, 293–8; Schmidhofer, ‘Das irische’, 57. 75 Crowne, True Relation, 49. 76 Crowne, True Relation, 49; 30 September 1636, Regensburg, Arundel to Petty, BL Add MSS 15970, f. 43. The identity of these Scots is impossible to confirm. They may perhaps have included monks from the numerous Scottish Benedictine monasteries or members of the Scottish trading community in the surrounding region of Franconia.

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together again on at least four separate occasions during October, on 3 November, it also records a Colonel Henderson as having joined the earl and Count Oldenburg for a meal.77 Meanwhile, in London, a depressing clarification of the emperor’s new terms for a restitution had arrived from Clement Radolt.78 Radolt expressed the need for Arundel to explain Charles I’s position with regard to the proposed treaty, whether it was, indeed, the foedus defensivum et offensivum which was being put forward by Taylor, or something unacceptable to the imperialists as the earl seemed to be suggesting. The emperor’s ambassador also reported correctly the substance of a rumour spreading amongst the imperialists that Joseph Averie, the Stuart ambassador in Sweden, had been negotiating separately with Chancellor Oxenstierna, in a manner that contradicted the Stuart position as put forward at Regensburg. Besides, Radolt explained that the current delay in response to Arundel’s requests for another Imperial audience to discuss the Palatinate was not due to Imperial intransigence but because of “the great importance of the affayre, and the great interest which the Crown of Spayne and the Elector of Bavary have in it”. The terms which Radolt summarised to Charles I were not generous then, but reflected an unsurprising caution with respect to the inconsistent nature of Stuart policy as was being represented by Averie, Arundel and Taylor.79 First, electoral dignity, as confirmed in the Peace of Prague, would remain in the duke of Bavaria’s hands

77 Crowne also mentioned that Leslie visited Arundel again on 7, 17 and 23 October. See Crowne, True Relation, 51–54. He also wrote the following: “of all these passing acquaintances, one only perhaps became a permanent friend. This was a Scotchman, Count or Colonel Leslie, captain of the King of Hungary’s guard. The relations between him and Lord Arundel became most cordial: Count Leslie who was highly esteemed by the Imperial family, doing his utmost to advance the objects of Arundel’s mission”. This statement is quoted from Howarth, Lord Arundell, 387. As for the Henderson who is mentioned, it is not clear whether this was John or Thomas. Both were still in Imperial service at that time. On 6 May 1636, a Colonel Henderson had attacked Rathenow along with Colonel Schönickel and his cavalry against the Swedes. However, General Banér had returned on 9 May with a stronger force and the imperialists had been defeated. See Hess, Biographien und Autographien, 146. The following winter, a Henderson dragoon regiment was based in Pomerania, although again, it is unclear which of the men of this surname was its commander. See Wrede, Geschichte der k. und k. Wehrmacht, III, 2, 621. 78 A contemporary English translation is enclosed in 17 October 1636, London, Radolt to Charles I, in HHStA, Staatenabteilung Grossbrittanien, II Korrespondenz, K.18, Berichte an Ferdinand II 1636, ff. 76–79. 79 Ibid.

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and then be transferred to his son, “unto the whole line descending from Duke Wilhelm as long as it should last”. Second, as regarded the Upper Palatinate, this would remain in the duke of Bavaria’s hands as well. Third, with respect to the Lower Palatinate, Radolt reported that it would be restored to Charles Louis “in due time”. Regarding the latter concession, it seems that the emperor—still wishing to “testify the friendly goodwill he beareth your Sacred Majesty”— had discussed the matter with representatives of both Spain and Bavaria at Regensburg. Both were apparently “content that what each of them both possesse bee dealt of in this treaty, upon contention that your Sacred Majesty goe forward in the business of a league, and that there bee on the other side assigned unto the Crowne of Spayne some emoluments convenient and proportionable . . .”80 Arundel might, had he known the details of Radolt’s letter, have left Regensburg much earlier. As it was, he remained until 19 November, and in a state of great distress, due to the murder, a few days before, of two of his partners on the embassy. On the hazardous journey back down the Rhine, the earl stopped at Nuremberg, where, besides bringing letters, it was reported that: “Count Lessel[Leslie] went to present him with a diamond worth 2,000 crowns”. However, Arundel went on with haste from there to Cologne and The Hague, finally arriving in London in early December.81 Arundel had been much more insistent and pragmatic, although ultimately just as unsuccessful as Taylor, on the Palatinate issue. Following his realisation that the prospect of a Stuart-Austrian Habsburg pact had disappeared, it has been argued that the earl’s previously supportive view of the Habsburgs and of the Holy Roman Empire changed.82 But, in spite of his humiliation, his position is actually unclear thereafter. There is some evidence to show that, unlike most others at the Stuart court in the winter of 1636–7, he remained a supporter of a Habsburg alliance in some form.83

80

Ibid. Arundel’s fellow travellers had been “bound to a tree, robbed and murdered”. See 5 December 1636, Regensburg, Giovanni Battista Ballarino, Venetian Secretary to Germany to the Doge and Senate in CSPV, 1636–39, 101–2. 82 A.J. Loomie has argued that following his negotiations at Regensburg, Arundel became adamant in the view that France was England’s most valuable ally on the Continent. See Loomie, ‘Spanish Faction’, 47. 83 The Venetian ambassador to the Stuart court reported that the earl’s “wellknown Spanish sympathies” (which had reportedly been expressed by Robert 81

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Certainly, Leslie had been of enormous assistance to him at Regensburg. Taylor and Averie had, on the contrary, been thorns in his side. Unsure as to whether Charles I should seek an alliance with Spain or France, Arundel had come away with a “bad resolution”.84 Charles I expressed dissatisfaction with the outcome of the negotiations, which had been an “expensive failure”, although this anger was not directed at Arundel’s own role.85 The earl was a man whose “chivalrous attachment” to the Palatinate seems not to have been questioned.86 That said, Elizabeth of Bohemia continued to demand a complete restitution, through armed intervention if necessary. In this she now enjoyed the support of a majority at the Caroline court.87 The possibility of Charles Louis proving willing to fight alongside Imperial troops against France having disappeared, diplomatic

Anstruther to the Venetian ambassador in the Netherlands as early as 1633) had actually been strengthened at Regensburg, on account of the lengthy discussions he had held with Oñate, the king of Hungary and the emperor. The Venetian Secretary in London also commented on the Dutch deputy’s earlier statement at Regensburg that “he would not visit Arundel again, as he only showed him pictures and galleries and he saw that the Earl was hiding something prejudicial to the States [United Provinces]”. See 7 February 1633, The Hague, Alvise Contanni to the Doge and Senate, in CSPV, 1632–36, 66; 17 October 1636, Regensburg, Giovanni Battista Ballarino, Venetian Secretary to Germany to the Doge and Senate in CSPV, 1636–39, 79. Moreover, Arundel’s later role as a recruiter for the imperialists would seem to suggest that he had left Regensburg in 1636 with a more favourable disposition towards the Habsburgs than he had led his king to believe. For instance, the earl requested permission to go to the Italian peninsula for a year following the negotiations. See 30 May 1637, Nuremberg, Francis Windebank to Secretary Windebank in CSPD, 1635–37, 525. As well as a later embassy to Germany, Arundel may also have been chosen to go to Spain as Ambassador Extraordinary in 1642. Presumably, he did not take up the offer. See 15 September 1642, London, Giovanni Giustinian, Venetian Ambassador to England to the Doge and Senate in CSPV, 1642–43, 142. Leslie certainly believed that Arundel had been unfairly blamed for the lack of a Palatine settlement, and showed no awareness in his correpondence in late 1636, of the earl’s having resorted to increasingly anti-Habsburg line. See 1 December 1636, Regensburg, Leslie to Windebank, in ClSP, I, no. 860. 84 30 September 1636, James Averie to the Secretary of State in PRO SP81/43/ f. 207. Although there was confidence in the ‘wise and noble’ Arundel, Averie claimed that it was believed at court that the earl had “had small hope of effecting any good in the affaire of the Palatinate”. 85 Hibbard, Charles I, 74. 86 Arundel’s travelling companion William Howard expressed a belief that Jesuits had purposely tried to disrupt the negotiations. See Hibbard, Charles I, 50, 69. 87 11 June 1637, Elizabeth of Bohemia to Archbishop Laud in CSPD, 1635–37, 525. She later became more realistic in her aims of persuading the Swedes and the German electors to help with a restitution, in the face of continuing Bavarian opposition.

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ties were broken with the Spanish and Austrian Habsburgs for several years. Moreover, the prospect of a military alliance with France became more apparent that winter when Charles I gave his backing to his eldest nephew’s plan to levy a contingent for the continental wars.88 As Chapter Four showed, pro-Palatinate strategies involving the Habsburgs began to be considered in much more depth by some dislocated Scottish Catholics at the Stuart and Spanish Habsburg courts from this time on.89 The reasons for this can be found in Scotland itself. Increasing unrest amongst the disaffected at home was now forcing native Catholic earls into the same camp as all other supporters of the episcopal hierarchy, represented in absentia by the likes of Walter Leslie in the Patrimonial Lands. Such an alliance was unprecedented. But the unifying issue of the Palatinate aside, it had become clear that the very future of the Stuart monarchy, and thus both these sections of Scottish society, was at stake.

88 89

Hibbard, Charles I, 75. See Chapter Four above.

CHAPTER SEVEN

1637–40: THE COUNT AND THE NEW EMPEROR

The year of 1637 is a confusing one for historians concerned with Stuart-Austrian Habsburg relations. In the absence of a biography of Emperor Ferdinand III, political thinking at the Imperial court becomes difficult to trace from the time of his accession in February that year. Whether or not he would prove to be as ruthless in his confessional aims as his late father remained to be seen: it perhaps seemed more likely that he would pursue the more moderate approach that had been forced on Ferdinand II’s camp following the signing of the Peace of Prague.1 At Whitehall meanwhile, due to the disappointing results of Arundel’s embassy, anger had become directed at John Taylor. Many felt that Taylor had been overly optimistic in his reading of the emperor’s policy at Regensburg. Since no progress had been made over the Palatinate issue, the judgment was probably a fair one. From February 1638, the securing of international support for the domestic situation became a preoccupation for Charles I. As has been shown in Chapter Four, several of the large majority of Stuart courtiers who asserted their continuing loyalty to the king following the signing of the Scottish National Covenant that month, began to value advice and suggestions relating to Charles Louis’ dilemma from Scotsmen in Spanish service. But Charles I continued to experience some welcome co-operation from three compatriots at the Imperial court too: the rise to power of the Presbyterian oligarchy in their home country seems to have been viewed as negatively by Leslie and his circle as it was by the Catholic exiles in Madrid: none of the Scottish officers in Imperial service rallied to the cause of the covenanters in 1638. On the contrary, whether it derived from cynical Machiavellianism or more altruistic goals, a little-studied aspect of the royalist cause in Scotland at this stage is the support it received from a pro-Palatinate agent in the Patrimonial Lands. Walter Leslie’s

1

See 164–7 above.

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voluminous correspondence contains some of the clearest Scottish expressions of backing for the international and domestic interests of the house of Stuart from that time.2 Without dismissing a commitment to the fate of Scottish Catholicism and the Stuart dynasty as represented through the offspring of the ‘winter queen’, it should be remembered that the single most influential representatives amongst the Catholics in Spain on one hand, and the more career-minded entrepreneurs in the Patrimonial Lands on the other—Father Semple and Leslie respectively—both viewed the situation from an essentially expatriate perspective, having been absent from their home country for their entire adult lives. Their expressions of dismay and shock at the rise of the covenanters should perhaps be seen as predictable responses from two individuals who, with respect to the mainstream of Scottish domestic politics, were of marginal importance. Neither had gained any first-hand knowledge of the uncertainty created by Charles I’s 1625 Act of Revocation, for example, nor had they experienced the imposition of Laudian-inspired church reform in the years that followed. Had they done so they might have felt differently. Not only that, but the cavalier stance of the Stuart representatives on whom they remained dependent for information should also be considered. The reports that Semple and Leslie received were largely those of hispanophiles in London, outwardly loyal to their king but cursory and sometimes hostile in their coverage of events in Scotland. Crucially, in Leslie’s case, these became supplemented by accounts from a more unlikely ally at the Stuart court, the veteran Protestant ambassador, Sir Thomas Roe. Irrespective of religion, Leslie had shown an allegiance to the cause of Charles Louis dating back to January 1636. Herein lies a part of the explanation as to why the Palatinate-related intrigues of the Scots in Madrid seem to have aroused such suspicion while Leslie would manage to build up trust in his initiatives from amongst a much broader cross-section of royalists during the 1637–40 period. After 1638, there was at least a flicker of recognition in Madrid and Vienna that the preservation of claims to absolute power as it resided in all three multiple kingdoms (Spanish Habsburg, Austrian Habsburg and Stuart)—that is, within the hands of three centralis-

2 See Macinnes, Charles I; Donald, An Uncounselled King; Brown, ‘Courtiers and Cavaliers’; Stevenson, The Scottish Revolution.

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ing monarchies pursuing political, cultural and religious ‘coalescence’ at a time of internal insurrection—might require a more unified stance than had been the case twenty years previously.3 Leslie, for one, would acknowledge parallels in the situations facing his Stuart and Austrian Habsburg masters. He even became involved in Spanish Habsburg politics, when Ferdinand III sent him as Imperial representative to the Spanish Netherlands in 1639. Indeed, the southern Low Countries became an important cross-over point linking the activities of several Scots in ‘Austria Germanica’ and ‘Austria Hispanica’ for a time that year.4 That said, the situation in Catalonia and Portugal would prove very quickly that a grand Stuart-Habsburg alliance in defence of imperial monarchy was not on the agenda, thereby preventing Leslie’s grand attempts to bring about a universal peace that was favourable to the children of the ‘winter queen’ (like those simultaneously pursued by Buchan and Semple) from progressing beyond the planning stages once again. Despite the increasing urgency of the situation at home, the only possible means of fulfilling any of his objectives—both before and after the key date of February 1638—lay in the pursuit of patronage at the court on which he had become dependent. This more than anything else dictated Walter Leslie’s unflinching position of support for the Stuart monarchy during the three-year period that will be covered here.

February 1637–January 1638: Leslie ennobled Leslie seems to have lost all contact with the Caroline court for a few months following the end of the Regensburg meeting in January 1637. This was probably a wise move, since the failure of Arundel’s negotiations had led to the growth of anti-Habsburg feeling among even the more tolerant of Charles I’s leading advisers, pushing the Stuart king towards a ‘Protestant’ solution.5 Perhaps as a result, not much is known about he or the other Scots at the Imperial court during the first half of that year.

3

This is the word used by Mark Greengrass to describe the policy. See Greengrass, ‘Conquest and Coalescence’ in Greengrass ed. Conquest and Coalescence (London: 1991), 1–25. 4 See Chapter Four above. 5 Adams, ‘Spain or the Netherlands’, 100–1.

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What evidence there is, suggests that, via Leslie, the veterans of Eger remained in close contact. In April 1637, Leslie’s “komendatore” at Neustadt, Králík, reported in his journal that a colonel named “Hennersam” had stayed for a night at the castle.6 This was presumably John Henderson, since the elder Imperial officer of that surname, Thomas, was busy commanding his Alt Henderson regiment and another body of soldiers elsewhere that year.7 Regarding John Gordon, details are more sketchy. There seems to have been two colonels in the Imperial army with this name by the mid-1630s. A Colonel John Gordon is reported in many sources to have died during the summer of 1637. One nineteenth century German-language writer claimed that the Eger veteran was stabbed to death in Prague on 12 June that year, while, more recently, Francis Watson stated that he met his end as a result of a brawl.8 An even stronger piece of evidence for this interpretation is an undated letter of Leslie’s from 1638, referring to the inheritance of “the late Colonel John Gordon”.9 Yet on 3 April 1637, a Johann Gordon had written to Piccolomini on the subject of financial problems: presumably the same individual whose military experience was soon needed further westwards in the Saarland, where he took command of an Imperial dragoon regiment fighting against the French, a body which remained in that region for the next five years.10 Moreover, the situation becomes even more confused in the light of some evidence from 1639, which reveals that a namesake, based in Vienna or thereabouts and reckoned to be a staunch Protestant, was a current acquaintance of Walter Leslie.11

6

”µula, ‘Hospodárská korespondence’, 189. Wrede, Geschichte der k. und k. Wehrmacht, II, 71. 8 Watson, Wallenstein, 412; Hess, Biographien und Autographien 401. 9 ? 1638, Walter Leslie to Ferdinand III, “über das Erbe des verstorbene Obristen Johann Gordon” in HHStA, KA, 1635–39, f. 124, 1/3. This may be Colonel John Gordon’s cousin, a John Gordon of Ardlogie, who apparently died while living with him in Germany in 1638. A document dated 26 March 1639, from the State Papers (Domestic) provides the information that John Gordon, the Eger veteran “has had a cousin by him, who is lately dead called John Gordon [of ] Ardlogie, his brother’s son, who married the Provost of Meuros’ [Melrose?Montrose?] daughter.” See CSPD 1638–9, p. 569; J.M. Bulloch, ‘A Tragedy of the Austrian Empire’, 13. 10 Elster, Piccolomini-Studien, 41; Schmidhofer, ‘Das irische’, 52. 11 It is intriguing to note this John Gordon’s links with John Taylor. On 8 January 1638, Alexander Innes of Leuchars wrote to his brother John, regarding a letter which the latter had sent from Scotland to this Gordon. Innes revealed that this letter had been “directed to Taylor” in Vienna, instead of via Walter Leslie, as was 7

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As for Leslie himself, the only trace of his activities in early 1637 comes from a report of Piccolomini’s, written at some point in March or April, in which the Italian stated that he had despatched a courier to him with some important news.12 He obviously continued to derive benefits at that time from the contacts he had built up with the Stuart court, however, there being strong evidence, for instance, that the genealogical claims of his friend, the earl of Arundel, had been a useful source of knowledge in framing his 1636 application for admittance to the class of Counts of the Holy Roman Empire, the Grafenstand. As earl-marshal, Arundel was responsible for appointing future officers to the College of Arms in London, and was frequently called on to issue coats-of-arms and patents to the English nobility.13 Hence, he was often asked to construct elaborate (if often inaccurate) family lineages and genealogies.14 Arundel’s knowledge of the subject seems to have extended to practices in the Austrian Habsburg lands. There had been nothing particularly unusual in Leslie’s making such a submission. But the method by which he had applied and the manner in which the emperor had responded were quite peculiar.15 Leslie had composed a long letter to Ferdinand II, in which he sought to prove a six-hundred year genealogical link with the Habsburg lands. He had claimed descent—as many members of the family do today—from Bartholomew or Bartolf, a noble of Hungarian origin, who had left for Scotland in 1067 as chamberlain to Princess Margaret, later wife of Malcolm III of Canmore.16 Response to his

usually the case. See Duncan Forbes, ed. Ane Account of the Familie of Innes (Aberdeen, Spalding Club: 1864), 227–9. As to his religious beliefs, in 1639, Andrew Leslie, who was based at the Scots College in Rome and had connections in Habsburg central Europe recorded that the Colonel Gordon then in Imperial service was “not yet a Catholic”. See 26 March 1639, Rome, Andrew Leslie to Father John Seton, CSPD 1638–9, 569. 12 7 March–9 April 1637, Brussels, Piccolomini to Marquis of Castañeda (several pieces), in DBBT, VI, no. 411. 13 Barker, Army, Aristocracy, Monarchy, 191. 14 This was a common practice amongst the English nobility of the time, as Lawrence Stone has made clear. Clearly, the “radical transformation of the titular aristocracy” in England, Scotland and Ireland had continental parallels, one such being the changes in the system employed by the Habsburgs. See Stone, Crisis of the Aristocracy, 104. 15 For a very critical view of Leslie’s actions at this time, see Hallwich’s article for the ADB. 16 The clan motto of ‘Grip Fast’ and the three-buckled belt that feature on the

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application had been delayed for a few months due to the emperor’s ill health and eventual death. But Ferdinand III eventually awarded him the title of Reichsgraf on 26 June 1637, in what were, according to Hallwich’s nineteenth century account, “unusually honorific terms”. The status of Graf von Leslie as a man of ‘high and noble birth’, (hoch und wohl geborene) seems to have been ensured.17 Something should be mentioned of the context in which Leslie received the appointment. In Bohemia, the classes of lords (Herrenstand) and knights (Ritterstand ) remained two of four groups represented in the estates, the others being the prelates and towns. Alongside the undermining and eventual expulsion of the Protestant burgesses from the latter body, the composition of the two noble curia had been radically altered in recent times, firstly by Matthias I and, to a much greater extent, by Ferdinand II. Most importantly, the number of appointments to the (largely Protestant) Ritterstand, had been dramatically reduced. By the 1630s, the emperor was much more likely to give new applicants to the nobility, if accepted, the recently created title of Imperial Baron (Reichsfreiherr): in effect, a footstep towards entry into the much more prestigious Herrenstand. Besides appointment as a Reichsfreiherr, the other frequently used means of entry to the Herrenstand (and one which fitted with attempts to promote Imperial unity alongside a common aristocratic class in the Austrian Habsburg conglomerate) was to seek appointment as a Reichsgraf, a status distinguishable from that of the territorial or primeval Count or Urgraf, despite all being members of the Grafenstand.18 Indeed, manipulation of this system had allowed the emperor to reduce the number of Protestants obtaining entry to the Herrenstand by half in the period from 1609–1619, although simultaneously providing increased opportunities for foreigners—whether they had ancestral connections with central Europe or else were deemed worthy by their conduct alone—

Leslie coat-of-arms are still said by family historians to derive from Bartholomew’s duties as an escort, he having been given the honour of carrying the queen on horseback. Some of the origins of this tale are to be found in this letter. According to tradition, Margaret, who had been brought up in Hungary, had been in the habit of mounting her horse with a belt attached to Bartholomew for safety, hence the motto and the coat-of-arms, which can be seen at many of the family’s properties in that part of Europe to this day. Hallwich prints some of the letter in his ADB article. 17 See his ADB entry. 18 Above that remained the small possibility of becoming an Imperial Prince.

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to become representatives of the newly emerging ‘Austro-Bohemian’ élite. The naturalisation of ‘aliens’ had received encouragement in Upper and Lower Austria as well. Opposition had become strong there once representatives of the Ritterstand recognised that a concerted attempt was being made to lead them into a “social and cultural twilight”. The Lower Austrian poet Wolf Helmhard von Hohberg for one—a resolute German speaker—looked on in horror at the alien world of the absentee landlords—the Italian-speaking arrivistes— who, by his reckoning, spent all their time in Vienna without care for their rural properties.19 Besides this attempt to reduce the power of the Ritterstand, there is some evidence to suggest increasing laxity after the White Mountain in Habsburg attempts to check the authenticity and legitimacy of claims of ancestral nobility, whether those of incomers or natives, with respect to applications for entry to the Herrenstand.20 Clearly, there had been a ‘deflation of honours’ in Bohemia, as in Austria, during recent years. War veterans who could claim noble lineage or a coat-of-arms from their own country had frequently been able to persuade the Viennese Chancellery to honour them in flattering terms.21 Leslie was not even the first from the Stuart kingdoms to enter the Grafenstand. In 1620, Ferdinand II had elevated Sir Robert Dudley, the duke of Northumberland and earl of Warwick, to the position

19

By 1650, only half of the Upper and Lower Austrian nobility were Protestant. Some of them had remained loyal to the Habsburgs. However, a significant number had fled. Thus, the situation was almost as bleak for the members of the Ritterstand there as in the Bohemian crownlands. The same cannot be said for Inner Austria, where only one noble curia existed. See Melton, ‘Nobility in the Bohemian and Austrian Lands’, 112–120; George Heilingsetzer, ‘The Austrian Nobility, 1600–50: Between Court and Estates’, in Evans and Thomas, eds. Crown, Church and Estates, 245–256. 20 The role of the so-called Hofpfalzgrafen in the Habsburg lands became important. These were a group of nobles and dignitaries who the emperor employed for the purpose of selling letters-patent and coats-of-arms, often for amounts of up to 100,000 florins. See Munck, Seventeenth Century Europe, 159. 21 Looking elsewhere for comparison, foreign entry into the Polish nobility required proof of service to the commonwealth, a certificate of nobility, purchase of land, and an oath of allegiance to be taken. Norman Davies has recorded that ennoblements rarely went to foreigners. The aforementioned James Butler, Count Walter Butler’s presumed relative, was an exception, as his certificate, dated 1627, shows. Later, in 1658, the Scottish-descended Henry Gordon was ennobled too. See Norman Davies, God’s Playground: A History of Poland, 2 vols. (Oxford: 1982), I, 237–8; Robert I. Frost, ‘Scottish Soldiers, Poland-Lithuania and the Thirty Years’ War’ in Murdoch (ed.), Scotland and the Thirty Years’ War, 191–214.

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of Reichsgraf, as a reward for services to his sister’s husband, the duke of Tuscany.22 More significant in Leslie’s case though, if difficult to assess, was the effect of his having apparently been accepted as a descendant of a ‘native’ noble. This gave him nominally higher standing than most of the other foreign nobles, as being one of a recognised and much smaller group of ‘blood’ nobility (the Uradel or Geblütsadel) a status which was presumably looked on very favourably.23 Leslie’s social elevation may have made him an unpopular man outside court circles then, but on balance, his appointment as a Reichsgraf seems to have improved his quality of life within a very short time, providing him both with the chance of closer integration in his adopted homeland and with new opportunities for furthering his court career. It confirmed his rising status, and allowed him to participate in nearly all aspects of court life.24 There is a lot of evidence for these changes with respect to his social standing having influenced his life very quickly. For instance, Leslie is known to have developed a taste for gambling with his new aristocratic friends. At one point in July 1637—while war raged

22 According to Ruvigny’s account, Sir Robert Curzon had been created a baron of the Holy Roman Empire as early as 1500 for his role serving Maximilian I in the Turkish Wars. Moreover, thirteen years after that, Dominick White from Limerick, had apparently been made ‘Baron of Alby’. Much more recently, the earl of Wardour had been made a Count of the Holy Roman Empire in 1595. Thus there was a long history of ennoblements to men from England and Ireland. However, Ruvigny’s account, of how, in 1632, Ferdinand II had created Patrick Ruthven, earl of Forth and Brentford, (a Swedish-veteran and thereafter governor of Swedish-occupied Ulm in southern Germany) as Count of Kirchberg seems very unlikely. This remains the case even in the light of evidence as to Ruthven’s earlier marriage to Jane, “sister of Colonel John Henderson”. See Ruvigny, Nobilities of Europe, 297, 275, 414. 23 Melton, ‘Nobility in the Bohemian and Austrian Lands’, 112–120. 24 Hallwich quotes further from Leslie’s written request to the ailing Ferdinand II. Leslie claimed that, since his friends and kinsmen had been loyal in their service to the Habsburgs over the last 600 years, his “favour” deserved one in return, that is, appointment as a Count of the Holy Roman Empire. Leslie wrote:—“Ich hab mich unterstanden, Ihr kaiserlichen Majestät unterthänigt zu berichten, wasmasen daß der Älteste des hauses, davon ich linialmente descendirt bin, über sechshundert Jahr Grafen sein. Derowegen haben meine Blutsfreund und Verwandten an mich begehrt aus vielerlei Ursachen, die unvonnöthen sein Ihr Majestät damit zu molestiren, daß ich mich wirklich in Ihr Majestät Dienst befind, darf ich mich nicht unterstehen, diese Gnad von einem Anderen zu begehren: Als gelanget an Ihr kaiserliche Majestät mein allerunterthänigstes Bitten, mir die kaiserliche Gnad zu erzeigen und mich zu dem Stand eines Reichsgrafen erheben zu lassen. Solche erzeigte kaiserliche Gnad will ich die Zeit meines Lebens bei Ihr Kaiserlichen Majestät und Dero Erzhaus verschulden und verdienen”. See ADB entry.

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nearby—he became involved in a game of cards with a group including some leading figures at court (Archduke Leopold William, Vilém Slavata and Maximilian von Trautmannsdorf ) on a journey from Prague to Lower Austria.25 Leslie also became deeply concerned with matters relating to the renovation of his property at Neustadt an der Mettau.26 Despite the sporadic interruptions brought about by the passage of marauding Swedish armies through the region, he found time to make architectural alterations, adding the family coat-of-arms at several locations throughout the estate and village of Neustadt: adaptations that seem to have been typical of the elaborate expression of identity popular with the ‘Spanish party’ of the Hofadel, despite many people from outside the aulic class objecting vociferously to them, on moral, political and economic grounds.27 As Peter Burke has noted more generally, newly-ennobled families in early modern Europe frequently had to acquire their reputation in a comparable manner.28 Renovations were carried out towards a similar goal by foreign arrivistes in many locations, so as to provide an unambiguous expression of their intention to stay. Most importantly, Leslie’s increasingly aristocratic lifestyle aided his political career. From the summer of 1637 on, he and John Taylor remained in close contact, with the latter reporting that attempts were being made to have the count sent to London as an

25

7 July 1637/11 July 1637, Vilém Slavata to Adam z Vald“tejna in Rodinnÿ archiv Slavatu, box 18 (n.f.), Státní Oblastní Archiv v T®eboÏni, pracovi“te Jind®ichµuv Hradec. More evidence of his participation in the gambling tournaments of the Bohemian aristocracy comes in another letter of Vilém Slavata’s, this one from 2 February 1639. This describes Leslie’s participation in a game of cards with another group of the most prominent courtiers. See 2 February 1639, ?, Vilém Slavata to Jindrich Lib“tenskÿ z Kolovrat in Rodinnÿ archiv Slavatu, box 22 (n.f.). 26 On 25 January 1639, he reported discontent with his factor, Králík. The reason for this was that Králík had been forced to take work with another Bohemian noble, Maximilian von Wallenstein, at the nearby estate of Mnichovo Hradiste, so as to make ends meet. Nevertheless, Leslie seems to have conducted extensive architectural alterations at his castle around that time. This is despite the whole of northern Bohemia remaining vulnerable to Swedish attack. See ”µula, ‘Hospodárská korespondence’, 200. 27 This kind of conspicuous consumption was not confined to the ‘Austro-Bohemian’ nobility. See H.M. Scott and Christopher Storrs ‘Introduction’ in H.M. Scott et al. eds. The European Nobilities, (Harlow: 1995), 1–58. 28 Nobility could be demonstrated through a number of means. For instance, the addition of a ‘von,’ ‘de,’ or ‘zu,’ to the name alone, signified an ancestral link with a particular location Peter Burke, The historical anthropology of Early Modern Italy (London: 1987), 133–145.

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Imperial ambassador.29 Leslie also retained the trust of both the young emperor and his allies at Whitehall. Regarding the first, in August, he obtained an invite for Taylor, allowing him to fulfil his long-awaited wish to meet the new emperor.30 As for the Stuart connection, the count renewed correspondence with Windebank in July, once again expressing his belief that Cardinal Richelieu was untrustworthy and that Charles I should seek a treaty with the house of Austria instead. In a confident tone, he informed Windebank that the Stuarts should not risk falling “between two stools”, but must seek consistency as regarded foreign policy. As he had been suggesting for the last year and a half, the emperor remained the most reliable potential ally in this.31 Leslie had taken a gamble. He can only have been hoping that his advice would gain the support of the growing, anti-Richelieu, French exile faction and of other Catholics in Queen Henrietta Maria’s circle. Charles I, however, remained suspicious of both branches of the Habsburgs and unimpressed by Taylor’s naivety in diplomatic matters. A military alliance involving him against both the emperor and the king of Spain remained on the agenda, with the Stuart king continuing in his refusal to answer Ferdinand III’s correspondence. As might have been expected, hostility towards francophobic Catholic Europe was strong in Scotland too. Presbyterians even accused George Con of having brought the Anglican-inspired new Scottish Prayer Book directly from Rome to Edinburgh, where it received its introduction at St. Giles Cathedral that year.32 But Leslie’s July 1637 letter to Windebank is interesting for another insight which it provides. Despite several years abroad, the interests of the count’s family clearly remained close to his heart. Perhaps he now felt comfortable enough with his own financial position, or else his concern for Charles I’s cause was more genuine than has been conceded. Whatever his state of mind was, he asked Windebank that reward be given for the services he had provided to the Stuarts in recent times, not by remuneration to him personally, but through the appointment of his brother at Balquhain—presumably William

29 30 31 32

7 July 1637, Prague, Taylor to Windebank in ClSP, I, no. 940. 5 September 1637, Vienna, Taylor to Windebank, ClSP, I, no. 908. 25 July 1637, Vienna, Leslie to Windebank, in ClSP, I, no. 950. Hibbard, Charles I, 93.

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Leslie, the thirteenth Baron—as a groom of the bedchamber to the Prince of Wales.33 The request was fruitless. Despite such disappointments and the increasing polarisation of religious camps in the Stuart kingdoms, Taylor and Leslie resumed negotiations that autumn. One of the ambassador’s earlier goals had been to arrange a marriage that would bring the Stuart and Habsburg dynasties closer together. Although he had repeatedly tried to promote the betrothal of Charles Louis to a number of princesses of the house of Austria, the young prince’s emerging Protestant sympathies had ruled out this option. Another possibility which began to emerge, however, was to seek a marriage between Charles, the young prince of Wales, and the emperor’s daughter. In November, Taylor recommended Count Trautmannsdorf—a leading Imperial policy-maker and Leslie’s gambling acquaintance—to Windebank as a supporter of this plan.34 Proposals towards bringing about this ‘Austrian match’ came to nothing though.35

February 1638–July 1639: The response of the Scots in the (Habsburg) Patrimonial Lands to the signing of the National Covenant With the emergence of co-ordinated Scottish opposition to Charles I’s regime, a pro-Stuart stance became the only option left to all of those north of the border who sought a future either for native Catholicism or for the maintenance of the episcopal hierarchy. Loyalty to the crown had never been instinctive for the more ardent Scottish Catholics in the Spanish dependencies before and there seems, despite a commonly expressed concern for the Palatinate, to have remained very little co-operation between the Madrid circle and the more disparate group of Scottish clients and more fleeting visitors at the Austrian Habsburg court. Hence, the task of providing a programme of support from these distant locations proved even more difficult than it might. In the prevailing atmosphere of uncertainty, both branches of the house of Habsburg seem to have found it difficult

33

25 July 1637, Vienna, Leslie to Windebank, in ClSP, I, no. 950. 7 November 1637, Vienna, Taylor to Windebank, ClSP, I, 142. 35 Taylor claimed that the emperor was supportive of an ‘Anglo-Austrian’ marriage in a letter of the same day. See 7 November 1637, Pressburg, Taylor to Windebank, ClSP, I, no. 1020. 34

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to adduce the genuine allegiance of their Scottish agents, a probable factor in causing many of the pro-Palatinate initiatives that did emerge, to backfire in the early stages. Following the signing of the National Covenant, it became clear that Charles I would have to try to obtain military support from one or more of the major continental leaders, should the conflict in Scotland escalate as appeared possible and become part of a wider, war for the Three Kingdoms. The queen regent of France, the prince of Orange and other anti-Habsburg powers were all canvassed while, as Chapter Four has shown, Philip IV was forced to consider the implications of a possible French involvement on the side of the covenanters too, an intervention which, if effected, might force Charles I to deploy his fleet around Scottish shores rather than in assisting the Spanish in the Channel.36 The emperor also had to assess the implications of Charles I’s ‘ship money’ fleet. By the spring of 1638, the Imperial army had suffered further setbacks, having suffered defeat at Rheinfelden at the end of February, a battle at which Colonels John and Thomas Henderson both fought, as may have Walter Leslie.37 This is one of a series of references that can be used in order to piece together Leslie’s itinerary in the first nine months of that year. On 3 February, a flood caused havoc at his Neustadt an der Mettau estate, thus worsening his financial problems there.38 Additionally, on 12 March, Taylor reported that “Count Leslie has been very ill”.39 Yet later that year, his “universal rights” to the town and castle of Neustadt, the nearby fortress of Slatina, the small town of Kr‘in, and numerous other properties in the surrounding locality were confirmed.40 Politically, things had begun to look up by the summer too. In June, Taylor claimed that the count was preparing to leave Vienna on behalf of the emperor, as special ambassador to the Stuart kingdoms. He stated his belief that this would happen, if only Charles

36 During the summer, the marquis of Hamilton warned Charles I that the French had not forgotten the war of 1627–9 and might offer their support to the covenanters. See Sharpe, Personal Rule, 827. 37 The forces of Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar almost completely annihilated the “AltHenderson” infantry regiment. See the account of the battle in PRO SP81/44 f. 34; Hess, Biographien und Autographien, 146. 38 ”µula, ‘Hospodárská korespondence’, 195. 39 12 March 1638, Vienna, Taylor to Windebank, ClSP, I, no. 1051. 40 SAZ, Rodinnÿ archiv Leslie, K. ‘is. (box) 1, f. 1.

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would take the simple step of renewing correspondence with the Imperial court. Taylor wrote: “The King’s refusal to answer the Emperor’s letters is alleged as the chief difficulty in the way of sending Count Leslie to England in his stead. The latter grows in favour every day”.41 Despite the urgency of the situation, Leslie did not appear at the Stuart court after all, although he did forge contacts with the Stuart ambassador to the Spanish Netherlands, Sir Balthasar Gerbier. On 3 July, Gerbier wrote to Leslie thanking him for his offer of unspecified “services”.42 Looking into Scottish diplomacy at the Catholic courts more widely, things remained confused and poorly co-ordinated, despite the emergency facing their co-religionists at home. Perhaps the strangest instance that can be used to illustrate this occurred that August when Thomas Abernethie S.J., a former chaplain to the marquis of Huntly, warned leading covenanters of an ‘international Catholic conspiracy’ with links reaching all the way up to the Papacy.43 Abernethie presumably disapproved of the activities of fellow Scots like William Hamilton, then seeking out support for the Palatinate cause in Rome, or George Con, now back in Scotland from the Papal court and keen to secure support for the rival ‘King’s Covenant’ from that autumn.44 As with the circle in Madrid though, there is little evidence of Scottish Catholics elsewhere on the continent having returned to the Stuart kingdoms, either to take up the king’s cause or to act as crypto-covenanters. Hopes revived amongst supporters of the ‘Protestant International’ following French and Swedish military successes on the Rhine and Charles’ financial gift to Charles Louis, which would allow the latter to recruit for, and then lead, the Hessian army after the death of William of Hesse-Cassel, the Swedish-sympathising commander. Still, despite this clear shift back to the Protestant side, Charles I became wary of showing too much support for his eldest nephew

41 27 June 1638, Vienna, Taylor to Windebank, ClSP, I, 149. In August, Taylor added the observation that news of the events in Scotland was plentiful in Vienna. Sharpe, Personal Rule, 828. 42 3 July 1638, ?, Gerbier to Leslie, PRO SP77/28/f. 336. 43 Hibbard, Charles I, 51, 124. 44 See Chapter Four above and Hibbard, Charles I, 43–47, 51, 92–104, 124. Moreover, Charles I now had the notional backing of a number of Scottish Catholic nobles, including the marquis of Huntly and the earls of Nithsdale and Angus. See Brown, Kingdom or Province, 115.

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who, along with his younger brother Rupert, proceeded to join the earl of Craven in assisting the French that year. In October, their good fortune ended at the hands of an Imperial force at Vlotho near Münster. Charles Louis evaded capture, but Rupert—still a teenager— was taken hostage by the imperialists and held in Linz.45 As Charles I knew, this was a major military loss. Such a focus for Stuart loyalty as Rupert, if placed at the head of a royalist army in Scotland, might have persuaded many covenanters to back down. Hence, it was with good reason that the king placed such an emphasis on the importance of obtaining his release. Reflecting these altered circumstances, by the autumn Walter Leslie had established correspondence with the leader of the majority, ‘Protestant faction’ of the royalists, Sir Thomas Roe.46 The first evidence of their communication is a letter from Roe to the count, dated 7 September 1638, in which—besides mentioning the arrangement of the delivery of a trunk of Leslie’s to a “Count Curtzius” (the Imperial Vice-Chancellor Ferdinand Sigmund Kurz)—he stated: I received it as an honour that my Lord of Killy [Kellie] would be pleased to lay any command upon me: especially to do your Lordship service, of whom I have heard so much honour, that it hath kindled in me an ambition to receive your own commands . . . if in any other way I be esteemed worth it, I beseech your Lordship to make loyall of my professions . . . I shall be glad to receive your Counsills and to Correspond with you both in publicque and private.47

Roe appears to have been eager to make the most of this source of help, recognising that Leslie had proved resolute in his support for the Palatinate so far and might yet be a significant ally in influencing

45 Following this, Rupert had been taken to the Irish colonel, Walter Devereux, Wallenstein’s assassin, who had been in charge of the late Colonel Walter Butler’s former regiment since 1635. Apparently, Devereux had been keen to have Rupert released, until the Imperial General Hatzfeld intervened and insisted on having the young prince imprisoned. 46 Both his antipathy towards the Habsburgs and his realism are clear in his correspondence of the time. He stated:—“there be nothing more safe than to put a bridle in the teeth of the House of Austria . . . . . . yet this action must be left to more generous times, and another age who will wonder at our blindness and want of courage”. See 30 November 1637, Sir Thomas Roe to Colonel Thomas Ferentz in CSPD, 1635–37, 532; Hibbard, Charles I, 17, 79–83. 47 17 September 1638, ?, Roe to Leslie, BL Add MSS. 4168, f. 220. “Lord Killy” was presumably Thomas Erskine, the first Earl of Kellie (1566–1639). See Leslie and Kellie’s DNB entries.

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the imperialists in Vienna towards achieving the goal, not only of Rupert’s release, but of a general peace in Europe. A treaty engineered by the Stuarts might be the only means of restoring international respect for Charles I, and would also allow him to seek backing for his campaign against the empowered Presbyterians in Scotland. As it stood, the king was desperate for help. A friend of Arundel, Roe had presumably been made aware of Leslie’s diplomatic skills before speaking to the count’s elderly uncle on his mother’s side. But the tone of his 5 November correspondence on the matter of a Stuart-backed peace settlement was pessimistic. He conveyed a mistrust of his Imperial counterparts, claiming that they had no intention of seeking peace, “unless they can obteyne it modo suo”.48 In December 1638, Leslie donned armour once again, serving under Savelli during the punishing French, Swedish and SaxeWeimarian siege of Breisach, an encounter that led to the cutting off of the Spanish route down the Rhine to the Spanish Netherlands.49 But if Breisach was Leslie’s last known involvement in the battles of the Thirty Years’ War, this only gave him more time to pursue his political objectives. He returned to Vienna where, on 8 January 1639, he wrote to Schwarzenberg, the director of the privy council of Brandenburg, on the subject of the latest intrigues of France and Sweden against the Empire.50 Some depressing news for the count came soon after that, when John Taylor received a recall to London ending four years of unsuccessful diplomacy.51 Nonetheless, Taylor’s brother-in-law, a “Mr. W. Gibbs”, was in Bohemia until at least June 1639, from where he kept his relative informed of military

48 In the same letter, he applauded the recent battlefield successes of Prince Rupert and Lord Craven. See 5 November 1638, ?, Roe to Windebank, in BL, Add MSS. 4169 (n.f.) Roe appears to have remained on the continent, following negotiations at Hamburg. Amongst other things, he was trying to induce Scottish soldiers in the European armies to return to fight for Charles against the covenanting army. Michael J. Brown, Itinerant Ambassador: The Life of Sir Thomas Roe (Lexington: 1970), 219. 49 In the aftermath, the count’s dragoon regiment was incorporated into a Spanish regiment. See Wrede, Geschichte der k. und k. Wehrmacht, II, 626. 50 8 January 1639, Vienna, Leslie to Adam von Schwarzenberg, DBBT, VI, no. 737; 1 March 1639, Fürstenbruck, Colonel. A. Kapoun to Jan ’ernín der Ält von Chudenice, in DBBT, VI, no. 754. Leslie’s infantry regiment was reported to be quartered in the region of Könniggrätz (Hradec Králové) on 1 March and to be “in poor condition”. 51 12 March 1639, ?, Leslie to Windebank, ClSP, I, no. 1205.

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events.52 Leslie’s relationship with this man is unknown, although he corresponded with John Taylor throughout the first half of 1639, and possibly even until September that year, when the authorities seized the former agent’s books and papers and committed him to the Tower.53 Meanwhile, further significant changes had taken place with respect to one or two other Scottish expatriates with Imperial connections. Something can be learnt from the correspondence of an Andrew Leslie, who was based at the Scots College in Rome. This man (whose relation to Count Leslie is unknown) had strong links with the Patrimonial Lands. In a letter to Father John Seton dated 26 March 1639, he informed him that: “I have tasted of your kind Germany, and am imprisoned for the present at Rome until I shall Italianise a Scotch tongue”, adding that he expected “to be recalled to Germany, either to stay at the Court or then to go to the army” the next spring.54 It is not clear if Andrew Leslie returned to the Empire as he hoped. But in Flanders, the promise of “four thousand German horse” came in June from a “Scottish captain of experience and reputation”, a man who was said to be working not on behalf of the Spanish crown, but for Ottavio Piccolomini.55

August 1639–May 1640: Leslie, the Cardinal-Infante and Scottish pro-Palatinate intrigues in the Spanish Netherlands Following Thomas Abernethie’s insights of 1638 there seems to be no further hints as to the possibility of Scottish Jesuits acting as 52 18 May 1639, Vienna, Mr. W. Gibbs to Taylor, in ClSP, I, no. 1240; 4 June 1639, The same to the same in ClSP, I, no. 1252. John Taylor seems to have visited Brussels in April on his way back to London. See Bell, Handlist, 268. 53 28 May 1639, Vienna, Leslie to Taylor, ClSP, I, no. 1239; 1 June 1639, Vienna, Leslie to Taylor, ClSP, I, no. 1250. In the latter, Leslie offered his condolences to Taylor regarding the “injustice” done to him. The count was presumably based in Vienna throughout this period. Certainly, he was not at his Neustadt estate when the Swedish general Banér marched further into northern Bohemia in June. Banér’s troops occupied the town and set fire to Leslie’s castle and the adjoining chapel the following month. The Swedes rampaged through his estate again in early 1640. See 24 February 1640, Jitschin, Piccolomini to the Cardinal-Infante, DBBT, VI, no. 352; Baroch and Schmid, ‘Rod Leslie’, 93–4. 54 26 March 1639, Rome, Andrew Leslie to Father John Seton, CSPD 1638–9, 569. 55 Hibbard, Charles I, 126.

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crypto-covenanters. Yet the Palatinate cause aside, the goalposts may have shifted for some of the Scotsmen in Catholic Europe. The earl of Leicester for one, now extended Abernethie’s claims as to a secret Catholic agenda, so as to include the Scots in Rome. He reported that George Con’s nephew, Thomas Chambers, had been co-ordinating “a league, headed by the pope and financed by the Emperor, Louis XIII and Philip IV”.56 Such a miraculous alliance, if Chambers could bring it about, might be no more than what was necessary to save Scottish Catholicism. Some serious attempts at recruitment by the Austrian Habsburgs in the Stuart kingdoms occurred around that time too, as becomes evident through analysis of the contents of a letter of August 1639 from Arundel to Piccolomini.57 The earl’s words seem to offer confirmation that he had retained some sympathy for the Imperial cause.58 Specifically, he asserted his and a Sergeant George Shawe’s “devotion” to Ferdinand III, pausing to explain the reasons as to why their recruiting in England had not “as of yet” been successful.59 Shawe (who may be the same man as a captain of that name who had served in the Argyll regiment in the Spanish Netherlands after 1625) had been attempting to raise a force for Piccolomini from the Three Kingdoms since 1635, from which date he had also provided useful information for the Italian on the situation at the Caroline court.60 It is not known if Leslie was involved in the Arundel-Piccolomini circle at this stage. A push in this direction came for the count in early August 1639 though, when Ferdinand III selected him as a special envoy to the court of the Cardinal-Infante. Piccolomini reported 56

Hibbard, Charles I, 43–47, 51, 92–104, 124. The latter’s star was rising again at the Imperial court. While the king of Spain had gifted him the dukedom of Amalfi, the emperor had appointed him a member of his ‘real Privy Council’ (würkliche Geheime Rat) after the battle of Diedenhofen (Thionville) on 7 June, and rewarded him financially. Henceforth, Piccolomini’s commitment to the Imperial cause seems to have remained stronger. See Barker, Army, Aristocracy, Monarchy, 193. 58 Certainly, Charles I had no reason to question Arundel’s zeal for the royalist cause in the early years of civil war in the Three Kingdoms. In 1638, the earl had even commanded the ‘train-bands’ against the nascent Scottish covenanting military force. Perhaps he believed by the following year that Piccolomini might be able to arrange substantial assistance for Charles I. See Poli“enskÿ, War and Society, 173–179. 59 3 August 1639, London, Arundel to Piccolomini, in DBBT, VI, no. 882. 60 Poli“enskÿ, War and Society, 173; Loomie, ‘Gondomar’s selection’, 581. 57

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the details of Leslie’s upcoming mission from his base in Vance. Evidently, the emperor hoped that the count would be able to arrange a new treaty of assistance at what was a pivotal time in SpanishImperial relations, signs having emerged of an increase in Spanish naval strength under the fleet’s new commander, Don Antonio de Oquendo, and his second-in-command, Don Simon Mascarenhas.61 By the time Leslie reached the Spanish Netherlands border, during the first week in September, a fleet of sixty vessels had begun to assemble in the far north-western ports of the Iberian peninsula, ready to set sail northwards towards the Flemish coast with 14,000 men or more if required.62 The Stuart monarchy’s understanding of Leslie’s objectives differed considerably from Piccolomini’s. Sir Balthasar Gerbier informed Windebank that Leslie had been dispatched by the emperor “for the Palatinate business”. He also suggested that Leslie “might go further than Brussels”, in other words, to London. Renewed talk of Leslie going to the Stuart court would have come as no surprise for the secretary of state, and it must have seemed likely enough that Taylor’s recurring vision of the count crossing the Channel to serve as Imperial representative in London would become a reality at last.63 On 17 September, Gerbier confirmed to Windebank that he expected that Leslie would be sent to England for that purpose.64 At the outset, the count’s schedule in the Low Countries would appear to have given him more than enough work to do. But after spending a few unsuccessful days in Brussels trying to arrange a meeting with the Cardinal-Infante, he had been forced to move on to Antwerp. Since the captain-general had already left that town too by the time of his arrival, Leslie had to hold his discussions with the resident Imperial ambassador instead. He then relocated to a village named Stecken near Hulst for reasons which remain unclear. Equally anti-climactic was the news which, on 21 September, Colonel Gage passed on to Gerbier. Gage had learnt that Leslie had decided not to disembark for England after all, a cancellation that seems to

61 ? August 1639, Vance, Piccolomini to Ferdinand III (9 pieces), DBBT, VI, no. 897. 62 7 September 1639, Vance, Piccolomini to the marquis of Castañeda, DBBT, VI, no. 902. 63 10 September 1639, Brussels, Gerbier to Windebank, PRO SP77/29/f. 346. 64 17 September 1639, ?, Gerbier to Windebank, PRO SP77/29/f. 348.

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have come as a major disappointment to him.65 There are three possible explanations for this. First, it seems plausible that the Spanish representatives there had persuaded the count that Charles I’s terms for any form of pro-Habsburg alliance were too strict. With the Stuart king backing a plan to have Charles Louis levy several thousand men for French service, his position certainly seemed confused. A second possibility is that it was a delaying tactic in response to the reports that Oquendo’s fleet of 100 ships had sailed from La Coruña on 16 September carrying a force of 20,000 men. The prospect of a Spanish naval battle with the Dutch made any crossing of the Channel highly dangerous. Third, it could be conjectured that Leslie had more positive intentions: that is, to join up with one of his compatriots in the Low Countries, Sir Henry Bruce, towards organising the disembarkation of a large recruitment of men from the Army of Flanders for Scottish waters. As was shown in Chapter Four, Bruce had been hoping earlier that year that the Spanish would send a contingent for Ulster, pick up a body of Antrim’s men, and then sail onwards for the west coast of Scotland. While they attempted a landing (possibly at Dumbarton) the plan might have involved the marquis of Hamilton’s navy distracting the covenanters on the east coast, thus allowing for a two-pronged assault. This proposal had failed to materialise. However, if the Spaniards’ initiative against the Dutch proved successful, a decisive Spanish-Imperial backed, royalist assault on the covenanters might yet be realised.66 Caroline courtiers seem to have remained interested in Leslie’s mission, in any case. According to Hibbard, the count renewed his correspondence with Windebank and established another with Archbishop Laud around this time.67 Detailed reports as to the progress of his talks also reached London through Gerbier. On 1 October, the latter informed Windebank that Leslie had moved on to Dunkirk with the Cardinal-Infante so as to try and obtain money for the imperialists, “which are perhaps to be made good of the silver come from the Spanish”. As has been mentioned, Stuart involvement in the delivery of Spanish bullion to the Flemish coast had

65

Writing on 24 September, Gerbier claimed that it had been widely expected in Brussels that Leslie would make the journey. See 24 September 1639, ?, Gerbier to Windebank, PRO SP77/29/f. 366. 66 Kennedy, Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery, 44. 67 Hibbard, Charles I, 137.

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been crucial since 1630. A man of apparently Scottish descent, Walter Stuart had played a leading part in this since 1636. Thus, Gerbier had good reason to emphasise the potential importance of Leslie’s negotiations, despite the London visit having fallen through.68 In other senses though, Leslie’s mission had proven disappointing by the end of September, it having become apparent that month that the count had many diplomatic problems to resolve besides the issue of the Palatinate. Leslie had written to Taylor from Antwerp, for example, outlining his proposals as regards an arrangement to have Piccolomini recalled to replace Gallas at the head of the Imperial army.69 He had personal reasons to support a quick solution to this issue, as Banér’s troops had once again begun to ravage the Bohemian borderlands near his estate. It had become evident that the need for support in the Patrimonial Lands was more urgent to the Austrian Habsburgs than any intervention in the North Sea arena.70 Piccolomini was reported to have been recalled to Vienna at the start of that month—to the fury of the Spanish—but otherwise, things looked gloomy. Leslie sent his baggage back to Brussels, giving the appearance that he was unlikely to stay in western Europe for long: also a sign that, as far as the Palatinate and Stuart-Austrian Habsburg relations were concerned, little progress had been made. On 3 October, the count wrote to Arundel, disappointed that Charles I was still not answering the emperor’s letters and recommending that Taylor be sent back to Vienna.71 As regards Spain and the Three Kingdoms, with the build up at sea, the pressure had increased on the Stuart king to confirm a pact of mutual assistance with Philip IV. On one hand, Charles I seems to have toyed with the prospect of abandoning approaches to the Protestant powers regarding the proposed restitution. On the other hand, the imperialists do not seem to have been in favour either in London or Madrid. On 17 October, the Cardinal-Infante wrote to Philip IV, stating the following:

68 1 October, Gerbier to Windebank, PRO SP77/29/f. 366 and Chapter Four above. 69 25 September, Antwerp, Leslie to Taylor (?), ClSP, I, no. 1295. 70 Two days later, Piccolomini reported that the count was having difficulties in explaining the necessity of his recall. The Cardinal-Infante had told Piccolomini that the Army of Flanders would suffer greatly if he returned to the Empire. See 27 September, Vance, Piccolomini to General Gallas, DBBT, VI, no. 912. 71 3 October, ?, Leslie to Arundel, ClSP, I, no. 1301.

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By your letter of 17 August your Majesty informed me that in view of the little that is to be hoped for from the Emperor, it would be well to conveye, by means of a loan to the king of England, for a levy of 10,000 Irishmen and so secure the trust and friendship between both sides and secure the Channel. And your Majesty orders me to informe Don Alonso [de Cárdenas] of my opinion. I have ordered him to take notice of your Majesty’s wish and I have informed him of what seemed fitting for the management of the affair, and I will keep your Majesty informed of developments, since what your Majesty emphasises in your letters about the small help to be hoped for from the Emperor is certain as appears from actual experience, especially from the business on which Lord Leslie has been sent over here by his Imperial Majesty, of which I give an account in a separate dispatch.72

For the Spanish, the minor skirmishes with the Dutch fleet of the previous month began to escalate into something much more significant. Oquendo’s fleet, having had their permission to ship troops and money through the port of Plymouth extended, sought shelter in the Downs, with disastrous consequences.73 The Downs defeat was an obvious setback for Stuart-Spanish Habsburg relations, for the aspirations of Catholics in the Three Kingdoms, and perhaps for Leslie’s political career. But there remained one last flicker of hope for the count’s mission. Just three days after the battle, an informer of Piccolomini’s who was based in Spain, wrote to his employer regarding talks which it was proposed that Leslie hold with the count of Olivares.74 In an atmosphere of increasing suspicion in Spanish-Imperial relations, it seems that Leslie did not travel south to do this, as might be assumed had been the plan.75 The count stayed on in the Spanish Netherlands for some weeks instead, even bringing Gerbier and Piccolomini together on one occasion after that, although the relationship between the three men did not blossom. On 13 December, Colonel Gage wrote to a Mr. George

72 17 October 1639, Dunkirk, Don Ferdinando de Espagne to Philip IV, transcribed and translated in Jennings, ed. Wild Geese, no. 1572. I have been unable to track down the second part of the letter. 73 See Chapter Four above and Parker, Army of Flanders, 78. 74 24 October 1639, Madrid, Honofrio de las Infantas to Piccolomini, DBBT, VI, no. 931. 75 It was only on 15 November that news of the Downs reached Madrid. Furthermore, the emperor agreed soon after that the Archduke Leopold William should take over command of the Imperial army, rather than Piccolomini. See Elliott, Count-Duke, 549.

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Gage from Brussels, to explain a misunderstanding between Leslie and Gerbier, “on a punctilio of visiting and some words said to have been spoken at Piccolomini’s table against Charles I”.76 These depressing lines are amongst the last references to survive relating to Leslie’s period in the Spanish Netherlands. That said, even in the light of all the evidence that has been put forward, to suggest that his time there was an unmitigated disaster would be a hasty conclusion to make. Despite the cancellation of his proposed embassy to London, the apparent dismissal of his views regarding Piccolomini’s return to central Europe, and the way that incidents such as the quarrel between Piccolomini and Gerbier seem to have stuck in the mind of Stuart courtiers, Hibbard’s statement that Leslie arrived back in Vienna, “without accomplishing anything” is unfair.77 Close links had developed in the Spanish Netherlands that autumn, not involving the Spanish, but between representatives of the Austrian Habsburg and Stuart monarchies. Moreover, although the Madrid circle seems to have begun to abandon its pro-Palatinate initiatives by that time, one of Leslie’s compatriots at the Imperial court picked up where Stuart, Buchan, Bruce and Semple had left off earlier in the year. This was one or other of the colonels named Henderson.78 It seems likely that John Henderson was the man referred to by Charles Louis as having met him at Oldenburg that February. The Prince Palatine had requested that this Henderson pass on the news of his arrival there to Sir Thomas Roe.79 Further to this, on 2 November, the Spanish ambas76 13 December, Brussels, Colonel Gage to Mr. George Gage, in ClSP, I, no. 1330. 77 In a letter dated 22 January 1640 (a month or so after his having returned to the Patrimonial Lands) Leslie felt the need to explain the fall-out between the two men in a letter to Windebank. He also put on a brave face regarding the equally ominous situation in the Empire, claiming that he was looking forward to the upcoming Regensburg diet, scheduled to take place later that year. Leslie hoped the enigmatic John Taylor would be recalled for the post of Stuart representative there. See 22 January 1640, Vienna, Leslie to Windebank, ClSP, I, no. 1344; Hibbard, Charles I, 137 78 The Swedes finally set Thomas Henderson free from captivity at some point in 1639, following which he served at the head of an infantry regiment in Bohemia.Wrede, Geschichte der k. und k. Wehrmacht, II, 31. Meanwhile, John Gordon’s entire regiment seems to have been captured in November 1639. Hess, Biographien und Autographien, 401. 79 18 February 1639, Charles Louis to Roe in PRO SP81/46/f. 116. He stated:— “I desired Colonel Henderson, whom I met at Oldenburg to inform you of my safe arrival there”.

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sador in Vienna reported to the Cardinal-Infante that the emperor had agreed, either to have the ‘Henderson infantry regiment’ discharged, or else transferred to Spanish service.80 Whatever the result of the decision was, some detail emerges regarding Colonel Henderson’s schemes in the Spanish Netherlands in an undated, anonymous account written the following month. Although his movements seem surprising in the wake of the Spanish defeat at the Downs, it appears that John Henderson had relocated to the southern Low Countries. It cannot be confirmed whether he was aware that his old Imperial colleague Leslie had recently visited the region, but the source in question sent a letter of recommendation to the government there detailing—with some exaggeration—how Henderson had built up a high reputation in central Europe, having served the house of Austria there for seven years. According to the author, the Scotsman had now proposed a highly controversial plan, the outlines of which ought to be explained to the Cardinal-Infante. The writer described Henderson’s advocating of a pro-Habsburg war “par mer” on all the enemies of the Spanish king. In order to co-ordinate this, he had asked for the protection of the Spanish crown, having stated to the source that there was “never a better occasion” for supplying the sailors of these boats. A major campaign being beyond the Spanish fleet at that time, the author pointed out that Henderson had suggested an alternative: he believed some of these naval captains might be found in Scotland. According to the scribe, the colonel had referred, in conversation, to the “great difficulties” that had occurred following the blocking of navigation and commerce between the Scottish ports and the Spanish dependencies by the “men of the Covenant”’. The aim was clear then. A reconstituted armada could be used for a naval descent on the Presbyterian regime, so as to reopen centurieslong Habsburg trading connections with Scotland.81 Aside from this revealing account, almost nothing else seems to have survived relating to Henderson’s intrigues of late 1639. One other brief mention of his proposals came in a letter of 24 December from the CardinalInfante to Cárdenas.82 From there, his progress is obscure. Certainly,

80

AGRB T100/326, f. 239. ? December 1639, AGRB T100/370, f. 283. 82 AGRB T100/370, f. 295. On 23 December, it was reported that Maurice MacDonnell had offered to serve the Spanish with one company of 300 Irishmen. See AGRB T100/370, f. 285. 81

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a John Henderson was Charles I’s governor of Dumbarton castle during 1640, but it cannot be confirmed if this was the same man.83 Henderson’s proposals, like Leslie’s, had not been completely unrealistic. The Spanish sent a new envoy, Virgilio Malvezzi, to London, who quickly had news to report when, on 5 May 1640, the Short Parliament dissolved without having voted supply. Malvezzi agreed that if Charles I was willing to provide Spain with 20,000 men for service in Flanders along with naval assistance in the Channel (specifically the use of thirty-five English warships as a convoy) the Spanish would place 8,000 of their soldiers at his disposal, for use against the covenanters.84 Deeply concerned at events in Scotland, Charles seems to have responded positively. He proposed to Malvezzi that his daughter Mary marry a young Spanish prince. The Spaniard’s judgment of events became anachronistic, however, when the Catalonian revolt broke out. In lying low from the summer of 1639, the Scots in Madrid seem to have been proven right. The reaction of Scots in the Patrimonial Lands to the rise of the covenanters at home had been one of bewilderment and disapproval in equal share. Thus, it is comparable with that of their compatriots in the Spanish dependencies. From one viewpoint, this may seem to reveal men such as Father Semple and Count Leslie as outdated relics of the early Jacobean age, pursuing unrealistic ideals in exile of a catholicised Scotland on one hand and of two united multiple kingdoms occupied by happily inter-married, trans-territorial court nobilities on the other. It would appear that selective memory had given them a sense of nostalgia for a time when the future of Scotland had offered some hopes, either of a return to the old faith in the case of the militant Catholics in Spain, or of a perfect union of partners in Leslie’s case, similar to that envisioned by the Austrian Habsburgs with their fostering of an ‘Austro-Bohemian’ elite. These seem to have been two powerful motivations in ensuring the loyalty of the Scottish clients of the Habsburgs to Charles I in 1638, even if both visions were to disappear ever further into the twilight in 1640s Scotland. Yet with respect to the adoption of the Palatinate

83

Newman, Old Service, 48. The marquis of Velada arrived from the Spanish Netherlands simultaneously. See Elliott, Count-Duke, 575. 84

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as a tool for promoting closer Stuart-Habsburg relations, and thus for furthering the political careers of Scottish intermediaries, the common ground connecting Leslie, Semple and their respective circles from 1637–40, is large. The overlap in their activities can even be narrowed down to a specific region: the Spanish Netherlands. Exploration of the contemporaneous situation linking the Stuart, Austrian and Spanish Habsburg worlds in the setting of the southern Low Countries opens up new horizons for studying both the build up to the wars in the Stuart kingdoms and the relation of the conflicts in the archipelago to wider turmoil on the continent.

CHAPTER EIGHT

1640–2: THE PALATINATE CAUSE AND THE IMPERIAL DIET AT REGENSBURG

In contrast to Father Semple and his circle, Walter Leslie did not distance himself from the cause of the Palatinate family after 1640. Although he began to spend an increasing amount of his time dealing with Austrian Habsburg issues (corresponding ever more frequently in Italian with Piccolomini after that date) Leslie assisted the cause of the house of Stuart throughout the period of the Imperial Diet at Regensburg from September 1640 down to October 1641 and beyond. His commitment appears only to have strengthened as evidence began to filter through—via Arundel, Roe and the missives sent by the new Imperial ambassador in London, Franz Paul, the baron of Lisola—of the course of events in his home country.1 These remained heavily one-sided sources of information. Nevertheless, in continuing to express opposition to the covenanting movement, Leslie would have been no different from many of his kith and kin in the north-east of Scotland. The count’s reaction to the early part of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms (gloom combined with anxiety regarding the fate of his relatives at home) remained matched by a concern to preserve his position as a Stuart-Habsburg intermediary: his fortune had been made through an unquestioning sense of duty to both emperor and king, combined with a skill in convincing royalists in London and the Hofadel at the Imperial court of his heartfelt commitment to their respective causes. With Charles Louis’ views having become strongly anti-Habsburg, what Leslie would find ever more difficult to achieve after 1640, would be to persuade his courtier acquaintances that by pinning their hopes on the figure of the Prince Palatine’s younger brother, the Austrian Habsburgs and the Stuarts

Lisola arrived in London for his first embassy in January 1640, staying there until early 1641. He returned to London later that year for a second mission to Charles I, which lasted until 1645. See H. Reynald, ‘Le Baron de Lisola, sa Jeunesse et sa première ambassade en Angleterre, 1613–1645’ in Revue Historique, 27 (1885), 300–351. 1

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might still prove close allies towards achieving a more ambitious goal: a political and religious settlement that preserved their comparable positions as the ultimate, sovereign authority within their respective multiple kingdoms.

September 1640–June 1641: Leslie returns to Regensburg As late as 1640, some at the Imperial court were advocating the anti-French agenda that Leslie had promoted since 1636. The baron of Lisola was one of the supporters of such a policy. Besides trying to provoke francophobia amongst the exiled French at Henrietta Maria’s court, Lisola hoped that this might persuade Charles Louis to change sides and join the Imperial army.2 Although Leslie requested, in June 1640, that John Taylor be sent back to Regensburg, where the first full Imperial Diet since 1613 was due to begin, he became sidelined by strictly central European concerns that summer, when the emperor dispatched him to Neustadt an der Aisch, part of an effort to bring duke Bernard of Saxe-Weimar back to the Imperial side.3 Following this though, the count travelled to Regensburg for the commencement of the negotiations, in the belief that he might at last be able to negotiate a favourable peace treaty between Sweden and the Empire to the detriment of France.4 It is not clear at what point that year Leslie first began to correspond with Sir George Shawe who—as the previous chapter showed— Piccolomini had been employing for five years or more to recruit soldiers from the Stuart kingdoms.5 But the count wrote a revealing letter to Shawe, then in Brussels, on 18 October, claiming that things were going well for the imperialists, and expressing his hope that Sir Thomas Roe (as the best available alternative to Taylor) would come to Regensburg.6 This is an important observation, due to Roe

2

Hibbard, Charles I, 132–4, 207–10. 19 June 1640, Regensburg, Leslie to Windebank, in ClSP, I, no. 1391; Hess, Biographien und Autographien, 406. 4 Hess, Biographien und Autographien, 406. In three or more letters that autumn, Piccolomini reported details relating to events in Bohemia. See October–November 1640, Piccolomini to Leslie, in DBBT, VI, no. 1097. 5 Poli“enskÿ, War and Society, 173. 6 18 October 1640, Regensburg, Leslie to George Shawe in CSPD, 1640–1, 150. 3

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both being an ardent Protestant and also since Charles I did not even choose him as his representative for the diet until April the following year, by which time the talks were long in progress.7 Leslie’s knowledge of the workings of the Stuart court is obvious then, the count making his thoughts on the situation in the Three Kingdoms quite clear to Shawe: I wish England would take example from Germany, they would not rejoice so much at the rebels’ victory, who have gone many years pregnant with this rebellious devil which they now have hatched; and if the English take not resolution in time to prevent the great storm that is coming upon them, they will become slaves to the rebels, and the best that shall befal them [is to be] a conquered province.8

Leslie’s awareness of the dramatic course of events in his home country and their inevitable future impact on England is confirmed by these few sentences. Despite being an outlook based purely on the partisan reports of his post-1636 correspondents, it provides rare and valuable evidence of the royalist polemic of the period from a Scottish perspective.9 The count’s pan-European assessment of the situation is also worthy of close attention and might be best understood with respect to the possibility of a new conflict emerging between Sweden and Denmark that year. It may have been this emerging scenario that brought to mind the parallel between the new “rebellious devil” of the Scottish covenanting movement and the efforts of the Bohemians and their allies to take on “Germany” (implying, in this instance, only the Austrian Habsburgs and their allies) after 1618. Leslie did not mention the religious issues, which had been such a significant instigating factor in both cases. As he must have been aware though, even in the more ruthlessly-Catholicised regions of the lands of the Habsburg monarchy, several decades of attempts to bring about uniformity had as-of-yet been unsuccessful, just as in Scotland, the Jacobean or Caroline variants of an Episcopalian settlement had failed to triumph over both the dominant Presbyterian form of wor-

7

Brown, Itinerant Ambassador, 258. 18 October 1640, Regensburg, Leslie to Shawe in CSPD, 1640–1, 150. 9 Windebank, Cottington and Arundel (in fact every one of Leslie’s earlier contacts at the Caroline court, except Feilding) had voted for war against the covenanters in July 1638. 8

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ship in the Lowlands or the very different traditions of much of the north and west.10 But the count’s stance had, since 1634, been one based on dynastic loyalty above all other forms of allegiance: a posture in which there was a great deal of self-interest. His advocacy of an alliance of royalist sympathisers against the covenanters and their supporters cannot have arrived as a novel idea to Charles I, only in the fact that it came from the pen of a Scotsman. It was for comparisons such as this that Leslie would renew his familiarity with the world of high politics as a delegate at Regensburg. Shawe passed on the count’s first news from there to Windebank a few weeks later.11 Roe too, held a high opinion of the charismatic Scot by that time. He had expressed his admiration to Shawe, who wrote: I am glad you so esteem Count Leslie, whom I have everheard speak with great devotion of the honour of the King of England, and he always condemned the malice of the Scots and their base ingratitude to our gracious King.12

The comments of Leslie referred to by Roe may have been designed to please, or exaggerated in the retelling. Nevertheless, he had obviously kept a close eye on the course of events at home and was aware of the impact they had begun to have on the Stuart kingdoms as a whole. As Leslie had predicted, the confusion of factions at the Caroline court, combined with the growing power of the parliamentarians and rising popular support throughout England for the ‘great storm’ in Scotland, alongside the horrified reaction to the Irish rebellion of 1641, would lead to a merging of dissatisfied groups that proved far too strong for Charles I to contain. His analogy with the Patrimonial Lands had been a perceptive one and should have acted as a warning. That said, danger remained much closer to hand. Throughout the course of January 1641, the Swedes made the residents of Regensburg

10 D.G. Mullan, Episcopacy in Scotland: The History of an Idea, 1560–1638 (Edinburgh: 1986). See also Heinz Schilling, ‘Confessional Europe’, in Thomas A. Brady, Heiko A. Oberman and James D. Tracy, eds. Handbook of European History, 1400–1600, 2 Vols. (Leiden: 1995), II, 641–83. 11 3 November 1640, Brussels, Shawe to Windebank in PRO SP77/30/f. 294. 12 17 November 1640, Brussels, Shawe to Sir Thomas Roe in CSPD, 1640–41, 265. For an analysis of the role of Shawe and others in recruiting for Piccolomini at this time, see Poli“enskÿ, War and Society, 163–180.

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aware of their presence in no uncertain manner. Their commander, Banér, shelled the city on several occasions, from the other side of the frozen Danube. Leslie appears to have been elsewhere at that time, although he had returned by 4 February, when he reported Ferdinand III’s “melancholy” in a letter to Piccolomini. Leslie explained that the depression actually stemmed from a combination of events, including the reports that had emanated relating to a ‘rebellion’ in Andalucia, some French and Weimarian gains nearer to the west and the recent Ottoman incursions into Royal Hungary. The continuing Swedish advance through southern Germany must have been at the forefront of his mind too.13 With respect to the latter, Leslie reported that the town of Cham, a few miles to the north-east of Regensburg, had been lost without a single cannon shot having been fired in return.14 By 1 April, he perceived an increasingly cheerless atmosphere in the Imperial camp resulting from the steady advance of Banér and his men, noting with exasperation that the Swede “meets with no resistance, marches where he wants and goes where he wants”.15 Leslie experienced a number of personal problems around that time. To begin with, there are two pieces of evidence which show that he was not as integrated within Austrian Habsburg court society as might appear. First, he was wounded, ironically in Eger, by “Count Chefniler [Khevenhüller]”, following a quarrel over Imperial military policy.16 The Venetian secretary at the Imperial court provided the following judgement in his report of the incident:

13

4 February 1641, Regensburg, Leslie to Piccolomini, DBBT, VI, no. 1136. In fact, this is just a summary of the contents of the first of dozens of letters written to the Italian general that year, detailing proceedings at the diet. See 4 February–17 December 1641, 61 pieces, Leslie to Piccolomini, summarised in DBBT, VI, no. 1139. 15 1 April 1641, Regensburg, Leslie to Piccolomini in DBBT, VI, no. 1182. See also 5 April, Regensburg, Leslie to Piccolomini in DBBT, VI, no. 1183. At that time, Piccolomini was in Saxony. See 9 April 1641, Pirna, Piccolomini to Leslie in DBBT, VI, no. 1185. From June to July, several new reports emerged relating to John Henderson. See Schmidhofer, ‘Das irische’, 43, 57, 61, 185; Redlich, ‘The German Military Enterpriser . . .’, I, 289; Hallwich, Wallenstein’s Ende, I, 372; Hess, Biographien und Autographien, 147. 16 Franz Christoph Khevenhüller was a diplomat, ambassador and had earlier worked as a chronicler for Ferdinand II. See 24 May 1641, Vienna, Thadio Vice to the Doge and Senate in CSPV, 1640–42, 143. 14

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While his Majesty [Ferdinand III] will be sympathetic towards Lesle from a remembrance of the large part he took in the assassination of Volestain [Wallenstein], the Colonel is unpopular with everyone for that very reason, and also because he is a foreigner and too boastful about his good fortune.17

Second, and despite his obvious admiration for Roe, Leslie showed signs of a more intolerant side to his character in his correspondence with Piccolomini, most likely a response to a more general xenophobia that he believed the ‘Germans’ in the Imperial army were directing towards both men. Whatever the cause, the count began to adopt a more militantly Catholic line with the Italian general. It would have deeply disturbed Roe and seems to have lost Leslie friends amongst the moderates at the Imperial court too: militant Catholicism by no means being a feature of the rest of his correspondence. Other factors behind his growing sense of estrangement from the court might also be suggested. While Leslie seems only belatedly to have accepted the consensus in Vienna that a compromise should be sought with the Lutheran powers where possible, to most it had seemed logical for some time that further concessions would have to be made to Sweden and Denmark-Norway in order to preserve the Empire from total destruction. One interesting result of this shift in Imperial thinking is that the figure of Wallenstein had become the focus of nostalgia at court. In a letter to Piccolomini, for example, Leslie outlined the background to the surprising decision to give Imperial command in Silesia to Franz Albrecht, the duke of Saxe-Lauenburg. This was the man who, seven years earlier, had been captured by Butler’s men at the Saxon border, where he had been waiting for the general to make his escape.18 Leslie expressed shock, stressing to Piccolomini that—even if Franz Albrecht’s treachery could be forgiven—there remained several other reasons to oppose his promotion. The first and foremost of these was that it would weaken “the interests of the Catholic faith”. Moreover, according to the count, the representatives of the cities of Hamburg and Lübeck and of Mecklenburg and Brandenburg did not like the duke. Leslie expressed frustration at the position of Count Trautmannsdorf over

17

Ibid. The duke had been imprisoned for a year by the emperor and had failed to joined the Imperial army thereafter as had been expected. 18

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the issue, who “as usual voices neither for nor against”.19 Evidently, all was not progressing smoothly for the count in the corridors of power. Returning to Stuart objectives at Regensburg, the notion of Charles Louis fighting for the Habsburgs had been abandoned by early 1640. But that April, the Stuart king had finally used what authority he still had to select Roe as his representative there: a controversial choice, even if he had selected an experienced and well-travelled man who had gained a reputation for honesty on previous diplomatic missions.20 It is difficult to see how—through correspondence with the deputies of the Palatinate family and the Danish representative—the ambassador could have been expected to effect a successful outcome regarding the Prince Palatine’s claims. In order to achieve this goal, however, Roe would be able to follow a new line of enquiry, building on the proposals put forward by Feilding, Taylor and Leslie, five years earlier. The crucial factor in the amended Stuart policy would be the role of Charles Louis’ younger brother Rupert, now aged 22. Prince Rupert at that time remained an Imperial captive in Linz, the capital of Upper Austria, a result of he and his brother’s earlier involvement on the antiHabsburg side.21 Roe’s instructions dealt with the issue of his incarceration in some depth, Charles I asking him to seek “the full enlargement of our nephew Palatine Robirt” so that “he may appeare himself in his owne cause”.22 If the young prince could be persuaded to take on the role that his elder brother had refused, an ‘offensive and defensive’ Stuart-Austrian Habsburg alliance might yet be realised.

19 2 June 1641, Regensburg, Leslie to Piccolomini in DBBT, VI, no. 1203. Meanwhile, there was talk of Piccolomini giving up command to a German general. 20 These had taken him as far afield as the Ottoman Porte and even India. In February 1641, Roe had a series of negotiations to attend to in Hamburg, involving the ambassadors of Denmark-Norway, Sweden and France. These delayed the commencement of his journey south to join Leslie and the other delegates at Regensburg. See Brown, Itinerant Ambassador, 258. 21 See Chapter Seven above. 22 (n.d.), ‘Instructions for Sir Thomas Roe on his Embassy to Regensburg’, in PRO SP81/51/f. 56.

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July 1641–January 1642: Sir Thomas Roe’s early negotiations at the Imperial Diet and the release of Prince Rupert Roe mentioned a “spy to the House of Austria” named Elphinstone in a letter of 28 June 1641, written while en route to Regensburg, a journey that proved to be as eventful as Taylor’s and Arundel’s before him.23 Indeed, it was only after being robbed along the journey up the Rhine, that he arrived at the negotiations. Leslie (apparently on his way to or from a mission to the duke of Lorraine) sent a messenger to greet him, and had him escorted promptly to a meeting with the emperor.24 The signals from the imperialists remained mixed. On one hand, just three weeks after arriving, Roe fell into a state of despondency about achieving his goal.25 On the other hand, Ferdinand III seems to have remained open to compromise over Charles Louis’ and/or his brother’s claims. Leslie “offered some hope” in the matter of Rupert’s release in a letter of 24 July.26 The count’s strategy appears to have been a convincing one to Roe, since the latter wrote a fairly upbeat letter to Arundel in response, stating: Of Rupert’s release I have good hope, having sent Mr. Wood [?] to him for his consolation but of the generall I can make no judgment for I find they [Imperial representatives] deale very subtilly with me and by seeming confidence with Count Lesley they hope to governe me . . . . . . I confess from Count Lesley I have many curtesyies and I do believe he hath very good affections to His Maiestie but yet he

23 28 June 1641, Arnhem, Sir Thomas Roe to Secretary Vane in CSPD, 1640–41, 589. Roe stated: “There is one Elphinston coming into England, whom I have addressed to His Majesty, that is full of intelligence, and certainly has been a spy to the House of Austria; but now he pretends to open their secrets for His Majesties service; I desire you to speak to him freely; he will inform much”. 24 26 July 1641, Regensburg, Roe to Charles I in PRO SP81/51/f. 162. Roe wrote the following:—“Coming within one day’s journey of the Court, Count Leslie sent a gentleman in his name to salute me . . . . . . Since Count Leslie hath twice visited me”. 25 22 July 1640, Sir Thomas Roe to John Durie, in The Hartlib Papers, University Microfilms (Ann Arbor: 1995), 6/4/7A. Roe stated that “all labour is lost abroade”. 26 Trautmannsdorf had already explained this to Leslie. See 19 July 1641, Regensburg, ‘Relation of a Discourse with Count Lesley sent by Count Trautmannsdorf ’, in PRO SP81/52/f. 191. He wrote that the emperor was “sorry for the trouble of His Maiestie” and was not wishing to engage Charles I in “warre or breach”. Trautmannsdorf also seemed to be quite open to the possibility of a restitution of the Palatinate.

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  must observe those by whome he lives; and with that caution I will ingeniously communicate with him. He hath spoken to me of a marriage as moved from your Lordship. I confessed that we should comply with anything honest that might assure them of sincere correspondence with the Prince Elector, but I asked with whome, he replyed a daughter of Inspruck and so it rested.27

Much of the detail of this remains obscure, as does further information regarding Leslie and Arundel’s proposed ‘Austrian match’ for Charles Louis. Certainly, the imperialists continued to demand that the Prince Palatine join forces with them, preferably alongside his younger brother. As a result, Leslie’s position remained an awkward one: balancing on one side the interests of the imperialists and, on the other, assisting the influential, if underpaid English, Protestant ambassador of a troubled British monarchy. He concluded that a marital alliance between Charles Louis and the Habsburgs remained the only realistic option available towards winning the ultimate concession: a restitution of the Upper and Lower Palatinate. Roe obviously took heart from Arundel and Leslie’s latest proposals whatever they were, and remained impressed with the count on a personal level.28 Equally positively, just a few days later he reported to his close friend, Elizabeth of Bohemia, that the emperor and a number of other leading figures at court—including Trautmannsdorf— had come to a major disagreement over the Palatinate issue with the duke of Bavaria. It seemed that this might offer a chance to win concessions from the imperialists at last.29 Thus, Arundel’s transparent attempts to promote a close friendship between Leslie and Roe were probably unnecessary.30 Roe’s relationship with Leslie became close within a short space of time, as had the earl’s in 1636.31

27

24 July 1641, Roe to Lord Arundel, BL, Add. MSS. 4172, f. 47. The identity of “Mr. Wood” is not known. 28 This letter seems to confirm Roe’s satisfaction with Leslie after these first few meetings:—“I find here Count Leslye well affected to Your Majesties service, and I have very great use of his confidence and friendship which ought to be nourished by all good offices”. See 2 August, Regensburg, Roe to Charles I, in PRO SP81/51/f. 203. 29 31 July 1641, ?, Roe to Elizabeth of Bohemia, BL Add Mss 4172, f. 48. 30 Ibid. The earl tried to promote trust between Leslie and Roe:—“I have written unto him [Leslie] howe confident you are of his good and harty intentions . . .” See also Hibbard, Charles I, 230. 31 Roe even turned to Leslie for financial assistance. On 13 August, Roe mentioned to Sir Henry Vane that the count had helped him pay off a debt to Sir

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Elizabeth of Bohemia’s letters to Roe from the time are illuminating, since they show that she had received many unfavourable reports about Walter Leslie. Generally, she advocated caution to the ambassador in all his dealings at Regensburg, suspecting the intentions of the imperialists, particularly those of the inscrutable Ferdinand III. For instance, she referred to the emperor by his lesser title, ‘the king of Hungary’, reflecting her belief that his father had acceded to the Bohemian throne, and thus his Imperial title, illegally. But in one letter, the ‘winter queen’ went as far as to state that she would rather see her second son dead than remain in enemy hands, despite his appearing to be living a fairly comfortable existence at Linz.32 This antipathy to all things Imperial extended to Leslie, whom she may never have even met. In September 1641, Elizabeth claimed that the count was “as false as can be”. Although she expressed this in reaction to the latest rumour that he was about to be sent as an envoy to the Stuart court, the comment was not merely a flippant one. She reiterated her dislike of him later in the same letter, stating the following: “I do not believe he [Leslie] loves his Majesty, me, nor the Prince Elector”. Elizabeth explained to Roe that her feelings derived from a letter that the count had written to a German friend of hers, “Count Schwarzenberg” (presumably Leslie’s earlier correspondent, the director of the Privy Council of Brandenburg). In this letter—which Elizabeth’s secretary had intercepted some time before—Leslie had apparently detailed a plan designed to hinder the prospect of a marriage between one of her daughters and Frederick William, the new elector of Brandenburg.33 The reason for the count’s opposition to the arrangement is not immediately clear. Perhaps he believed that—if none of Elizabeth’s surviving sons could be found an ‘Austrian match’—a compromise might be made whereby one of the princesses would marry a Habsburg so as to ensure close

Paul Pinder. This may have been a response to a note Arundel had written to him that same month, wishing him better luck in the negotiations, and recommending the services of Leslie whom he described as “the most cordial friend our poor Prince Elector has”. See 13 August 1641, Regensburg, Roe to Secretary Vane in CSPD, 1641–43, 71; 18 August 1641, ?, Arundel to Roe, in PRO SP81/52/f. 18. 32 30 September 1641, Elizabeth of Bohemia to Roe, in CSPD, 1640–41, 127. 33 Ibid. In this letter, Leslie had apparently advised Schwarzenberg (see Chapter Seven above), who had fallen out with the Elector, to convince the Palatine family that Ferdinand III was in fact willing to “render the Electorate”. Elizabeth also explained to Roe that “all the show he [Leslie] makes is but dissimulation”.

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Stuart-Imperial relations. Another possibility is that Leslie objected to Frederick William’s Calvinism and close connections with the house of Orange. Whatever the case, his actions over this matter had obviously not endeared him to Elizabeth. Events would soon prove her to have undervalued the count. Regarding Rupert, a breakthrough was made. At the beginning of October, around three months after Roe’s arrival at Regensburg, the emperor agreed to release him, the only stipulation being that the young prince never again take up arms against the emperor. Both his mother, Elizabeth, and his uncle, Charles I, expressed their surprise and delight, giving the acclaim to the ambassador.34 Roe’s means of achieving this concession have never been scrutinised in depth. One part of the explanation has been assumed to lie in the ambassador’s personal charm, Ferdinand III having once written that he had “met with many gallant persons of many nations, but I scarce met with an ambassador till now”.35 Certainly, it is striking that a committed Protestant with a zealous commitment to the cause of a Calvinist Palatinate, should have been admired so much by the emperor. But other factors had been instrumental. While in prison, Rupert had enjoyed a close relationship with Ferdinand III’s brother, Archduke Leopold William. The archduke had even written to the emperor, asking for the prince’s release, just a few weeks before. Furthermore, in bowing to the pressure, Ferdinand III had in mind the possibility of recruiting Rupert as an Imperial military commander, a plan with which Leslie may have been involved. The count showed a detailed knowledge of his intentions, just days after his release. On 17 October, for instance, he informed Piccolomini of the news that Rupert was on his way to Vienna to thank the emperor and the archduke for their clemency.36 Leslie also expressed to Piccolomini his continuing belief that, if Bavaria could be satisfied, “restoration of the Palatinate will probably come yet”. Eight days

34 28 October 1641, ?, Arundel to Roe in PRO SP81/52/f. 56. He congratulated Roe for having procured Prince Rupert’s deliverance, stating also that Leslie “commends his [Roe’s] course”. 35 Quoted in Brown, Itinerant Ambassador, 258. 36 17 October 1641, Passau, Leslie to Roe in PRO SP81/52/f. 178. Leslie wrote: “Tomorrow we sal arrive at Lintz, I sal goe sum while before, for the emperor intends not to stay there at all and if he did it were not fitting that Prince Rupert should”.

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later, he restated this assertion, apparently under the impression that the Bavarians had shown signs of a more moderate position.37 Perhaps the count believed that Rupert might yet prove to be a more useful pawn than his elder brother. In truth though, like the Spanish— who expected payment and military assistance in return for a restitution—Maximilian I’s representative at Regensburg considered Roe’s proposals an unacceptable compromise.38 Thus, by 28 October, Rupert was preparing to travel to Vienna, accompanied by Roe, from where he quickly returned to the Stuart kingdoms. He went on to achieve notoriety as a royalist commander both on land (at the battles of Marston Moor and Naseby) and at sea. Indeed, Rupert has been considered “the most brilliant and dashing of Charles I’s generals”. Walter Leslie could have claimed a role in having enabled this.39 As to Roe’s negotiations thereafter, Leslie felt an uncertainty as to their purpose mixed with concern for the Englishman’s financial plight and health, as he outlined in a letter to George Shawe.40 Roe continued to seek advice from his wide circle of friends regarding his negotiations, for which once again, Elizabeth of Bohemia’s account is informative. Now Rupert had been freed there might be a chance that Elizabeth would recognise the usefulness of pursuing a less antagonistic policy towards the imperialists. Plainly, the judgement of the likes of Elizabeth regarding Leslie had altered dramatically in the meantime. The ‘winter queen’ now

37 25 October 1641, Vienna, Leslie to Piccolomini in DBBT, VI, no. 1247. Leslie reported on his discussions with both Roe and the Danish ambassador. He noted that the emperor had arrived safely in Vienna where he would meet Rupert. Hence, the Palatinate restitution would probably come about, “from consideration to the King of England”. The tone of the Bavarians meant that “one can hope for a happy ending”. 38 Leslie had already warned Roe that Philip IV’s envoy had spoken to Trautmannsdorf, stating that he was offended with Roe for mixing his interest in the affairs of the prince elector with wider negotiations towards achieving a peace treaty with the Danes. See 17 October 1641, Passau, Leslie to Roe, PRO SP81/52/ f. 178. 39 Hugh Trevor-Roper, From Counter-Reformaton, 196; Poli“enskÿ, War and Society, 238. 40 28 October 1641, Regensburg, Leslie to George Shawe in CSPD, 1640–1, 150. Leslie stated:- “I am sorry for the good man[Roe] and fear he will ruin himself, for at this Court[Imperial] we are not too liberal, and besides the wars consume all. Therefore it were good for the Resident to be removed from Brussels, and have some charge at Court, for he will never recover his losses by staying there, and he will hardly be employed elsewhere”.

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believed that the count had been highly influential in the matter of her son’s release: an adjustment in attitude that permitted some expressions of renewed optimism from December. This is evidenced by the contents of a letter to Roe in which she reversed her previous opinion completely, stating: “Your character of Leslie I like very well. I pray God it be made use of in England”.41 She obviously came to this change of heart based on her delight at seeing her son again after so many years, but the turnaround surely also demonstrated a new-found, and deserved respect for Leslie’s diplomatic skills. Others began to value the count’s abilities more highly too and the chances of him returning to the Stuart kingdoms seemed to increase. Ferdinand III may have considered him for the post of ambassador extraordinary to the Caroline court that winter, an initiative through which he hoped to “arrange some compromise” over the Palatinate.42 Besides Leslie’s likely role in Rupert’s release, a letter from Roe to Arundel’s wife dated 16 October 1641, had the desired effect of leading to her husband’s dispatch to Regensburg once more. Roe would presumably have been delighted to meet his experienced colleague there since (despite the prince’s release) negotiations had reverted to a tortuously slow pace.43 But, as in 1636, Arundel was unable to wield much influence over the issue: he may not have even got beyond Cologne on this occasion.44

January–November 1642: The Palatinate issue abandoned? The jubilation at achieving Rupert’s freedom soon died down as Roe’s discussions at Regensburg dragged on throughout the first half

41

2 December 1641, Rhenen, Elizabeth of Bohemia to Roe in CSPD, 1640–1,

212. 42 Another display of stubbornness by the duke of Bavaria meant that the proposals came to a standstill once again in Decemeber. See 5 December 1641, ?, Leslie to Piccolomini, in DBBT, VI, no. 1258; 24 December 1641, Vienna, Thadio Vice, Venetian Secretary to Germany to the Doge and Senate in CSPV, 1640–42, 259. 43 16 October 1641, Regensburg, Roe to the Countess of Arundel, BL Add Mss 4172, f. 145. 44 From February 1642, Lord Arundel was effectively exiled from England. He went to Antwerp first and then to Padua where he died in 1646. See his DNB entry.

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of 1642, the ambassador experiencing further frustration over the Palatinate, his poor health (in particular his gout) and a domestic background of increasing pessimism only making matters worse. With Charles having retreated to Hampton Court in January and Henrietta Maria having fled for the continent by the end of the following month, many representatives at the diet began to question the legitimacy of Roe’s position as a spokesman for the Stuart kingdoms. Reports of the political situation in Britain and Ireland suggested that, as the representative of an unpopular monarch, he had little authority.45 Hence, in April, the imperialists issued new terms with respect to the Palatinate. The emperor once again requested the assistance of a force led by Charles Louis. Specifically, Count Trautmannsdorf suggested that the Prince Palatine recruit an army of 10,000 men so as to “maintain them in conjunction with the Emperor and Empire”. Once peace had been achieved, the Lower Palatinate would then be replaced in the hands of his family. Roe found this proposal unacceptable, and reported in April that he had complained to Trautmannsdorf on the matter.46 From May, the duke of Bavaria demanded that he be paid an increased sum should the transfer of the Lower Palatinate go ahead. The Spaniards too, continued to insist on financial support, again in return for a restitution of the Lower Palatinate alone. Since Roe could not promise sufficient money to either from his king at this time, he sent Leslie with a response to the emperor, informing him that unless the imperialists, Bavaria and Spain took a more open

45 15–27 January 1642, Vienna, Leslie to Piccolomini in DBBT, VI, no. 1271. Meanwhile, Leslie had returned to Vienna. He wrote several letters to Piccolomini from there, which—besides detailing the progress of Roe’s negotiations—covered the worsening fortunes of his own regiment, the increasing expense of life at the Imperial court, and his recommendations (following the death of the CardinalInfante the previous year) regarding the appointment of a new governor in the Spanish Netherlands. Leslie described the Archduke Leopold William’s plans to transfer the command of his regiment to someone else as a penalty for his absenteeism. Leslie supported the proposal that either the Marquis of Castel Rodrigo or Don Francisco de Melo (the marquis of Tor de Laguna) be entrusted with the governorship. In the event, Melo was chosen. Leslie also corresponded with the Archduke Leopold William in February, once more on the matter of the mysterious (if apparently Scottish) Colonel “Guyn”. See 7 February 1642, Leslie to Archduke Leopold William, HHStA Kriegsakten, f. 143, 26/27. 46 16 April 1642 (s.l.), Roe to Secretary Nicholas in BL Harleian MSS, 1901/19.

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stance towards the Palatinate, the Stuart contingent would leave Regensburg at once.47 Leslie tried to dissuade him from this uncompromising approach. A rejection of the proposals would, the count believed, lead England “and others” to forge an alliance with Sweden which, “instead of damping down the fire in the Empire” would “make it burn up more by war”.48 But he failed and the veteran Stuart ambassador returned to London in June with the issue unresolved.49 Leslie and Roe continued to correspond after the latter’s return. The count even tried to persuade him to continue working on the matter of the Palatinate.50 However, Roe’s request in early September 1642 for an amnesty alongside another mention of the possibility of negotiating a compromise with the emperor regarding the sum to be paid to Bavaria and Spain for a restitution, is the last piece of evidence of serious Stuart negotiations over the issue.51 As regards other matters, taking the relentlessly optimistic message of Leslie’s letters at face value, the military situation was not a cause of concern throughout the latter part of that summer, at least for his own regiment or for the imperialists generally:

47 R.B. Mowat, ‘The Mission of Sir Thomas Roe to Vienna, 1641–42’ in EHR, 25 (London: 1910), 264–275; 25 May 1642, Roe to Secretary Nicholas in BL Harleian MSS, 1901/44. In this letter Roe stated that the emperor, “if he were not bound to Bavaria and Spayne and had the juncture bene generally propitious, would have done much for His Majestie’s satisfaction and the peace of his country”. 48 23 May 1642, London, Thadio Vice, Venetian Secretary to Germany to the Doge and Senate in CSPV 1640–42, 48. 49 The prevailing mood amongst the royalists became one of dejection as they counted down to the commencement of war in England. For the return of Irish soldiers to support the confederacy that year, see Moody et al. New History of Ireland, III, 296 50 6 August 1642, Vienna, Leslie to Roe in PRO SP81/53/f. 133. The letter stated:— These are kindlie to thank you . . . . . . never Ambassador left mair reputatione heir than your Lordship hath done and both His Maiestie [Ferdinand III] and Count Trautmannsdorf doe as much commend your sinceretie and moderatione as you doe Count Trautmannsdorf; His Imperial Maiestie takes varie kindlie the remembrance you sed of him and commandet me to assure your Lordship of the esteeme he has of your person and vertues. Trautmannsdorf and Schlick [President of the War Council] remember their humble service and desire your Lordship and your Lord of the Prince Elector’s interest to entertane a good correspondence betwixt the Emperor and the King; they both promise to doe the like heir. 51 9 September 1642, Roe to Count Leslie in BL Harleian MSS, 1901/85.

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The Emperor’s affairres against the Swedes cannot go better or mair miraculouslie, as your Lordship will be with this letter writen to me by Piccolomini: the 27 and 28 Julie we took above a thousand prisoners, most Scotsmen and doubtlesslie the enemie lost about two thousand men in Olmitz [Olmütz] . . . My Lord since my coming to the Emperor’s service I never observe his affaires in a better posture, especiallie considering the gryt leavies we are making for the nixt year . . .52

This would seem an absurdly over-confident analysis of the situation, since Olmütz had been lost to the Swedes on 14 June. Leslie’s inaccuracy with respect to battlefield developments may illustrate wishful thinking, a declining level of interest or else his ostracism from Imperial decision-making by this time. Whatever the reason, he clearly had many different preoccupations to contend with, a range of courtly and diplomatic commitments, that led to serious implications as regards his regimental duties. As a result of his poor record of absenteeism, in a series of military-reform measures, Ferdinand III deprived him and a number of other colonels of their command in July. The count’s disappointing post-1634 history as an army officer had finally been taken into account.53 Both Stuart and Austrian Habsburg dynasties suffered military setbacks in the weeks and months thereafter. On 2 November, the Archduke Leopold William ignored Piccolomini’s advice by leading an Imperial army into battle at Breitenfeld. The imperialists suffered their second major defeat there of the war leading the emperor to pass command to General Gallas.54 Across the channel, the royalists lost the first major English encounter of the Wars of the Three

52

6 August 1642, Vienna, Leslie to Roe in PRO SP81/53/f. 133. 14 July 1642, Vienna, Ferdinand III to Colonel Adrian von Enckewort in DBBT, VI, no. 1309. Enckewort was given command of the regiment in his place. The military careers of the other Scottish imperialist veterans had become similarly inglorious by then. That same year, the emperor dissolved John Gordon’s infantry regiment and incorporated its remaining members within another regiment, while on 17 January, the French took Colonel Henderson prisoner. In October, Henderson’s regiment moved to winter quarters in Leitmeritz (Litomî®ice) in Bohemia. See 13 October 1642, near Grafenstein, Archduke Leopold William to Colonel Colloredo in DBBT, VI, no. 439. Hess, Biographien und Autographien, 147; Wrede, Geschichte der k. und k. Wehrmacht, II, 51. A John Henderson became governor of Newark upon Trent in December 1642. This individual was a colonel of a royalist dragoon regiment until 1644. See P.R. Newman, The old service: Royalist Regimental Colonels and the Civil War, 1642–6 (Manchester: 1993), 48. 54 The second battle of Breitenfeld took place on 2 November 1642. See Piccolomini’s ADB entry. 53

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Kingdoms at Edgehill, causing the domestic agenda to become ever more dominant for Charles I. Two influential English supporters of Charles I—Sir Henry Gage and Colonel George Goring—began to work alongside Piccolomini, Sir George Shawe and an Alexander Keynes, in attempting to attract military support for the imperialists.55 Yet this group do not seem to have anticipated any chance of recruiting the Prince Palatine or his brother for this cause and, by the end of 1642, events in Ireland and England had led to Charles I becoming completely uninterested in their efforts.56 Without doubt, Leslie had made some breakthroughs since 1640, reflected most obviously in Elizabeth of Bohemia’s dramatically altered opinion of him. But on the face of it, he had received little reward for his efforts to that point. It was mentioned in the previous chapter that Leslie had asked Windebank as early as July 1637 that recompense be provided in return for his services to the Stuart court through the appointment of his brother William as a groom of the bedchamber to the prince of Wales.57 Leslie had raised the issue again with Sir Thomas Roe in the summer of 1641, just three weeks after the latter’s arrival at Regensburg, requesting that the ambassador put the case to Charles I. Roe duly did, writing the following soon after, in a submission to the king: . . . he [Leslie] has desired me to be a Suitor to Your Maiestie to receive his brother unto Your service, eyther as Gentleman Usher of Your Maiesties Privy-Chamber or that you will vouchsafe to place him about the Prince [Charles?]. He sayeth he hath made this suite about six yeares: and never could obteyne any answere. In which I humbly beseech Your Maiestie to give him some satisfaction by admitting him as a beginning, in Extraordinary, untill opportunity that he may have

55 February–June, 1642, George Shawe to Piccolomini in SAZ, Rodinnÿ Arhiv Piccolominové, 20 293, 30 945–31 017, 51 547–51 558. These details come from the inventory alone. However, four of these letters of Shawe’s to Piccolomini would appear to give detailed information as regards the rise of parliamentary unrest in London, while also discussing wider European issues. There are altogether at least eighty-three pieces of correspondence—from Shawe, Gage, Goring, Keynes and “other royalists”—addressed to Piccolomini, held in the same repository. See also DBBT, VI, no. 27. 56 In May, the Irish Catholic confederates joined together at Kilkenny for the first time. Their first general assembly began there that autumn, with the delegates seeking support, not only from official residents from France, Spain and the Papacy, but from their own agents throughout Catholic Europe. See Ó. Siochrú, Confederate Ireland; Ohlmeyer, ‘Ireland independent’, 89–112 and Chapter Four above. 57 See Chapter Seven above.

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some taste of your favour: for it will oblige Count Leslye to do you that service here, which will be most necessary for the correspondence and understanding of this Court . . .58

The recommendation seemed, at first, to have fallen on deaf ears again. As a consequence, one year on from that, Leslie had requested Roe once more to “remember His Maiestie as likewaies the Prince Elector and the Queene of Bohemia” of his “sinceretie and zeale” for the King’s cause, in the hope that “sum thing be done for my brother”.59 But the count’s wishes were finally catered for the following year, as confirmed in another letter of his to Roe: I humblie thank you for the honor and favour you have been pleased to showe my brother what his Maiestie sal be pleased to doe for him. I will esteeme mair thereof than done to myselfe: be confident I sal alwayes imploye all my powers for to bring a good understanding betwixt my master and the King: bot believe me ther must be sum capable man upon the place than with letters until all be effectuated.60

The “capable man” never came, although it seems that the sibling in question was the second eldest of Leslie’s six half brothers, William who, as of 1655, became the thirteenth baron of Balquhain.61 Obviously, the latest developments from England had not reached Leslie, since in the same letter, the last that the count would seem to have sent to the Stuart kingdoms until after the English Restoration, he wished Charles I well in overcoming the “deficulties with the Parlament”. He also explained that the relations between Austrian Habsburg and Stuart might still be warm, concluding the following; “I never saw such an inclination in this Court to give the King [Charles I] satisfaction as at present, as I doubt not Count Trautmannsdorf hath assured you”.62 But such pleasantries had become irrelevant even to this most fastidious of monarchs. As for Leslie’s friend

58

2 August 1641, Regensburg, Roe to Charles I, in PRO SP81/52/f. 203. 6 August 1642, Vienna, Leslie to Roe, in PRO SP81/53/f. 133. 60 8 April 1643, Vienna, Leslie to Roe, in PRO SP81/53/f. 208. 61 Leslie, His. Rec. Les., III, 95–98. In his three volume account of the family, Colonel Leslie recorded this individual as having been a privy councillor and adviser to Charles I in the 1640s although his name does not appear in the lists of the king’s appointments. William Leslie fled to exile in the United Provinces following the regicide. Technically, his flight left the lands of Balquhain in Walter’s hands as fourteenth baron, but he chose to remain on the continent too. William Leslie died in 1671. See ‘Conclusion’ below. 62 8 April 1643, Vienna, Leslie to Roe in PRO SP81/53/f. 208. 59

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Roe, he spent the rest of his life in ill health, with little to show for his tireless diplomacy. It was only much later, following the signing of the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 (and in the absence of a Stuart presence) that an eighth electorate, the Lower Palatinate, was created for Charles Louis. To conclude on the last years of Leslie’s pro-Palatinate diplomacy, it is unquestionable that the count had continued to exploit his proximity to the emperor in order to promote his standing, both in central Europe and in the Three Kingdoms. Although he had been a consistent supporter of the international interests of both the Austrian Habsburg and Stuart monarchies since 1636, the highpoint of this aspect of Leslie’s career had come with the release of Prince Rupert in 1641. It is possible that he had met the young prince on the battlefield much earlier than that: he had certainly been impressed by him on a personal level, as many others at the Austrian Habsburg court seem to have been.63 Nevertheless, Leslie cannot have known what an impact the intervention would have on the course of war in England. As it was, after 1642, the count resigned himself to the futility of trying to promote an international policy that might benefit the Palatinate family. He turned his attentions ever further from the Stuart court towards the Patrimonial Lands, his adopted home.

63

Mowat, ‘Mission of Sir Thomas Roe’, 264–275.

CHAPTER NINE

1642–8: TOWARDS A PEACE TREATY IN WESTPHALIA

In his collection of essays on the military history of the Habsburg monarchy during the early-modern period, the American historian Thomas M. Barker assessed the role of Ottavio Piccolomini. Barker’s aim was to revise those previous summaries of the Italian general’s career—particularly those of German, Austrian and Czech historians— which had, he asserted, been characterised by “barely concealed indignation” arising from an unrecognised background of xenophobia.1 If his criticism is valid, their perceptions would only have reinforced the anti-Latin prejudices and stereotypes of many of the general’s contemporaries. Piccolomini’s status in the leading ranks of the Imperial army had attracted controversy ever since the fall of Wallenstein in 1634, but became the focus of particular disquiet during the 1640s, a period in which the numbers of German speakers within both the regiments and the officer corps began to increase. Such tensions must be seen in the context of the attempts of the Austrian Habsburgs to centralise their war-time administration and develop a foreign policy that was free from the constraints of the connection with the Spanish monarchy: a situation that had led to them being viewed as secondary representatives of the dynastic house during the earlier years of the war.

1 Piccolomini had a long history of Imperial service behind him by 1642. Born in Florence, by the age of seventeen, he had begun his military career serving the Spanish monarchy in Lombardy. In 1618, he was sent along with an elder brother to south Bohemia, where he participated as a captain in a Florentine regiment, serving under Balthasar Marradas. Two years later, he fought under Bucquoy at the White Mountain, and was present the following year at Neuhäusel (Nové Zámky, Slovakia), then in Hungary. In July 1628, he and his “Alt-Piccolomini” regiment transferred to Italy, taking part in Mantua during the following year. In 1632, he served at Lützen. Following that, he had been prominent in the plot to assassinate Wallenstein. See Chapter Five above. In the aftermath of this, he served under Gallas in the Rhineland, and then, from 1635, at the head of a combined ImperialBavarian force of around 12,000 men in the Netherlands. These regiments united with a Spanish force led by the Cardinal-Infante, to take on the combined DutchFrench enemy. As a result, he had been based largely in north-western Europe ever since. See Barker, Army, Aristocracy, Monarchy, 61.

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It must be asked whether the appearance of a generalised hostility towards foreign influences in the Imperial army (based on nostalgia for the figure of Wallenstein already detectable in 1641) affected the lives of the Scottish officers in the Patrimonial Lands after 1642.2 Unfortunately, it is difficult to make an accurate assessment, since evidence is lacking in every case except that of Walter Leslie, whose relationship with Piccolomini is well-documented. Hence, the focus of this chapter will be slightly different. It will rely heavily on the summaries of their letters printed by the Czech Academy of Sciences, in an attempt to shed new light on Leslie’s position as one of many ‘aliens’ at the mid-seventeenth century Imperial court. Undoubtedly, a more detailed analysis of their correspondence—held in the Piccolomini Family Collection at Zámrsk—could enrich understanding of the international political scene at the time, since the contents provide not only an intricate account of the battles and diplomacy of the last few years of the war in central Europe, but link the course of these events with the simultaneous conflagration in the Stuart kingdoms.3 Leslie and Piccolomini’s letters touched on a variety of central and western European issues. An analysis of the summarised evidence of their written communications suggests that their relationship became particularly close from the second half of the 1630s, reference having already been made to some of the dozens of detailed descriptions that Leslie sent to the general in the period from then down to 1642, covering the subject of Stuart-Austrian Habsburg relations. This subject would continue to be a major theme of their correspondence from 1643. Leslie advised the field marshall with respect to the latest developments in the Patrimonial Lands, where Transylvania and Sweden remained major threats to the imperialists, while Piccolomini— although he remained in the Spanish Netherlands during most of that time—would report on his efforts to seek out support from the Stuart kingdoms. Evidently, there remained some confusion abroad

2

See Chapters Five, Six and Seven above. Unfortunately, I have been unable to conduct extensive research myself in the Piccolomini archive. My coverage of their dispatches to each other during this period (all of them in Italian and numbering several hundred pieces) is based largely on the German-language summaries of upwards of 100 of the letters, printed in the sixth and seventh volumes of the Documenta Bohemica Bellum Tricennale Illustrantia series. See Chapter One above for further details. 3

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regarding the Italian’s approach to the warring powers in Britain and Ireland because, unlike the Spanish representatives of the time, he appears to have confined his dealings to the beleaguered royalist camp. In this, Piccolomini received a disappointing response from the baron of Lisola, despite a number of changes that might seem to have aided closer Stuart-Austrian Habsburg relations: these included Lisola and Piccolomini’s new efforts to advance an alliance with Charles I during 1643–4, the simultaneous negotiations of the Burgundian diplomat, Francesco Foissotte, and the visit to the Imperial court of the Scottish royalist leader, the marquis of Montrose, in 1648. A breakdown in communications had begun by the beginning of the period covered by this chapter, however, caused by the abandonment of all efforts to conclude a new agreement with the imperialists over the Palatinate.4 Indeed, Britain and Ireland aside, the following pages will show that Piccolomini and Leslie’s connections in western Europe became increasingly crucial for other reasons.

January 1643–March 1645: New Imperial hopes, new Imperial despair The biggest change to emerge in the international arena during the first part of 1643 was the almost universal recognition amongst the warring powers that it lay in their interests to try and achieve a peace settlement as quickly as possible: the towns of Münster and Osnabrück in Westphalia were established as a demilitarised zone from as early as January that year. Before getting down to work, the parties concerned had to arrange the practicalities of how the negotiations would be organised. They reached an agreement whereby the French, Spanish and other Catholic powers would meet in Münster, while the Swedes and their Protestant allies would convene in Osnabrück. The princes of the Holy Roman Empire were to gather separately in Frankfurt.5 It might be expected that Leslie and Piccolomini’s correspondence would reflect this long-overdue spirit of eirenicism, borne out of twenty-five years of horrific warfare. In fact, self-pity and anxiousness regarding their respective career prospects are the overriding

4 5

Reynald, ‘Le Baron de Lisola’ and Lisola’s NDB entry. Parker ed. Thirty Years’ War, 155.

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themes that emerge from their letters during the early months of 1643. Ever since Roe’s return to England the preceding autumn, Leslie had been struggling to find a new political role—a task made more difficult by Piccolomini’s estrangement from aulic circles—while the Italian too appears to have been an unhappy man. First, he believed he had been snubbed at the Imperial court following the defeat at Breitenfeld the previous year, when the Archduke Leopold William, the emperor’s younger brother, had decided to give up command of the Imperial army. To many, Piccolomini had been the most obvious replacement rather than Count Matthias Gallas, who had been chosen instead to take up the position.6 The general complained, besides, that he was receiving unwarranted criticism from the ordinary soldiers, due to their perception that the Imperial army command had an anti-German bias: he even reported to the imperialists’ paymaster his belief that Leslie may have been responsible for spreading slander so as to prejudice the Imperial Council of War (Hofkriegsrat) against him.7 But it was not all bad news for Piccolomini. 1643 was also the year that he received the Burgundian Order of the Golden Fleece for his services to the Habsburg cause. Furthermore, the fall out with Leslie was not as dramatic or permanent as might have appeared likely, given the count’s history. The two men continued to correspond intimately on international affairs, reporting plenty of ominous signs to each other over the ensuing months.8 Besides the psychological impact of some major setbacks for the Spanish, in July, Leslie stated to Piccolomini that the situation in the imperialist camp too, “worsens from day to day”.9 Thus, central European issues continued to be the focus of their correspondence for some months.10 6 Around the same time as the archduke returned to court, Leslie reported having had an audience with Ferdinand III. See 18 December 1642, Leslie to Archduke Leopold William, HHStA Kriegsakten, f. 144, 378/379. See also 6 December 1642, ?, Leslie to Count ?, HHStA, Kriegsakten, f. 144, 341/342. The second letter deals with the subject of a “general rendezvous” involving 4,000 cavalry. 7 29 December 1642, Prague, Piccolomini to Polidoro Bracciolini, in DBBT, VI, no. 1376. The general believed that neither Gallas nor General Hatzfeld were responsible for this. 8 6 February 1643, ?, Piccolomini to Leslie in HHStA Kriegsakten, f. 144, 136/ 134; 11 March 1643, Dresden, Piccolomini to Leslie in DBBT, VI, no. 1414; 9 May–30 May 1643, 5 pieces, Vienna, Leslie to Piccolomini in DBBT, VI, no. 1488. 9 4–18 July 1643, 4 pieces, Vienna, Leslie to Piccolomini, in DBBT, VI, no. 22 and 157–67 above. 10 These were matters which became ever more urgent following the com-

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Some of the count’s compatriots were still serving the emperor as officers at that time. The records show Thomas Henderson to have been Inhaber and commander of a small infantry regiment of around 500 men as late as May 1643, presumably the same body which was recorded as having fought in Württemberg on 24 November that year.11 Besides him, the “Wilhelm, Baron von Guin [William Gunn?]”, mentioned by Redlich as having “commanded successively three regiments without having recruited a single one” during the 1640s, seems to have been the man of that surname referred to by Leslie on several occasions in 1642.12 Moreover, a John Maxwell was appointed as commander of an Imperial dragoon regiment in 1643, while a William Gordon had become an officer in an infantry regiment by then too.13

mencement of a Swedish-Danish war in May 1643. The emperor’s immediate response was to send Gallas and his regiments to the duchy of Holstein on the Baltic to support the Danes against Torstensson. Unfortunately, this left the imperialists weak in their own backyard. Aware of this danger, Leslie expressed his fear of the Ottomans and György Rákóczi, the prince of Transylvania, to the east, as much as he did the depredations of Torstensson’s army to the north and west. His worry was understandable. Rákoczí invaded Royal Hungary in February 1644. It is unsurprising that the contents of Leslie’s letters over the ensuing months concerned various Imperial attempts to negotiate the prince’s withdrawal. See 14 January 1644, Vienna, Leslie to Piccolomini in DBBT, VII, no. 136. Parker ed. Thirty Years’ War, 156, 164. 11 21 May 1643, Cologne, Thomas Henderson to Roe in PRO SP81/53/f. 80. From 1643–45, Henderson was posted to the head of another regiment. See 5 October 1643, Goslav?, Colonel Henderson to Colonel Meyer, HHStA Kriegsakten, f. 148, 30. For a ‘Henderson’ regimental list from October 1644, see DBBT, VII, no. 100. A John Henderson was sent to Denmark-Norway by Charles I in 1644. On a mission from the Danish king to the English Parliament, this Henderson was imprisoned. Even so, Charles I sent him back to Denmark in 1645. See Newman, The old service, 48. 12 Redlich, German Military Enterpriser, I, 226; Wrede, Geschichte der k. und k. Wehrmacht, II, 413, 441, 470. See Walter Leslie’s reference to “Colonel Guin” leaving Brünn with the Archduke Leopold William. 4 February 1641, Regensburg, Leslie to Piccolomini in DBBT, VI, no. 1136. See also a February 1642 reference to a “Colonel Guyn” in HHStA Kriegsakten, f. 143, 26/27. This may be the veteran Colonel Gunn who had earlier fought with William Cuthbert against the covenanters at Turriff. See Cowan, Montrose, 77. 13 Schmidhofer, ‘Das irische’, 59. William Gordon was an Obristwachtmeister. On 12 February 1648, he reported from Landskron to General Holzapfel. See HHStA Kriegsakten, f. 175, 216. Gordon and Maxwell both appear to have been the exiled scions of royalist families. If so, they had fled a seemingly hopeless situation in Scotland during the first half of that year. Despite the best efforts of Montrose since 1640, Scottish supporters of Charles I remained leaderless. In the Lowlands, two Gordon and Maxwell earls, Aboyne and Nithsdale, had made preparations to take

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It seems inevitable that these men would have tried to make an impression on their Austrian Habsburg masters as regards the various developments in the Three Kingdoms.14 In any case, as far as can be gathered, the emperor seems to have continued to see his interests in this respect as being best fulfilled through close identification with the members of Charles I’s camp: the overriding message being that ‘Austrian’ foreign policy—at least in relation to the Stuart monarchy—had diverged from that of Spain, a level of assertiveness that Leslie had been fighting for since 1635. Nevertheless, further recruitment from amongst the royalist forces in the Stuart kingdoms must have seemed unlikely. The number of potential volunteers that the earl of Antrim had suggested for the Spanish Netherlands had been unrealistic, while the transporting of a body of several thousand Scottish and/or Irish soldiers to central Europe remained wholly impractical. Thus, it is remarkable that, from late 1643, Piccolomini finally began to develop a system of Stuart-Austrian Habsburg mutual support.15 The general obviously maintained high hopes of organising the recruiting and transporting of larger numbers of royalist volunteers from the offshore isles, a proposal which it seems Leslie had played a part in too. The count was definitely in contact with Scottish Catholics at that time. Some seem to have considered him alongside Hugh Semple S.J. in Madrid, as a leading supporter of their interests on the continent. For example, on 19 March 1644, Father Thomas Rob wrote from Douai to the Jesuit Father-General, stating that he was “begging accordingly with Father Hugh [Semple] and Colonel Leslie” in order to find a place for three Scottish youths to stay and be educated in the Catholic faith.16 But these remained depressing times for recusants in Scotland. The royalist response, of which they were considered such an important potential constituent, had been almost completely ineffectual to that point. As Piccolomini and the emperor

up arms with him. Yet the powerful earls of Airlie and Huntly, on whose backing the royalist cause in Scotland relied heavily, had procrastinated. Even in August 1643, when a draft of the Solemn League and Covenant was made in Edinburgh, Huntly remained quiet. 14 Loomie, ‘Alonso de Cárdenas’, 289–307; Sanz, ‘England and Spanish Foreign Policy’, 291–310. 15 Poli“enskÿ, Thirty Years War, 225 and Chapter Four above. 16 Forbes-Leith, ed. Memoirs of Scottish Catholics, I, 224.

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had been made aware, Alexander Leslie had led an army of covenanters into England with ease that January. Perhaps it was with some understanding of this situation and in light of the apparent apathy of the earls in his native north-east that Colonel John Gordon returned to Scotland that year for what appears to have been the first and last time. Ostensibly, he went to visit John Innes of Leuchars, near Elgin, an old friend and his “cousine German once removed”.17 It seems that Gordon had ambitions to buy an estate too since, on 27 February, he was admitted as a burgess in Elgin along with Leuchars and a George Innes. In the interim, some signs had begun to emerge that the prospects for the Gordons and other Catholics in the north-east were brightening. The eighth Laird of Gight took on the covenanters during February and March while, on 29 March, John Gordon of Haddo, conducted a raid on Aberdeen with the help of some of Huntly’s men. They seized some covenanters including the provost, before recruiting 1,200 extra men at Aboyne. This replenished force captured the town of Montrose on 12 April, leaving the earl of Aboyne to spearhead a separate campaign in the south-west, where he took Dumfries on 2 May.18 Gordon’s opinion on these events cannot be confirmed. After only five weeks, “intestin trouble” had “diverted” him from further involvement in Scotland. Being “seek of the gout”, he returned to the continent.19 If not in Scotland (where attempts to revive the post-1619 Irish Franciscan mission also came to nothing that year) or in Ireland (where most Catholics seem to have become increasingly united in their desire to defend the Confederacy), in England and Wales, some disenfranchised recusants took up service in the Habsburg armies at this juncture, confirming that Piccolomini’s attempts to find an ideological aspect that might appeal to this group had been worthwhile. One individual who had become convinced as much by ‘Austrian’ as ‘Spanish’ or any other pro-royalist initiatives emanating from the continent, was Endymion Porter. He wrote to the Italian on 15 April 1644, stating: “Emperors and Kings must help each other against treacherous vassals”. Others in England, such as Shawe and his colleague Keynes, continued to try and drum up support for the 17

Forbes, ed. Ane Account, 248. The earl of Argyll then crushed this rising. By the end of May, Huntly had fled to Strathnaver in Sutherland. 19 Ibid. 18

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imperialists too.20 Indeed, it was with the consent of Charles I that Piccolomini decided to make his way across the Channel himself in the spring of 1644. He arrived at Falmouth sometime in April, moving on from there to meet Porter and a larger group of despondent supporters of the king, including Edward Herbert, the earl of Norwich, and Henry Gage, the latter of whom had served as a maestro de campo for Piccolomini in the Netherlands. It is not clear how long the Italian stayed in England, although he clearly mis-timed the journey. Piccolomini had to abandon his plans for a levy in the build up to the battle of Marston Moor on 2 July (o.s.). Gage seems to have been an anomaly in expressing his wish to return to Flanders after that royalist defeat, while Shawe could only console the general, insisting that Ireland might still be a more fruitful source of recruits for the Habsburg cause.21 What makes Piccolomini’s efforts interesting, nevertheless, is the fact that his, and thus the Imperial approach, had begun to conflict with the neutrality advocated by the Spanish with respect to the Stuart kingdoms. This reflected a wider tension in the Spanish Netherlands between his own ‘Austrian’ input and the dominant ‘Spanish’ element in the administration.22 Since arriving in the Low Countries, Piccolomini had begun to demonstrate to his Austrian Habsburg patrons that he was prepared to follow a separate course regarding the cause of Charles I. The general was clearly trying to promote the relationship between the imperialists and the royalists as one reflecting an alliance of interests based on the defence of centralised, monarchical power, an approach that the Spanish had given up on. Although it is unclear whether the emperor fully backed Piccolomini in this, it is undeniable that the Italian was playing a major part in establishing an independent, Imperial foreign policy, without recourse to the dynastic connection with Madrid. As has been shown, the

20

The quote comes from Poli“enskÿ, War and Society, 175. The elder George Goring was the earl of Norwich. See Poli“enskÿ, War and Society, 125. 22 For instance, Melo, the outgoing governor, had prevaricated about whether or not to raise an objection that spring to the shipment of some arms to the English parliamentarians from Dunkirk. In addition, Don Manuel de Moura y Cortereal, the marquis of Castel Rodrigo, Melo’s replacement in Brussels, seems to have been even less consistent in his views than Cárdenas. See Sanz, ‘England and Spanish foreign policy’, 297. Loomie’s account offers a slightly different view of Melo’s actions. See Loomie, ‘Alonso de Cárdenas’, 296. 21

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pro-Stuart stance had been one advocated by Leslie for over seven years, even if—to the count and John Taylor’s dismay—both parties had remained hesitant to follow the path towards closer relations. But Piccolomini seems to have decided that the combination of the ever-decreasing trickle of finances from Madrid for central Europe and the desperate military situation in both multiple kingdoms meant that vacillation was now impossible. The question of whether or not Imperial policy ran the risk of offending the king of Spain had become almost irrelevant.23 In the war-riven Stuart kingdoms these efforts seem to have gone largely unnoticed. Scottish Catholics, for instance, do not seem to have picked up on the divergence between Imperial and Spanish policy, despite the awareness of leading recusants as to Walter Leslie’s usefulness as a contact point for exiles in the Austrian Habsburg lands. Even if they had, it remains unclear just what Piccolomini might have been able to offer them from Flanders in return.24 As a result of this and the threats to the imperialists from further east, all efforts at instigating a Stuart-Austrian Habsburg alliance were scrapped. British and Irish affairs may have become of marginal concern to the Austrian Habsburgs following the Italian’s return to the Spanish Netherlands from England, but Leslie continued to keep him up to date with affairs at the Imperial court. On 11 May, the count advocated the sending of more support to Denmark-Norway in their battles against the Swedes, war having begun between these two powers in 1643.25 A month later, he turned his attentions to the conflict with Prince György Rákóczi of Transylvania, covering the arrival of a Polish noble in Vienna, who he hoped would be sent to mediate.26 This was not a very hopeful option since W∑adys∑aw IV Vasa was siding with Moscow in a dispute against the Turks. Thus, tensions would remain high between the Polish crown and Transylvania. By 10 August, the imperialists had given up on peace

23

Ernst, ‘Spanische Subsidien’, 299–302. Conversely, the relative inactivity of the Scots in Madrid and Brussels was certainly apparent to encumbered recusants at home. See Chapter Four above. 25 11 May 1644, Vienna, Leslie to Piccolomini in DBBT, VII, no. 240. Leslie pointed out that the Danes had promised not to conclude a treaty with Sweden without prior agreement with the emperor. 26 8 June 1644, Vienna, Leslie to Piccolomini in DBBT, VII, no. 279. 24

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as an option with the latter power, with Leslie promoting the recruitment of 1500 Polish ‘Hilfstruppen’ against them.27 Besides the possibility of further aggression with the Transylvanians, it is worth noting the count’s growing concern by 1644 as regards the involvement of the Habsburgs’ immediate neighbours to the south-east, the Ottomans. On 3 August, he reported on the subject of his correspondence with the Bohemian noble, Humprecht ’ernín of Chudenice, Ferdinand III’s ambassador in Constantinople. ’ernín had written to Leslie from Ofen (Buda) claiming that he had had an audience with the Sultan’s representative there during which the latter had agreed to terminate his support for the Transylvanians. But Ottoman support for Rákóczi continued, while Leslie reported to Piccolomini that he would remain suspicious of the Calvinist prince even if Transylvania was to lose the backing of the Sultan on which its army depended.28 His assessment was correct. By that autumn, a Swedish-Transylvanian pincer movement threatened Vienna. For that reason, Leslie moved west as far as the relatively safe environs of Linz. Analysing the exchange of letters between him and Piccolomini from there, an atmosphere of deep confusion remains palpable. It emerges that the general now believed his Spanish masters in Brussels to be treating him with as much derision as his rivals at the Imperial court: Piccolomini expressed deep unease about hav-

27

10 August 1644, Vienna, the same to the same in DBBT, VII, no. 363. 3 August 1644 (s.l.), the same to the same, in DBBT, VII, no. 352. Despite these local problems, Leslie’s attention may once again have turned to Scotland that autumn, where the Montrose-MacColla alliance had met with some success. See Chapter Four above. In the late summer, their victory at Tippermuir was quickly followed by the retaking of Aberdeen. Nevertheless, the Austrian Habsburgs remained purely notional supporters of the locally determined, royalist cause. Montrose and his allies found that foreign support was available closer to hand and from much more powerful partners. Evidence that the United Provinces was becoming an important centre for Scottish and other royalist intrigues came when Prince Rupert obtained a passport for Captain Urry “to goe upon his occasion into the Low Countries”. As with the Spanish, the motives of the Dutch were cynical. It was undoubtedly in their economic interests to keep the conflict going between Charles I and his opponents in all three kingdoms. However, officially, they had sided with the royalists since 1641. Charles I’s daughter Mary had wed the prince of Orange. Hence, although the Stadtholder had encouraged English soldiers in Dutch service to go home to fight for the Stuart cause, many others in the United Provinces supported both or either the parliamentarian or covenanting cause. See 29 September 1644, ‘Passport from Prince Rupert for Captain H. Urry, issued at Bristol . . . . . . to goe upon his occasion into the Low Countries’, printed in Macray ed. Letters and Papers of Patrick Ruthven, 163. 28

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ing to serve the new governor of the Spanish Netherlands, Castel Rodrigo.29 Leslie replied to him in late November, concentrating on the urgency of obtaining support for General Gallas in the fight against the Swedes.30 These attacks had become more intense by the end of December with the imperialists increasingly powerless to do anything about them.31 Indeed, the count was forced to remain in Linz until late January 1645, by which time Torstennson was crossing the Bohemian border. From there, he moved on to Prague, in anticipation of the arrival of Ferdinand III.32 Seemingly oblivious to these events, Piccolomini became progressively more unhappy as regards Spanish policy towards Charles I, not least the actions of Francesco Foissotte. During this period, Foissotte remained, in theory, employed to recruit for both branches of the Habsburgs, although this was a matter in which he took Philip IV’s approach of dealing with all sides in the Stuart kingdoms to its logical conclusion.33 The Burgundian tried to persuade Piccolomini to seek military support from the delegates at Kilkenny, a suggestion that the general ignored. While Ireland seems to have remained the Spanish king’s preferred choice then, the royalist regions of England had become that of the imperialists: co-operation with Foissotte sat uneasily alongside the determination of Piccolomini to continue a pro-monarchical line in order to attract assistance from Britain and Ireland.34

29 4 November 1644, Linz, Leslie to Piccolomini, in DBBT, VII, no. 447. Leslie stated that Piccolomini could not serve under Castel Rodrigo without tarnishing his reputation. 30 23 November 1644, Linz, Leslie to Piccolomini in DBBT, VII, no. 455. His response on hearing of the death of Queen Isabella of Spain on 6 October was to recommend a marriage between Philip IV and the daughter of the duke of Orléans. See 26 November 1644, Linz, Leslie to Piccolomini in DBBT, VII, no. 457. 31 22 December 1644, Linz, Leslie to Piccolomini in DBBT, VII, no. 471. Leslie reported that the Swedes had relaxed the siege of Magdeburg, but that a new invasion of Bohemia by Torstensson and his men was imminent. See also 17 January 1645, Linz, Leslie to Piccolomini in DBBT, VII, no. 495 32 28 January, Prague, Leslie to Piccolomini in DBBT, VII, no. 501; 10 February, Prague, Leslie to Piccolomini in DBBT, VII, no. 507. In the last letter Leslie provides a veiled critique of the Imperial army leadership. 33 Although Charles I’s continued willingness to trade with the Portuguese, Catalans and Dutch disturbed the Spanish ambasador in London, Cárdenas, the latter’s attitude towards Foissotte’s dealings with the Irish confederates is unclear. See Chapter Four. 34 That said, Foissotte continued his duties in Ireland until 1652. See Ohlmeyer, ‘Ireland Independent’, 96.

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For Leslie and Piccolomini, the year of 1645 brought little obvious change in the situation in either western or central Europe. In the former region, neither the backing they had sought from the Spanish nor that from Charles I’s supporters materialised, due to the escalation of the conflict in both the Netherlands and the Stuart multiple monarchy. To judge from the extensive summaries of his numerous dispatches during the remainder of that year, Leslie remained equally concerned with events at the Bohemian and Hungarian Regional Diets as with any wider political developments. On 4 March, he wrote to Piccolomini to express his fears that Torstensson was planning an invasion as far as Upper Austria. The concern was justified. Assisted by Rákóczi, the Swedes had again reached Olmütz, and a major encounter seemed imminent. Battle took place at Jankau just two days later, a resounding Swedish victory, following which the emperor and his entire court fled, this time for Graz.35 It must have come as a relief for the count when the emperor announced that same month, that he had been chosen to travel as Imperial ‘confidential agent’ (Vertrauensmann) to the Italian peninsula. At such a time of troubles, this post offered him a chance to escape the war and develop his diplomatic skills so as to bring about a further rise in his status. Leslie’s reports to Ferdinand III and Piccolomini from Venice, Florence, Rome and Naples, provide considerable information about the mission, the main purpose of it specified as being to negotiate loans for the emperor’s war effort. The count’s first destination was Venice, where he arrived on 26 March, although it is not clear if he had any duties to fulfil there besides the delivery of a letter to Count Rabatta, the Imperial resident.36 He did not carry out his first major diplomatic duties until two weeks later, in Florence: on 9 April, Leslie met the Grand Duke, Ferdinand II of Medici there, a man whom he described as sympathetic to the Imperial cause. Yet no money was forthcoming.37 As a result, by 15 April, Leslie had moved on to Rome. Six days after

35 36 37

Poli“enskÿ, War and Society, 125. 15 April 1645, Rome, Leslie to Piccolomini in DBBT, VII, no. 576. Ibid.

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arriving in the Papal States, he had an audience with Innocent X. Despite providing the count with a silver writing-table, the Pope also proved difficult to persuade, being prepared to advance only a small loan.38 Thus, the count was clearly justified in being disappointed with the response from Venice, Florence and Rome, blaming it on what he considered the unjustified preoccupation of these three potentates with the Ottoman military machine.39 He concluded the following two points: that the Venice stopover had not been worth the effort—the Sultan having much less concern for the opinions of the Doge than vice versa (presumably, the same went for Florence)— while Innocent X and his courtiers preferred to discuss the superior strategy and armour of the Turks rather than assist with the worsening crisis in the Empire or the more urgent need to “terrify the French” in the west.40 Naples was Leslie’s last destination on the journey south. He wrote a report from there on 11 May, claiming that, upon his meeting with the viceroy, the latter had shown equally little interest in German affairs, again due to a fear of the Sultan and his allies that was, in his case, Leslie conceded, understandable.41 But the count eventually obtained a loan from Naples as well, one that was substantially larger than that which he had been given in Rome.42 Leslie also received the permission to levy a number of troops from there.43 Hence, his experiences there showed that the tour of Italy had not been a complete irrelevancy.44 Although no further Scottish recruits seem to have entered Imperial service during the mid-1640s, two of Leslie’s co-nationals had continued their involvement in the battles against the Swedes in the interim. The first of them, Colonel Thomas Henderson, died during 1645, in the defence of Regensburg.45 The second, George Ogilvie,

38

See ADB entry. Hess, Biographien und Autographien, 407. 40 22 April 1645, Rome, Leslie to Piccolomini in DBBT, VII, no. 583. This letter recounts his private audience with the Pope the day before. 41 11 May 1645, Naples, Leslie to Piccolomini in DBBT, VII, no. 592. 42 See Leslie’s ADB entry 43 Hess, Biographien und Autographien, 407. 44 After travelling via Venice once more at the end of June to deliver a bust, Leslie returned to Vienna. See 1 July 1645, Venice, ‘Advertisement from Michael Frauncis’ in CSPD, 1644–45, 605. 45 A necrology from Regensburg dated 8 August 1645 states the following: ‘D. Thomas Henderson Colonellus Caesareus Sepultus in nostra Ecclesia, omnia quae habuit Monasterio reliquit’. See Mark Dilworth ‘Two Necrologies of Scottish 39

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was based in Moravia, where he was faced that summer with the prospect of defending the Spielberg fortress and the town of Brünn, alongside the commander of the latter, Radouit de Souches, a French Huguenot.46 Ogilvie was from Muirton, near Kirriemuir in Angus, the son of Patrick Ogilvie, the fifth laird of Airlie, and may have been the same man as a namesake who had raised companies of soldiers in Angus during 1627, for the continental wars.47 He seems to have served in Denmark-Norway before arriving in Imperial service in 1641 to take up an appointment as Oberstleutnant at the Spielberg (”pilberk): a hill fortress that was connected by tunnel to Brünn, part of a fortification system that has been considered the “largest and most significant in Moravia and one of the most important in the entire Habsburg monarchy” during that period.48 It is worth looking at Ogilvie’s 1645 circumstances in more detail. It is clear that the bulk of Moravians had fought on the anti-Habsburg side at White Mountain in 1620, and it would seem likely that Ogilvie and Souches commanded a largely foreign force by that time. Evidently, the region remained divided politically, and devastated by decades of warfare, plague and famine.49 There was considerable discussion amongst the Imperial leaders over the question of whether the expense and manpower required at Brünn was actually worthwhile, talks which intensified when Souches’ reports began detailing the commencement of a Swedish siege of the city.50 According to Benedictine Abbeys in Germany’, in IR, 9, no. 1, 202; Schmidhofer, ‘Das irische’, 185; Hess, Biographien und Autographien, 147. 46 Souches became an Inhaber that year. See Wrede, Geschichte der k. und k. Wehrmacht, II, 255. 47 A George Ogilvie “of Muretoun” is mentioned in 1627, as having been responsible for the recruitment of all the “ydle and maisterlesse men” of Dundee, presumably for foreign service. There is also a complaint from a Margaret Steele, dated 9 November 1627 about her husband, son and servant who had been carried off for service “all thrie to Captane George Ogilvie for the soume of fourtie punds the peece be whome thay war imbarqued and transported to Germany for the service of the King of Denmark in his warres”. See RPCS, 71, 84, 85. 48 Ogilvie received the post at the Spielberg as “a lifelong sinecure”. The fortress there had been constructed in the second half of the thirteenth century and had functioned ever since. Its panoramic situation and proximity to Brünn gave it strategic significance in the defence of Moravia. From 1740, Spielberg was used as a prison. See Christian D’Elvert, Der Spielberg als Residenz der Landesfürsten, Landesfestung und Strafanstalt (Brno: 1860), 20, 21; Barker, Army, Aristocracy, Monarchy, 51. 49 Although the Swedes had been diverted two years previously, when they had begun the war with Denmark-Norway, Torstensson and his army had returned there to win at Jankau. 50 Documentary evidence of the situation at the fortress at that time survives in

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one source, Ogilvie lost ground in the initial days of the assault, as a result of which he received some criticism for his lack of experience, along with accusations as to whether he had sufficient courage and zeal for the Imperial cause. These comments aside, it was evidently his and Souches’ wish to remain and withstand the attack, a task for which in June they were furnished with new supplies of gunpowder and manpower. Following that, they appear to have had a fair amount of success, recording the capture of 1,300 Swedish prisoners: a turnaround that may have been connected to a separate reprieve for the imperialists when the Ottomans terminated their support for Rákóczi due to the outbreak of their war with Venice over the possession of Crete.51 Whatever the cause, Ogilvie remained at the forefront of the Habsburg defence of Moravia after that date. On 28 August, he wrote to Gallas, giving an account of his and Souches’ efforts against sustained Swedish bombardment of the Spielberg. He reported the attempts of Torstensson’s men to cross the fortress moat at the beginning of the month and a further assault which had taken place on 20 August. According to Ogilvie, following these unsuccessful attacks, the enemy had gathered in their camp outside the city and indiscriminately set fire to the surrounding villages. By 23 August, they had moved on again in the direction of the settlement of Göding and the siege had come to an end.52 It would seem then, that the resilience of Ogilvie and his garrison had played an important role in the defence of Brünn that summer. In recognition of his continuing services against the Swedes, he was given a letter of thanks from the emperor (dankschreiben) and a corresponding elevation to membership of the Imperial baronial class, the Freiherrenstand.53 However, as Leslie recorded after returning from the Italian peninsula, fresh Swedish attacks soon came from the north, east and west. the correspondence of the emperor, Gallas and Archduke Leopold William. The latter returned to Imperial command in 1645. See Parker ed. Thirty Years’ War, 175. 51 7 January to 29 December 1645 (44 pieces), Leslie to Piccolomini, summarised in DBBT, VII, no. 484. 52 For Ogilvie’s account of the Swedish attacks on the fortress see 28 August 1645, Spielberg, George Ogilvie to Gallas, in DBBT, VII, no. 657. Regarding both his and Souches’ determination to defend the town, see 28 June, 1645, Brünn, ”.B. von Vrbno to Matthias Gallas, in DBBT, VII, no. 613. See also Barker, Army, Aristocracy, Monarchy, 51. In the light of such evidence, Ernst Schmidhofer provides a favourable account of Ogilvie. See Schmidhofer ‘Das irische’, 51. 53 De Ruvigny, Nobilities of Europe, 359; Scots Peerage, I, 121.

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The Swedish war with Denmark-Norway, having come to an end in August, freed Torstensson to send more troops for the assault on central Europe. In October, Leslie informed Piccolomini that 10,000 more enemy soldiers had arrived in Bohemia, yet wished “things weren’t so black” for the emperor, hoping that the French and Dutch would seek to find a way to terminate hostilities over the winter.54 Leslie also suggested in this letter that Piccolomini should “find a friend at court” who would be able to report the contents of his letters directly to Ferdinand III, if this was required. He recommended that if there was information that “others ought not to know” the general should not write to the Imperial Chancellery (Hofkanzlei ), since the package would then fall into the hands of the vice-chancellor (Reichsvicekanzler) Count Kurz of Senftenau: Piccolomini was sensitive to the possibility that this individual was intriguing against him at court.55 With little sign of let up by November, from either the Swedes in Bohemia or the French to the west, Leslie advocated the dispatch of an Imperial emissary to the discussions in Westphalia. The count recommended full participation in the negotiations for a peace between the Habsburg axis and the United Provinces. Thus, he was clearly conforming to a more realistic, confessionally-moderate stance, even if this was a position that he seemed to have abandoned in recent years. It was a move which would have to be made at the risk of offending the duke of Bavaria, for whom “egotistical interests” dictated alliance with the French, but Leslie believed that such a truce should be strived for at all costs, as the only means of achieving a lasting peace. In order to begin the process, he insisted, the scope of the ongoing negotiations at Münster and Osnabruck would have to be broadened. Imperial diplomats would have to be sent not only to the United Provinces, but presumably to France and Sweden too.56 Expressing confidence in the chances for peace, Leslie put his own name forward to Piccolomini as a candidate for one of the posts. Plainly, he had valuable previous experience in international affairs that he could offer to such a prestigious appointment. In particular, Leslie claimed to have “many contacts and relatives” in the north-

54 55 56

26 October 1645, Linz, Leslie to Piccolomini in DBBT, VII, no. 697. Ibid. 3 November 1645, Linz, Leslie to Piccolomini in DBBT, VII, no. 703.

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ern Netherlands who could assist him as regarded diplomacy with the prince of Orange.57 In another letter sent two weeks later, Leslie informed the general that he had learnt from one such relation that Philip IV had written to the count of Nassau for the purpose of securing a unilateral Dutch-Spanish peace. A mediator would have to be sent from the Imperial court with haste, so as to take a leading part in discussions with the Dutch, and he suggested himself as the most suitable and qualified individual for the task.58 Strangely enough, the count may have ruined his chances within just three days of that, by changing his argument completely. He now stated that Ferdinand III should seek to establish a treaty with Sweden alone, leaving the Spanish to negotiate unilaterally with the Dutch.59 Leslie had probably just realised that the emperor had come to a similar conclusion already, since the imperialists would shortly afterwards send another highly qualified candidate to Westphalia to follow just that approach. Count Trautmannsdorf had remained quite constant in his belief in the need to seek a settlement with Queen Christina, even if this were to worsen relations with Madrid. At the end of November that year, he travelled north for what would be a two-year period of negotiations in which he would finally succeed in developing the eirenic approach. Leslie was not sidelined completely after that. Around the same time, he gave support to the proposal that Piccolomini be returned to command of the Imperial army. Count Gallas’ future as joint commander had become uncertain due to his ill health and, as a result, Field Marshall Melchior Hatzfeld had been given provisional command. But on 2 December, Leslie reassured Piccolomini that there were many at court who would still support his permanent recall to the Patrimonial Lands, and that he need only place himself as a candidate.60 Apparently, the general did not do so. The situation may not have seemed so urgent by the end of the year, positive signs having emerged on the eastern front.61 Besides, Leslie’s

57

Ibid. 17 November 1645, Linz, Leslie to Piccolomini in DBBT, VII, no. 706. 59 To support this change of policy, Leslie believed Piccolomini should return to Imperial service. See 20 November 1645, Linz, Leslie to Piccolomini in DBBT, VII, no. 709. 60 2 December 1645, Linz, Leslie to Piccolomini in DBBT, VII, no. 719. 61 A peace settlement was concluded between the imperialists and Transylvania at least. Both parties finally signed the Treaty of Linz on 16 December 1645. 58

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knowledge of international affairs remained useful to Trautmannsdorf that winter. In particular, the count’s predictions of a continuing improvement in Dutch-Spanish relations proved to be accurate. In January 1646, both a large Dutch delegation and an equally impressive Spanish representation, led by the moderate Don Gaspar de Bracamonte, the count of Peñaranda, finally travelled to Münster.62 During 1646, Leslie seems to have acquired new estates in Inner Austria, having received official residential (indigenat) status in the province of Styria.63 But the evidence suggests that he continued to spend much of his time away both from there and his endangered Bohemian properties, the rounds of court duties on behalf of Piccolomini keeping him in Linz for long periods.64 At first, he welcomed the arrival of the Spanish and Dutch envoys at Münster: an understandable reaction since, by May, these two parties had agreed to the closure of the mouth of the River Scheldt in the Netherlands, the Spanish hoping that the early successes of their discussions would allow them to concentrate their precious resources on the war against France. Leslie also informed Piccolomini that he should be careful to scale down the advances of his soldiers in the Spanish Netherlands against the Dutch army.65 The count may have had a strategic interest in advocating the general’s return, however, since he also stated soon after, his belief that the Dutch had begun to deal in an underhand manner in Münster. According to Leslie, the prince of Orange planned to send more troops into battle during May and June.66 All sides in the Stuart kingdoms continued to foster new initiatives abroad that year, in the hope that they might secure international assistance. In May, Charles I sent an ambassador to Lisbon, to the anger of the Spanish, since the action suggested the Stuarts’ acceptance of the outcome of the Portuguese rebellion of six years previously.67 62

Parker ed. Thirty Years’ War, 167. Barker, Army, Aristocracy, Monarchy, 49. 64 For instance, on 19 January, Leslie reported some more details from there on the negotiations for appointing a new Imperial commander. See 19 January 1646, Linz, Leslie to Piccolomini in DBBT, VII, no. 750. 65 6 February 1646, Linz, Leslie to Piccolomini in DBBT, VII, no. 771. 66 4 May–8 June 1646 (several pieces), Linz, Leslie to Piccolomini in DBBT, VII, nos. 807, 818, 838, 843. Most accounts suggest the contrary: that there was a genuine determination amongst the two powers at Münster that spring to terminate their conflict, which had now been running for seventy-eight years. 67 Such a stance might have seemed ill-considered, since, as the French advanced 63

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Walter Leslie’s life, however, continues to be illuminated more brightly by means of his dispatches on the subject of matters relating to the Austrian Habsburg court. In August 1646, the count was back in Prague, where the emperor had arrived alongside his eldest son and designated successor, Ferdinand, to an apparently joyous response. Leslie expressed his dissatisfaction regarding the financing of the Imperial military campaigns at that time. He seemed particularly dismayed as he outlined the efforts of Bohemia to provide finances and as many as 16,000 men for the Imperial war effort without outside help.68 The count moved on to Pressburg, the capital of Royal Hungary, just a few weeks later, noting the emperor’s entry to that city to another, apparently rapturous reception, a reaction which, no matter how exaggerated, would surely have been unimaginable twentyeight years previously.69 Remaining at Pressburg for some weeks, Leslie reported little progress in the long-running saga to appoint a new Imperial army commander.70 Ferdinand III remained adamant

ever further up the coastline of Flanders, the Spanish desperately needed assistance in the Channel. But Spanish efforts now seem to have focused purely on formulating an agreement of assistance with the radicals in England, the independents (See Chapter Four above). Cárdenas had clearly been persuaded that this party would allow freedom of worship to Catholics. See Loomie, ‘Alonso de Cárdenas’, 300–1. Charles I had the support of John Taylor, the earlier Stuart ambassador to the Imperial court, and a number of other English agents, however. Taylor appears to have been acting as special emissary for Castel Rodrigo by this time. Together, their approach seems to have proved successful enough to cause the Long Parliament to renew the supply of gunpowder and other materials to Dunkirk. See Loomie, ‘Alonso de Cárdenas’, 306. One of the other agents, a Giles Greene, tried to recruit soldiers in England for Castel Rodrigo that year. Poli“enskÿ, War and Society, 176. Meanwhile, Endymion Porter’s son, George Porter seems to have recruited up to 600 men for service under Piccolomini in the Spanish Netherlands in London between January and March 1646. From there, he went to France, but continued to correspond with Piccolomini. See 15 February 1647, Paris, Giovanni Battista Nani, Venetian Ambassador to France to the Doge and Senate in CSPV, 1643–47, 300. 68 1 August 1646, Prague, Leslie to Piccolomini in DBBT, VII, no. 864. Leslie’s old colleague, John Gordon, reappeared briefly in Imperial sources once more that summer. A letter of 30 July, from a leading courtier, Count Lib“tensky of Kolovrat, to Piccolomini, conveyed the former’s surprise at having recently met the long-lost Scotsman in Prague. Evidently, Gordon’s views were still considered as significant. He had apparently made some detailed criticisms of Piccolomini to Lib“tensky. The latter requested a meeting with the general in order to explain these accusations in more detail. See 30 July 1646, Prague, O.F. von Kolovrat Lib“tensky to Piccolomini in DBBT, VII, no. 863. The argument seems to have died quickly, following which Gordon retired into obscurity once more. One account reported that he was taken Swedish prisoner later that year. See Hess, Biographien und Autographien, 402. 69 12 September 1646, Pressburg, Leslie to Piccolomini in DBBT, VII, no. 879. 70 Leslie pointed out that many at court were putting forward the Archduke

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in his favour of the elderly Gallas, and claimed to be prepared to return to the field to join him as joint commander himself, even if his most influential advisers disapproved. The most likely compromise, as far as Leslie could see, was that Piccolomini would make his way back across the Rhine to take up joint command alongside Gallas.71 Frustrated by the delay in resolving this issue, Leslie stayed in Pressburg during the early months of 1647, a period in which his letters to Piccolomini begin to provide original details about separate discussions regarding an invitation from Madrid to have the emperor’s son, now the king of Bohemia designate, sent to Spain to find a wife.72 Related to this were the negotiations of Philip IV to arrange a marriage for himself with an unnamed Austrian archduchess.73 But these were both forlorn measures, designed to bring about a programme of assistance against Cardinal Mazarin’s forces. Leslie, like many imperialists, had little time to fret for Castile’s trials by then. On 15 January, the count reported his delight, having heard a rumour that Piccolomini had decided to return to central Europe at last.74 Piccolomini did not return from the Spanish Netherlands even then, a decision which could perhaps be seen as a response to the recent death of the governor, Castel Rodrigo, the Archduke Leopold William accepted the offer to replace him, thus providing the opportunity for the Austrian Habsburgs to wield ever more influence over the Brussels administration.75 These changes in Brussels may also have been partly responsible for the emergence of new complicating

Leopold William, the emperor’s brother, as a strong candidate for governorship of the Spanish Netherlands. Leopold William did not wish to see his main rival, the elderly Gallas, the man still favoured by the emperor, in command after he left the Patrimonial Lands. Not only that but, according to Leslie, Gallas himself believed Piccolomini to be the “most trustworthy” man for the post, while others too supported the move to bring him back, even if that meant turning their back on the Spanish cause against the French. See 8 October 1646, Pressburg, Leslie to Piccolomini in DBBT, VII, no. 900. 71 19 October 1646, Vienna, Leslie to Wollrath Alexander von Greifenklau (Imperial resident in Constantinople), in DBBT, VII, no. 906. 72 2 January 1647, Pressburg, Leslie to Piccolomini in DBBT, VII, no. 948. 73 Ibid.; 8 January 1647, Pressburg, Leslie to Piccolomini in DBBT, VII, no. 956. 74 He also hinted that the prospects for a general peace in the Empire were improving. A French envoy had come secretly to condole the recent death of the empress. See 15 January, Pressburg, Leslie to Piccolomini in DBBT, VII, no. 965. In early February, the Pressburg diet dealt with the question of a reconciliation between the various confessions in Royal Hungary. 75 12 February 1647, Pressburg, Leslie to Piccolomini in DBBT, VII, no. 995.

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factors in Westphalia that spring. The delegates had to try and assess now whether the policy being followed in the southern Netherlands was a pro-Imperial or a pro-Spanish one. It seemed that a peace (and Piccolomini’s return to the Imperial court) would have to wait.

April 1647–October 1648: Leslie’s marriage and the last battles of the war in central Europe A new matter of huge personal consequence entered Leslie’s correspondence during the spring of 1647. On 23 April that year, he married Anna Franziska, a daughter of Maximilian, Prince of Dietrichstein, at a lavish ceremony in Vienna.76 In career terms, Anna Franziska could be considered a good catch, since the marriage cemented Leslie’s position within the highest level of the ‘AustroBohemian’ elite. The Dietrichstein connection can be viewed, from this perspective, as a calculated ploy to increase his standing at court. Another Scottish adventurer, Colonel Henry Bruce, had earlier made his fortune by serving a relative, Franz Dietrichstein, the CardinalBishop of Olomouc.77 Indeed, the Dietrichstein extended family had gained a reputation, typical amongst the Hofadel of the time, for shunning the company of the German and Czech-speaking peoples amongst whom they lived. Prince Maximilian, for instance, had contacts with a wide range of individuals in cities as distant as Madrid and Warsaw, connections which, in effect, covered the entire proHabsburg axis of the time. The prince had been sent as Spanish ambassador extraordinary to Poland in 1645, an embassy during which he had corresponded frequently with Ferdinand III. Hence, the barest evidence alone suggests that the prominent members of the family at least, were keen to surround themselves with a cosmopolitan group of Italian and Spanish-speaking courtiers. Furthermore,

76 Leslie may have been married twice previous to this. According to Schwarz’s account, the first wife’s name is untraceable, but the second wife was from the West Bohemia-based Lamboy family. She may have been a sister of the imperialist, Wilhelm Lamboy. See Schwarz, Imperial Privy Council, 276. However, the Dietrichstein alliance was evidently much more prestigious. See Baroch and Schmid, ‘Rod Leslie’, 93. The wedding agreement and the list of invites can be consulted in SAZ, Rodinnÿ archiv Leslie, K. ‘is. (box) 5, A-1, A-7. For Anna Franziska’s own letters from 1672–1684, see K. ‘is. 5, A-9, A-10. 77 See Chapters One and Five above.

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the Dietrichsteins acted as court brokers, in a strikingly similar way to the English Howard or Villiers families at Whitehall, in that they had a history of using strategic marital alliances and the favour of the emperor in order to build up a network of their own clients.78 Through the marriage, Leslie became the brother-in-law, not only of Ferdinand Dietrichstein, a future Imperial grand chamberlain, but of two other leading individuals in the Austrian Habsburg administration, Franz Eusebius Pötting, later Imperial ambassador to Spain, and the Italian general, Raimondo Montecuccoli. Besides, all three of these men sat on the Imperial Privy Council: the count would swap information with each of them on court issues during subsequent years. Thus, the records left by Leslie would seem to support the assumption as to his greater inclusion into these social circles thereafter, his Dietrichstein in-laws providing him with perspectives on life that fitted well with the post-1620 ‘Austro-Bohemian’ noble ideal.79 Another possible result of the marriage, was Leslie’s establishing of frequent correspondence with another leading Bohemian noble that year, Kry“tof Ferdinand, the count of Lobkowic.80 It is quite clear, in any case, that the count benefited from his links with the Dietrichsteins from April 1647, and that this had been a major motivating factor in his pursuing the alliance. As for developments with respect to the war, a phase of the Westphalian negotiations came to an end for the imperialists in June 1647 when Trautmannsdorf returned to Vienna, to be replaced by Isaac Volmar, previously chancellor of Alsace. From then until the start of 1648, the prospects of peace in the Empire seemed dim. In a letter of 25 January, Leslie reported to Count Traun that the Swedes continued their advance over the Elbe and into Silesia.81 The count also conveyed bafflement as to why Piccolomini was still delaying his return to the Imperial court: in a letter of 1 February 1648 from Prague, he enquired as to the general’s reasons for remaining in

78 For more general coverage of this theme, see Antoni Maczak, ‘From Aristocratic Household to Princely Court: Restructuring Patronage in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries’ in Asch and Birke, eds. Princes, Patronage and the Nobility, 315–327, along with the articles in Maczak, ed. Klientelsysteme im Europa der Frühen Neuzeit. 79 Melton, ‘Nobility in the Bohemian and Austrian Lands’, 110–143. 80 I am grateful to Petr Mat"a for this information. 81 25 January 1648, Leslie to Count Traun in HHStA, Kriegsakten, f. 174, 514/515.

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Brussels when he could be assured of a warm welcome in Austria.82 Perhaps some of the reasons for Piccolomini’s continuing caution can be explained by an analysis of the contents of another letter of Leslie’s, however, written two months later. On this occasion, the count complained that the pay due to him as a member of the Imperial aulic council (Reichshofrat) had not been made. Thus, it would seem that Piccolomini may have made himself no worse off financially by staying in Spanish service, at least while the threat of the Swedes advancing to the “very heart” of the Patrimonial Lands remained a real one. Another curious episode of that spring is also worth taking into account. It was probably during April that the marquis of Montrose arrived in the Patrimonial Lands. The visit of the Scottish royalist leader to the Imperial court is interesting for a number of reasons. First, it proved that the imperialists remained prepared to commit themselves to Charles I’s cause in the Stuart kingdoms, unlike their Spanish cousins. In Prague, Montrose received a warm welcome from Ferdinand III, who offered him a commission at the command of an Imperial infantry regiment. Although he turned that down, the emperor gave him permission to recruit troops from the Habsburg lands instead.83 At a time of emergency in the Patrimonial Lands, this seems a remarkable offer, if completely impractical. Besides, Ferdinand III illustrated the new closeness between the emperor’s administration and Brussels under Leopold William’s governorship, when he suggested to Montrose that he might arrange for permission to be provided for him to make these levies in the Spanish Netherlands. Ferdinand recommended that the marquis move on to Brussels, promising that help from the archduke would, in any event, be forthcoming. Montrose took the advice and returned westwards.84 It is not obvious whether or not he met Leslie during his time in the Bohemian capital although it seems very likely, since the count was in the city throughout much of the spring of 1648.

82

1 February 1648, Prague, Leslie to Piccolomini in DBBT, VII, no. 1093. Both France and Spain were refused levies by the English Parliament in April that year. See Sanz, ‘England and Spain’, 301 and Chapter Four above for ScottishSpanish relations at this point. 84 Montrose reached Brussels before the end of year, where he received a welcome at Elizabeth of Bohemia’s court, and converesed with Prince Rupert. See Mark Napier, ed. Memoirs of the Marquis of Montrose, 3 vols. (Edinburgh: 1856), I, 439. 83

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Leslie’s letters to Piccolomini attest not only to his presence in Prague at the time of Montrose’s visit, but also to the Italian having finally made the decision to return eastwards to the Imperial court.85 It may have been the Bavarian-Imperial defeat at the hands of the Swedes at Zusmarshausen on 17 May that hastened his return.86 In any case, from the end of that month, the general had begun to serve as Generalleutnant in the Imperial army. Overall command now lay in the hands of Peter Melander, the count of Holzapfel, a Calvinist, showing that attitudes at the Imperial court had by no means revolutionised since the era of Wallenstein.87 Moreover, the outbreak of ‘the Fronde’ in France that same month led to the French demanding that the emperor abandon the Spanish Habsburg cause in a more formal manner. If that concession was made, Cardinal Mazarin informed the imperialists that he might be able to persuade the Swedes that they would be best served by looking for a ceasefire in central Europe and accepting a lower indemnity as their prize.88 Progress towards peace did not seem to be being made in Linz, where news arrived that the Swedes had advanced as far as the area around Piccolomini’s estate at Náchod in north Bohemia. Besides, by June, Leslie, also in Linz, had joined Piccolomini in feeling himself to be the victim of a hate campaign instigated by German-speaking soldiers in the Imperial ranks. According to the count, prejudice had become directed against all foreigners ( fremdlinge) in the administration but, although rife, could be blamed on a single prominent figure in the army command, Count Hans Christoph of Puchheim.89 For Leslie, like Piccolomini, this was a concern, but there were more urgent matters to attend to. It had been a wise move for the court

85 These dispatches also cover the relentless French and Swedish advances and the emperor’s attempts to choose whether to hold his upcoming marriage in Prague or in the safer surroundings of Linz. See 11 April 1648, Prague, Leslie to Johann Adolf von Schwarzenberg in DBBT, VII, no. 1102. 86 8–21 May 1648, 4 letters, Prague, Leslie to Piccolomini in DBBT, VII, no. 1104. 87 Piccolomini fought alongside the previous commander of the Bavarian army, Johann von Werth. See 28 August, Pilsen, Giovanni Battista Formarini (Piccolomini’s secretary at the Imperial court) to Piccolomini in DBBT, VII, no. 1068. 88 4 June 1648, Prague, Leslie to Piccolomini in DBBT, VII, no. 1112. Piccolomini had arrived in Bavaria by then. Meanwhile, Leslie negotiated at court on his behalf, keeping him informed of the position of Count Trautmannsdorf, Schlick and others at court regarding the army leadership. 89 18 July 1648, Linz, Leslie to Piccolomini in DBBT, VII, no. 1138.

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and its retinue to leave Prague, since on 26 July, the Swedes advanced into the city, taking control of the New Town. This appears to have come as a great shock. Leslie reported the loss to Piccolomini just two days later, first passing on unconfirmed reports that the Hradschin had been looted, before going on to list the depressing course of events in more detail. The Swedes had taken silver and money on arriving, along with 200 artillery pieces and 100 hundredweights of gunpowder. Besides, the count was not confident that the town citizens would aid Puchheim and the imperialists, since army-civilian relations there were “very tense”. Typically though, he expressed a concern that his own property in the city (the details of which are unknown) might have fallen into enemy hands.90 With this in mind, Leslie’s next move is a little less difficult to explain away. With a seemingly reckless abandon, on 28 July, the count stated to Piccolomini his intention to ask for permission to leave court. He did not consider this move out of any sense of duty to help out in the defence of Prague. On the contrary, he claimed that he had been contemplating leaving Imperial service for some time, so as to seek his fortune as a “private gentleman”.91 Seemingly, the pressures of defending the Imperial position in the face of humiliation by Sweden had become too much to bear. In any case, Leslie confirmed the taking of the Hradschin by the Swedes on 30 July, in the contents of a letter to Piccolomini which shows that he remained pessimistic about the prospects of a defence of the rest of the Bohemian capital.92 He had received reports that the Swedes had, by that time, begun to dismantle the extensive art and scientific collections in the royal palace and were on the verge of conquering many other residential areas.93

90

28 July 1648, Linz, Leslie to Piccolomini in DBBT, VII, no. 1144. Ibid. 92 30 July 1648, Linz, Leslie to Piccolomini in DBBT, VII, no. 1146. 93 Piccolomini’s whereabouts, meanwhile, are unknown. Presumably he had not received Leslie’s news when he replied on 3 August expressing his dismay about the poor preparations for the siege and the self-interest of the Imperial contingent in the Bohemian capital. He blamed them and specifically their leader, Puchheim, for the continuing unpopularity of the imperialist cause with the Prague residents. This was not time for self-pity, however. Regarding Leslie’s complaints as regards Puchheim’s alleged prejudices against the foreign officers, Piccolomini dismissed this issue as irrelevant at such a time of emergency. He also found time to express his abject disapproval of Leslie’s apparent resolve to leave the Imperial court. See 3 August 1648, ?, Piccolomini to Leslie in DBBT, VII, no. 1151. 91

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It is not clear if Gordon, Ogilvie or any other Scots in the Patrimonial Lands played a large part in the battle for Prague. Certainly, others from elsewhere in the Stuart kingdoms participated in the Imperial defence there. A group amongst the Irish Franciscan community in the city, for instance, fought on the famous landmark of Charles Bridge along with the Jesuit students of the university. According to R.J. Kelly, the Irish contingent was “an example and an object of reverence to everyone . . . content with the bread served out to the army and often with that alone”. Kelly concluded that they were important in keeping the siege at bay, to the extent that “The Bohemians owe more to the Irish Franciscans than book-learning”.94 Some respite might be expected to have come for the people of Bohemia as a result of the signing of a ‘preliminary peace’ between Sweden and the Empire at Osnabrück on 6 August. Evidently, news did not filter through quickly though, since Leslie seemed incandescent with rage in a letter of 11 August, in which he blamed another Imperial general, Rudolf Colloredo, for the loss of the entire Kleinseite or Lesser Town of the capital.95 Nine days later, the count reported that the Swedes had taken large numbers of imperialists as prisoners.96 Prague’s fate seems particularly cruel given the situation thirty years previously and the promising signs emerging from Westphalia. But the Bohemian crown lands had once again become the focus of attention of all the surrounding European powers as they had been thirty years before. As Piccolomini put it: “From the liberation of Bohemia hangs the peace, the preservation of the Imperial lands and the good name of the army”. By 26 September, Leslie had moved on from Linz to Vienna, from where he awaited the signing of a treaty that might finally end the assault of the Swedes and bring about a general peace.97 Exasperated, he reported that the other princes of the Empire, including Bavaria, yearned for a means to end the seemingly unstoppable deluge from

94 The Irish friars in Prague published a considerable number of Latin works throughout the latter half of the seventeenth century and later. See R.J. Kelly, ‘The Irish Franciscans in Prague (1629–1788)’, in Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 12 (Dublin: 1922), 169–174. 95 11 August 1648, Linz, Leslie to Piccolomini in DBBT, VII, no. 1153. 96 20 August 1648, Linz, Leslie to Piccolomini in DBBT, VII, no. 1161. Leslie reported that the population of Prague were enduring severe food shortages. 97 26 September 1648, Vienna, Leslie to Piccolomini in DBBT, VII, no. 1187.

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the north.98 On 24 October, the long-awaited peace treaty was signed in Münster, although again, news took some time for the news to reach Leslie, whose state of high tension remains palpable. An atmosphere of suspicion lingered in the air for some months, since the Swedes made no preparations to disband their army and leave Bohemian soil. Indeed, four days later—while celebratory bonfires were presumably already burning out in Westphalia—the troubled Leslie prophesied doom: nothing less than the impending loss of the entire kingdom to the invaders from the north.99 Fortunately, the news of a peace settlement must have come through to him very shortly after. Piccolomini for one, heard on 8 November while on the march from the Upper Palatinate.100 As a result, the Italian began to make his way back to Vienna where Leslie lent his representative (a man named Formarini) a sum of money, so as to find some temporary lodgings.101 On 20 November, discussions about the withdrawal of Sweden began and Leslie could breath easily once more. The war was over.102 This chapter has shifted the focus towards an analysis of the correspondence between Walter Leslie and Ottavio Piccolomini, and the efforts of the Austrian Habsburgs to develop an effective foreign policy of their own in the last five years of the Thirty Years’ War. One example of this, their position towards the Stuart kingdoms, has been shown to have been at increasing variance with that of their cousins in Madrid. At the same time, however, the frustrated 98 He did not believe that Sweden would be content with the possession of ports in Pomerania alone that was being offered to them at the negotiations. Meanwhile, the Imperial army in Bohemia were “going up in smoke”. See 26 September 1648, Vienna, Leslie to Piccolomini in DBBT, VII, no. 1187. 99 28 October 1648, Vienna, Leslie to Piccolomini in DBBT, VII, no. 1203. Leslie thought the loss of Prague to be inevitable, if “undeserved”. 100 See Piccolomini’s ADB entry. Leslie had still not heard by early November. See 4 November 1648, Vienna, Leslie to Piccolomini in DBBT, VII, no. 1208. In a state of some distress, he reported the emperor’s dismay and his disatisfaction with the duke of Bavaria, whose “egoismus” had encumbered the rest of the proImperial forces. 101 18 November 1648, Vienna, G.B. Formarini to Piccolomini in DBBT, VII, no. 1213. Leslie reported that the entire court was preparing for the general’s arrival 102 20 November 1648, Klattau, Piccolomini to Leslie in DBBT, VII, no. 1214. Discussions relating to the withdrawal of the Swedes from Bohemia had taken place. On a less optimistic note, the general believed that the Elector of Bavaria had ambitions to direct his own army now, irrespective of the best interests of the Empire. Such greed, Piccolomini expressed disapprovingly, was leading Maximilian I “to act out a sweet comedy” with Ferdinand III.

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efforts of the imperialists’ Scottish, English and Irish supporters to come to an agreement with both Piccolomini and Lisola has also featured. As with the Spanish connection, a Stuart-Austrian Habsburg political relationship never truly existed after 1643. Leslie, Gordon and Ogilvie may have been all that remained of the ambitious, if amorphous group of military entrepreneurs who had left Scotland and travelled a crooked path to serve the armies of the house of Austria since 1618. The count’s life, in particular had taken an unusual course, following his abandonment of all moves in the direction of an independent agreement with respect to the Palatinate. He had finally established a career for himself in the Patrimonial Lands, based on the support of patrons and brokers from amongst the upper ranks of the Austrian Habsburg aristocracy.

CONCLUSION

The preceding chapters have sought to link the activities of a mercurial body of Scottish exiles, expatriates, and sojourners: a collection of soldiers and politically and religiously motivated agents who were dispersed towards the southern and south-eastern perimeter of a vast diaspora in Europe. But the analysis has actually covered events that took place across an even broader section of the continent and the North Sea world: an area encompassing the Gaelic world to its far north-west, the Gulf of Gda…sk at its furthest point east, with Sicily and the Gulf of Cádiz at each end of its southernmost edge. Such an approach has been required so as to allow for the assessment of networks of significance in the lives of men such as William Semple in Madrid, James Maxwell in Brussels, and Walter Leslie in Vienna (or in several other of the many bases of the Holy Roman Emperor during the 1618–48 period). It has been shown how a favourable resolution to the Palatinate issue had been a political objective for most of the Scots in the Patrimonial Lands all along, besides becoming an issue of increasing significance to their compatriots in Madrid as the war dragged on. While commitment to the cause of the ‘winter queen’ and her family was not quite universal amongst the Scottish contingent in either Habsburg polity (although an important feature for most) three other points of connection have been drawn out so as to bind all of these individuals together. First, all the courts mentioned above were landlocked. It has been shown how the Scottish representatives at the three major Habsburg centres of government had, of necessity, travelled on from first points of arrival elsewhere: on the Baltic, North Sea or even possibly the Mediterranean coasts. These initial contacts with the European mainland, especially those with the Low Countries, had continued to be influential. In the case of Walter Leslie and John Gordon, for example, earlier experiences in the United Provinces had introduced them to a web of kith and kin on the continent, connections that they renewed in later life. Slightly to the south, the Spanish-administered section of the Netherlands, most importantly the Douai college, played a similar role for many of the Scots in Spanish service. Second, careers dependent on the whims

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of courtier patrons were never secure in early-modern Europe: of the twenty or more Scots who received patronage at the Habsburg courts from 1618–48, even the most successful of them became accustomed to wandering throughout the continent in search of employment thereafter. Several of those in the Imperial army, including Leslie, Gordon and George Ogilvie, joined Habsburg armies having already served in the armed forces of other major powers. Moreover, diminishing supplies of patronage forced two of this group, Gordon and John Henderson, to move on from the emperor’s court (an option that even Leslie considered as late as 1648). Of those who made their bases in Spain or the Spanish Netherlands, both William and Hugh Semple comprised part of a larger, highly mobile group of Scotsmen as well. The parameters of their circle overlapped with those of compatriots living as soldiers, students or monks in locations such as France, Poland-Lithuania and the Papal States. Indeed, given the itinerant nature of the careers of all the Scots at the Habsburg courts and the important role of the Low Countries as a meeting point for all, what seems more surprising (and also in part a reflection of the divergence between the policies of the Austrian and Spanish Habsburgs in the period) is that there were apparently so few personal contacts between the Scots in ‘Austria’ and the Scots in ‘Spain’. A third factor in explaining the broad scope of this book is related to the previous two. The political environments in which the Scots in Habsburg service made, and often broke their fortune, were by their very nature, international. In order to be successful within these circles, a linguistic aptitude was required in two or more European languages. The Scots were no different in this way from any other aspiring courtiers in the Habsburg world, as their surviving correspondence in various combinations of Latin, Spanish, Italian, German, English and Scots makes clear. Assessing the activities of the Scottish clients of the Habsburgs in the context of the endeavours of the Scots in Europe more generally, two firm conclusions can be drawn. The first of these is that their intrigues show the courts and parliaments of Scandinavia and northern Europe to have been by no means the only major, foreign centres for Scottish, pro-Palatinate diplomacy during the Thirty Years’ War. Furthermore, their presence in both Spanish and Austrian Habsburg conglomerates challenges the notion that Valois France was invariably the country’s strongest link to ‘Catholic’ Europe in the period between the Union of the Crowns and the beginnings of

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the Jacobite movement in 1688. The second point, which this book has sought to emphasise, is that neither 1618 nor 1638 marked the end of the significant contribution of Catholic and Episcopalian Scots to domestic and European politics. On the contrary, their initiatives in the Habsburg world elucidate a critical aspect of the royalist response in Britain and Ireland during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. With respect to Scotland, an important re-evaluation of early contributions to the covenanting cause arising from the country’s connections with France, the United Provinces, Sweden and, to a lesser extent, Denmark-Norway, has recently been made.1 Preceding chapters in this book support the case that expatriate involvement in Charles I’s forces should be given more attention too. Besides, it would appear that much post-1945 historiography on the relation of events within the Stuart kingdoms to the political, social and economic ‘General Crisis’ of global proportions that has been posited for the mid-century, has missed a point that troubled contemporaries such as the Bohemian exile, Wenceslaus Hollar. Hollar made an engraving during the 1640s, which explicitly compared events in post-1618 Bohemia and post-1638 Scotland.2 Yet the opening of the Iron Curtain seems to have gone unnoticed by more recent researchers of the period. With a few notable exceptions, when Stuart historians of the late twentieth century looked to catholicised regions of the European continent, they still tended to focus on France and the Iberian peninsula. Hence, another major objective of this book has been to show that, regarding Scotland, more overt similarities for the 1618–48 period—in religious, and perhaps also political aspects—can be found with another kingdom within a larger ‘multiple monarchy’ further east.3

1

Murdoch, ‘Scotland, Scandinavia and the bishops’ wars’. Griffiths et al. Wenceslaus Hollar, 42. For Hollar and Arundel, see 230 above. Few books on the Thirty Years’ War mention the involvement of the Stuart kingdoms. Two notable exceptions, however, are Poli“enskÿ, Thirty Years War and Parker, ed. Thirty Years’ War. As for historians of Scotland, Lee dismisses the possibility of including Scotland within the context of a ‘General Crisis’. Following the approach of Parker and Smith, Cowan is more open to continental and other European comparisons, however. See M. Lee, ‘Scotland and the General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century’, in SHR, 63 (1984), 136–154; E.J. Cowan, ‘The Making of the National Covenant’ in J. Morrill, ed. The Scottish National Covenant in its British context, 1638–51 (Edinburgh: 1989), 69–89; Parker and Smith, ‘Introduction’, 1–31. 3 For some comparisons between the political culture of the modern-day, devolved 2

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Bohemia had been the epicentre for both the commencement and the end of an extremely violent, thirty-year long eruption, to a great extent over religious freedoms: a war which cannot be separated from a wider crisis that had taken place both within and outside the Holy Roman Empire, thus, a conflagration in which the Spanish Habsburgs were deeply implicated. The confessional issues had been tackled through the negotiations at Münster and Osnabruck, where a settlement was achieved which proved to be highly influential on future peace treaties. A greater level of tolerance is usually reckoned by experts to have been a feature of the German-speaking lands in the immediate, post-war period, even if the normative date of 1624, determined in Westphalia, undoubtedly ruined the prospects for the various Protestant outposts in the Imperial lands. But the Empire as a whole remained a diverse assortment of territories united under little else but the threatened principle of cuius regio eius religio.4 Clearly, the treaty had come too late to influence the course of events in the Stuart kingdoms: there had been no representative from the offshore isles at the Westphalian negotiations. It was only slightly over three months after the signing of the Peace on 24 October 1648 that Charles I was executed, once again setting the people of Britain and Ireland on a divergent, if no less difficult path from the bulk of Christendom.5

institutions of the United Kingdom and the pre-1918 Habsburg regime in central Europe, see Tom Nairn, After Britain: New Labour and the Return of Scotland (London: 2000), 25, 29, 295 and the same author’s The Enchanted Glass: Britain and its Monarchy (London: 1988), 175. 4 A number of revisionist works have emerged in the English language over recent years, including John G. Gagliardo, Germany under the Old Regime, 1600–1790 (London: 1991); Peter H. Wilson, The Holy Roman Empire, 1495–1806 (London: 1999). 5 The possibility of the Westphalian Treaty having been influential for the ScottishEnglish union of 1707, is considered in John Robertson, ‘Empire and Union’, 25. Even following the regal union, John Russell had pointed with admiration to some continental examples whereby the separate political identities of the various territories were, he believed, maintained. He referred, not only to those parliaments still extant in the dependencies of the Spanish monarchy, but also praised the federal structure of the Holy Roman Empire with its estates’ based parliaments. Russell wrote: for albeit the Imperor be stylit King of the Romaines, Germanie, Sicile, Jerusalem, Ungarie, Bohemia, Dalamatia, Croatia, Archduke of Austria, Duik of Burgundie, all this natiounes ar unitit to the Impyir with many utheris, yit nanae of the saidis natiounes ressaves alteratioun in thair estait, lauis, liberteis and priviledgis. See Russell, ‘A Treatise of the happie and blissed Unioun’ 97.

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What of the post-1648 period? Did either the Treaty of Westphalia or the regicide alter the lives of the Scottish veterans at the Habsburg courts in a dramatic way? Certainly six of them remained in (or else returned to) one or other of the dynasty’s realms after the winter of 1648–9, to take up prominent military positions: Father Semple and the earl of Crawford in the Spanish dependencies, alongside Leslie, Gordon, Ogilvie and John Henderson in the Patrimonial Lands. As has been elucidated, barring perhaps Crawford and Henderson, none of these men had been involved in intrigues involving Scotland since 1643. Nevertheless, it is clear that their lives remained significant. In some instances, study of their activities in the Cromwellian era, and in Leslie’s case, the period following the English Restoration, would be a very useful addition to current knowledge. With respect to the Spanish dependencies, Crawford reported from Madrid in 1649, that the prince of Wales could expect the support of Philip IV should he be crowned Charles II.6 In November 1650, the earl appears to have been colonel and governor of two Scottish tercios based at Badajoz, near the Portuguese border, following which he left for France (Spain’s adversary until 1659) where he died in 1652 or 1653.7 Hugh Semple S.J. restored connections with the proStuart political world slightly later than Crawford, in 1651, when he wrote from the Castilian capital to Edward Hyde, who had recently returned from a mission to Spain. Semple enclosed a number of books on the reign of Philip II, expressing his desire that these might be exchanged for the latest histories of Scotland. Apparently, he continued to see the survival of Catholicism in Scotland as being dependent on support for the Stuart dynasty, thus renewing a royalist stance adopted in 1638.8 Not for the first time, his actions would have horrified his late uncle, William. In the Patrimonial Lands, John Henderson returned to the Imperial court during the 1650s, from where he worked as an agent for both Cromwellian and royalist causes. In one letter, he stated that he had left the service of the emperor, for whom his father and two brothers had lost their lives, and where he himself had become “ruined”

6

Cowan, Montrose, 271. R.A. Stradling, Spain’s struggle for Europe, 1598–1668 (London: 1994), 266. 8 7 February 1651, Madrid, Hugh Semple S.J. to Edward Hyde in ClSP, II, no. 409. Father Semple died in Madrid on 29 September 1654. 7

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alongside his “wife and eleven children”.9 The elusive Colonel Gunn was based in Vienna during 1649. Four years later, this same man received an appointment from the emperor “to some post of honour”.10 Meanwhile, George Ogilvie seems to have remained at the Spielberg in Moravia. He wrote to the first earl of Airlie on 27 August 1649, referring to him as his “Chief ” and, according to one account, “informing him that he had been admitted to the title of Earl in Germany as a Cadet of the House of Airlie”. In 1657, Ogilvie became commandant at Brünn. He died there four years later, leaving a wife, Euphrasia Veronica de Reichsperg, along with two sons, and five daughters.11 John Gordon did not survive for so long. According to a letter of Walter Leslie’s, while travelling from Hamburg to Bohemia in May 1648, Gordon had been stopped by a Swedish division and brought to Wismar. Following this he had been held captive, and a high ransom demanded for his release. Leslie claimed to have arranged this in November 1648, when he described Gordon as a man to whom he and Piccolomini were “extremely indebted”.12 Indeed, the count appears to have had an outlying debt of 7,000 florins to pay to his former commander, which Gordon cancelled by

9 31 January 1655, Cologne, John Henderson to Edward Hyde, in ClSP, III, no. 37. A John Henderson is mentioned in 1657, as having received a letter of recommendation from the king of Poland, presumably for his part in the Northern Wars of the period. See Schmidhofer, ‘Das irische’, 61. 10 Fischer, Scots in Germany, 283; 14 November 1653, the earl of Clarendon to Colonel Gunn in ClSP, II, no. 1507. Hyde congratulated him on his appointment. Gunn appears to have been employed by the earl of Rochester as an agent. 11 Schmidhofer, ‘Das irische’, 61; Ruvigny, Nobilities, 359. Ogilvie renewed his defence of the Spielberg as war broke out again from 1654–60. On 7 January 1661, Ogilvie was buried in the Raigern Abbey in the town. See D’Elvert, Der Spielberg, 21; Poli“enskÿ, Thirty Years’ War, 226. His son, George Benedict, went on to achieve renown and the admiration of none less than Peter the Great. He fought in the Turkish Wars as commander of the fortress of Belgrade, and fought on the victorious side at the siege of Oradea (Grosswardein/Nagyvárad) in 1692. He then took up a diplomatic post in Poland. George Benedict’s son, and thus George Ogilvie’s grandson, Karl Hermann Ogilvie, was an equally prominent Imperial general, who based himself largely in Bohemia. He is recorded as having served during the War of the Spanish Succession in 1704 and against the Ottomans in 1716. He was also appointed as commander of Prague in 1740, at the commencement of the War of the Austrian Succession. A portrait of George Benedict Ogilvie in his capacity as an Imperial Field Marshall can be seen in the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum in Vienna. Both one of his sons and a grandson also spent their adult lives as officers in Imperial service in turn. See Schmidhofer, ‘Das irische’, 200; Barker, Army, Aristocracy, Monarchy, 51. 12 25 November 1648, Vienna, Leslie to Piccolomini in DBBT, VII, no. 1220.

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means of his will, on the agreement that Leslie support his heirs and promote their reputation with the emperor.13 Perhaps since he had no offspring of his own, Gordon was equally generous regarding the rest of his money, possessions and property. Besides providing financial help for his regiment, it emerges that he had lent separate sums to the towns of Liegnitz (Legnica) and Neisse (Nysa) in Silesia. Moreover, the will bequeathed his Bohemian estates to three women—two halfsisters, Judith Norn and Anna Weach, and a Margaret Weach— while leaving further property to two nephews through his half-sisters, and another sum to four nieces, all of whom were apparently living in the Netherlands.14 John Gordon died in Danzig at some point during 1649, but was buried in the Nieuve Kerk in Delft in the United Provinces.15 It is appropriate to conclude with Walter Leslie since, down to 1648, his career had, more than that of any other, linked proPalatinate activities in the two worlds of Austria Hispanica and Austria Germanica. Leslie’s acquisition of new estates in Inner Austria seems to have confirmed the opening of a new arena for him on the southeastern edges of the Habsburg lands. Besides receiving a prestigious appointment to the position of Feldmarschall on 23 August 1650, Leslie

13 In his chapter on Gordon, J.M. Bulloch printed his will. See Bulloch, ‘ScotoAustrian’, 40. 14 Besides the two estates at Smidary and Skrivany, Gordon had property in the cities of Bremen and Hamburg, in Holland and perhaps elsewhere in Bohemia. Information about these is scanty. At Hamburg, a minister of the English congregation looked after one of his trunks. Gordon also seems to have acquired a large piece of land elsewhere along with further possessions that he kept in a “little black coffer” at the house of his friend, a John Cruickshank, in Vienna. One source states that he decided that his nephews should receive a share in his financial legacy only on condition that “they do not live in Scotland, but in the county of Holland, Brabant or Friesland”. His will also requested further legacies to be made to his smith, butler, gardener, brewer and other employees on his Bohemian estates. His persistent adherence to Calvinism is demonstrated in his bequeathing of two communion cups to the Scots Kirk in Rotterdam. See Bulloch, ‘Scoto-Austrian’, 41 and Chapter Five above. 15 Gordon did not live to see the results of the law-suit of 1650 which led to the unusual step for the Habsburgs of returning an estate of one of the post-1620 nobility (in this case Skrivany) to its previous owner. This was Krystof Erazim Zumrfeld of Tumnice. Gordon’s chosen successors, since they were not Catholic, had been excluded from the right to take possession of the property. However, Gordon seems to have realised this obstacle before his death since, according to some sources, Smidary was sold to the Imperial general Rudolf Colloredo, and the profits sent abroad. See Ruvigny, Nobilities, 311; Schmidhofer, ‘Das irische’, 43, 54, 184; Barker, Army, Aristocracy, Monarchy, 50; Mann, Wallenstein, 825; Bulloch, ‘Scoto-Austrian’, 40.

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became warden of the ‘Sclavonian marches’ and a general on the so-called ‘Croatian-Slavonian military frontier’ (militärgrenze or vojna krajina) that year.16 In 1656, the count bought the hilltop castle of Oberpettau (Gornji Ptuj) in Styria at a Jesuit auction in Zagreb, by which time he had also added properties in Prague, Graz and Warasdin (Vara≥din, Croatia) to his list of possessions. Besides, in 1657, he received a further promotion, to the Vice-Presidency of the Imperial War Council (Hofkriegsrat).17 He also showed a less selfish side to his character by resuming correspondence with his Scottish relatives during the 1650s, whereupon he started to make typically precise and orchestrated plans for the succession and inheritance of his estates. Unlike in Scotland, where a tradition of primogeniture led to the eldest son alone being entitled to inherit the status and lands of his father, the system in the Habsburg lands remained less clear-cut. Consequently, in 1655, in the lack of any offspring from his marriage to Anna Franziska, Leslie arranged the establishment of an entail (Fideikommiss) so that his nephew James, son of his brother Alexander of Tullos, might inherit his estates in the Patrimonial Lands.18 By then, as the count 16 This was an institution first introduced by Ferdinand I in 1553, a response to the loss of huge swathes of Hungary in 1526, an event that laid the south-eastern frontier of the Habsburg lands open to new attacks from the vast area of Hungary that the Ottomans and Transylvania now occupied. Seeking to revive what had become a long-standing tradition of military colonisation in the area, the emperor had ordered the construction of a system of permanent defence fortresses and the levying of a tax for the maintenance of a new standing army, to be supplied from a massive stock of arms in Graz. Large parts of the enormous arsenal there, consisting of at least 32,000 weapons of various kinds, can be seen to this day in the armoury (Landeszeughaus) of the Styrian Regional Museum. 17 As has been discussed already, Leslie renovated his properties at Neustadt an der Mettau. See Chapter Seven above. But he did the same at Oberpettau, a property at which he spent more and more time at after 1656. See my article, ‘“On the high post-way between Vienna and Venice”: The Leslie family in Slovenia’ in Polona Vidmar ed. Zapu“‘ina rodbine Leslie na ptujskem gradu (Ptuj: 2002), 81–6; Marjeta Ciglene‘ki, ‘Dru≥ini Leslie in Herberstein Ter Oprema Njihovih Gradov Hrastovec, Vurberg in Ptuj’ in Marjeta Ciglene‘ki and Maximilian Grothaus, eds. Sre‘anje z Jutrovim na Ptujskem Gradu (Ptuj: 1992), 44–52. See also the same author’s ‘Zapu“‘ina Dru≥ine Leslie na Ptujskem Gradu’ in Kronika: ’asopis za Slovensko Krajevo Zgodovino (Ptuj: 1992), 171–176; Igor Weigl, ‘In a caftan before the emperor, with the haiduks around Graz and with a library in Ptuj: The counts Leslie and their city and country residences in the 17th and the 18th century’ in Vidmar ed. Zapu“‘ina rodbine Leslie, 88–96. 18 This was different from the Spanish mayorazgo form of inheritance, a widely used form of entail, which could not be broken without Crown permission, but yet could sometimes be inherited through the female line. Nevertheless, the arranging

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was obviously aware, the situation had become treacherous for the family at Balquhain, the most notable of whom had been forced into exile on the continent. This can be seen in the situation as it stood in 1655, when what remained of their Aberdeenshire estate lay theoretically in the hands of William, the thirteenth baron, who had succeeded in fleeing for Holland before the king’s execution in 1649.19 On one hand, William Leslie would seem to have been successful in demonstrating the family’s uncanny ability to travel widely in restoring their dismal fortunes. On the other hand, however, he failed to produce a male heir. Thus, in William’s absence, the Balquhain lands had been due to fall into the hands of Walter. Deeming it more important to remain in Inner Austria and coach his nephew James, the count renounced his rights in this respect to Alexander of Tullos, for the sum of 700 merks to be paid in annuity. Some years later, he agreed to have Alexander of Tullos’ annual payments made instead to the exiled baron: an arrangement confirmed by means of a letter dated 17 February 1660. Walter Leslie also continued to help the same laird of Tullos (described to the Privy Council as a “Papist delinquent” by the presbytery of Aberdeen in 1661) repay debts on the family estate, allowing Balquhain Castle to be “restored to its ancient splendour” once more.20 Furthermore, in 1662, he sent back money again, and arranged for Alexander to be awarded the title of Reichsgraf, an honour that was bestowed on 31 May that year. Besides, in his will of 27 May 1663, Leslie left money, not only for Count Alexander, but for two other brothers, Patrick and Francis James.21 of a Fideikommiss had become common amongst the Hofadel by that time. See Thompson, ‘Nobility in Spain’, 194; Melton, ‘Nobility in the Bohemian and Austrian Lands’, 127; Igor Weigl, ‘In a caftan before the emperor’. 19 The eleventh baron had only the castle at Balquhain left to pass on to his eldest son, John. Moreover, he was killed in Russian service in 1655. See Leslie, His. Rec. Les:, III, 93–95 and, for the thirteenth baron, Chapter Eight (footnote 61) above. This was the same man who had benefitted from Walter Leslie’s generosity during the 1640s by obtaining a position at Charles I’s court. 20 Leslie, His. Rec. Les, I, 98; Forbes Leith, ed. Memoirs of Scottish Catholics, II, 393. 21 Leslie, His. Rec. Les, I, 113. Other Leslies came over from Scotland to the Patrimonial Lands in Walter’s lifetime, perhaps attracted by the prestigious presents being bestowed on the thirteenth baron and Alexander of Tullos, by their long-lost relative. James’ brother, another Alexander, came to serve under Mansfeld, according to Colonel Leslie’s account. He later swapped his allegiance to the Imperial side, and married a Cressentia Christina Herberstein, leaving a son, Francis James, of whom nothing is known other than that he died in 1700. Alexander accompanied his brother James at the 1683 Siege of Vienna, where he died. Another brother,

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In later years, besides benevolence towards his family, Leslie also rose in status at the Imperial court. By 1664, the Sultan’s forces were occupying lands just a few miles to the south and east of his Oberpettau estate, a situation that led to the battle of St. Gotthard (Szentgotthárd) that summer. After receiving the Order of the Golden Fleece the following year (thereby moving along a comparable path to that pursued by the less consistent earl of Argyll forty years previously) Emperor Leopold I sent Leslie on a last, lavish Imperial embassy to Constantinople, to ratify the accompanying peace treaty.22 Subsequent to his wearying return up the Danube in early 1666, however, Leslie’s health was poor. Although the sixty-one year old count recuperated enough to see his nephew James marry a member of the Liechtenstein family that year—a wedding attended by Leopold I—he died on 3 March 1667.23 Leslie was buried in the Benedictine ‘Abbey of the Scots’ (Schottenkirche) in Vienna. The combined Leslie-Dietrichstein coat-of-arms can be seen there to this day.24

William Aloysius S.J. arrived also. After a period as canon at Breslau, he published a family genealogy in Graz in 1692, presumably whilst staying with his brother. 22 Both James and another nephew, Baron Francis Hay of Delgaty, the son of his sister, Elizabeth, travelled with the embassy. 23 James’ marriage in 1666, was a major event in the Habsburg social calendar. The sum was paid for in its entirety by his uncle. See 12 March 1666, Ofen, Leslie to Montecuccoli, in KA Alte Feldakten 1666 13/2. In this letter, Leslie also recommends to his brother-in-law Montecuccoli, that his nephew be used as a source of information on the results of the Ottoman embassy. 24 James Leslie’s life is just as interesting and worthy of a biography as that of his uncle. Notwithstanding his role as an Imperial field marshall at Vienna in 1683, he commanded regiments against the Turks on the south-eastern Habsburg-Ottoman frontier on repeated occasions, one notable instance taking place in 1685 when he and 30,000 imperialists destroyed the bridge over the Danube at Essick (Osijek, Croatia). As president of the Inner Austrian War Council and a Privy Councillor, Leslie also renovated the property at Neustadt an der Mettau as a military hospital, and acquired many more estates and properties. Count James died childless, but his successor, James Ernest, was able to continue the male-line of this branch which then survived for two further generations. Another connection was William Leslie, son of the fifth Laird of Warthill, who visited Count James at Ptuj and went on to become bishop of Waitzen (Vác, Hungary) and finally, Prince of the Holy Roman Empire and Bishop of Laibach (Ljubljana, Slovenia) from 1717–29. His letters from Graz and Oberpettau to a Mr. H. Hughes from 1685–88 give details of Turkish advances into Bosnia and on the nearby Ottoman-Habsburg frontier. They also detail the time he spent with Count James. See BL Add Mss 41, 842. During the 1740s and 50s, a legal dispute involving the fourth Count Leslie, Charles Cajetan and James Leslie of Pitcaple took place, over the former’s claims to the right to succeed at Balquhain. Charles Cajetan’s son Anthony, the fifth count, also spent some time in Scotland on a similar mission but died in 1802. See UA, ‘P Lambda Leslie Ja, f p Lambda Lawsuits Les c’. The ‘Austrian’ Leslie direct family line hence came to an end.

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This brief description of Walter Leslie’s career from 1648–67 confirms him to have been a man whose attention remained divided between two worlds. On one hand, it has been shown that the maintenance of contacts with his family in north-east Scotland remained a major priority to him, even forty years after having left Balquhain. On the other hand, his long-held determination to establish firmer roots in Danubian Europe has also been conveyed. If Walter Leslie had died in 1648 rather than 1667, a similar assessment of his life could have been made. Through his correspondence with the likes of Lord Feilding and Sir George Shawe, along with his close friendships with John Taylor, Lord Arundel and Sir Thomas Roe, Leslie had worked consistently for the promotion of good relations between the Austrian Habsburg and Stuart monarchies since 1635. Undoubtedly, he, Taylor and Arundel had found little opportunity to put to the test those plans for the Palatinate that they had developed during 1635–7. Leslie’s diplomatic relationship with Roe had been slightly different. Roe had recognised Leslie’s usefulness as an intermediary regarding the fate of the Palatinate family even if he seems to have had little time for any notions of the proposed offensive and defensive alliance still favoured by the count as late as 1643. But it was certainly not beyond Leslie to refocus his political perspective as the situation dictated. S.C. Lomas drew attention to this aspect of his character in the introduction to the Historical Manuscripts Commission’s publication of Lord Feilding’s papers. Writing at the beginning of the twentieth century, Lomas was unable to resist the urge to speculate on the possible psychological motivations for the count’s seemingly tireless diplomacy, writing: “Leslie . . . did not forget his British blood and seems to have been sincerely desirous, though but with small hopes of success, to bring about a good understanding between the courts of St. James and Vienna”.25 Without falling into the trap of making the same kind of speculation as regards his personality, based on an insufficient amount of evidence, her view is surely a blinkered one. Leslie was a paradoxical figure who is difficult to pigeonhole, especially after 1643, even if it remains fascinating to speculate as to his psychological profile. Schmidhofer, Barker and others have come to much less favourable conclusions about the count, primarily based on his

25

S.C. Lomas, ‘Introduction’ in Denbigh Papers V, vi.

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unpopular role in the assassination of Wallenstein. However, Lomas, in stating that Leslie actions are explicable as an expression of pride for “British blood” made an equally misleading assessment, based on a similarly partial reading of the sources for the 1630s and 1640s. Despite being a staunch, if sometimes self-seeking defender of royal authority in two ‘multiple kingdoms’, it is highly unlikely that the count ever referred to ‘Britain’ as a motivating force. Financial impoverishment had been the over-riding factor in forcing Leslie to leave Balquhain in the first place, while his political conservatism and sense of dynastic loyalty down to 1648, fitted as well with his career as a courtier and ‘private gentleman’ as much as it enabled him to act as a political intermediary. These were attitudes that contrasted sharply with those expressed by William Semple and the other Scottish militants in Madrid from 1618–25. Indeed, the parallels with the Scoto-Spanish intrigues of Walter Stuart, Hugh Semple S.J., the earl of Buchan, and Colonels Bruce and Henderson aside, it seems that John Gordon and George Ogilvie shared Leslie’s stance most closely. In a curious way, the opinions held by these three men—Leslie, Gordon and Ogilvie— were typical of those of many in the two, otherwise incongruous societies that they knew best: rural north-east Scotland and the cosmopolitan world of the post-1618 Austrian Habsburg administration.

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Map 1. The Habsburgs in Europe c. 1618.

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Map 2. Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia c. 1634.

APPENDIX 1

SCOTS AT THE HABSBURG COURTS, 1618 TO 1648

SIR ROBERT ANSTRUTHER

Patrimonial Lands/ H.R.E.

(1630) sent as Stuart representative to Ferdinand II and to the Imperial Diet at Ratisbon. (1631–2) returned to Ratisbon.

SIR WILLIAM BALFOUR

Spanish Netherlands

(1631) sent by Charles I to ‘pay compliments to Marie de Medici’.

GILBERT BLACKHALL

Spanish Netherlands

(1632–3) employed by Lady Isabella Hay to arrange a pension for her at the court of the Archduchess Isabella in Brussels.

HENRY BRUCE Patrimonial Lands/ H.R.E.

(1609–19) served at the court of Archduke Ferdinand of Styria (the future Ferdinand II). (1619–20) governor for Cardinal Dietrichstein on his Moravian estate, then returned to Scotland.

ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL, SEVENTH EARL OF ARGYLL

Spanish Netherlands

(1618–20) spent time at the court of Archduke Albert and the Archduchess Isabella in Brussels. (1622) returned to Spanish Netherlands. (1624) received Order of the Golden Fleece; remained in Spanish Netherlands until 1626.

DAVID COLVILLE

Spain

(1617–27) lectured in Hebrew, Arabic and Greek at the Escorial, also an interpreter to Philip III, from whom he received a pension of 600 ducats; correspondent of William Semple and George Con.

ALEXANDER DAVIDSON

Spanish Netherlands

(1632) attached to the court of the Archduchess Isabella.

JAMES ERSKINE, EARL OF BUCHAN

Spain

(1637–9) held discussions with count of Oñate in London regarding a ‘secret treaty’; went to Madrid in late 1638 or early 1639 in an attempt to ‘restore a universal peace’; received 4,000 ducats

288

  from Philip IV following the intervention of Hugh Semple S.J. over a treaty for the Palatinate.

JOHN GORDON

Patrimonial Lands/ H.R.E.

(1634) involved in assassination of Wallenstein, received Bohemian estates and Imperial ‘golden chain’ as reward.

JAMES GRAHAM, MARQUIS OF MONTROSE

Patrimonial Lands/ H.R.E. + Spanish Netherlands

(1648) met Ferdinand III in Prague, who offered him a commanding position in the Imperial army; went as recommended to Archduke Leopold William in Brussels to recruit soldiers for royalist effort.

LADY ISABELLA HAY

Spanish Netherlands

(1633) based at the court of the Archduchess Isabella.

JOHN HENDERSON

Patrimonial Lands/ H.R.E.

(1634–5) signed the Pilsen agreement in support of General Wallenstein, but was promoted after the assassination and sent to Augsburg by Ferdinand II on a mission to bring the Duke of SaxeWeimar back onto the Imperial side; continued to be employed sporadically as both a Stuart and Cromwellian spy in central Europe until 1655.

COUNT WALTER LESLIE

Patrimonial Lands/ H.R.E. + Spanish Netherlands

(1634) involved in assassination of Wallenstein; appointed Imperial Chamberlain, received Bohemian estate and Imperial ‘golden chain’ as reward. (1636–43) Stuart-Habsburg intermediary at Ratisbon Electoral meeting, subsequent correspondent with leading Stuart courtiers. (1637) appointed Count of the Holy Roman Empire. (1639) Imperial envoy to Spanish Netherlands. (1645) Imperial ambassador to Naples, Rome. Later appointments included: (1650) governor on the ‘Croatian-Slavonian military frontier’, (1657) Vice-President of Imperial War Council, (1665) Order of the Golden Fleece, (1665–6) Imperial ambassador to Constantinople; died in 1667.

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289

? LOCKHART

Spain

(1625) negotiated with William Semple and Olivares in Madrid.

RAGHNAILL OG OF KEPPOCH

Spanish Netherlands

(1618) spent time in the Spanish Netherlands along with James MacDonald of Dunnyveg.

JAMES Spanish MACDONALD Netherlands OF DUNNYVEG

(1615–20) spent time at the court of Archduke Albert and the Infanta Isabella in Brussels.

JAMES MAXWELL

Spanish Netherlands + Patrimonial Lands/ H.R.E.

(1631) resided in Brussels; employed as an antiquary, genealogist and historian to Philip IV; had also visited the Imperial court.

WILLIAM MURRAY, FIRST EARL OF DYSART

Spanish Netherlands

(1632) visited Marie de Medici in the Spanish Netherlands on behalf of Charles I.

HUGH SEMPLE Spain S.J.

(1638–40) had been in Spain since 1614, but ‘employed in the business of the Palatinate’ in Madrid from 1638; corresponded with Stuart courtiers + discussed the issue with Olivares during 1639. (1640) believed he would be sent to London to negotiate a Spanish-backed plan to restitute the Palatinate.

WILLIAM SEMPLE

Spain + Spanish Netherlands

(1582–33), adviser and gentilhombre de la boca to kings Philip II, III and IV in Madrid; especially active from 1620–7 when he wrote several detailed proposals recommending the equipping of a Spanish armada and the subsequent recatholicisation of the three Stuart kingdoms, beginning with Scotland.

WALTER STUART

Spain

(1636) captain of a Stuart vessel; held discussions with Spanish representatives including the count of Oñate; went to the port of La Coruña, where he was carrying an order from Charles I; subsequently attempted to negotiate a Palatinate treaty in London with the help of Marie de Medici and her circle.

 

290 ? THOMSON

Spain

(1622) reported to Scottish Privy Council from Madrid that a new Armada was intended for the Stuart kingdoms.1

1 The sources for this table are too numerous to list here. More detail can be found relating to each individual in the relevant chronological section of the book.

APPENDIX 2

SCOTS IN THE HABSBURG ARMIES, 1618 TO 1648

SPANISH HABSBURG (COMBINED) PERIOD REGIMENT/ DETAILS UNIT 1618–25 TYRONE

ARGYLL

AUSTRIAN HABSBURG REGIMENT/ DETAILS UNIT

Colonel: earl of Tyrone (from 1620) in Spanish Netherlands; mainly Irish but included 3 Scottish companies × 200 soldiers. Captains (Scottish only): (from 1620) Juan Carpentin, (?) William Hamilton, (?–1625) Alan Semple, (?–1623). Colonel: earl of Argyll (from 1622) in Spanish Netherlands; 15–17 companies × 200 men. Captains (all): (from June 1622) earl of Argyll, George Hay, James Paton, Juan Jurd, Gualtero Minors,

?

Colonel: Henry Bruce, (1619–20) Bruce based in Nikolsburg, Bohemia, all else unknown.

?

Colonel: Griffin Markham, (1618–19, 1620–21) Markham based in Budweis, Bohemia, all else unknown.

 

292 (cont.)

PERIOD REGIMENT/ DETAILS UNIT

REGIMENT/ DETAILS UNIT

Rugier Tervite(?), Gregorio Suvel, John Robertson, Henry Lucy, Henry Gage, James Crichton, Thomas Henderson, Juan Timparley, Rugero Markham, Valentin Brun, George Shawe, Thomas Bedingfield. (from Feb. 1623) earl of Argyll, James Crichton, Walter Minons, Henry Lucy, Thomas Henderson, William Auchterlonie, Henrique Vadge, Thomas Benningfield, William Jonson, John Robertson, Gregor Seton, Gregorio Suvell, Ricardo Mornington, James Paton, Alan Semple. 1625–9

ARGYLL

Colonel: earl of Argyll (to 1627 only) 19 companies, some Scottish soldiers. Captains (all): (from Dec. 1625–1627?) Thomas

HEBRON

Colonel: Hepburn (1625–8) led two regiments periodically in Wallenstein’s army, consisting of 1000 dragoons and 600–1000 mixed

 

293

(cont.) PERIOD REGIMENT/ DETAILS UNIT

REGIMENT/ UNIT

Bedingfield, Valentine Brown, James HENDERSON Chrichton, William Hamilton, Thomas Henderson, Thomas Howard, John Hunt,—Jonson, Gregory Lovell,— Monington (?), William Auchterlonie, James Paton, Paul Raddock, Anthony Penruddock, John Robertson, George Shawe,— Semple, John Temperley.

1630–35

?

Captain: William Hamilton, (1627) led unattached company of Scottish infantry, transfered from Argyll Regiment that year.

?

Captain: TR’KA Hamilton, (to 1634) led unattached company of Scottish infantry to 1634.

DETAILS dragoons/ arquebusiers. Colonel: Thomas Henderson (1628).

Colonel: Adam Tr‘ka (1632–4) John Gordon (from 1634) LieutenantColonel: John Gordon (?–1634)

 

294 (cont.)

PERIOD REGIMENT/ DETAILS UNIT

REGIMENT/ DETAILS UNIT SergeantMajor: Walter Leslie (?–1634).

?

TYRONE

Captain: William Auchterlonie, (from 1634) led unattached company of Scottish infantry in 1634.

(1632) Gordon/ Leslie led several companies of musketeers, many Scots/ Irish, then Gordon appointed commander of Tr‘ka infantry regiment at the garrison of Eger. (Feb. 1634) Gordon commanded 1,200 infantry at garrison, then appointed colonel.

Colonel: earl of Tyrone

Captains: included George Kerr (from 1634) LESLIE

GORDON?

Colonel?: Sir Alexander Gordon, earl of Sutherland, (Dec. 1634) attempted to recruit a Scottish regiment of

Colonel: Walter Leslie (from 1634) (April 1634) Leslie appointed commander of infantry regiment.

HENDERSON

Colonel: John Henderson

 

295

(cont.) PERIOD REGIMENT/ DETAILS UNIT

REGIMENT/ UNIT

15 companies of 200 men to serve in Spanish Netherlands.

1635–48 DOUGLAS?

CRAWFORD

Captain:— Douglas, (March 1636) levied troops for a regiment ‘in England’.

Colonel: Ludovick Lindsay, sixteenth Earl of Crawford, ( Jan. 1638) Crawford commanded regiment of 3,000 infantry; (1640) raised 3,000 infantry; (1645–6) commanded a regiment of Irish in Spain.

DETAILS (from 1633) commanded a dragoon regiment, size unknown, raised under his command in Bohemia.

GRAHAM

Colonel:— Grahame ( Jan. 1632) commanded 3,000 men on Baltic coast, taken prisoner.

LESLIE

Colonel: Walter Leslie (to 1643) (1635–?) Leslie continued to command infantry regiment; (1635?–9) Leslie also recruited and commanded a dragoon regiment, broken up in 1639; (1642) one or other Leslie regiment ‘reformed’; (1643), Leslie deprived of command due to absenteeism.

 

296 (cont.)

PERIOD REGIMENT/ DETAILS UNIT

ANTRIM

REGIMENT/ UNIT

DETAILS

GORDON

Colonel: John Gordon (to 1642) LieutenantColonel: Adam Gordon (1636–?).

Captain: Diego Leslie (1646) led a company in Crawford regiment.

(1636–42) John Gordon left control of his infantry regiment to an Adam Gordon, this regiment dissolved in 1642; (1637–42?) John Gordon commanded a dragoon regiment.

Colonel: earl HENDERSON of Antrim (never served) (1645) his brother, Alexander MacColla, levied for a regiment to comprise 15 companies of 130 men including many Scots.

Colonel: John Henderson (to 1637)

COCHRANE MATTHISON GORDON

(1637) this dragoon regiment was reformed. (1638–45) Henderson continued to serve. In 1645, commanded at least 500 soldiers. Colonels:— Cochrane, Adam

 

297

(cont.) PERIOD REGIMENT/ DETAILS UNIT

REGIMENT/ UNIT

DETAILS

CRAWFORD

Gordon, Ludovick Lindsay, sixteenth Earl of Crawford,— Matthison (1636) they led four of eight regiments led by Scottish and Irish colonels, formed in Silesia, which moved on to FrancheComté with the earl of Crawford’s regiment.

ALTHENDERSON

Colonel: Thomas Henderson (1637–8) Henderson commanded this regiment from 1637–8. (1639–43) Henderson then was made colonel of another. (1643–45?) Henderson commanded an infantry regiment again.

MAXWELL

Colonel?: John Maxwell (1643–45)

298

 

(cont.) PERIOD REGIMENT/ DETAILS UNIT

REGIMENT/ DETAILS UNIT Maxwell commanded a dragoon regiment. DE SOUCHES Colonel: Raduit de Souches LieutenantColonel: George Ogilvy. (from 1641) Ogilvy recruited and commanded the garrison at the Spielberg fortress. HOG?

1

Colonel?: Robert Hog (pre-1648) Captains: included John Forbes.1

The material relating to the Spanish dependencies all comes from AGRB T100, Vols. 5–47, 145, 295, 363–382, excepting the 1625 Argyll regimental list, which is from Loomie, ‘Gondomar’s selection’, 580. The ‘Austrian’ material is derived from several different sources, most significantly the relevant volumes of the DBBT; Schmidhofer, ‘Das irische’, 41–60.

APPENDIX 3

THE SCOTS AND IRISH AT EGER AND THEIR POST -1634 CAREERS IN IMPERIAL SERVICE

NAME/ MARRIAGE DETAILS

PROPERTY (acquired in 1634 unless stated)

MAIN IMPERIAL TITLES/ APPOINTMENTS

BIRTHPLACE, MAJOR PLACES OF POST-1634 RESIDENCE

WALTER LESLIE ∞N.N. Lamboy (?) ∞Anna Franziska von Dietrichstein (1647)

castle and estate at Neustadt an der Mettau (NE Bohemia) + outlying possessions; after 1648, acquired major properties in Prague and in Inner Austria.

‘golden chain’ + Imperial Chamberlain + commander × 2 regiments (1634); Imperial Count (1637); Imperial ambassador to Spanish Netherlands (1639), Italian Peninsula (1645) and the Ottoman Porte (1665); field marshal + governor on the Habsburg-Ottoman military frontier (1650); vicepresident of Imperial War Council (1657); Order of the Golden Fleece (1665).

b. Balquhain, Scotland (1606); Eger (1634); Neustadt an der Mettau (1637–52?); Prague (1652–6); Oberpettau (1656–67); d. Vienna, 3 March 1667.

JOHN GORDON ∞ ?

estates at Smidary/ Skrivany (E Bohemia); later acquired property elsewhere in the Holy Roman Empire (Silesia?) and

‘golden chain’ + commander of infantry regiment (1634).

b. Milton of Noth, Scotland (?); Eger (1632–6?); Smidary/ Skrivany (1636–?); returned briefly to Scotland, in 1644;

 

300 (cont.) NAME/ MARRIAGE DETAILS

PROPERTY (acquired in 1634 unless stated)

MAIN IMPERIAL TITLES/ APPOINTMENTS

in the United Provinces of the northern Netherlands.

BIRTHPLACE, MAJOR PLACES OF POST-1634 RESIDENCE d. Delft, Holland, 1648.

WALTER BUTLER ∞Countess Anna Maria von Dohna (1632)

two castles and estates at Hirschberg/ Neuperstein (NE Bohemia).

EDMUND BURKE ∞ ?

estate in captain in Tr‘ka Czaslau district regiment (1634). (E Bohemia).

b. in Ireland? Eger, (1634); Czaslau (?).

WALTER DEVEREUX ∞ ?

estate in ‘golden chain’ + Czaslau district Imperial (E Bohemia). Chamberlain (1634); commander of Butler regiment (1635–9).

b. in Ireland?; Eger (1634); Czaslau (?–1639); Pest (1639–40?); d. Prague, 1640.

DENIS MacDONNELL ∞ ?

estate in ‘golden chain’ Czaslau district (1634); commander (E Bohemia). of Butler regiment as Devereux’s successor (1639–?).

b. in Ireland?; Eger (1634) Czaslau (?).

ROBERT GERALDINE ∞ ?

estate (?), commander of (NE Bohemia), separate regiment (1634?). (1635).

b. in Ireland?, Eger (1634).1

1

‘golden chain’ + Imperial Count + Imperial Chamberlain (1634); remained commander of Butler regiment and another dragoon regiment to his death.

b. Tipperary, Ireland; Eger (1634); d. Schorndorf, 25 December 1634.

The information in this table is compiled from many different sources. The most important of these are Schmidhofer, ‘Das irische’, 41–60; Barker, Army, Aristocracy, Monarchy; Hallwich ed. Wallenstein’s Ende, Briefe und Akten zur Geschichte Wallensteins and Fünf Bucher Geschichte Wallenstein; Srbik, ed. Wallenstein’s Ende; Redlich, ‘German military enterpriser’; Mann, Wallenstein, 830–83.

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INDEX Compiled by Alison Duncan

Aberdeen, 24, 33, 74, 75, 251, 281 Abernethie, Thomas, S.J., 213, 216, 217 Aboyne, 251 Earl of, 125, 251 Act of Revocation (1625), 202 Adlersthurm, Johann Putz von, 174 Airlie, 1st Earl of, 278 Albert, Archduke, co-governor of Spanish Netherlands (s. also Isabella, Infanta), 27, 30, 31, 45, 59, 60, 68 Alcalá de Henares, 32 Alcalá-Zamora, J., 53, 75, 81, 93 Aldringen, Johann, General, 158, 161 Alphonso, King of León & Castile, 23 Alsace, 137, 180, 266 Altmark (1629), Treaty of, 48, 95 Americas, 2, 14, 94, 105 Amsterdam, 148 Ancram, 1st Earl of (Sir Robert Kerr), 32 Andalucia, 230 Anglo-Spanish Treaty (1630), 142 Ansbach, 20 Anstruther, Sir Robert, 142, 143, 174, 182, 192 Antrim, 1st Earl of (Randal Arranagh), 84 2nd Earl (Randall MacDonnell), 106, 120, 125–30 passim, 180, 219, 250 Alexander, brother of, 127 Antwerp, 23, 24, 29, 68, 218, 220 arbitristas (s. also Semple, William), 53, 55 Argyll, 7th Earl of (Archibald Campbell), 50, 51, 57–69 passim, 79, 81, 87, 88, 90, 96, 282 Anne Cornwallis, wife of, 57, 58, 60, 61 House of, 106 regiment, 70–4 passim, 79, 86–90 passim, 102, 217 Armada, the, 28 of 1620s, 53, 56, 61, 73, 88 of 1630s, 223

Arnim, Hans Georg von, General, 157, 166 Arras, 22 Artois, 22, 23 Arundel & Surrey, 5th Earl of (Thomas Howard), 192–205 passim, 215, 217, 220, 226, 233, 234, 283 wife of, 238 Aston, Walter, Baron of Forfar, 108, 112, 115, 183 Auchterlonie, William, 87 Augsburg, 172 peace of (1555), 10 Austria Germanica, 10, 13, 17–21, 35, 50, 53, 64, 133, 140, 142, 175, 177, 180, 203, 205, 253, 279 Austria Hispanica, 10, 13, 21–36, 130, 140, 203, 279 Averie, Joseph, ambassador, 197, 199 Badajoz, 277 Baldwin, William, 61 Balfour, Sir William, 98 Baltic, the, 15, 46, 47, 62, 63, 66, 91, 92, 102, 181, 273 Bamberg, bishopric of, 172 ‘Bamberg text’, 157 Banér, General, 139, 220, 230 Barker, T.M., 175, 176, 181, 245, 283 Barnewall, Lawrence, Captain, 31 Barry, Garret, Colonel, 108 Bavaria, 15, 45, 107, 158, 182, 184, 240 Maximilian I, Duke of, 42, 45, 59, 76, 134, 156, 157, 158, 184, 186, 190–8 passim, 234–9 passim, 260, 270 Becam, Thomas, 29 Bell, Walter, 71 Benedictine abbeys (Schottenkirchen/ kloster), 15, 16, 17, 52, 282 Bengtheim, 154 Berwick, ‘pacification of ’, 120 Bishops’ War (1st), 120 Blacadder, Archbishop, 24

320

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Blackhall, Gilbert, priest, 99, 100, 101 Blunt, John, Captain, 69 Bog, Alexander, 26 Bohemia (Crownlands), 10, 13, 14, 17, 39–47 passim, 59, 65, 66, 91, 140, 144, 155, 159, 168, 169, 173, 176, 177, 215, 220, 228, 255, 260, 263, 270–8 passim classes of nobility in, 206, 207, 208 Confederatio Bohemica, 43 rebellion, 50, 53, 78 regional Diet, 193, 256 Bologna, 26, 33 university of, 22 Bordon, ‘Don Roberto’, 76 Bothwell, Earl of, 30, 32 Boyd, David, Colonel, 27 Brabant, 23, 43 Braganza, House of, 121 Brandenburg, 40, 45, 134, 144, 159, 160, 172, 184, 215, 231 Frederick William, Elector, 235, 236 Braunsberg (Braniewo), 19, 20 Breda, 138 Breisach, siege of, 215 Breitenfeld (1642), battle of, 139, 241, 248 Breslau (Wroc∑aw), 18, 19 Brightwell, P., 40 Britain (Three Kingdoms), 5, 8, 49, 141, 151, 155, 182, 217, 228, 239, 244, 247, 250, 255, 275, 276, 284 Catholics in, 83, 89, 91, 106, 221 pro-/anti-Spanish activities in, 88, 96, 105, 116, 124, 220 under James VI & I, 7, 65, 73 Brog, Colonel, 71 Brown, Adam, S.J., 29 Brown, John, 68 Brown, K., 6 Bruce, Harry, Captain, 73 Colonel, 20, 21, 112, 147, 265, 284 Bruce, Sir Henry (‘Crowner’), 120, 121, 122, 126, 130, 219, 222 Bruce, Robert, Captain, agent, 27, 29, 31 Bruges, 13, 23, 29, 68 Brünn (Brno), 19, 258, 259, 278 Brussels, city, 3, 26, 29, 31, 49, 59, 60, 65, 67, 71, 72, 98, 99, 220, 222, 227, 273 court/government, 45, 69, 95–104 passim, 120, 122, 125, 126, 144, 183, 218, 254, 264, 267

Buchan, Earl of, 113–19 passim, 130, 141, 179, 180, 203, 222, 284 Alexander, brother of, 117 Buckingham, Duke of, 45, 76, 80, 187 Budweis (’eské Budîjovice), 147 Burgundy, duchy of, 9, 22 dukes of, 23 Burke, Captain, 162 Burke, P., 209 Burkhardt, J., 135 Butler, Walter, Colonel, 155, 173, 175 Countess Anna Maria von Dohna, wife of, 173 death of, 173 in Wallenstein plot, 145, 158–74, 231 property of, 176 regiment, 173 Cádiz, 80, 83, 86, 105, 121, 142 bishopric of, 92 Gulf of, 273 Calen, Donoch na, 31 Campbell, Clan, 126 Canny, Nicholas, 3 Cárdenas, Alonso de, ambassador, 116, 117, 124, 125, 221, 223 Carleton, Sir Dudley, 98 Carlisle, Earl of ( James Hay), 95 Carpenter, William (Guillelmo Carpentin), 67, 68 John ( Juan), son of, 68, 69 Carretto, General, 178 Carve, Thomas, chaplain, 158, 173, 175 Castel Rodrigo, Marquis of, 138, 255, 264 Catalonia, 115, 121, 122, 203, 224 Catherine of Aragon, 24 Catholic League, 42 troops, 43, 48, 91 ’ernín, Humprecht, 254 Chalmer, Alexander, 26 Cham, 230 Chambers, Thomas, 217 Charlemagne, 9 Charles I, King of Scotland, England/Wales & Ireland, 6, 49, 81, 96, 117, 122, 123, 125, 128, 187, 189, 192, 201, 202, 211, 222, 224, 226, 229, 233, 235, 243, 252 as Prince of Wales, 45, 75, 76 Charles, son of (Prince of Wales), 211, 242, 277 execution, 276, 277, 281

 Henrietta Maria, Queen of, 80, 184, 210, 227, 239 Mary, daughter of, 224 Palatinate policies, 107, 111, 137, 138, 183, 200, 214, 215, 232, 236, 237 relations with Ferdinand II, 104, 142, 143, 181, 184, 185, 186, 193, 197, 198 relations with Ferdinand III, 203, 210, 213, 219, 220, 228, 247, 250, 267 relations with France, 80, 138, 190, 199 relations with Spain, 47, 48, 82, 86, 88, 89, 90, 97, 98, 102, 106, 112–16 passim, 120–5 passim, 199, 221, 255, 256, 262 ‘ship money’ fleet, 108, 119, 136, 182, 212 Charles V, Emperor (Charles I of Spain), 10, 11, 14, 21, 24, 25 Charles Louis, Prince Palatine (s. also Palatinate), 107, 112, 120, 123, 134, 182, 185, 190, 198, 201, 202, 211, 222, 233, 235, 237, 242, 243 assists anti-Habsburgs, 117, 121, 200, 213, 214, 219, 226 in London, 183 Lower Palatinate restored, 244 pressured to join Imperialists, 186, 193, 199, 227, 232, 234, 239 Cheyne, Thomas, 26 Chisholm, Sir John (& William), 32 Christian IV, King of Denmark-Norway, 47, 181, 189, 190 Christie, William, S.J., 20 Christina, Queen of Sweden, 261 Chudoba, B., 135 Church of Scotland, 5, 25 Claysoun, John, sailor, 74 Cleves-Jülich crisis, 20 Clydesdale (Upper), 22 Colloredo, Rudolf, General, 158, 159, 160, 161, 270 Cologne, 183, 198, 238 archbishop of, 40 Coloma, Don Carlos, 75, 95 Colville, Captain, 84 Colville, David, 32, 56 Con, George, papal agent, 56, 114, 210, 213, 217 Consejo de Estado (Council of State), 75, 113, 117 Constantinople, 254, 282

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Conway, Sir Edward, 65 Corbie (1636), battle of, 137, 194 Cosmo II of Tuscany, 33 Cottington, Sir Francis, 56, 96, 106, 112, 187, 190 Cracow (Kraków), 16 Craig, Alexander, poet, 57 Craig, John, 20 Craig, Sir Thomas, 20 Cranmer, Thomas, 24 Craven, Earl of, 117, 214 Crawford, Earl of, 115, 122, 128, 277 Crete, 259 Crichton, William, S.J., 26, 28, 32 Crowne, William, 193, 195, 196 Dalzell, John, 32 Danish Sound, the, 47, 181 Danube, 189, 194, 230, 282 Danzig (Gda…sk), 18, 19, 27, 105, 279 Davidson, Alexander, 100 ‘Declaration of Friendly Feeling’ (1635), 183 Dempster, Thomas, 33 Denmark-Norway, 91, 155, 228, 231, 253, 258, 260, 275 Derry, 90 Desfours, General, 174 Devereux, Walter, Captain, 162, 164, 169, 170, 173 Dietrichstein, Franz, Cardinal-Bishop, 42, 265 Dietrichstein, Maximilian, Prince, 265 Anna Franziska, daughter of (s. also Leslie, Walter), 265 Ferdinand, son of, 266 Diodati, Giulio, General, 162 Ditchburn, D., 2, 17 Dixmude, 29 Donald, Clan, 84, 119, 120, 125, 127, 128 Doncaster, Viscount ( James Hay), 59, 60 Douai, Scots college in, 26, 29, 31, 33, 52, 97, 104, 111, 250, 273 Douglas, Captain, 112 Douglas, James, 86 Douglas, Sir James, 23 Douglas, William, 22 Dover, 96, 113 Downs, the, naval battle, 121, 221, 223 Dresden, 166 Dumfries, 251 Dunbar, Earl of (George Hume), 6 Dundee, 19, 28

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Dunkirk, 28, 34, 47, 60, 105, 114, 128, 219 ‘Dunkirkers’, privateers, 73, 97, 125, 127 Dunthorne, H., 51 Dutch Revolt (1566), 25 Dutch-Spanish Truce (1609), 32, 45, 51, 55 Dysart, 1st Earl of (William Murray), 98, 99 Edgehill, battle of, 242 Edict of Restitution (1629), 48, 134 Edinburgh, 6, 9, 19, 20, 28, 34, 59, 71, 74, 75, 105, 210 Eger (Cheb), 145, 154–77 passim, 185, 204, 230 Eggenberg, Count, 137 Elbe, 266 Elder, J.R., 53 Elgin, 251 Elizabeth I, Queen of England, 27 Elizabeth (Stuart) of Bohemia (s. also Palatinate), 40, 50, 64, 72, 81, 106, 174, 192, 199, 202, 203, 234, 273 opinion of Walter Leslie, 235–43 passim Elliott, J.H., 8, 54, 55, 56, 80, 135 Elphinstone, Bishop, 24 Imperial spy, 233 England (England/Wales), 5, 14, 24, 64, 96, 106, 108, 112, 121, 124, 136, 181, 182, 191, 213, 228, 238–44 passim, 248–55 passim proposed invasions of, 28, 29, 81, 84, 89, 90, 91, 94 under James VI & I, 7, 65 recruitment from, 69, 70, 72, 107, 125, 217, 251 English Channel, 33, 112, 181, 212, 218, 219, 222, 224, 252 English Parliaments, 51, 72, 125, 224, 243 Eperjes (Pre“ov), 20 Erblande, s. Patrimonial Lands Ernst, H., 135, 140 Escorial, the, 18, 33 Esterházy, Miklós, 42 Evans, R.J.W., 174 Farmer, Thomas, Captain, 148 Feilding, Lord (Basil), 187–93 passim, 232, 283 Anne Weston, wife of, 188 Ferdinand, Cardinal-Infante, 112–22

passim, 133, 138, 158, 183, 217–23 passim Ferdinand I, Emperor, 10 Ferdinand II, Emperor, 20, 42, 70, 91, 98, 134, 146, 177, 178, 179, 188, 196, 201, 205, 207 death of, 135, 206 ‘Declaration of Friendly Feeling’ (1635), 183 Palatinate policies, 185, 186, 190, 193, 197 relations with Charles I, 142, 143, 181, 182, 184, 189–95 passim, 198 relations with James VI & I, 72, 76, 77 relations with Spain, 108, 137 succeeds as Emperor, 43, 59 Verneuerte Landesordnung (1627), 47 Wallenstein plot, 133, 144, 150, 151, 157–73 passim Ferdinand III, Emperor, 139, 179, 201, 210, 217, 226, 227, 230, 231, 241, 244, 254, 255, 256, 260, 265, 277, 278, 279 as King of Hungary, 133, 137, 158, 159, 171, 184, 196 conciliates Sweden, 261 ennobles Leslie, 206 Ferdinand, son of, 263, 264 Palatinate policies, 233, 234–40 passim relations with Charles I, 212, 213, 250, 267 relations with Spain, 140, 203, 218, 221, 223, 268 succeeds as Emperor, 138 Ferdinand of Aragon, 10, 24 Ferdinand II of Medici, Grand Duke, 256 Feria, Duke of, 158 Ferrol, port, 62 Fischer, T.A., 15, 18 Fitzgerald, Gerald, priest, 167 Flanders, 22–30 passim, 34, 89, 112, 116, 120, 125, 216, 224, 252, 253 Army of, 34, 67, 87, 88, 108, 119, 126, 138, 152, 219 Florence, 33, 256, 257 Foissotte, Francesco, 127, 247, 255 Forbes, William, 29 John, brother of, 29 France, 4, 7, 32, 34, 94, 186, 274, 277 relations with Britain, 14, 24, 80, 104, 199, 200, 275

 relations with Empire, 61, 136, 181, 189, 215, 227, 260, 268 relations with Spain, 47, 116, 137, 262 Franche Comté, 13, 22, 137 Franco-Scottish alliance (‘auld alliance’), 24 Franco-Spanish war, 105, 110, 111, 134, 135 Franconia, 16, 172 Frankenburg, ambassador, 188 Frankfurt, 59, 247 Frederick V, Elector Palatine (s. also Palatinate), 40, 43, 44, 45, 49, 53, 59, 72, 75, 76, 107, 194 Freistadt, 154 Gabriel Bethlen, Prince of Transylvania, 64, 72 Gage, Colonel, 116, 218, 221 Gage, George, 221, 222 Gage, Sir Henry, 242, 252 Galicia, 18 Galileo, 9 Gallas, Matthias, Count, General, 137, 158–65 passim, 174, 220, 241, 248, 255, 259, 261, 264 Gda…sk, Gulf of, 273 Geraldine, Robert, 162, 169, 173 Gerbier, Sir Balthasar, 213, 218–22 passim Ghent, 23 Gibbs, Mr. W., 215 Gibson, Thomas, 19 Gight, 8th Laird of, 251 Glasgow, 24 Gondomar, Count of, 50, 51, 55–62 passim, 70, 75 Gordon, Adam, cousin of John Gordon, 160, 167, 169, 171, 176, 177, 178, 185 Gordon, Alexander, 109 Gordon, John, Lt.-Colonel, 145, 152, 153, 154, 155, 177, 185, 251, 270, 272, 273, 274, 277, 284 death, 204, 278, 279 in Wallenstein plot, 157–71 passim, 174 John, father of, 152 property of, 168, 173, 176 Gordon, John, of Haddo, 251 Gordon, Thomas, 32 Gordon, William, 32, 85, 249 Goring, George, Colonel, 242

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Gradisca, 21 Grafenstand (imperial counts), 205, 207 Grant, William, of Strathspey, 52 Gray, Sir Andrew, 65 Graz, 136, 256, 280 university of, 20 Green, Lawrence, 19 Green, Peter, 20 Grossglogau, 159 Guin, Wilhelm von (?William Gunn), 249, 278 Gunpowder Plot, 31 Gustav II Adolf, King of Sweden, 48, 49 Habsburg, House of, 3, 8, 9, 14, 17, 65, 88, 92, 107, 137, 190, 194, 200, 211, 255 Austrian branch, 11, 21, 36, 44, 104, 135, 137, 140, 181, 210, 217–26 passim, 241, 244, 245, 264, 271, 272, 274, 283 Spanish branch, 22, 29, 36, 49, 106, 114, 115, 119, 124, 128, 138, 274, 276 Hague, The, 148, 192, 198 Hamburg, 278 Hamilton, Captain, 20 Hamilton, Alan, 64 Hamilton, Lord (Claud), 27 Hamilton, 3rd Marquis, 1st Duke of ( James), 89, 115, 219 Hamilton, Robert, 67 William, son of, 68, 69, 71, 86, 213 Hanseatic ports, 15, 46, 181, 189, 231 Hatzfeld, Field Marshal, 185, 261 Hay, Lady (Isobel), 99, 100 Hebrides (Western Isles), 75, 84, 90, 104, 119, 121, 126 Heidelberg, 65, 133 Helches, Timothy, 69 Henderson, Colonel, 197 Henderson, John, Colonel, 155, 159, 171, 176, 177, 204, 212, 222, 224, 274, 277, 284 regiment, 170, 172, 223 Henderson, Thomas, 71, 150, 204, 212, 249, 257 Henry VIII, King of England, 24 Hepburn, Daniel, Colonel, 148, 149, 150, 171 Herries, 7th Earl of, 122 s’Hertogenbosch, siege of, 48 Hesse (Upper), 15

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Hesse-Cassel, William of, 213 Hibbard, C.M., 219, 222 Hofadel (court nobility), 44, 144, 151, 176, 209, 226, 265 Hohberg, Wolf Helmhard von, 207 Holk, General, 156 Hollar, Wenceslaus, 193, 275 Holzapfel, Count, 140, 268 Hopton, Sir Arthur, 115, 117, 118, 119, 183 Horsbroch, D., 73 Howard, Thomas, s. Arundel & Surrey Howarth, D., 195 Huguenots, 80 Hungary (Royal), 10, 13, 14, 17, 18, 39, 40, 42, 195, 230, 263 regional Diet, 256 Huntly, 6th Earl, 1st Marquis of, 27, 28, 88, 153 Lord Gordon, later 2nd Marquis, 88, 213, 251 Hyde, Edward, 277 Iain Lom ( John MacDonald), Bard of Keppoch, 58, 59 Ilow, Count, 163, 164 dragoons, 170 Imperial Chancellery (Hofkanzlei ), 260 Imperial Diets (s. also Regensburg), (1631), 143 (1640), 138, 226, 227, 228, 229, 232, 237, 238, 239, 242 Imperial Privy Council, 139, 266 Imperial War Council (Hofkriegsrat), 150, 152, 158, 171, 248, 280 Innes, George, 251 Innes, James, 52 Innes, John, 251 Innocent X, Pope, 257 Ireland (Three Kingdoms), 5, 6, 14, 18, 49, 96, 115, 155, 182, 239, 242, 252, 275, 276 as invasion route, 29, 66, 84, 85, 90, 92, 102, 120 Irish Confederacy, 106, 124, 127, 251, 255 rebellion (1641), 229 Spanish links with, 51, 58, 64, 78, 89, 105, 107, 122, 126, 128, 247 Irving, Mr. Alexander, 85 Isabella, Infanta, Archduchess (s. also Albert, Archduke), 31, 45, 60, 90, 91, 95, 98, 99, 100 Isabella of Castile, 10, 24

Jack, Andrew, 19 James I, King of Scotland, 18 Eleanor, daughter of, 18 James IV, King of Scotland, 24 James V, King of Scotland, 24 James VI & I, King of Scotland, England/Wales & Ireland, 6, 7, 27, 72, 76, 77, 78, 118 assumes English crown, 6, 30 attempts European peace, 45 author of ‘Lepanto’, 25 death, 80 relations with Argyll, 59, 60, 62 relations with Spain, 29, 32, 50, 51, 56, 65, 66, 69, 74 Jamesone, George, artist, 34, 51 Jankau ( Jankov) (1645), battle of, 139, 256 Jesuits, s. Society of Jesus John of Austria, Don, 25 John George, Duke, Elector of Saxony (s. also Saxony), 48, 64 Johnston, William, S.J., 20 Kellie, Earl of, 80, 214 Kelly, R.J., 270 Kemp, David, burgess, 74 Kepler, Johann, 9, 145 Kerr, George, 28, 109 Kerr, Sir Robert, s. Ancram, Earl of Keynes, Alexander, 242, 251 Khevenhüller, Count (Franz Christoph), 47, 230 Kiel, 47 Kilkenny, 106, 124, 127, 255 Kinghorne, George, S.J., 84, 85 Kinskÿ, Count, 163, 164, 166 Kladrau (Kladruby), 159, 162 Knox, Andrew, Bishop, 6 Koenigsberger, H.G., 135 Kossmann, E.H., 101 Králík, Václav, 204 Kravar, Pavel, 18 Kurz, Imperial Vice-Chancellor, 214 La Coruña, 105, 113, 116, 120, 219 Laing, William, 74, 75 Lamormaini, imperial confessor, 137, 157, 161, 194 Landshut, 171 Lang, Thomas, 85 Lang, William, 85 Laud, Archbishop, 98, 184, 219 Leicester, Earl of, 217

 Leiden, 9 Leipzig, 48, 156 Leith, port, 73, 74, 75 Lennox Stewart, family, 25 Leopold I, Emperor, 176, 179, 282 Leopold William, Archduke, 138, 139, 140, 209, 236, 241, 248, 264, 267 Lerma, Duke of, 43, 54 Leslie, Alexander, General, 1, 250 Leslie, Andrew, 216 Leslie, ‘Don Diego’, 1 Leslie, George (‘Archangel’), 1, 33 Leslie, Walter, Reichsgraf, 1, 152, 154, 172, 177, 184, 200, 201, 202, 247, 266, 273, 274, 277, 278 Alexander/Francis James/Patrick, brothers of, 280, 281 Anna Franziska, wife of, 265, 280 death, 282 diplomacy, 141 in Palatinate cause, 226, 232–40, 242, 244, 283 under Ferdinand II, 175, 178–81, 186–91, 193–6, 198, 199 under Ferdinand III, 203, 213–25, 227–30, 241, 248, 250, 253–7, 260, 261, 263, 264, 272 ennobled, 205, 206, 207, 208 in Wallenstein plot, 145, 153, 159, 160–71, 174, 204, 231, 284 James, nephew of, 280, 281, 282 letters to Piccolomini, 246, 249, 253, 255, 260–71 passim property of, 168, 176, 209, 212, 262, 269, 279, 280, 282 William, brother of, 210, 211, 242, 243, 281 Leslie, William, priest, 92, 93 Lethington, Lord ( James Maitland), 67 Liechtenstein, Karl, governor, 42 Lier, 26, 68 Linz, 194, 214, 232, 235, 254, 255, 262, 268, 270 Lipsius, Justus, 9 Lisbon, 27, 262 Lisola, Baron (Franz Paul), 226, 227, 247, 272 Livingston, John, Lieut., 71 Lobkowic, Count of, 266 Locke, Thomas, 70 Lockhart, Mr., 85 Lomas, S.C., 283, 284 London, city, 6, 56, 57, 60, 62, 76, 84, 87, 89, 102, 117, 163, 198, 202

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College of Arms, 205 court/government, 49, 65, 69, 75, 80, 82, 95, 96, 98, 108, 113–22 passim, 174, 183, 184, 186, 191–7 passim, 209, 215–26 passim, 240 Treaty of (1604), 31, 50 Loomie, A. 86, 125 Lorraine, 26, 137, 181 Duke of, 233 Louis XIII, King of France, 134, 217 Louvain, 23, 33 Low Countries, s. Netherlands Lübeck, Treaty of (1629), 95 Lucy, Henry, Captain, 72 Lusatias, the, 10 Lutheran church, 107 Lützen (1632), battle of, 49, 154 Macbreck, John, priest, 93 MacColla, Alasdair, 106, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130 McCulloch, John, 20, 33 James, brother of, 33 MacDonald, James, of Dunnyveg, 34, 59, 62, 65, 67, 83, 84 Donald Gorme, son of, 34 in rebellion (1615), 58 MacDonald, Raghnaill Og, 58, 59 MacDonnell, Denis, Captain, 165, 167, 170 Mackay, Thomas, 87 Maclaren, Patrick, 87 Maastricht, siege of, 48 Madrid, city, 13, 18, 26, 28, 32, 33, 54, 58, 61, 64, 78, 83, 85, 89, 90, 97, 101, 103, 115, 117, 123, 129, 142, 179, 201, 202, 211, 212, 222, 224, 250, 265, 273, 284 court/government, 29, 43–56 passim, 79, 98, 104, 108, 112, 120–6 passim, 130, 135, 140, 144, 183, 185, 220, 252, 253, 261, 264, 271, 277 Jesuit college in, 110 Scots college in, 76, 84, 92, 93, 94, 95, 102, 105, 110, 111, 118 Treaty of (1630), 82 Magdeburg, 48 Mainz, 15 archbishop of, 40 Malcolm III (‘Canmore’), King of Scotland, 18, 205 Malvezzi, Virgilio, envoy, 224 Mantua, 47, 94, 102, 153

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Margaret, Queen of Scotland, later St., 18, 205 Markham, Colonel, 85 Markham, Sir Griffin, 147, 195, 196 Marradas, Balthasar, General, 158 Marston Moor, battle of, 237, 252 Mary Stewart (Stuart), Queen of Scotland, 25, 27 Mascarenhas, Don Simon, 218 Matthew, D., 53 Matthias I, Emperor, 40, 42, 43, 206 Maximilian I, Emperor, 9, 10 Maximilian II, Emperor, 10, 11, 20 Maxwell, 9th Lord, 27, 28 Maxwell, Lady (Anne), 85 Maxwell, James, 97, 98, 99, 101, 273 Maxwell, John, 249 Mazarin, Cardinal, 138, 264, 268 Mechelen, Archbishop of, 100 Mecklenburg, 231 Medici, Marie de, 98, 113, 212 Meissen, 19 Melton, J.V.H., 175 Mendoza, ambassador, 27 Merode, Colonel, 152 Mies, 162 Milan, duchy of, 21, 22 Mirabel, Marquis of, 113 Monro, Robert, 154 Montecuccoli, Raimondo, General, 266 Montereul, Jean de, ambassador, 129 Montrose, Marquis of, 126, 127, 128, 130, 247, 267, 268 Montrose, port, 73, 251 Moors, expulsion of the, 54 Moravia, 10, 168, 176, 258, 259, 278 Moray, 22 Morzin, General, 174 Moscow, 253 Münster, 129, 139, 140, 247, 260, 262, 271, 276 Murdoch, S. 65 Muscovy, 14 Naples, vice-kingdom of, 21, 29, 52, 140, 179, 256, 257 Naseby, battle of, 128, 237 Nassau, Count of, 261 National Covenant (Scottish) 105, 115, 117, 141, 201, 212 Necolalde, Juan de, ambassador, 107, 108, 109, 112, 118 Netherlands/Low Countries, 22–7 passim, 45, 70, 78, 122, 128, 152, 219, 256, 274, 279, 281

northern/United Provinces, 4, 9, 10, 20, 25, 56, 63, 64, 119, 133, 136, 148, 153, 181, 260, 273, 275, 279 southern/Spanish, 13, 14, 31, 43, 45, 49, 64, 82, 83, 88, 96, 104, 106, 108, 112, 116, 119, 125, 127, 137, 138, 140, 152, 158, 179, 215, 221, 246, 250–5 passim, 262–7 passim Scots in, 22–8 passim, 34, 51, 58, 60, 65, 67, 68, 71, 73, 84, 86, 87, 95–101 passim, 109, 111, 113, 124, 203, 213, 217, 218, 222, 223, 225, 273, 274 Neustadt an der Mettau, 204 Nevers, Duke of, 47 Niemann, 163, 164 Nijmegen, 31 Nikolsburg (Mikulov), 147 Treaty of (1622), 72 Nithsdale, Earl of (Robert Maxwell), 75, 76, 108, 125 Nördlingen (1634), battle of, 133, 172, 181 North Sea, 47, 62, 90, 107, 119, 124, 153, 181, 220, 273 Northern Isles (Orkney & Shetland), 75, 81, 93, 94, 102, 104 Northumberland, Duke of (Robert Dudley), 207, 208 Norwich, Earl of (Edward Herbert), 252 Nuremberg, 15, 156, 198 O’Neill, Owen Roe, 124 Ofen (Buda), 254 Ogilvie, George, 257, 258, 259, 270, 272, 274, 277, 278, 284 Euphrasia de Reichsperg, wife of, 278 Patrick, father of, 5th Laird of Airlie, 258 Ogilvie, John, S.J., 20 Ohlmeyer, J., 127, 180 Oldenburg, 222 Oldenburg, Count, 197 Olivares, Count of, 80, 83, 110, 112, 117, 118, 119, 135, 221 British invasion proposals (1620s), 81, 84, 85, 90, 91, 120 influence on policy, 45, 66, 76, 78, 79, 83 patron of Scots College (Madrid), 92, 94 Union of Arms, 46 Olmütz (Olomouc), 19, 20, 42, 241, 256

 Cardinal-bishop of, 147 Oñate, Count of, 41, 43, 59, 113, 114, 133 Oquendo, Don Antonio de, 218, 219, 221 Orange, Prince of, 212, 261, 262 House of, 236 Order of the Golden Fleece, 24, 79, 248, 282 Ormond, Earl of, 155 Osnabrück, 139, 247, 260, 270, 276 Ottoman (Turkish) empire, 25, 69, 230, 253, 254, 257, 259, 282 Oxenstierna, Axel, Swedish Chancellor, 107, 188, 197 Oxenstierna, Henry, 109 Padua, 9 Palatinate, 40, 76, 82, 111, 115, 124, 142, 157, 174, 181, 182, 188–201 passim, 214, 217, 218, 220, 224, 236, 238, 240, 247, 272, 273, 283 Catholic support for, 75, 96, 106, 108, 113, 117, 118, 120, 130, 200, 211 Lower, 43, 49, 64, 65, 67, 74, 112, 133, 183, 185, 198, 234, 239, 244 Upper, 45, 49, 59, 76, 107, 156, 159, 166, 183, 184, 198, 234, 271 Papal States, 32, 274 Paris, 26, 27, 52, 124, 137 Parma, Duke of, 27 Passau, 183 Paterson, John, 20 Patrimonial Lands (Erblande), 14, 73, 91, 136, 142, 143, 144, 167, 175, 176, 180, 184, 200, 201, 202, 216, 220, 224, 229, 244, 246, 261, 267–73 passim, 277, 280 Pázmány, Peter, Archbishop of Esztergom, 42 Peñaranda, Count of, 130, 140, 262 Philip II, King of Spain, 10, 18, 25–9 passim, 39, 45, 86, 277 Don Carlos, son of, 25 Philip III, King of Spain, 30–3 passim, 41, 43, 45, 49, 53, 54, 55, 58–68 passim Philip IV, King of Spain, 49, 70, 102, 103, 104, 112, 121, 123, 129, 130, 140, 190, 210, 217, 261 dealings with Scots in Spain, 56, 57, 66, 79, 85, 93, 97, 100, 115, 118 Maria, sister of, 48, 76 marriage negotiations, 264

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policies on Britain, 47, 73, 75, 80, 89, 90, 95, 96, 105, 106, 107, 113–19 passim, 122–7 passim, 212, 220, 221, 255, 277 relations with Empire, 82, 91, 108, 135–8 passim, 181, 253 supports Scots seminary (Madrid), 76, 84 Philiphaugh (1645), battle of, 128 Piccolomini, Ottavio, General, 140, 172, 183, 204, 216, 222, 248, 265, 272 diplomacy, 217, 221, 242, 247, 250–5 passim estates, 268 in Wallenstein plot, 158–65, 168, 174 military career, 220, 245, 261, 264 relations with Leslie, 180, 181, 205, 218, 226, 227, 230, 231, 236, 241, 246, 254, 256, 260, 262, 266–71 passim, 278 Pilsen (PlzeÏn), 159, 161, 162 ‘Pilsen agreement’, 159 ‘Pilsen reverse’, 160 Pisa, university of, 33 Pitcairn, Andrew, 32 Plan (Plaun), 162 Plymouth, 112 Poland-Lithuania, 9, 11, 14–19 passim, 34, 48, 63, 83, 136, 265, 274 Poli≤enskÿ, J., 168 Pomerania, 63 Pooré, Lawrence, 22 Pope, Alexander, of Aberdeen, 85 Pope, William, 85 Porter, Endymion, 251, 252 Portland, Earl of, 108 Portugal, 13, 27, 52, 115, 121, 203 Posen (Pozna…), 16 Pötting, Franz Eusebius, 266 Prague, 9, 11, 13, 42, 43, 48, 65, 156, 162, 167, 173, 175, 194, 204, 207, 255, 263–8 passim, 280 battle for, 140, 269, 270 ‘defenestration of ’, 40, 41, 49, 53 Peace of (1635), 134, 135, 136, 172, 180, 181, 189, 197, 201 Pressburg (Bratislava), 263, 264 Preston, Thomas, Colonel, 124 Puchheim, Count of, 268, 269 Rabatta, Count, 256 Raddock, Paul, Captain, 34, 87 Radolt, Clement, ambassador, 191, 194, 195, 197, 198

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Raghnaill Og, s. MacDonald Rákóczi, György, Prince of Transylvania, 139, 253, 254, 256, 259 Rathenow, 184 Reade, John, Captain, 120 Redlich, F., 146, 179, 249 Reformation, the, 10, 18, 40 Regensburg (s. also Imperial Diets), 15, 137, 158, 166, 171, 194–203 passim, 226, 227, 229, 232–42 passim defence of, 257 Electoral Diet (1636), 184, 192 Register of Orders (Brussels), 67, 71, 86 Reichart of Wicke, 19 Restoration (English), 243, 277 Rheinfelden, 212 Rhine, 50, 173, 193, 198, 213, 215, 233, 264 Richelieu, Cardinal, 95, 133, 181, 210 Rinuccini, Giovanni Battista, 33 Ripen, Martin Clausen Van der, 128 Rob, Thomas, priest, 250 Robert the Bruce, King of Scotland, 23 Robertson, J., 6 Robertson, John, Captain, 71 Rocroi (1643), battle of, 138 Roe, Sir Thomas, ambassador, 222, 232, 233, 239, 244, 248 relations with Leslie, 202, 214, 215, 226–31 passim, 234, 240, 242, 243, 283 relations with Palatinate family, 235, 236, 237, 238 Rome, 18, 19, 26, 52, 56, 57, 124, 192, 210, 213, 217, 256, 257 Scots College in, 216 Ross, Hugh, 97, 98 Rotashe, Anthony, ship’s captain, 74 Rubens, artist, envoy, 34, 95 Rudolf I, Emperor, 17 Rudolf II, Emperor, 11, 16, 20 Rupert, Prince (s. also Charles Louis, Prince Palatine) 183, 214, 215, 226, 232–8 passim, 242, 244 Russell, C., 8 St. Ambois, ship (s. also Wanvoir, Peter), 74 St. Andrews, 18 Archbishop of, 74 university of, 20 St. Gotthard (1664), battle of, 282 St. Omer, 22

St. Wenceslas (Václav), crownlands, 40 Saar/land, 185, 204 Salvetti, agent, 122 Salzburg, 59 Santiago de Compostella, 19 Sanz, A.G., 53, 125 Sardinia, 21 Savelli, General, 215 Savoy, 61 Saxe-Lauenberg, Duke of (Franz Albrecht), 166, 231 Saxe-Weimar, Duke of (Bernhard), 121, 158, 159, 172, 189, 195, 227 Saxony (s. also John George, Elector), 40, 45, 133, 134, 139, 144, 156, 157, 159, 160, 166, 174 Schaumburg, Colonel, 171 Schlick, Count, 158 Schmidhofer, E., 178, 283 Schottenkirchen/-kloster, s. Benedictine abbeys Schwarz, H.F., 178 Schwarzenberg, George Louis von, Count, 72, 215, 235 Scottish Prayer Book (1637), 210 Scottish Privy Council, 6, 69, 70, 71, 73, 74, 88, 89, 281 Scrimmesser, Gilbert, 87 Seaton, Sir John, of Barnes, 25 Seget, Thomas, 9 Semple, Alan, 68, 69 Semple, Hugh, S.J., 79, 85, 88, 119, 126, 129, 141, 179, 180, 202, 226, 274, 277, 284 involved in Scots College (Madrid), 76, 102, 105 promoted to Jesuit College (Madrid), 110 pro-Palatinate activities, 117, 120, 130, 203, 222, 224, 225 pro-Scots Catholic activities, 61, 77, 78, 118, 123, 250 Robert, father of, 32 Semple, John, 87 Semple, Robert, 4th Lord, 29, 30 Semple, William, Colonel, 30, 66, 67, 68, 79, 82, 88, 126, 141, 146, 180, 273, 274, 277, 284 as arbitrista, 53, 55, 63, 64 death, 101, 104, 111, 130 Doña Maria de Ledesma, wife of, 30, 54, 92, 111 family, 26, 29, 111, 129

 founds Scots College (Madrid), 92, 93, 95 pro-Scots Catholic activities, 27–33 passim, 56, 57, 61, 81, 83, 85, 89, 90, 91, 96, 102, 118, 123, 142 property of, 54, 94, 111 Senftenau, Count of (Kurz), 260 Seton, Alexander, Chancellor, 6, 50 Seton, John, Colonel, 65 Seton, John, S.J., 110, 216 Seton, John, of Fyvie, 52 Seville, 23, 76 Shawe, Sir George, 217, 227, 228, 229, 237, 242, 251, 252, 283 Sicily, vice-kingdom of, 21, 26, 69, 140, 273 Siena, 33 Sigismund III, King of Poland, 43, 95 Silesia, duchy of, 10, 18, 91, 157, 231, 266, 279 Simancas, 3 Simpson, G.G., 14 Slavata, Count (Vilém), 177, 209 Sneider (?Taylor), Thomas, 19 Society of Jesus, 20, 25, 32, 52, 216, 250 Souches, Radouit de, 258, 259 ‘Spanish Blanks’, 28 Spielberg, fortress, 258, 278 Spínola, Ambrosio, 43, 45, 75 Srbik, H., 170 Steinau (1633), battle of, 144 Steinheim, 166 Stevenson, A., 51 Stewart (Stuart), House of, 6, 7, 49, 72, 111, 115, 117, 179, 200, 202, 203, 211, 222, 226, 241, 244, 283 court, 23, 24, 31, 33, 50, 63, 80, 82, 85, 179, 186, 198, 203, 205, 213, 218, 228, 229, 235, 238, 242 Stirling, Earl of, 109 Stradling, R.A., 53, 55, 81 Stralsund, 153 Strasburg, 188 Straub, E., 135 Stuart, House of, s. Stewart, House of Stuart, Alexander, 86 Stuart, Walter, ship’s captain (s. also Victory, The), 113–16 passim, 130, 141, 179, 180, 220, 222, 284 Stuhmsdorf, Truce of, 136 Styria, archduchy of, 20, 136, 262, 280 Ferdinand, Archduke of, 40

329

Sweden, 48, 133, 136, 144, 159, 188, 189, 197, 215, 227, 228, 229, 240, 241, 246, 253, 255, 260, 261, 269, 270, 275 Swedish armies, 96, 137, 139, 140, 153–8 passim, 163, 172, 184, 195, 209, 213, 230, 231, 254–9 passim, 266–71 passim, 278 Taaffe, Father, 163, 173 Tassis, Don Juan de, 113, 114 Taylor, John, envoy, 183–201 passim, 209–20 passim, 227, 232, 233, 253, 283 Taylor, M., 26, 81, 101 Teba, battle of, 23 Thelwell, John, 125 Thirty Years’ War, 8, 17, 47, 49, 95, 133, 134, 140, 142, 146, 177, 178, 179, 215, 271, 274, 276 Thompson, I.A.A., 79 Thomson, Spanish agent, 73 Three Kingdoms, the, s. Britain and Ireland Tiefenbach, 174 Tilly, Jean T’serclaes, General, 43, 48, 74, 91 Toledo, 32 Tor de Laguna, Marquis of, 138 Torstensson, General, 139, 255, 256, 259, 260 Tournai, 29, 33, 52 Transylvania, 59, 136, 246, 253, 254 Traun, Count, 266 Trautmannsdorf, Maximilian von, Count, 136, 139, 140, 158, 209, 211, 231, 234, 239, 243, 261, 262, 266 Tr‘ka, Count, 154, 163, 164, 168, 169 regiment, 154 ‘Neu-Tr‘ka’ regiment, 157, 160, 171, 173 Trier, archbishop of, 40 Elector of, 133, 134 Tromp, Admiral, 121 Turin, 187 Turnbull, William, 60 Turnbull, Sir William, 86 Tyrconnell, Earl of, 83 Countess of, 195 Tyrol, duchy of, 10 Sigmund, Archduke of, 18 Tyrone, Earl of, 83, 120 regiment, 61, 69, 70, 71

330

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Ulrich, Johann, of Eggenberg, 42 Ulster, 105, 119, 120, 121, 219 ‘Union of Arms’, 46 Union of Crowns (1603), 6, 31, 274 Union of Parliaments (1707), 3 United Provinces, s. Netherlands Urban VIII, Pope, 56, 84, 92, 114 Urquhart, Sir Thomas, of Cromarty, 1, 2, 9, 26 Valladolid, 13 Valois, House of, 24, 35, 274 Valterius of Dessen (Dyce), 19 Van Male, ambassador, 65, 66 Vance, 218 Varecht, Matthew, 87 Varrus, Joannes, 19 Vaux, Lord, 70 regiment, 71 Venice, 1, 61, 187, 256, 257, 259 Verneuerte Landesordnung (1627), 47 Victory, The, ship (s. also Stuart, Walter), 113 Vienna, city, 3, 13, 17, 19, 65, 148, 156, 165–70 passim, 175, 177, 184, 186, 194, 204, 212, 222, 236, 237, 253, 254, 265, 266, 270, 271, 278 court/government, 46, 135, 157, 174, 183, 187–90 passim, 202, 207, 215, 220, 223, 231, 273, 283 Scots abbey in, 282 Vilar, R., 135 Villani, Carlo, 174 Vizcaya, 49 Vlotho, 214 Volmar, Isaac, 266

death, 164, 166, 176, 177, 181, 231, 284 military career, 47, 48, 91, 146, 148, 149, 153, 155 nostalgia for, 246 plot against, 12, 133, 144, 145, 151, 157–68, 174, 245 Walsh, Richard, 151 Wanvoir, Peter, ship’s captain (s. also St. Ambois), 74 Warasdin (Vara≥din), 280 Warbeck, Perkin, 24 Wars of the Three Kingdoms, 1, 5, 105, 124, 126, 180, 212, 225, 226, 241, 246, 256, 275 Warsaw, 46, 91, 265 Watson, F., 204 Werth, Johann von, 137 Weston, Sir Richard, 65 Westphalia, 117, 130, 247, 260, 261, 265, 266, 270 Treaty of (1648), 244, 271, 276, 277 White Mountain (1620), battle of, 44, 67, 194, 207, 258 Windebank, Sir Francis, 117, 118, 119, 186, 187, 190, 194, 195, 210, 211, 218, 219, 229, 242 Wismar, 48, 95, 278 Wittstock (1636), battle of, 137, 195 W∑adys∑aw IV Vasa, King of Poland, 253 Worms, 24 Wotton, Sir Henry, 65 Wrangel, General, 139 Wright, Benjamin, merchant, 121 Württemberg (1643), battle of, 249 Würzburg, bishopric of, 172

Walker, Walter, 125 Wallaston, Richard, Colonel, 148 Wallenstein, Albrecht von, General, 46, 150, 154, 169, 171, 194, 246, 268

Zagreb, 280 Zittau, 161 Zúñiga, Don Balthasar de, 41, 43 Zusmarshausen (1648), battle of, 268