The Scots in Russia
THE SCOTTISH SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE. CHAPTER I. THE SCOTS IN EUSSIA. Carmichael of Howgate Dalziel of Binns Generals Drutn- mond and Bruce, the Founder of the Eussian Artillery and Engineers Col. Whiteford Geijer's Report. AMONG the earliest Scottish adventurers in Russia was John Carmichael, son of the Laird of Howgate, and grand- son of James Carmichael of Hyndford and that Ilk, who took service under the Czar Ivan Basilowitz, a prince who did much to promote the civilisation of his subjects, by inviting artisans from Liibeck and elsewhere, and who first formed a standing army the Strelitz, or Body Guard of Archers at the head of which he conquered Kazan in 1552, and two years subsequently Astrakan. John Carmichael, at the head of 5,000 men, greatly distinguished himself at the siege of Pleskov, in the district of Kiev, then invested by Stephen, King of Poland, when its garrison was said to consist of 70,000 foot and 7,000 of this horse (which seems barely probable) ; and city, 2 THE SCOTTISH SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE. then the only walled one in Muscovy (Atlas Geo., 1711), John Carmichael was made Governor. Feodor, the successor of Ivan, in 1595 gave up to Sweden the province of Esthonia, where at some early period the Douglases must have acquired lands, as there is a place there still the but the last heiress of named Douglasberg ; that line (says Murray, in his letters from the Baltic, 1841), the Countess of Douglas, was married to Count Ingelstrom. According to ^Relations of the most Famous Kingdomes, published in 1630, the number of Scotch and Dutch in the " Czar's service is given at only 150 all in one band." General Baron Manstein, in his Memoirs of Russia, (1773), tells us that during the war with Poland the Czar Alexis Michailowitz, grandson of Feodor, who succeeded to the throne in 1645, formed his regiments of infantry on the European plan, and gave the command of them to " foreign officers.
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