The Scottish Officers of Charles XII Author(S): George A
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The Scottish Officers of Charles XII Author(s): George A. Sinclair Source: The Scottish Historical Review, Vol. 21, No. 83 (Apr., 1924), pp. 178-192 Published by: Edinburgh University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25519662 Accessed: 19/02/2010 07:34 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=eup. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Edinburgh University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Scottish Historical Review. http://www.jstor.org The Scottish Officers of Charles XII. publication of Count Adam Lewenhaupt's Biographical on THE Notes the Officers of Charles XII.1 has opened up a wide field of research for the historian. Whilst it is in no sense a com and characteristic are plete biographical dictionary details entirely are in lacking, particulars given abbreviated form of the various with which each man the dates regiments served, of his promotion, or capture, release, death retirement, and in many cases the chief minor in battles and engagements which he took part. Swedish biographers have already found the Notes invaluable, and these afford massive volumes will ample material for the Scottish * a genealogist; for in many families in Scotland tradition lingers of some ancestor who left his native land to achieve fame abroad but of whose descendants all trace has been lost. When we come to deal with the Great Northern War a is essential. The list word of warning contains many junior or or officers wounded killed in action made prisoners in Russia, these men as in the but few of were, Thirty Years War, recruited overseas. not set out from They did from Scotland with the of a fortune before them. were prospect They fascinated by the of one of the most commanding personality extraordinary world has ever seen.3 A monarchs the large number of the officers 1 : av Karl XII.?s Officerare Biografiska anteckningar Adam Lewenhaupt. Stock holm : P. A. Norstedt & Soner's forlag, 19a 1. Two volumes. 2 to Reference should also be made the following Swedish biographical : dictionaries (1) Svenska Adelns Attertaflor, by Gabriel Anrep, Stockholm, 1858 ; (2) Svenska Sldgtboken, by same, Stockholm, 1871 ; (3) Nordisk Familjebok, by Th. Westrin, 1875; and (4) Svensk Sl'dktbok,by K. A. K. Leijonhufvud, Stock holm, 1906. The Register till Personhistoriska Samfundet, by Carl Magnus contains Stenbock, Stockholm, 1909, particulars concerning historical portraits in Sweden. See the brilliant series of in the known as episodes king's life, Karolinema, by von the Swedish novelist and poet, Verner Heidenstam, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1916. The volume has been translated into English under the title The Charles Men, London, Milford, 1922. Scottish Officers of Charles XIL 179 of Charles XII. were the direct descendants of Scotsmen, who had fought in Germany under Gustavus Adolphus and had acquired estates extensive in Sweden. Others joined the army from the had Scottish industrial class, which, since the reign of Eric XIV., settled towns in Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmo and other large and no to and had contributed in small degree their prosperity a fair of the development. This class also supplied proportion rank men and file of the armies. Naturally these officers and as not as and the fought loyal subjects of the King, and Scots, task of sifting the pure Swede from the Swede of Scottish origin is not an one a easy and involves somewhat extensive knowledge of Swedish nomenclature. Familiar Scottish names abound in Sweden up to the present were either or day, but many families given adopted differ names. the surnames of ent The Swedes apparently found too much for them Colquhoun, MacDougall and Macpherson and shortened them into Gahn, Duvall and Fersen respectively. a were Quite number of Scotsmen ennobled under Swedish titles, which also tends to destroy their identity. For instance without research the of the Notes could independent reader Biographical not who was the tell that Captain Adam Pistolkors, captured by a of war for traced Russians and remained prisoner many years, to at his descent from George Scott, who went Sweden the was beginning of the seventeenth century and subsequently a under this name.4 The granted patent of nobility strange are even more ramifications of another prolific family complicated. of or Donat Two of the grandsons Donald Fyfe of Montrose, a Feif as he was called when he set up as merchant in Stockholm, two became the founders of noble families, the Adlerstolpes and who to the Ehrensparres. Another Scot, Jacob Fyfe, belonged as a different branch of this family, adopted the same calling was a Donald in the Swedish capital. He prominent burgher, and his three sons were all ennobled. The eldest of the brothers, was a Casten Feif, entered the civil service, and great favourite of Charles XIL, whose flight from Bender he planned, having a for him under the name of Peter procured passport Captain a own surname. Frisk. In 1715 he was made baron, retaining his The noble lines of Adlerstolpe, Ehrensparre and Feif have all died one out; but the Pfeiffs still figure in the Swedish Peerage,5 branch 4 means Pistolcross. Literally translated 6 Sveriges Adels Kalertder, published annually. 180 Hon. George A. Sinclair as created 1678 ranking with what is known the untitled nobility, as and the other branch created 1772 ranking barons. No history of the early years of Charles XII. or of his Scottish name officers would be complete which omitted the of General A certain Stuart of Carl Magnus Stuart. John Ochiltree, who became Master of the Horse in the pay of Eric XIV., and was General over the Scots in was afterwards appointed Sweden, the to bear the three silver stars of the Earls of granted right arms as our Arran upon his coat of by James VI.' blood relation.'6 career as a common About 1665 Carl Magnus Stuart began his sailor, joining the vessel called The Little Sportsman, but disliking a he over to He then took seafaring life crossed England. up the returned to and in study of fortifications, Sweden, conjunction with the great Swedish engineer general, Eric Dahlberg, put his to test in the fortresses of knowledge the improving Karlskrona and Vaxholm. In 1685, at the expense of Charles XL, he studied the works of the famous Vauban on the Continent, where he visited more than eighty fortresses and fought under the Emperor on return in the war against the Turks.7 The King his made him tutor to the Prince Charles, whom he taught geometry and the science of fortifications. Stuart carried the mantle of Charles XII. at his coronation and was responsible for the plan of his first campaign. In 1700 Frederick IV. of Denmark had invaded the territory of the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, Charles's brother-in-law, and William III. considering Frederick the aggressor and anxious to sent a curb the maritime power of the Danes, combined Anglo Dutch fleet under Admirals Rooke and Allemonde to the Sound.8 The Swedish fleet of thirty-eight ships of the line, commanded by was on Wachmeister, approaching from Karlskrona the Baltic, the and successfully navigating dangerous strait of Flintrdnnen a (Flint-Furrow) effected junction with its allies. The Danish admiral, Gyldenlove, who had only guarded the usual channel called the Kungdjup (King's Deep), was thus outwitted and out and to take under the of numbered, compelled refuge guns Copen 6 Horace One Tear in Sweden, by Marryat, London, 1862, vol. ii. p. 481. Sec also The Scots Peerage, edited by Sir J. Balfour Paul, 1909, vol. vi. p. 513, under Stewart, Lord Avandale and Ochiltree. These stars appear in the centre of the shield of the present head of the family of Stuart (Untitled Nobility? Creation 1625). 7 A. The Scots in Sweden, by T. Fischer, Edin. 1907, p. 136. * Scandinavia, by R. Nisbet Bain, 1905, p. 317. Scottish Officers of Charles XII. 181 ha gen. The Swedish troop9 were then rowed across the Sound in large flat-bottomed boats protected by the three allied fleets, and landed at Humlebek in Zealand after a slight skirmish (August 4, 1700). These operations were carried out with great skill by Stuart as with Quartermaster-General, he having previously conferred the admiral and It was the English reconnoitred the ground.9 first occasion on which the young King showed the stuff of which he was made. With the water to fiery impatience he leapt into up his waist and reached the shore sword in hand before his army.10 Frederick alarmed at menace to IV., the his capital, hastily concluded with the at Traven peace Duke of Holstein-Gottorp dahl, conceding him full sovereignty, and this short and bloodless war came to an end in six weeks.