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DIARY OF
GENERAL PATRICK GORDON.
PASSAGES
FKOM
THE DIAET
OF
GENERAL PATRICK GORDON
OF AUCHLEUCHEIES.
A.D. 1635-A.D. 1699.
ABERDEEN : PRINTED FOR THE SPALDING CLUB.
MDCCCLIX.
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PRESENTED
TO
THE SPALDING CLUB
BERIAH BOTFIELD
NORTON HALL.
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CORRECTIONS.
Page 21. line 21. for ' monastery' read ' College'
„ 25. line 23. /or ' n' ~- read ' iu'
„ 27. note. col. 2. /i'nc 9. for ' regimini scolonello' read ' rcgiminis colonello'
„ 30. linen, for ^Grundenz' ^^read ' Gmudenz'
„ 57. KnelS. ./or 'Alexander' rearf ' George'
„ 184. line 5. /or ' rcsoh'cd' ^,^^,^^.^^read ' resolved'
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
Tee Officebeareks of the Club,, vi
Portrait of General Patrick Gordon
The Editor's Preface, , ix
The Contents, xxvii
Passages from the Diary of General Patrick Gordon, 1
Appendix, I95
Index of Names of Persons, 221
Index of Names of Places, 234
C]^e ^paltJing Club^
M.DCCC.LIX.
HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS THE PRINCE CONSORT.
THE EARL OF ABERDEEN, K.G., K.T.
THE DUKE OF RICHMOND, K.G. THE DUKE OF SUTHERLAND, K.G. THE EARL OF KINTORE. THE EARL OF SEAFIELD. THE LORD SALTOUN.
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The Lord Provost of Aberdeen. Sir George Samuel. Abercromby of Birkenbog, Bart. John Angus, President of the Society of Advocates in Aberdeen. John Hill Burton, Advocate, Edinburgh. Charles Chalmers of Monkshill. Robert Chambers, Edinburgh. The Earl of Cawdor.
Archibald Davidson, Sheriff of Aberdeenshire. Charles Elphinstone Dalrymple.
Sir James Dalrymple Horne Elphinstone of Home and Logie- Elphinstone, Bart.
viii OFFICEBEAEEHS OF THE CLUB.
The Earl of Erroll.
The Lord Forbes.
Colonel Jonathan Forbes.
James Giles, R.S.A., Aberdeen.
John Gordon of Cairnbulg, Advocate.
George Grdb, Advocate in Aberdeen.
Cosmo Innes, Advocate, Professor of History in the University of Edinburgh.
The Right Reverend James Kyle, D.D., Preshome.
David Laing, Keeper of the Library of the Society of Writers to the Signet, Edinburgh.
William Leslie of Wartle and Drumrossie.
The Lord Lindsay.
Hugh Lumsden of Pitcaple, Advocate. (Deceased.)
Alexander Morison of Bognie.
Mark Napier, Advocate, Sheriff of Dumfries-shire.
The Earl of Northesk.
John Ramsay of Barra.
Alexander Henry Rhind of Sibster.
Joseph Robertson, Superintendent of the Literary and Antiquarian Department of the General Register House, Edinburgh.
James Yorston Simpson, M.D., Professor of Midwifery in the Uni- versity of Edinburgh.
The Reverend Alexander Taylor, D.D., Leochel-Cushnie.
Alexander Thomson of Banchory.
George Tulloch, LL.D., Aberdeen.
John Stuart, General Register House, Edinburgh.
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John Blaikie, Advocate in Aberdeen. John Ligertwood, Advocate in Aberdeen.
Wt tad ,a0baarulO solko r^wb 9i u ,-xo
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PREFACE.
The soldier of fortune, whose memoirs are now introduced to the Spalding Club, had been but a short while dead when public at- tention was turned to the eight or ten thick quartos,' in which, for forty years, he had recorded, day by day, the incidents of liis eventful life.
So early as 1724, a translation of the Journal from its original English into the language of the thankless country in which the writer was condemned to breathe his last, was
' Gordon's manuscripts appear to have been scattered after his death. Some found their way into the archives of the Foreign Office at Moscow; others came somehow into the hands of the widow of a country- man and namesake, who was interpreter in the Admiralty at St. Petersburg. In all, SIX volumes of the Journal have been re- covered : —
Volume I. from 1635 to 1659.
„ II. from 1659 to 1667.
„ III. from 1677 to 1678.
„ IV. from 1G84 to 1690.
„ V. from 1690 to 1695.
„ VI. from 1695 to 1699. No trace has been found of the tv^o, three or four volumes containinuj the ten years between 1667 and 1677, and the six years between 1678 and 1684.
Betides his voluminous Journal, Gordon
seems occasionally to have kept more formal records of the public transactions in which he was engaged. Thus, during his mission to England in 1666, he notes in his journal that he had conferences with Lord Chan- cellor Clarendon, but refers for an account of what passed to ' my booke of relations,' or, as he elsewhere calls it ' my other booke of my relation.' — (p. 83.) This was doubt- less the ' relation of my negotiation,' which he gave in to the Foreign Office on his return to Moscow. — (p. \0i.) bo, again, in 1686, when chronicling the incidents of his vain attempt to escape from Russia, he refers for a copy of his letters to the Earl of Mid- dleton, to 'my other booke,' or, as he after- wards terms it, ' my other copy book of letters.'— (pp. 1 62, 1 63.) ' The copyes of all my remonstrances,' he adds, 'arc apart.' — (p. 163.)
X PREFACE.
beffun by Count Ostermann, but abandoned, as it would seem, under the burden of state aflfairs which gradually pressed upon one who already a Councillor was soon to be Chancellor of Russia. A few years afterwards, Professor Baier drew from the Diary almost everything of value in his relation of the Muscovite campaigns against the Crim Tartars in 1688-89. and of the siege and capture of Asof in 1696. The work was next to fall under the eye of the learned author of the Origines gentis et nominis Russorum^ Gerard Frederic Muller. This laborious scholar was anxious that the Journal should be translated into German, then much more than now the literary language of St. Peteisburg. The task was too much for himself, but it was undertaken by his assistant, John Stritter, upon a plan which cannot be called a happy one. Regarding the work as important chiefly for the military history of Russia, he cut down or expunged almost everything which did not seem to him to bear upon that subject. The Diary, stripped in this way of many of its most interesting and characteristic details, was still farther disfigured by being recast into a narrative in the third per- son— the ' I marched,' ' I did write,' ' I was at the Czars' hands' of the original being rendered ' He marched,' ' Gordon wrote,' ' He was admitted to the presence of the Emperors.' Such as his version or adaptation was, Stritter did not live to complete it, nor did he print any part of what he had finished. Still, in some shape more or less defective, information derived from the Journal continued to find its way to the public, as many as six books built upon its foundations having appeared in Russia between 1766 and 1834. A seventh was projected in England, but was never published, and that it was even contemplated, is now known only by the allusion
PREFACE. xi
of Lord Byron in a rhyming letter to his London bookseller, written from Venice in the summer of 1818. '^
Forty years passed before the first work which professed to give any adequate outline of the contents of General Gordon's Diary, as a whole, began to issue from the press of Moscow.^ It followed Stritter's ill-planned version, so far as that went. But the editor, Dr. Posselt, carefully collated the original, re- stored many passages which Stritter had curtailed or omitted, illustrated the text by valuable notes, and supplied the two great chasms in the Journal by information gleaned from other sources. From June, 1692, where his own translation began, he allowed the narrative to run, as in the original, in the first person.
Dr. Posselt's work could scarcely fail to awaken interest in the land of the adventurer whose story it told. It was reviewed, in terms of just praise, in our two chief critical journals,^ and both urged the publication of at least portions of the Diary in the language in which it was written. The earlier of these reviews was from the lively and accomplished pen of the late Earl of
^ In a bantering excuse for the delay of don, wahrend seiner Kriegsdienste unter den
the fourth canto of Childe Harold, Lord Schweden und Polen vom Jahre lGo5 bis
Byron enumerates other works which Mr, 1661, und seines Aufenthaltes in Russland
Murray is preparing to publish : — vom Jahre 1661 bis 16G9, zum ersten
'Then you've General Gordon, vollstandig veroffentlicht durch Furst M. A.
Who girded his sword on, Obolenski und Dr. phil. M. C. Posselt.
To serve with a Muscovite master, Erster band : Moskau, 1849. Zwciter band :
And help him to polish St. Petersburg, 1851. Dritter band: St.
A nation so owlish Petersburg, 183.3.
They thought shaving their beards a The name of Prince Obolenski is dropped
disaster.' from the title pages of the second and third
(Byron's Poetical Works, vol. ii., pp. 394, volumes, for which we are indebted to Dr.
395, edit. Lond. 1855.) It was, no doubt, Posselt alone. That gentleman bore also the
an advertisement of this intended work that chief share in editing the first volume, led to the belief in Russia that a Life of ■* In the Quarterly Review for ALirch,
General Patrick Gordon had been published 1852, (no. clxxx., vol. xc, pp. 314-332);
at London. in the Edinburgh Review for July, 1856,
' Tagebuch des Generals Patrick Gor- (no. ccxi., vol. civ., pp. 24-51.)
xil PREFACE.
Ellesmere, and it was published in the avowed hope that it might ' induce one of the Scotch clubs, or two or three of them in friendly alliance, to undertake an edition of selections from the original text.' The Spalding Club was specially referred to, and it lost no time in taking measures for accomplishing an object so desirable in itself, and so much in accordance with the purposes of the As- sociation. Its President, the Earl of Aberdeen, then First Lord of the Treasury, made application to the Court of St. Petersburg for a transcript of all the passages of General Gordon's Diary which related to his native country. The request was granted with a prompt and liberal courtesy for which the warmest acknowledgements are due ; and the selections which fill most of the following sheets were placed at the disposal of the Club in a careful co])y made from the original, in the Imperial Archives of Russia, by the hand of all others best qualified for the task, that of the excellent editor of the German translation. Dr. Posselt accompanied his transcript by a note explaining that while he. had been at pains to preserve Gordon's orthography, he had not thought it necessary to retain the many abbreviations which obscure or perplex the original. He adds that it is so faulty in the names of persons and places, especially in Russia, that not a few of them are disguised beyond his power of recognition.
The passages transcribed by Dr. Posselt, and now printed from his copy, are six in number.
The first * gives Gordon's account of his birth, parentage, educa- tion, and travels, till the summer of 1655, when, at the age of twenty, he took service at Hamburg as a trooper in the army which
» Pp. 1-21.
PREFACE. xiii
King Charles Gustavus of Sweden was mustering for the invasion of Poland.
The next,^ a single leaf from the Journal of the winter of 1658, tells how the writer and fourteen of his Cavalier fellow- countrymen, then lying with the Swedish army on the banks of the Vistula, were baffled in an attempt to assassinate the Am- bassador from the English Commonwealth to the Court of Moscow, in the mistaken belief that he was the President of the Court which sat in judgment on King Charles the First.
In the third.^ we have Gordon's relation of the circumstances under which, in 1661, he left the Polish army at Warsaw, engaged to follow the Austrian banner, broke his faith, outwitted the Im- perial Ambassador, and posted to Moscow to take a Major's com- mission under the Czar.
The fourth* gives the Diary kept by Gordon, now a Colonel, during his journey on a special mission from Russia to England in It 66 and 1667.
The fifth^ records a second journey from Moscow to London, after a lapse of twenty years, the reception of the writer, who had now risen to the rank of Lieutenant-General, at the Court of King James the Second, his sojourn in the Scottish capital, and his visit to his kinsfolk and paternal acres in Aberdeenshire.
Last of all, are one or two letters '° on his family affairs, and a few others on public events, between 1690 and 1696, addressed to the Duke of Gordon and other Scottish peers/' by one who, now
« p. 28. •" Pp. 175-179, 181-183.
'Pp. 32-53. "Pp. iC8, 170, 171, 173, 180, 181,
' Pp. 55-104.. 184., 183.
" Pp. 109- 163.
xiv PREFACE.
himself sharing the privileges of nobility,'^ can lament the weariness of a court life,^^ tell of the large measure of favour and familiarity which he enjoys with the Czar,^* and boast that hitherto he has pre- vailed with the Russian Government to ignore the Revolution, and know no King of England but the exile of St. Germains.'^
In printing these selections, an attempt has been made so far to connect them together, by an outline of Gordon's life in the interval, with occasional quotations from some of the more memorable pages of his Journal, such as those in which he notes the beginnings of his intimacy with Peter the Great,'^ or chronicles the prompt and vigorous acts by which he quelled the revolt of the Strelitzes.'^ For the translation of these passages from Dr. Posselt's German version of the Diary, the editor is indebted to Mr. Andrew Find- later. Care has been taken to distinguish all the matter thus in- terpolated by printing it in smaller type.
^^ P. 166. D-ring the first twenty- not vsurpe. And in case it be not added in
eight years of his service in Russia, Gordon the naming of them, they may sue the hest-
was called, in all official papers, ' Peter chest, or penaltie of dishonour, vpon them
Iwanowsyn.' In 1689, he received the that otheiwise shall terme them.' — (The
style of * Peter Iwanowitsch,' the liberty of Russe Commonwealth, ff. 24, 27, 28, 29.
exchanging ' syn' for ' witsch' being a pre- Lond. 1591.)
rogative of nobility. ' The nobilitie of " P. 181.
Rnssia,' says Giles Fletcher, 'is of foure '* Pp. 170, 174.
sortes, whereof the chiefe for birth, authoritie, '° Pp. 169,170. According to Gordon's
and reuenue, are called TJdelney Knazey, Jacobite son-in-law, the Czar Peter, alluding
that is, the exempt or priuiledged Dukes. to the good offices of King James I. in
. . . The second degree of nobility is of bringing about the treaties of peace at Stol-
the Boiarens. These are such as the Em- bova and Moscow, by which Sweden and
perour honourcth (besides their nobilitv) Poland renounced their pretensions to the
with the title of couusellers. ... In Russian throne, was more than once heard
the third rank are the Voyauodey, or such to say ' that he was more obliged to the pre-
nobles as are, or haue bin, generals in the decessors of the Chevalier de St. George
Emperours warres, which deliuer the honour than to all the monarchs of the world.' —
of their title to their posterities also. . . . (History of Peter the Great, by Alexander
These three degrees of nobilitie (to wit), the Gordon of Auchintoul, vol. i. p. 34. Aberd.
TJdelney Knazey, the Boiarens, and the 1755.)
Voiauodey, haue the addition of vich put vnto "* Pp. 168-170, 173, 181, 183, 184.
their sirname, as Borris Federowich, etc., '' Pp. 187-193. which is a ndte of honour that the rest may
PREFACE.
XV
Gordon prefaces his Journal with a short explanation of its plan and purpose. But he forgets to tell us when it was that he began thus 'to write the story of his own life.' We may con- jecture, however, that it was not until after he had been some time at Moscow— perhaps in 1662 or 1663, when he had completed his twenty-eighth year, had gained the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, and, after much meditation, had made up his mind to marry All that is written before this time bears sufficient evidence of being written after the event ; '^ and it is here that the author is seen to most advantage. When his Diary really becomes such, when the inci- dents of each day are recorded as it passes, he too often proves lamentably tedious. It is not merely that his page is filled with trifles— dry, interminable lists of rivers crossed or stages passed, letters received and answered, visits made, or bills paid. But even when historical figures appear upon the scene, it is for the most part only to provoke expectation which is left unsatisfied. We have seldom more than a bare, bald, note of their names. Thus we are told of meetings at London in 1666, with Prince Rupert, with Clarendon, and with Lauderdale ; but nearly all that we learn of them is that the first was very sick, that the second was con- fined by the gout to Berkshire House, and that the third gave Sunday dinners at his house at Highgate, and one evening kept the author waiting half-an-hour, and did not see him after all.'^ So, of a con-
'" Traces of foreign idiom show them- (p. 3.) ' I was put to lodge and dyet by a
selves in the very first lines of the .Journal. vviddow' — (p. 4.) ' Here wee tooke up our
We have « as' used in the sense of ' than,' lodging bxj Mr. Menczes'— (p. 7.) ' My
' by' for ' with,' and the like. Thus, ' 1 have mother came foure dayes thereafter, of whom
mentioned no more of publick efFaires as I received the benediction and tooke my
came to my knowledge'— (p. 3.") « I cannot leave'— (p. 5.) ' I was very astonished' —
tell you a better or truer reason for writing (p. 8.) this, at that it is to please my owne fancy' — '" Pp. 82-90.
xvi PREFACE.
versation, at Hamburg, with Queen Christina of Sweden, we are informed that it histed thirty minutes, but we have not a syllable of what was said.'^" So, again, all the stages of a journey, on horse- back, from London to Edinburgh, in company with Lochiel, are carefully recounted, but we gather nothing more of the renowned Sir Evan Dhu than that his nag broke down at Huntingdon.^' However this tantalising brevity may be deplored, its excuse is obvious enough ; and we should rather marvel at the journalist's persevering assiduity in writing so much than blame him for not writing more. Nor curt or trivial as many pages of his Diary are, must all such portions be pronounced wholly uninteresting. Some little instruction or amusement may be gleaned, at times, even from his accounts of prices, as when at London in 1686, he notes the cost of every article of his apparel, from a peruke at seven pounds to shoes at five shillings a-pair ; records that he paid a shilling to the barber *for trimming him;' that he gave a penny for a newspaper; that the charge for a bottle of wine in a tavern was sixteen pence ; that once he had a cup of tea*'* for a penny, although he oftener paid fourpence or sixpence ; that a dining-room, a bedroom, and a servant's room could be hired in Pall Mall for eleven shillings a-week; that in Edinburgh, the charge for a servant's meal was
-"P. 100. p 100. edit. Lond. 1851.) Gordon may,
" Pp. 136, 137. possibly, have became acquainted with tea in
^'^ Pp. 126-13^. Tea, not once named by Kussia. His son-in-law tells us, what, in-
GordonduringhisfirstvisittoLondonin 1666. deed, is easily gathered from his Journal,
was used by him daily during his second that he had no groat liking for stronger po-
visit in 1686. Pepys writes in 1660, '1 did tations : ' General Gordon was a sober man,
send for a cup of tee (a China drink), of which in a country where drinking is much in
1 never had drank before ; ' and records as fasliion ; and though he used to be much in
something unusual, in June, 1667, that on the Czar's company, his Majesty, knowing
going home he found his wife making tea, his inclinations, would never allow him to be
'a drink which Mr. Felling the pothicary urged.' — (Gordon's History of Peter the
tells her is good for her cold and defluxions.' Great, vol. i. p. 138.) — (Pcpys' Diary, vol. i. p. 137; vol. iv.
PREFACE. xvii
sixpence a-day ;^^ and that the northern nobles, from the Duke of Gordon downwards, dined daily in taverns, Crombie's or Blair's, for about half-a-crown, and supped or « took their collation' at two or three shillings, a-head.-^' Meiigre as the glimpses are, which the Journal opens, of high Scotch life^^ on the eve of the Revolution, so very little information of that kind has been preserved, that we should grudge the loss of a single line from the morning on which the Tweed was crossed to the night on which Gordon saw. for the last time, the sun sink behind the headlands of Buchan.'^^ The record of the two or three weeks which he passed in Aberdeenshire shows more than usual feeling throughout." There are occasions, also, during his two visits to London, when he warms into something like a communicative mood, as, for example, in his interviews with King James the Second.-^ Between that Prince and himself there was the strong bond of common zeal for a proscribed faith ; and it is easy to see what was in the mind of the monarch, during their last meeting at Windsor, when he so earnestly pressed Gordon to make haste back from Russia. The King looked for another Dalyell,^^ and, perhaps, he would not have been disappointed. ' I am sorry,' said Gordon,
^ P. 142. persons and places mentioned in this part of =^Pp, l-il-H't. the Uiary It may be added that 'the -*Pp. 140-152. iJonny Wife's' where ooidon lecords (p. -""On one of these bold headlands, almost HG) that he had a stirrup cup on his way -within sight of Auchleuchries, the ships which from Schivas to Auchleuchnes, was the name bore the first Russian embassy to England given to a house on the Black hill of Dud- were wrecked in 1556. — (Hakluyt, p. 332, wick. — (Inquisit. Spec, victcom. Je Aber- euit. 1589; Bishop Lesley's History of Scot- deen, no. 476.) land, pp. 257, 258 ; Illustrations of the Topo- 'Tp. 127-131, 135, 136. graphy and Antiquities of the Shires of ^^ This was in the spring of 1686. 'Old Aberdeen and Banff, vol. iv. pp. 106-1C9 ; Tom of Muscovy,' as King Charles H. used Dr. Hamel's England and Russia, pp. to call General Dalyell.aicd in August, 1685. 147-151.) It was not until more than a twelvemonth "'Pp. 115-152. An attempt has been afterwards that Claverhouse was raised to made in the footnotes to identify the chief the rank of Major General.
xviii PREFACE.
wlien the news of the battle of the Boyne reached him at Moscow, ' I am sorry from my heart that his Majesty did not, when I was in Scotland, lay his commands upon me to stay there. Then might I at this time have given proofs of my loyalty and what I can do.'^° We may well believe that the hand which crushed the Strelitzes would have been heavy upon the Cameronians ; it may be that the walls of Derry would have fallen before the conqueror of Asof ; and the ready counsel and daring acts which twice saved the throne of Peter the Great might have upheld the rule even of King James the Second.
The editor has not had the advantage of access to General Gordon's family papers, if indeed there now be any in Scotland. But he has printed in an Appendix such notices of the ' goodmen'^' of Auchleuchries, and their bleak homestead, as he was able to collect from the public records, and from private charter chests.
Although no ' laird,' and but what would have been called a ' yeoman' in England, Gordon was well descended on both sides. Through his mother (from whom, it would seem, he had his nurture
=»P. 170. p. 583.) Mr. Riddell has shown that
^' ' And this remembers me,' says the ' goodman' was used in England, after the
Lord Advocate of King Charles II., 'of a middle of the seventeenth century, as
custom in Scotland, which is but gone lately synonymous with ' yeoman.' — (Peerage and
in desuetude, and that is, that such as did Consistorial Law of Scotland, vol. ii. pp.
hold their lands of the Prince were called 980, 981.)
Lairds, but such as held their lands of a Auchleuchries, of old a part of the barony
subject, though they were large, and their of Belhelvie, and, in the seventeenth century,
superior very noble, were only called Good- adependency of the barony of Ardendraught,
men, from the old French word bonne "was held by the Gordons of the Earls of
homme. which was the title of master of the Erroll, for a yearly rent or feu-duty of eleven
family.' — (Science of Heraldry, book i. chap. pounds Scots. — (Appendix, no. 57, p. 213.) ii. ; Sir George Mackenzie's Works, vol. ii.
PREFACE.
XIX
in the Roman Catholic faith) he could claim kindred with the noble house of Deskford and Findlater/*^ His father, ' the younger brother of a younger house,* was a grandson of the family of Haddo, raised in Gordon's own day, to the Earldom of Aberdeen.^^ Auchleuchries was the inheritance of his mother.^' Its five or six petty farms appear to have yielded in those <]ays about three hundred and sixty pounds Scots, or thirty pounds sterling, a-year.^^ But it was so overwhelmed by mortgages or ' wadsets,' that probably half the scanty rental went in payment of interest. It is as witness to a deed by which his father added to the still growing burden of the
*-' Janet Ogilvy, daughter of James Ogilvy of Cullen (the second son, it is believed, of James Ogilvy, the eldest son of Sir James Ogilvy of Deskford and Findlater, who died in 1510), married, firstly, John Gordon of Pitlurg, who was slain ;it Pinkie in 1547 ; secondly, James Ogilvy of Blarak, her cousin. By her first marriage she had Sir John Gordon of Pitlurg, father of Robert Gordon of Straloch, the scholar and anti- quary. By her second marriage she had James Ogilvy of Blarak and Auchleuchries, who, in 1604, married Marjory Gordon, daughter of George Gordon of Coclarachy. The issue of this marriage was a daughter, Mary Ogilvy, wno, in 1633, married John Gordon, third son of Patrick Gordon of Nethermuir, by whom she had six children :
( 1) George Gordon, younger of Auchleuchries, born in 1634, died before his father in 1665 ;
(2) General Patrick Gordon, born in 1635, became ' goodman' of Auchleuchries on the death of his father about 1675, died in 1699 ;
(3) John Gordon, in Westcrtoun of Auch- leuchries, who, in 1674, married Margaret Forbes, by whom he had issue, and was alive in 1692 ; (4) James Gon'on, in Westcr- toun of Auchleuchries, who died in 1691, leaving issue ; (5) Alexander Gordon, who died before 1682; (6) a daughter, who was alive in 1686.
^ James Gordon of ]\Iethlic and Haddo (great-great-great- grandfather of the first
Earl of Aberdeen), who died in 1582, married a daughter of Menzits of Pitfoddels, by whom he had six sons, of whom the fourth, David, was the father of Patrick Gordon of Nethermuir, who had issue, four sons and two daugiittrs: (1) George Gordon of Nethermuir ; (2) Mr. Thomas Gordon ; (3) John Gordon of Auchleuchries, father of General Patrick Gordon ; (4) James Gordon of Westertoun of Auchleuchries; {5) Annas Gordon, wife of James Gordon of Green- myre ; (6) Janet Gordon.
John Gordon of Auchleuchries, his brother Mr. Thomas, and one or two of his tenants, appear among the followers of Sir John Gordon of Haddo in a raid against the Covenanters of Buchan, in April, 1644, when they spoiled the lands and houses of Auchnagat and Kinnaldy, belonging to Alexander Strachan of Glenkindy and his brother, and carried the latter captive to Kelly. — (Spalding's Mcmorialls of the Trubles, vol. ii. p. 342; Acts of the Parlia- ments of Scotland (I6th March, 1649), MS. General Register House, Edinburgh ; Illus- trations of the Topography and Antiquities of the Shires of Aberdeen and Banff, vol. iv. pp. 470-472.)
*» Appendix, nn. 22-35, pp. 204-208. ^^List of PoUable Persons within the Shire of Aberdeen, 1696, vol. ii. pp. 102, 129 132.
XX
PREFACE.
family debts, that Patrick Gordon makes his first appearance.^^ He was then a boy of fifteen, on the eve of setting out to seek his fortune as a foreign mercenary, according to the fashion of a time which taught the country gentleman, however needy, to look on trade with contempt^ Twenty years of successful service enabled the thrifty soldier to pay off one heavy encumbrance.^* He discliarged another in no long time afterwards f and when, he died, Auchleuchrie£ was freed of all but one inconsiderable bond. But its release was to be short lived. The cloud of ' wadsets' soon began to thicken again, and before Gordon had been thirty years in his
3'' Appendix, no. 41, p. 209.
3" Gordon's kinsman, Robert Gordon of Straloch, in his Description of Aberdeenshire, •written about 1650, says: ' Negotiatio urbanis relinquitur : meliores (magno suo malo) id vitae genus, ut natalibus suis impar, dedignantur ; unde inopia multis ; cui levandae, ad tractanda arma se accingunt, quae, multis locis apud exteros, Belgas prae- sertim, Gcrmanos et Gallos, semper amieam et illis adamatam gentem, a multis annis, cum laude, exorcuerunt; ingeniis, enim, acribus et fervidis, sive Musis sive Marti se mancipent, non leviter proficiunt.' — (Prae- fecturarum Aberdonensis et Banfiensis De- scriptio, in Collections for a History of the Shires of Aberdeen and Banff, p. 6.)
France and Flanders were the first fields in which the Scottish mercenaries dis- tinguished themselves. The earlier years of the se\enteenth century drew them to Germany, then the great tlieatre of European war. But they hart long before carried their arms to the banks of the Nile on one side, and to the shores of the Baltic on the other. So early as 1310, a younger son of Hume of Fast Castle was high in the service of the Mameluke Sultan at Cairo. In 1319, the Scottish Privy Council authorised the King of Denmark to levy soldiers in Scotland for his war against Sweden. The Danish King had Scottish troops again in his pay in 1372.
In 157.3, there was a Scottish regiment, com- manded by Sir Archibald Ruthven of For- teviot, in the service of the King of Sweden, then at war with the Czar of Muscovy. Before 1391, Russia had Scottish mercenaries in her own ranks. — (Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, vol. ii. part ii., pp. 160, 161 ; Acta Dominorum Concilii, vol. xxxii. fol. 179, MS. General Register House ; Epistolae Regum Scoto- rum, vol. i. p. 313 ; Registrum Secreti Con- cilii, 1371-1572, p. 169, MS. General Re- gister House : Giles Fletcher's Russe Com- monwealth, ft'. 39, 40. 55.)
Before the middle of the sixteenth century, Scotland had begun to pour out another class of adventurers — those wander- ing traders who, in Gordon's day, as we see from the earlier pages of his Diary, swarmed throughout all the Polish provinces. Sir John Skene speaks of ' the Scottesmen of the realme of Polonia' so early a? 1369.' — (De Verborum Significatione, voce ' Pede-pul- verosus.') Not long afterwards they were of such numbers and importance that a Scottish Consul — Patrick Gordon of Braco —was sent to Dantzic for their protection. He was the only officer of his class of whom Scotland could boast, with the old exception of the Conserva- tor of Scottish Privileges in the Netherlands.
*a Appendix, no. 48, p. 211.
a» Appendix, no. 54. p. 214.
PREFACE. xxi
grave, his grandson was a landless man, and another race of Gordons dwelt in Auchleuchries.'"'
Patrick Iwanowitsch, as he was called among the Muscovites, was not happy in his children. He was survived by two sons and as many daughters of his first marriage, and by one son of his second marriage.^' John, the eldest son, entered the Russian army when young, but was dismissed from it for reasons which do not appear. He was next sent to the Scots College at Douay, but showed as little inclination for the school as he had shown for the camp. Settling at Auchleuchries, he married, in 1691, a daughter of one of the few Roman Catholic gentry of the neigh- bourhood.^^ He visited his father at Moscow in 1698, and died before 1712, leaving five sons and two daughters.^^ The eldest son, who bore his grandfather's name, sold Auchleuchries in 1726.^* One of his brothers, James, became a member of the Society of Jesus, and he had some reputation as a scholar.^' Another brother, Alexander, entered the Jesuit College at Bourdeaux as a novice, and is there lost sight oV^
<» Appendix, nn. 61-66, pp, 216, 217, tion, is given by Dr. Posselt in his first Until a few years ago, Auchleuchries con- volume, along with a portrait of General tinued to be possessed by Gordons (the Patrick Gordon, which has been reproduced, descendants, apparently, of the Alexander by Mr. Schenk, for this work. Gordon of Sand end, to whom it was sold by *- Appendix, no. 53, p. 213. The poU- the grandson of Patrick Iwanowitsch.) It tax returns of 1696 shew that the household now belongs to one who can appreciate its at Auchleuchries was then six in number- associations, Mr. Grant Dutf of Eden, the the ' goodman' himself, his wife, their eldest accomplished Member of Parliament for the son (lor whom the Earl of Aberdeen had Elgin burghs. stood godfather two years before), one man
^' To the last. Gordon kept the day on servant, and two women servants.— (List of
which he lost his Katharine von Bockhoven Pollable Persons within the iShire of Aber-
as a day of mourning. Thus, in his Diary deen, 1696, vol. ii. p. 129 )
for 1696, he writes: « October 10. The ■« Appendix, nn. 58 60, 63, 64-, 66, pp,
anniversary of the death of my first wife — 215-217.
the dear, the beloved,' She died before « Appendix, nn. 62, 65, 66, pp. 216, 217.
1682. Gordon married again before 1686. ""^ Dr. Oliver's Biography of Members of
A lithograph of the placid features of his the Society of Jesus, p. 23.
second wife, a buxom dame of Dutch extrac- *" The Kcverend Mr. Griffin of i^ew
xxii PREFACE.
James, the second son of General Patrick Gordon, was at the Jesuit College at Memel in 1686, when his father, « perceiving that they had there infected him with Calvinism,' removed him to Douay. In 1690 he had a Lieutenant-Colonel's commission under the Czar. He was taken prisoner in a battle with the Swedes in 1 700, and at the end of two years made his escape by flight. A petition for the arrears of pay during his captivity is the last mention of him that has been found in Russia.
General Gordon's third son, Theodore, was sent, in 1692, to a Jesuit College in Prussia. Returning to Moscow in 1697, he entered his father's Butirki regiment as an ensign. He had risen to the rank of Colonel in 1709, when all trace of him ceases. Before that year, both he and his brother James had sold or mortgaged the estates of Iwanowska and Krasna, part of the confiscated domains of Prince Golizyn, which the Czar Peter bestowed upon their father.
Of Gordon's two daughters, the elder, born in 1665, was married at the age of seventeen, to Colonel Strasburg, a German, serving in the Russian army. He died in 1692 from wounds caused by an explosion of the fireworks in which Peter the Great took such delight. Eight years after his death, his widow married her kins- man. Alexander Gordon of Auchintoul, and left Russia with him in 1711. She died in Scotland in 1739, having outlived all the children of both her marriages.
Abbey informs me that General Gordon's a year in the Scots College at Madrid. In
grandson, James, born in 1702, was sent to 1733 he was sent from Rome to commence
Douay College in 1717, entered the .Jesuit Theology at Douay. Nothing more is
noviciate at Rome in 1719, and took the known of him.
simple Vuws in 1721. He was reputed an His brother, Alexander, born in 1708,
excellent scholar, and taught Humanities for was sent to Douay in 1721, and aftor finishing
four years in the Roman Jesuit province. his Rhetoric there, entered the, Jesuit noviciate
In 1732 he is found in the Gregorian Uni- at Bourdeaux in 1726. No favlhcr trace of
versiiy at Home. He afterwards taught for him has been recovered by Mr. Griffin.
PEEFACE. xxiil
The first nuptials of the second daughter of Patrick Iwanowitsch were graced by the presence of the Czar Peter. Her husband, Major Daniel Crawford, died in 1G92. Two years afterwards she married Colonel Snivius, but was again a widow in 1698.
The high place which Gordon won for himself at the Court of Moscow tempted not a few of his kinsfolks into the service of the Czar."^ The most successful was his son-in-law, Alexander Alex- androwitsch, as he was called in Russia/*^ Leaving the French army, where he had gained a captain's commission, he came to Moscow in 1696, and was at once made major in General Gordon's regiment. He was present at the capture of Asof, and rose in ten or twelve years to the rank of Major-General. In 1711, the death of his father recalled him to Scotland, where he acted as Lieutenant- General of the insurgent army in 1715. He escaped attainder by a mistake in the act, and in 1727 returned to Scotland. He died
^' There were Gordons in Russia before first sight seem due to them, although I am Patrick Iwanowitsch. Frequent mention of scarcely prepared to vouch for all that he tells William Gordon, a seaman engaged in the about one of his six Scoto- Muscovite colonels, early trade between England and Muscovy, ' Colonel Thomas Game, agnamed the Sola- is made in Dr. Hamel's 'England aid vonian and upright Gentile, who, for the Russia.' The lesearchesof Dr. Posselthave height and grossness o; his person, being discovered, among the military archives of in his stature taller, and greater in his com- St. Petersburg, certain documents regarding pass of body than any within six kingdoms a Captain William Gordon in 1631, and a about him, was elected King of Bucharia.' Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Gordon in '»=' George Gordon of Coclarachy, by his 1634. The latter, no doubt, is the person first wife, a daughter of Seton of Pitmedden, of the same name who appears in Sir Tho- had two sons, the elder of whom Alexander mas Urqiihart's 'Jewel,' among 'those Scot- Gordon of Auchintoul, a senator of the tish colonels that served under the great College of Justice for a few months before Duke of Muscovy, against the Tartar and the Revolution of 16S8, married a niece of Polonian.' Lord Gray. The eldest son of this marriao^e,
I have seen reason to think that more born in 16C9, married, in 1700, Katharfne
trust may be given to the intimations of the Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of General
fantastic Knight of Cromarty than may at Patrick Gordon.
XXIV
PREFACE.
at Auchintoul in 1752, in his eighty-second year, having amused his old age by writing a * History of Peter the Great,' which was published at Aberdeen in 1755. It is accompanied by a memoir of his own life, the accuracy of which, in so far as regards his career in Russia, is challenged by Dr. Posselt.
Thomas Gordon, a nephew of Patrick Iwanowitsch, distinguished himself in the sea service of Russia, which he entered in 1717.*^ He was made Admiral in 1727, and died in 1741 at Cronstadt, of which he had been governor for nearly twenty years.
Edinbcegh, 1'2 th December, 1839.
JOSEPH ROBERTSON.
"^ Dr. Posselt finds him described ia official documents in the Kussian archives as the son of William Gordon, a merchant. It appears elsewhere that he was born at Aber- deen, and that he married a daughter of Sir
Thomas Elphinstone of Calderhall, by whom he had a daughter, married in 1726 to Sir Henry Stirlmg of Ardoch, baronet. — (Mr. Eraser's Stirlings of Keir and their Family Papers, pp. 120, 121. Edin. 1858.J
CONTENTS
OF THE
DIARY
GENERAL PATRICK GORDON.
CONTENTS.
Purpose and plan of the Diary 3
A.D. 1635. The Author's birth and parentage 3
A.D. 1640-1644— aetat. 5-9. At the parish school of Cruden 4
A.D. 1644— aetat. 9. At the parish school of Ellon 4
A.D. 1645— setat. 10. At school at home 4
A.D. 1646-1647— aetat. 11-12. Again at the parish school of Ellon 4
A.D. 1648-1650-aetat. 13-15. Again at the parish school of Cruden 5
A.D. 1651— aetat. 16. A love affair. Resolution to go to some foreign country. Voyage from Aberdeen
to Dantzic ^
Journey from Dantzic to Braunsberg 7
A.D. 1651-1652— ffitat. 16-17. At the Jesuit College at Braunsberg 7
A.D. 1653— aetat. 18. Resolution to return home. Adventures in the journey from Braunsberg to Dantzic... 7 Voyage up the Vistula to Kulm. The winter spent there 12
A.D. 1654— setat. 19.
Journey to Warsaw 14
Fresh resolution to return home '• 1^
Journey from Warsaw to Posen 15
Description of Posen. Kindness of the Scots settled there 16
A.D. 1655— eetat. 20. Journey from Posen to Hamburg.... • 17
xxviii CONTENTS.
The Swedish levies. Gordon engages to serve as a trooper in the company of his
countryman, Rittmaster Gardin 17
March from Hamburg to Stettin 19
The Swedish camp. Object of King Charles X. in invading Poland 20
March from Stettin, and capture of Posen 21
March from Posen, and siege and capitulation of Cracow 21
Field-Marshal Robert Douglas 21
Gordon leaves the company of Rittmaster Gardin, to serve as a volunteer in the com- pany uf Rittmaster Duncan 22
A.D. 1656— setat. 21.
Gordon is taken prisoner by the Poles. He quits the Swedish service and joins the
Polish army as a dragoon in the company of Constantine Lubomirski 22
March upon Warsaw. Siege and capture of that city by the Poles 22
Gordon learns Polish. The Podstaroste's daughter 22
Warsaw recaptured by the Swedes, who take Gordon prisoner 23
He leaves the Polish ranks, and again takes service with the Swede, in Lieutenant
Field-Marshal Douglas's regiment of Scots ,... 23
Lord Cranstoun's arrival with levies from Scotland 23
March upon Dantzic. Siege of Riga by the Muscovites, under Sir Alexander Leslie
of Auchintoul 24
A.D. 1657— aetat. 22.
Gordon taken prisoner by the Poles. Loss of his Thomas-a-Kempis 25
He is released by exchange 25
Patrick Gordon of the Steel Hand 25
King Charles X. and Rittmaster Meldrum 26
Gordon taken prisoner by the Austrians 26
Walter Count Leslie.... 26
Gordon's escape from the Imperial camp. He obtains his discharge from the Douglas company, and is recommended to an Ensign's place in the body guard of the
Swedish King 27
A.D. 1658— aetat. 23. Attempt of Gordon and others to assassinate the English ambassador to Moscow,
whom they mistake for Bradshaw the regicide 28
Gordon rejoins the Swedish army as Ensign. His escape from an ambuscade 28
He is again taken prisoner by the Poles. John Sobieski offers him a dragoon company, 29
James Count Leslie , 2^
A.D. 1659— aetat. 24.
Gordon takes service with the Pole. He is made Quarter- Master. Love passages.... 29
James Burnett of Leys. Dr. William Davidson 30
Storming of Graudenz by the Poles 30
CONTENTS.
XIX
Lieutenant Adam Gordon and other Scots 30
Gordon is promised a company of dragoons 31
A.D. 1660— setat. 25.
His joy on receiving tidings of the Restoration of King Charles II 31
He is made Captain-Lieutenant of the body guard of Field- Marshal Lubomirski, and
distinguishes himself in the defeat of the Russians at Czudno 31
Lieutenant-Colonel Menzies of Balgownie 31
Lord Henry Gordon 31
Lady Catharine Gordon, Countess of Morstein 32
A.D. 1661— aetat. 26.
Gordon resolves to return home 32
Mutiny of the Polish army in the Ukraine. Diet at Warsaw. Field -Marshal
Lubomirski ^ 33
Gordon is dissuaded from returning home 34,
He is tempted to enter the Muscovite service. 35
He resolves to join the Imperial army, and engages with Steelhand and two others to
raise a regiment of horse 35
He quits the Polish service. Letter commendatory from Field-Marshal Lubomirski... 36
The Imperial levies countermanded. Gordon engages to go to Vienna with despatches, 37 He resolves to take service with the Czar. Feigns sickness at Thorn, as an excuse for
quitting the Imperial service 39
Lieutenant- General Paul Menzies 39
Journey from Warsaw to Riga , 40
Gordon is confirmed in his resolution to enter the Russian ser^-ice 41
Journey from Riga to Moscow. Filth and moroseness of the people 42
Descriptions of Pskov and Novgorod 44
Arrival at Moscow. Audience of the Czar (Alexis I) 45
Gordon is enrolled as Major in Crawford's regiment 46
He is disgusted with the country, and resolves to leave it 47
He is threatened with Siberia 48
He exercises his soldiers. A collision with the Strelitzes 49
Gordon cudgels a Russian captain, ' and denies all, according to the fashion of the
country' 50
He attends two weddings, and « gets his first acquaintance with the females' 51
Adventure with his landlord 52
He takes the oath of fealty to the Czar , 53
His despondency and illness. Ignorance and corruption of the Muscovites. Anecdote
of their suspicious temper— crmor tartari and Crim Tartary. He is disappointed
in his hopesof a journey to Persia 53
A.D. 1662— setat. 27.
He is made Lieutenant-Colonel , 53
He discusses the advantages and disadvantages of marriage, and resolves to marry 54
XXX
CONTENTS.
A.D. 1663— aetat. 28.
His courtship and nuptials 54
The Earl of Carlisle lands at Archangel on an embassy to the Czar 63
A.D. 1664— aetat. 29.
His entry into Moscow, and audiences of the Czar. Failure of his mission 56
A.D. 1665— aetat. 30. Gordon is made Coxonel. He learns the death of his elder brother. He asks leave to
visit Scotland, and is refused 57
A.D. 1666— aetat. 31.
The Czar resolves to send Gordon on a mission to England >, , 57
Keasons and objects of the mission 58
He has an audience of the Czar, and receives his credentials 60
Departure from Moscow, and journey to Pskov 61
Arrival at Riga 66
Voyage from Riga to Lubeck 67
Hamburg and Altona ^ 69
Harburg. Zelle. Hanover. Neustadt. Buckeburg 70
Hameln, and its pied piper. Herford. Bielefeld 71
Lippstadt. Haltern. Wesel 72
Emmerich. Kimegen. Thiel. Bommel. Sir George Ayscue 73
Dort. Middleburg. Flushing 74
Sluis. Bruges 75
Ostend. The Dutch fleet 77
Ghent. Convent of English Benedictine nuns 77
Bruges. Priory of English Austin Canonesses. The Great Fire of London. General Thomas Dalyell of Binns. Lieutenant-General Drummond, first Viscount
Strathallan =.... 78
Voyage from Nieuport to Dover 79
Canterbury. Gravesend. Deptford. Peckham 81
Arrival in London. Earl of Lauderdale. Audience of King Charles II 82
Earl of Aberdeen. Earl of Clarendon 83
Colonel Patrick Gordon of the Steelhand 84
The Tower. Earlof Rothes 85
Earl of Middleton. Earl of Carlisle. Sir "William Davidson. Sir William Thomson.
Dr. Robert Morison 86
A.D. 1667— ffitat. 32.
Supper at the Cock. The Rhenish wine house. Sir George Ent. The Knight's
Errant 86
Letter from King Charles II. to the King of Poland in favour of Gordon's father- in-law 87
CONTENTS. xxxi
Gordon dresses himself after * the new fashion,' and makes his farewell visits 88
Prince Rupert. The King. The Duke of York. Lord Clarendon 89
Last audience of the King. His letter to the Czar 90
Baron d'Isola. Another supper at the Cock. Mass at St. James's. Letter to Sir
William Coventry 93
Supper with Lieutenant-General Drummond at the Bear. James Burnet of Leys 94<
Voyage from Dover to Nieuport 95
Bruges. The English Austin Canonesses 95
Ghent. The English Nunnery. The Cathedral. Antwerp. Voyage to Enkhuizen.
Leuwarden. Dokkum. Groningen , ^ 96
Voyage from Delfzyl to Glucksfadt 97
Journey to Hamburg. The waggon takes fire. Steelhand.... 98
Altona. Field-Marshal Wurtz 99
Interview with Queen Christina of Sweden 100
Journey from Hamburg to Lubeck 101
Voyage from Travemunde to Riga 102
Arrival at Moscow. Falls into disgrace with the Czar 103
A gap often years in the Diary , ... 104
A.D. 1670-I676_8etat. 35-41. Service in the Ukraine against the Cossacks 104
A.D. 1677— sefat. 42. Defence of Tschigirin. Expulsion of the Turks from the Ukraine 104
A.D. 1678— setat. 43.
Renewed efforts for leave to quit Russia. The Czar Feodor 105
The Twenty-ninth of May in the Ukraine 105
Second defence of Tschigirin against the Turks and Tartars 105
Gordon blows up the magazine, and escapes. He is made Major-General 107
A chasm of five years in the Diary 107
A.D. 1679-1684— eetat. 44-49.
He is appointed to the chief command at Kiew 108
He is made Lieutenant-General 108
Death of the Czar Feodor. His brothers, the Czars Ivan and Peter. The Princess
Sophia. Her favourite Golizyn. Le Fort 108
Death of Gordon's son, George Stephen. Latin epitaphs 108
A.D. 1685— aetat. 50.
Death of King Charles H 109
Defeat of the Earl of Argyle and the Duke of Monmouth 109
Gordon gets leave to visit England 109
A.D. 1686— Eetat. 51. His first interview with the Czar Peter...., 110
xxxii CONTENTS.
i
Departure from Moscow. Affair with the customs' officers at Novgorod 110
Arrival at Eiga 113
Journey from Riga to Memel. Amber 114
Gordon takes his son from the Jesuits' College, because he had been there infected
with Calvinism 116
Dantzic. Nieustadt. Lauenberg 117
Berlin. The waggon to Hamburg 120
Execution for murder at Hamburg 121
Bremen. Oldenburg 123
Groningen. Dokkum. Leuwarden 12l!
Amsterdam. Haarlem. Leyden. The Hague, Delft. Rotterdam 125
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. French refugees 123
Voyage from the Briell to Margate 125
Arrival in London. The IMitre Tavern. A gazette for a penny 126
A suit of clothes, and the prices 126
First interview with King James II 127
Lodgings in Pall Mall at eleven shillings a-week 128
Convoy of the Duke of Hamilton, General Drummond, and Sir George Lockhart to
Barnet 128
The King and Sir Robert Gordon's pump 128
Westminster Abbey. St. George's Day 128
Gordon accompanies the King to Tilbury Fort, Sheerness, and Chatham. The Dutch
in the Thames 129
Lady Melfort. Mr. Marr, otherwise Father James Forbes 131
A visit to Chertsey 132
The Scots Battalion in London. Hamlet acted at Whitehall 132
Proceedings of the Scottish Parliament regarding the Roman Catholics 133
Mass at St. James's. The King touches for the Evil 134
Windsor. The King presses Gordon to leave the Russian service, and to make haste
back to England 135
The Queen. Prince George of Denmark 136
Viscount Melfort. Earl of Middleton. Sir Robert Gordon 136
Gordon takes journey to Scotland in company with Sir Evan Cameron of Lochiel 136
Camden's Britannia. Ware. Huntingdon. Godmanchester 137
Stamford. Grantham. Newark. Sherwood Forest. Robin Hood. Doncaster. The
York coach. The Roman causeway 138
Burroughbridge. Northallerton. Darlington. Durham. Morpeth. Wooler. The
Scots Border. Kelso. The Merse. Lauder 139
Channelkirk. Soltra. Fala. Dalkeith 140
Arrival at Edinburgh. The King's Arms at the foot of the Canongate... 140
The Duke of Gordon. Earl of Murray. Earl of Perth. Earl of Aberdeen. Honest
Tom Gordon Hq
Drinking the King's health at the Cross 140
CONTENTS. xxxlii
Dinner at Lord Perth's. Earls of Erroll, Airly, and Dunfermline. Dukes of Hamil- ton and Quecnsberry. Srarquis of Athole 141
A visit to the Scottish Parliament 141
Dinner with the Duke of Gordon at Crombie's tavern 141
Father William Dunbar 142
Dinner at Blair's tavern. Walk in the Park 142
The Castle. Dowager Marchioness of Huntly, Father William Aloysius Leslie.
Father Gilbert Inglis 143
Average price of a tavern dinner. Collation 143
Lady Lucy Hamilton 143
TheEarl of Eglintcn. Heriot's Hospital. The Earl Marischal. Lord Colinton. Sir
Thomas Dalyell 144
The Lord High Commissioner convoyed from Edinburgh to Haddington. Viscount
Kenmure. The Duke of Lauderdale's tomb. Seton Palace , 144
Major-General Buchan of Auchmacoy. Alexander Innes of Coxtoun 145
Passage from Leith to Burntisland 145
Visit to the Countess of Dunfermline at Delgaty 145
Kirkcaldy. Cupar-in-Fife. Dundee. Arbroath. Sir George Skene of Fintray.
Montrose. Bervie. Stonehaven. Cowie. The Bridge of Dee 145
Arrival at Aberdeen. Visits of kinsfolks 145
Visit to the Earl of Aberdeen at Kelly (now Haddo House) 146
Gray of Schivas. Gordon of Coldwells. Fullerton of Dudwick. A standing drink
at the Bonny Wife's of Dudwick , 146
Auchleuchries. The Kairne and the Karny Wink. Family affairs 146
Barrack. Knavin. Auchmunziell 147
Visit to the Earl of Erroll at Dalgetty. The Countess of Erroll 147
Cuming of Auchry. Family of Conn. Auchredy. Nethermuir. Entry into Ellon
with thirty horse. Gordon of Rothiemay. Forbes of Watertoun 147
Drinking the King's health at the Towstone 148
Return to Aberdeen. Countess of Aberdeen. Lady Wartle. Chartulary of Auch- leuchries. Burial of Old Craig in the Snow Kirk 148
King's College. The Links. Gordon entertained by the Lord Provost and Magis- trates of Aberdeen. His kinsfolks made burgesses. Cost of the banquet 149
Church of Nigg. St. Fithak or Fiacre. Earl and Countess of Aberdeen. Earl
Marischal 149
The Links. Salmon dinner at the Bridge of Dee 150
Letter from King James II. to the Czars, desiring them to allow Gordon to leave
Russia, His Majesty having occasion for him in Scotland 150
Letter from the Duke of Gordon to the Russian minister, Golizyn.... 151
The Links. Farewell to ' these pleasing places.' 152
Voyage from Aberdeen to Elsiueur. The freight 152
Journey from Riga to Moscow 154
Gordon petitions for leave to quit Russia 158
xxxlv CONTENTS.
He is threatened with banishment to some remote part of the empire 159
He is ordered to be degraded to the rank of an Ensign. He consents to withdraw his
petition, and to crave pardon 160
His grief at the great injustice and wrong done to him 161
His petition for forgiveness, ' in as submissive terms as could be done to God Almighty,* is received at the Kremlin in silence, ' all knowing it to be forced from him by
threats and compulsion' 161
Letter from the Earl of Middleton informing Gordon that King James II. had ap- pointed him Envoy Extraordinary to the Czars 161
The Czars refuse their consent, but pardon Gordon's offence, and restore him to his
former rank. ' And so ended this stage play' 162
A.D. 1687— setat. 52. War with the Tartarsof the Crimea. Gordon as Quarter-Master-General. Failure of
the expedition 164
A.D. 1688— aetat. 53. He is made General. The Patriarch prophesies disaster to the Muscovite arms so long
as the best troops are commanded by a heretic 164
Beginning of Gordon's familiarity with the Czar Peter , 164
The Kevolution in England « 165
A.D. 1689— aetat. 54.
Marriage of the Czar Peter 165
Renewal of the war with the Crim Tartars. Second failure of the expedition. Gordon
receives the style of Patrick Ivanowitsch 166
Revolution in IMoscow. Flight of the Czar Peter from the Kremlin. He orders the
troops to follow him. Gordon obeys the order 166
The Czar Peter enters Moscow in triumph. The Princess Sophia sent to a convent... 167
A.D. 1690— aetat. 55. Gordon dines at the Kremlin. He accompanies the Czar to a feast at the country
house of a boyar, and suifers from the debauch 167
Letter to the Earl of Aberdeen 168
Gordon in growing favour with the Czar. He sleeps at the Kremlin 168
His speech to the Czar on the birth of a son 168
The Patriarch refuses to dine at the Kremlin with Gordon. The Czar and Gordon
dine by themselves the next day 169
The Czar and his chief nobles sup with Gordon 169
Gordon writes to the Earl of Melfort that the Czar still owns King James II 169
The Czar visits Gordon, and prescribes for his colic 169
The Czar's midnight carousals 170
Marriage of Gordon's daughter 170
The Czar dines with Le Fort 170
Letter to the Duke of Gordon 170
CONTENTS. XXXV
Letter to the Earl of I\Ielfort 171
Memorial of Gordon's services in Bussia from 1661 to 1690 172
A.D. 1691— aetat. 56.
The Czar, accompanied bj-^ eighty-five persons of distinction, dines and sups with Gordon, 1 73
Letter to the Duke of Gordon 173
Captain Harry Gordon 174
Gordon's son-in-law, Colonel Strasburg, burned by the Czar's fireworks 17+
A.D. 1692— aetat. 57.
Marriage of Gordon's eldest son 17-t
Letter to him 175
Conveyance to him of the lands of Auchleuchries 177
Letter to the Earl of Aberdeen 179
Letter to the Duke of Gordon 180
A.D. 1693— aetat. 58.
The Czar Peter's first journey to Archangel 181
His visits and gifts to Gordon 181
A.D. 1694— aetat. 59. Factory or power of attorney sent by Gordon to his cousins the Lairds of Nethcrmuir
and Cults 181
The Czar Peter's second visit to Archangel, accompanied by Gordon as Rear-Admiral
of the fleet 183
A.D. 1695— aetat. 60.
War with the Turks. SiegeofAsof. Its failure... 181
Return to Moscow. The Czar's iron works. Gordon hammers a broad plate 18+
A.D. 1696— aetat. 61.
Letter to the Archbishop of Glasgow (Dr. John Paterson) 184
Gordon dines with Le Fort. The health of King William is proposed. Gordon re- fuses it. and drinks to King James 18a
Second siege of xisof. Gordon's successful device for taking the town 183
A.D. 1697— aetat. 62.
The Czar's journey to England 186
Gordon fortifies Asof and Taganrog 187
A.D. 1698— eetat. 63.
Revolt of the Strclitzcs 187
They resolve to march upon Moscow 188
Gordon offers them terms 189
These are rejected. Gordon attacks and defeats them . 190
Punishment of the prisoners 191
Gordon is confirmed by the Archbishop of Ancyra. He takes the name of Leopold... 192
XXXVl
CONTENTS.
The Czar returns to Moscow. His thanks to Gordon. Farther punishment of the
Strelitzes ^^^
The Czar's curiosities brought from England and Holland 193
Close of Gordon's Diary 193
A.D. 1699— setat. 64.
Hi? last illness, and death. The Czar closes his eyes 193
His funeral, tomb, and epitaph 193
Appendix : Auchleuchries Charters 197
Index of the Names of Persons 221
Index of the Names of Places 234;
DIAEY OF GENERAL PATEICK GORDON.
DIARY OP GENERAL PATRICK GURDOiN'.
I AM not ignorant that it is thought as hard a taske for any man to writt the story of his own iyfe, and narrative of his actions, as for ane artist trulv to draw his owne picture ; yet, haveing proposed to my self to writt onlv by way of a journall, without makeing any reflections by blameing or com- mending any of the passages of my Iyfe (following herein the counsell of Cato, Nee te laudaveris^ nee te culpaveris ipsej^ I think it not uneasy • especially not intending it for publick view, as also leaving to others, if any shall take paines to read it, the free censure of any thing here done. I have mentioned no more of publick effaires as came to my knowledge relateing rumours for such and thruths for verity. Some publick effaires (military I meane, for with those of state I have medled very litle, being- out of my spheare) I have touched in a continued series, and others inter- laced with the story of my owne Iyfe (defective, I confess, and that for want of documents and intelligence) being such things the most whereof I have been present at and seen myself. To conclude, 1 cannot tell you a better or truer reason for writing this, as that it Is to please my owne fancy, not being curious of pleasing any bodyes else, seing omnibus placere hath been reckoned as yet among the impossihilia.
A.D. 1635. In the year of our redemption one thousand six Imndred thirty and fy ve, on the last day of March, about three aclock afternoone, being Easter,
4 DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. [1640-46
in Easter Achluichries, within the parisli of Crochdan and the shirefdome of Aberdeenc, I was borne ; my parents, John Gordon and Mary Ogilvle, ' heritours and proprietours of the same lands of Achluichries.
A.D. 1640.
I was sent to the schoole at the kirk of Crochdan on Lambe masse day, and put to lodge and dyet by a widdow called Margaret Allan, ray school- master being William Logon.
Here I, together with my eldest brother, stayed foure years, haveing proceeded to Multiplex v.no sensu in the first part of Despauter's Graramer.^
A.D. 1644.
My father, dwelling in Achridy, in the parish of Ellon, I was sent to that schoole, my schoolmaster the same, being translated hither, being lodged and dyeted in Alexander Scrogges his house.
I was at this schoole about a year, when, because of the great troubles both before and now, all publick schooles were abandoned. My father tooke a schoolmaster called Georg Murray into his house, who teached us halfe a year very Avell.
A.D. 1646.
My father^ removeing to , wee were now sent again to the
schoole of Ellon, and lodged in John ]\Iill his house, our schoolmaster being Mr. Hary Tom.
Here we learned about a year. My father, in the meane tyme, re- moved to Achmade, and afterward to his own lands, and dwelled in Wester- town. .
' [In a subsequent volume of his Diary, on James marryed Marjery Gordon, daughter the 23d August 1698, the Author writes: — • to Georg Gordon of Coclaraghy. These '■ Gott this aecount of my mother's father. were my grandflither and grandmother."]
The Laird of Petlurg maryed Janet Ojrilby, oruAT i.- i i- * i ., i^,,^
, , i ^1 r • 1 c n> 11 1 "^ -["Multiplex uno sensu chcatnr abundans:
daughter to the Laird ot CuHen, and was j'-g,^^^ y^,l ;,v^,„„,j gu ^^^^i^, pimque pisum :
soone after killed at the battel of Pinky, Cum pene innumcris, quae lectio multa
leaving him who succeeded unborne, or in docebit."
the cradle. She was afterwards marycd to (loannis Despavterii Ninivitae, Gramma- one Olgilby of Blarak her cousin, a cadet of ticae Institvtionis Lib. vii. docte et concinne the house of CuUcn, and of 3000 merks in in compendium redacti, per Sebastianvm the Boyne. By liitn she had a son called Dvisbvrgensera, lib. iii. ' de hetcroclitis,' p. James, brother uterine to Sir John Gordon 89, edit. Edinb. 1617.) ] of Pvtlurge, and unkle to Mr. Robert. This
1648-51] DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. 5
A.D. 1G48. Wee were sent again to the school of Crowdan ; our schoolmaster Mr. Alexander Frazcr, who teached us about a yeare.
A.D. 1049. Mr. Andi'ew Browne succeeding schoolmaster, I, with my brothers, were continued at schoole, and lodged and dyetcd in Alexander Gariocli liis house, near two yeares.
A.D. 1651.
I was taken from schoole ; and, staying at home, did wait upon my fatlicr.
Haveing thus, by the most loveing care of my dear parents, atteined to as much learning as the ordinary country schools affoord, and being un- willing, because of my dissenting in religion, to go to the University in Scotland, I resolved, partly to dissolve the bonds of a youthfull affection, wherein I was entangled, by banishing my self from the object ; partly to obtaine my liberty, which I foundly conceited to be restrained, by tiie care- full inspection of my loveing parents ; but, most of all, ray patrimony being but small, as being the younger sone of a younger brother of a younger liouse ; I resolved, I say, to go to some foreigne countrey, not careing much on what pretence, or to which country I should go, seing I had no knowno ffi-iend in any foreigne place.
Being thus resolved, there wanted nothing but to have the leave and furtherance of my parents, which I obtained by the intercession of my unkle, and haveing notice of a ship at Aberdeen bound shortly for Dantzick, I made a progress into the country amongst my ffriends and tooke my leave of them.
On the third of June, after a sadd parting with my loveing mother, June 3. brothers, and sister, I took my jorney to Aberdeen in company of my father and unkle, who, after two dayes stay, wherein I was furnislied with cloths, money, and necesseries, returned. My mother came foure dayes thereafter, of whom I received the benediction and tooke my leave.
On the twelfth, I went aboord, and stayed at anchor all night in the June 1?. roade. The shipp was a large merchant's shipp, with eighteen gunnes, be- longing to Dantzick, the skipper called Jacob Bartlman.
On the thirteenth^ the merchants and passengers came aboord, and to- Jun<? i^--
(^ DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. [1651
■wards nl<::lit, notwithstanding it was calme and misty, wee weighed anchor, and, with the tvde, made a slow passage. Abont sunsett it cleared up, whereof, haveing notice below deck, wee made hast above, and, with many siirhes and teares. bidd our native country farewell, which even then seemed to be in a mourning for our departure ; but shortly, by a brisk gale of westerlv wind, wee were deprived of all sight thereof. Haveing, to ease our minds, laid our selves down to rest, wee were called up by the noise Avhich the mariners made, because of some shippes approaching, who, being come near, were knowne to be Hollanders. They inquired what wee were V from whence come ? and whither bound '? To all which, receiving satistaction, thev askd if wee had any Parliament men aboard V and if wee had seen an English shipp which had escaped them in the mist ? To both which was answered. No ; so after salutation with great gunnes, according to the manner at sea, we parted, keeping our coiu*se east and by north two dayes with a favorable gale. Then wee -were by contrary winds forced very farr to the north, and after two weekes. had a sight of Norway. The wind then beeing a little better, we sailed along that coast, passing by the Nais to Skagen in .lutland, then by the illand Lezow, the Trindell, and the litle illand Amout, then by a rock called the Kole, w-here the skippers exact a discretion of everv one who hath not passed that way befor. The mariners are ordinarilv lett downe thrice into the sea. Wee came in the evening to the roade befor Elsenure, and anchored about halfe a Dutch mile from the strand or shore
The next dav wee went ashore, and dined in a Scotsman's house very well for twelve pence a man, and at night returned to the shipp. On the morrow, about noone. the shipp being cleared, wee holsed saile. and made good wav, with a fresh gale, by tlie lUands Ween and Roan on our left hand, and the city Copenliagen, the King of Denmark's residence, on our right, holding our course by Valsterboom and the illand Boraholme over to the coast of Pomereil. July 18. On the eighteenth Julv, new stile, wee had a slirht of the coast. In the evening was a great calme, and in the night great raine and thunder, so that wee made no way. The next day wee passed by the Heel, and a lltle after, began to throw out our ballast, which was sand and stones. The next day being also calme, and being near the shore, wee were towed near the land by boats, and anchored before the ]Munde. a strong fort. Some of us went ashore, and walked to Dantzick on foot, being a Dutch mile from
1G51-53] DIARY OF TATRICK GORDON. 7
the citty, whltlicr wee arrived at iioone, and lodg-cd in a Scotsman's house in the Holy Ghost street, our landlord being called John Donaldsonc. Here I stayed eight dayes.
On Friday, with a gentleman Thomas Menezes, and three other Dutcii men, wee bespoke the ordinary coach for Konigsbei-g ; and Mr. ]\renczcs and I payed each for our share to Brawnsberg a doUer and a halfc. On Saturnday at eight acloak wee tooke our jorney, and came the same night to Elving, being nyne miles, and the next day timely to Frawensberg, fyve miles ; where meeting with our good friend Mr. Robert BLickhall, who was priest and vicar to one of the chanons there, by his perswasion wee let our coach go, and stayed all night.
This townc lyeth on the lake called the Frish HafFe, being every where open, and all along the foot of an hill, whereon the Dume standeth, wherein ^lere Copemi- ar, as I remember, eight Channons, who have most pleasant houses and wwkii! "^"^ orchards towards the fields. The next day, being well entertained by ]\[r. Blackball, and hireing an open waggon, with Father Blackball and Mr. ]\Ienezes, I rode to Brawnsberg, being a mile, most of the way being through a wood.
Brawnsberg lyeth. in the bishoprick of Yermia, on the river Passarg, which a mile from thence falleth in the Frish HafFe. Over the river is the new towne, which is divided in two streets, one towards Konigsberg, the other along the river upwards. The townes are joined by a bridge, the old towne walled, the new open every where. Here wee tooke up our lodging by Mr. Menezes his brother, who was a priest called Alexander ^lichal Menezes, whose charge was a small church in the new towne.
Here being at my studies in the CoUedge of the Jesuits, albeit I wanted not for any thing, the Jesuits alwayes bestowing extraordinary paines, and takeing great care in educateing youth, yet could not my humor endure such a still and strict way of liveing.
[A.D. 1653.] Wherefor takeing my leave, I resolved to returne home againe, and on a Tuesday, about ten acloak, I took my joraey on foot to save expences, for 1 had no mor money left but seven reichs dollers and a halfe, and one suit of cloaths which I had on. So takeing my eloake and a litle ba"-gc wliercin were my linnens and some bookes, with a staffe in hand I pilgrim'd it away all alone. I had not learned any Dutch, by reason of our speaking
8 DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. [1653
Latlne in the Colledge, only had enquired and written downe some words necessary for askeing the way, victualls, and such like. My portmantell 1 carved for ease on my back, betwixt villages, or when I did see no body ; but comeing to any village or meeting any body, I took it under my arme. Thus accoutred I went privately round the old towne, P. Menezes only convoying me to the high way. I walked the well knowne way through the wood to Frawensberg, pleasing my self either with trifling fancies or such objects as offered in the way.
Being come to Frawensberg, I resolved not to go to Father Blackball for fear of being chidden for leaving the Colledge, he haveing alwayes diswaded me from takeing any other course as to be a scholler and turne religious. And so excuseing my self to him hereafter by a letter, pretending my being in company who would by no means make any stopp there, I went through the towne without going in any where ; and keeping the high roadc, about half a mile off", I did meet a coach with some gentlemen in it, who, stopping, look't very ernestly upon me, and asked me in Dutch something, which I not understanding passed by on my way. A mile and a halfe further, at the entring of a wood the way divideing, I was doubtful! which to hold, yet the midle being the liklyest I entred that. After I had gone a pretty way into the wood, and doubting whether I was right or not, I began with serious thoughts to consider my present condition, calling to mind from whence I was come, from my most loveing parents and friends, and where I was now, among strangers, whose language I understood not, travelling my self knew not well whither, haveing but seven doliers by me which could not last long, and when that was gone, I knew not ^^ here to gett a farthing more for the great jorney and voyage wliich I intended. To serve or work I thought it a disparagement, and to begg a greater. With those and such like thoughts I grew so pensive and sadd, that, sitting downe, I began to lament and bewalle my miserable condition. Then, haveing my recourse to God Almighty, I, \Nith many teares, implored h:s assistance, cravving also the intercession of the Blessed Virgin and all the Saincts in heaven. Then getting up, I went forward, continuing in prayer with great fervency, when on a suddaine, from the right hand, came an old man rideing, whose gray haires might exact and force reverence from the haughtiest heart. He, seing me crying, in crossing my way said to me in Dutch, which I understood so : Cry not my child ; God will comfort you. I was very astonished at his suddaine appearance and words, and also ashamed that any
16o3] DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. 9
body should see me in such a plight. However, keeping" on my way, I beg;an to recollect my self, and to think that God had sent this old man of purpose to divert me from such passionate fitts ; the conceitt whereof made me rouse up my self and walke on more chearfully. And, truly, as well now as very many times hereafter, as you shall hear, when, in my necessities or any extremity, I betook myself to God Almighty by prayer, I found His extraordinary assistance.
At night, I came to a village, and tooke up my lodgeing in the kruc or alehouse. AVhen I came in, I called for halfe a stoup of beer, the table being covered. The landlord asked me diverse questions, to which I could returne no answer, because I did not understand him. Only I told him from whence I came and whither I was bound. He desired me to sitt downe and eat with him, to which I readily condiscended, and calleing for another halfe [stoup] of beer, which, and supper being ended, I asked one of the maids where I should ly, and she laughing, went and fetched me a bundle of fresh straw, and told me I might jy in an empty waggon in the place where the waggons and horses were ; to the which 1 went, and makeing my straw bed, I laid my cloake one halfe under and the other above me, with my coat and port- mantle under my head ; and so, being exceedingly wearyed, 1 laid me downe. But by and by came the maid, and reaching me a pillow, began to laugh downright, then jumped away in such hast as if she had been afrayed of some infection. I made but one sleep the whole night, and gott up halfe an hour before the sunne, and bringing in my pillow to the roome, asked what 1 had to pay. The landlady told me a stowp of beer, which 1 payed, and then asked what I had to pay for victualls ; and she answ^ering nothing, I thanked and went on my way.
This place being a mile or litle more from Elving, one halfe wliereof was downe a hill, about eight acloak I came in to the towue, where I mad no stay. Only buying some excellent white bread called semels, and apples, I walked directly through. When I was without the towne, I made a halt, to see if I could light on any company going that way ; when by and by came two sturdy fellowes, of whom I enquired if they were going to Dant- zick, and they answering yea, we jogged on together. These were alwayes troubling me with questions, to the which 1 could answer nothing, only that 1 understood not Dutch. Haveing walked a mile, one of these fellowes left us : the other being a dogged-like bare fellow, who was still eying my cloaths and cloak, and our way being towards a black like thick wood, I began to
C
10 DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. [1653
conceit that this fellow had brought me out of the way, and intended to lead me into that wood, and there to murtlier me for my cloaths, or any- thino- also he thought to find by me. This conceit of myn strongly encreas- ing wee came to a little house, where he asked me if I would drink any beer. I told him I had no money ; so he calling for beer, I took out my purse, wherein were seven or eight grosses, all in small shillings, which I on purpose shewed him, telling him it was all I had to bring me to Dant- zick. I called for small beer for two shillings, which, haveing drunk, my guide and fellow traveller, whom I would have very faine been ridd of if I could, brought me on a way towards the left hand, and by and by to a village.
Wee went into the inne, where my fellow traveller called for beer, and I for small beer ; wherat the landlady wondering, was satisfyed at last by the information she received from the fellow that cam with me. At my comeing in, I saw, in the other roome, a fellow standing befor a pack, measuring of lawn ; and haveing heard m Brawnsberg that there were diverse Scottishmen who used this kind of trade in Prussia, I began to suspect this w^as a countreyman. The landlady understanding that I could speak no Dutch, nor Polls either, called out this packman, who have- ing asked me something in Dutch, and receiving my usuall answer, that I understood no Dutch, he asked me what contreyman I was. I told him a Scotishman. Then asking me, very confidently, from whence I came, whither I was going, what course of life I intended to take, and why I travelled in company of that fellow (whom he knew, as he said, to be a robber, and wondring that I had travelled so farr with him unrobbed), he told me, if I had a mind for Dautzick, I should go along with him to his house, which was but a mile off, and stay three or foure dayes, and he would take me upon a waggon to Dantzick. I answered to every thing as circum- spectly as I could, and thanked him for his kind profer, telling him I must be precisely in Dantzick the next day. He urged my going along with him, and the mor he urged, the mor jealous I was that he had some designe upon me ; and so, shifting him fairely off, I made ready to be gone. My coun- tryman diswaded me from going any farther with that fellow, but 1 told him that I had found nothing in him as yet, and intended at night to hire a waggon for the next day.
So wee went away together, and came to a house called Wcyershoffe, and being sett downe in the inne, which is hard by, my fellow traveller told
1653] DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. U
me that he was to stay tliere ; whereat I seemed sorry, but he enquh'cing, lighted upon other two fellowes, who were bound for Dantzick, to whom he recommended me, and so we parted. These fellowes took a near by- way, ferrying over many ditches, and passeing others upon planks; and i-ame towards night to a village about a quarter of a mile from the river Vistle. Here I lodged all night, supping on such ordinary fare as they use there.
The next morning, I was not able to go any furtlier. 3Iy feet, not being used to such hard travell, was full of blisters, and the gkinne off in many places ; wherefor, going owt to the high way, which lay by the end of the village, I waited upon some occasion of finding a waggon. Tliere droved by, in short tyme, diverse waggons or kolesses, as they call them, none whereof would take me along. At last came a very civill man, havelng another sitting by him, at whom I asked In the best manner I could, if he would take me along to Dantzik, and what he would take for fraught ; who, first askeing halfe a dollar, at last told me he would take no less as a relchs- ort ; which I promiseing, went to the inne, and paying for my supper, fetcht my portmantle, and gott me upon the kolesse. Here, as every where, I was troubled with questions, which I did not understand. Wee crossed the AVlstle in a prumme, and gott to Dantzick by eleven acloak, being three miles from the prumme ; where, paying my fraught, I went to seek out my old lodging, which, after much wandrlng np and doAvne, I found, Avhere I was kindly welcom'd by my landlady, who was a notable resolute woman.
Here I found my self in great anxiety and perplexity, not knowing Avhat to begin ; for all the ships were gone, and so no hopes left of getting home to my owne countrey ; no acquaintance of whom I could borrow any money to subsist with untlll the next shipping ; my cloaths and llnnens beginning to looke bare ; and, the worst of all, no person to whom I could reveale my necessities, being bashfull and ashamed that any should know that I was re- dacted to such streltgth. But my landlady guessing, by my retirednes and melanchollous behaviour, my condition, began to presse me to declare my in- tentions. I told her my resolution was to rcturne to my parents as soone as I could •, which, my intention, she communicating to diverse of my contrey. men who frequented that house, and wlthall, that she thought me to be scarce of money ; so, the next day at dinner, these merchants began to perswade me to turne merchant, to the which I, fynding my nature averse, answered in fair termes, however, not being willing to dlsoblidgc any. They began
12 DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. [1653
to tell me, that it would be nyne or ten monetlis ere I should fynd an occa- sion by sea to Scotland ; to travell by land would be very expensive, and to stay there no lesse. But findeing me averse to engage my self, and reso- lute to returne home, they left off, and told me I had best travell up to Polland, where I might, one way or another, passe the ensuing winter, and then take what course I thouglit fittest in the spring ; and that there was a countreyman and namesake of mine liveing in a towne called Culm, about twenty miles off, who was a very civill man, and would be very glad of my company ; which counsell I embraced, and desired their assistance in findeing an occasion thither.
The next day, I was informed of a flatt-botomed vcssell, ordinarily called skute, which was to returne to Swets, a mile from Culm ; which way of travel- ling, albeit longsome and irkesome, yet because cheape, I willingly choosed. So upon a Tuesday, . . - . August, haveiug contented my landlady for my dyet and lodging, being very favourably used, I walked to tlie vessell, wherein I was to travell ; and about two houres befor sunsett, haveing all ready, wee sett forward. This, as I said before, was a flatt-bottomed vessell, which is so made because of the many shallow places in tlie river Vistula. It was <xbout fyfty or sixty ordinary paces in length, and breadth conforme. There were fifteen or twenty Polles, or rather Rnsses, in the boat, who could not speak a word Dutch ; only he who had the command of them could speak a litle. I took up my lodgeing in the most convenient place I could find, being in the open part of the boat, being guarded from the raine by the long hanging cover of the cabiue. Here was no hopes of any exercise but lying and sitting, there being no convenience for walking, only where the steerman's place was, which was very cumbersome. My best pastime was my booke ; only sometimes I went on land and walked a good pace befor, going in now and then to some boures house or another, wher I bought milk. I had very litle pleasure, for, the most part of the way ; the Vistula being hemmed and kept in with great dammes on either side, which hinder the prospect of the countrey, only the toppes of the houses and trees were to be seen.
About foure miles, being so much by water, and three by land, wee passed by a towne, on our right hand, called Dirshaw, lying on a high ground, and fortified with walles. A mile and a halfe below this towne the Vistula divideth, one arme going for Dantzick, another falleth into the Frish Haffe. The point at the division, called Dantziker Ilooft, hath been diverse
1653] DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. 13
tymes fortify ed and garrisoned, to the g-rcat detriment of tlie adjacent Jountrey. About two miles further, we passed by that arme called Nogat, which falleth also in the Frisk HafFe, after it hath passed by ]\Iarienburg. The point here is called Montospilts, and hath been also fortifyed and garrisoned in the warres. About two miles further, wee pass(;d by the Meve, on our right hand, lying on a high ground, and fortifyed with stone walles. About a mile off, on the left hand, Marienwerder, a town^ fortifyed with a stone wall, and belonging to the Duke and Elector of Brandenburg, did show itself. Some foure miles further, wee passed by another towne, called Nyenborg, situate also on a high ground, and fortifyed with a stone or brick wall ; and, three miles further, by Graudents, a well fortified towne, with a castle, which being situate on a high ground, hath a very fair prospect over a most fertile and most inhabited country. Three miles further wee came to Swetsh, which lyeth m a low ground, and hath, it seemes, in former times, been well fortifyed with a brick wall, but had only now a castle, half ruined. It lyeth oif from the river to the right hand, by a little rivolet, called [Schwarzwasser.] Here I was conducted, by one of these who came along with me, to the house of John Smith, a merchant, and very civill man, where I lodged all night, and was very well entertained. The next day I gott a waggon, and after noon, I crossed the Wistula by a prumme, which is a flatt bottom'd vessell, wherein waggons, horses, and every thing else are transported over rivers in this country.
Towards night I came to Culm, being a mile from Swets, and was con- ducted to my namesake his house. This Culm is very ancient, and hath been of great account in former tymes,, which may appear by its givemg name to all that district ; and the common law, which is observed through- out all Prussia, is ordinarily called Culmish law. It was fortifyed by the , , . v,''i . . . with a very strong brick wall of a large cu'cum- ference. It is but meanly inhabited, and slenderly builded ; only about the market place are some very faire houses, with wealthy indwellers. Albeit, it Inth many gates, yet hath it but three which they make use of; one w nch leadeth to the river, the other to Culmsee and Grawdents, the thu-d to Torun. It is under the jurisdiction of a bishop, who hath Ins title fix)m it, and resideth in a towne about fyfteen miles from thence, called Libava. ^ It hath its owne magistrates, and peculiar lawes of very great and ancient priviled^-es. It is very pleasantly situated on a large corner of the high
14 DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. [1653-5-t
continent. Below, towards the river, and all along the side of the hill, towards Grandents, ar many lair orchards and gardens, as also by the river a large suburb, called the Fishery. It hath within the towne three mo- nasteryes, a Dominican, Franciscan, and of Votaresses, and a large cathedrall. There ar fair lands belonging to the to^^ne, which is divided among the burgers ; who, of beer brewing, and buying of cornes, for the most part have their livclyhood.
Here I passed the tyme during the winter, when falling in acquaintance with one John Dick, who was prentice to a merchant called Robert Sleich, I was perswaded by him to travell further up into Polland ; and, because I was much inclined to be a souldier, he told me that Duke Ian Radzewill had a lyfe company, all or most Scottismen, where wee would without doubt be accommodated.
[A.D. 1654]
So, takeing my leave of friends here, I began againe a jorney on foot, in company of the foresaid John Dick, who had left his service. My stock was much the same as I liad when I came from Brawnsberg, haveiug gott foure dollers from a friend upon my way ; but ray habit was farr changed, for, towards the winter, I had translated my c'.oak into a Polls upper coat, and lyned it with sheepskines. The first night, wee went to a village, and lodged by a Skotsman, who lived thei-e. The next day, we passed by a gentleman's house, called Gzin, and so the direct way to Thorun. When wee were within a mile of the town, two waggons, with wood did overtake us, to whom wee, being weai'ied, gave each two pence to lett us sitt up to the towne. We entered the towne towards night, and tooke up our lodging in a great house, on the west side of the market place, in the old towne.
Here we stayed foure dayes, and then haveing with two Dutchmen, who were bakers, hired a waggon for Varso, giveing each eight florens, wee sett forward on Saturnday, betimes in the morning. The next day, wee passed by Cuiafsky Brest, so called to distinguish it from another Brest in Tjittaw, through Cowale and Gambin, two little townes, to Varsaw, which is thirty miles from Thorun.
Wee tooke up our lodgeing in the suburb Lesczinsky, so called from a pallace-like house hard by, built by noblemen of the family of the Lesczin- skyes, The seym or parliament was sitting at this tyme in Varsaw, where we
1654] DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. 15
hoped to have found Duke Radzlvill. After wee had stayed eight dayes, expecting his comeing, wee were informed that he was not to come at all, which put us upon new projects. My comerad had been two or three years in the countrcy, could speak Polls and Dutch, had some skill in merchandis- ing, and so, for getting a livelyhood, had many wayes the advantage of me. But my purnose of turning souldier here failing me, I resolved to persue my former resolution of returneing to my parents. Here Avere many merchants of our countreymen, into whose acquaintance I was ashamed to intrude my- self, and they shewed but very litle countenance to me, haveing heard of my intention to turne souldier, and fearing lest I should be burthensome or troublesome to theni. I had but eight or nine florens left, wherewith I Avas not able to subsist long here, or to travell farr either. I began, however, to enquire for the neerest way for Scotland, and was informed that Posna, the cheife citty of Great Polland would be the most convenient place I could go for first ; whither an occasion shortly after offered, with a gentleman called . . . who had been at the seim, and had bought some horses, so that, by the recommendation of a friend, he promised to take me along, and keep me free of expences, which was a very good occasion, considering my condition.
So, upon a Tuesday early, we tooke horse, being three persons and six horses. The gentleman, his servant, and I, drove the horses along ; but when wee came to any towne he would have me lead one, and the servant the other two spare horses. The first night, we rode five miles, and lodged in a village ; the next morning, through the litle towne . . , and dined in Lovits, which is a large not well fortified towne. The arch-bishop's castle-like faire house is fortifyed with a wall and moatt. This night we lodged in a village ; the next night in a litle towne, Piatek ; and, crosseing the river Warta twice, at the second crossing wee passed by a very fair gentleman's house haveing large orchards and parkes. Foure miles from Posna, we passed through the little towne Szroda, where the seimiks or country committees for choosing of commissioners are kept ; and, being Palme Sunday, accordmg to the new stile observed in Polland, about midday wee passed through a pretty wood of firres about half a mile in breadth, the way being streight, about thirty or forty fathome broad, ascending gently, which made a very pleasant prospect. At the coming out of this wood wee had a sight of the fair citty of Posna, which we entered about one acloak aftemoone.
IG DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. [1654
Posna or Posen, of all the cittles in PoUand, is the most pleasant, being very well situated, haveing a wholesome aire, and a moste fertile countrey round about it. The buildings are all brick, most after the ancient forme, yet very convenient, especially these lately builded. The market place is spa- cious, haveing a pleasant fountaine in each corner, the shopps all in rowes, eacli trade apart, and a stately radthouse. The streets arc large and kept cleaner as any where else in Polland. It hath on the west side, within the towne, on a hill, a castle built after the ancient manner, and somequhat decayed. The river Warta watereth the east side thereof, makeing an iland, which is in- habited by Germans, most whereof being tawners, giveth the name of the tawners suburb to it. There is a fair street which leadeth to the thume eastward, being lialfe a mile in length. The thume is a stately structure. There are diverse monasteries of both sexes, and several orders, and a vast cathedrall, which make a stately schow. The suburbs are large and decored with churches and monasteries. The citty is fortified with a brick wall, yet very tenable by reason of its v> astiies. But that which surpasseth all, is the civility of the inhabitants, which is occasioned by its vicinity to Germany, and the frequent resorting of strangers to the two annuail faires, and every day allmost: the Polls also, in emulation of the strangers dwelling amongst them, strive to transcend one another in civility.
The gentleman who brought me along, had his house or lodging in the Jewes street, where I dined with him ; and after dinner he took me along to a Skotsnian, called James Lindesay, to whom I had a recommendatory letter. At first, he was imperiousely inquisitive of my parents, education, travells, and intentions. I answered to all his demands, with an observant ingenuity. One passage I cannot forgett, which was this. When, upon his enquiry, I had told him what my parents names were, he said in a dis- dainfuU manner : Gordon and Ogilvie ! these are two great claunes, sure you must be a gentleman ! To which, albeit I knew it to be spoken in derision, 1 answered nothing, but that I hoped I was not the worse for that. How- ever, afterwards, he was kind enough to me. There I was persuaded by my countrcymen to stay and wait some good occasion or other of prose- cuting my jorney.
Dureing my abode in this place, I was kindly entertained by my coun- trcymen, to witt, Robert Ferquhar, James Ferguson, James Lindesay, James White, James Watson, and others. I was afterwards, by their re- commendation, entertained in the suit of a yong nobleman, called Oppalinsky,
1655] DIAEY OF PATRICK GORDON. 17
who was, according to the customc of the Polonian nobiHty, f^oing- to visit foreigne countiyes. At my departure, my kind couutreymen furnished me with money and other necessaries very liberally, so that I was better stocked now as I had been since I cam from my parents.
[A.D. 1655.]
In this noblemans company, as one of his attendants, I came to Hara- borgh, being very civilly used the whole way. It was the midle of Februar when wee arrived here ; and the nobleman, after eight dayes stay, takeing post for Antwerp, I tooke my leave of him.
Here, at this tyme, were the Sweds oiSciers, very busy levying and listing of souldiers. AH the innes were full of cavaliers, ranting and carous- ing. When my lord departed, Wilczitsky, his paedagogue (who spoke good French, Dutch, and Latiue) agreed with the landlord of the inne where wee lodged, for my dyet, chamber, and bed, for four markes a weeke • only, when there were no other strangers, I Avas to be content with such ordinary fare as the house afFoorded. Here I stayed eight weeks, when it chanced a cornet and a quarter master to lodge in the same innes who haveing mquired at the landlord what I was, and miderstandeing my con- dition, began to be very kynd to me, and to sheu me all respect in the tyme of dinner and supper, which was the only tyme 1 was forced to converse with them ; I either passing the other tymes with walking or keeping my chamber. In all their discourses they extolled a souldiers lyfe, telling that riches, honour, and all sorts of worldly blessings lay prosti-ate at a souldiers feet, wanting only his will to stoop and take them up ; then, falling out in commendation of our contreymen, than whom no better sojors were of any nation to be found, and that, albeit, nature had endued tliem with a genius fitt for any thing, yet did they despise the ease, advantage, or contentment any other trade might bring, and embraced that of a souldier, which, with- out all dispute, is the most honourable. Albeit I understood most of their discourse, and was well enough pleased therewith, yet was 1 not able to render any satisfactory answer, negative and affirmative being all I could atfoord them ; and, being jealous that they had a designe to engage mee, I shunned, as much as I could, any familiarity or conversation with them.
One day at dinner, the quartermaster told me that a countreyman of mine was come, called Gardin, which, according as he pronounced it, seemed
D
18 DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. [1655
to me Gordon. He told me he was a ruitmaster, a very pretty discreet man. In the tyme of my being in this citty, I had not sought to be acquainted with any man for severall reasons, but especially for saveing of expenses : but now I could not be at rest untill I had gott notice where this ruitmaster lodged, and thereupon resolved to give him a visitt, not without thoughts of engadgeing my self. Being come to his lodging, I enquired for him, and, by accident, light upon a servant of his called Andrew, who was a Dutch- man, but spoke good English as haveing lived in Scotland some yeares. He brought me immediately above to the ruitemaster, who was in company with two or three other officers. I told him, that, hearing of a person of such quality as he was being come to this citty, T could not be satisfyed with myself untill I had payed my respects to him with a visitt, hopeing that he would pardon my abrupt intrudeing myself into his company at such a time, where, perhaps, he was bussied with weighty effaires. He answered me that I was very welcome, and that he had not such weighty effaires as could hinder him for giveing that entertainment which was due to a friend, especially a countreyman and stranger. And, haveing desired me to sitt downe, he began to enquire of my parents, wherein, having received satis- faction, he asked me if I knew one Major Gardin. I told him I had heard of him, but had not the honour of his acquaintance. He told me that he was his brother, and that I must be their kinsman ; then, calling for a glass of wine, began to be very merry, remembring all friends in Scotland ; and then, falling to particular healths, in a short tymc we were all pretty well warmed. All along, both he and the other officers were a battering downe my resolution for Scotland, telling me that T would be laught at when I should come home, and that they would tell me I had been over sea to see what a clock it was, and returned as wise as I went out ; and what comfort or content could any man of spirit, who had nothing to care for, have to stay at home, when the countrey was enthralled by an imperious insulting enemy, and no way of redresse left ? The only way for those who bore honourable minds was to pass the tyme abroad, and better their judgements by purchaseing experience at least. But what needed many perswasions, it being a course to the which I was naturally enclined ? So that, without any further circumstances, I give my promise to go along, and that, without makeing any capitulation. So ignorant I was of such matters at that tyme. The next morning, when I had slept out, and began to reflect upon my
1655] DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. 19
last night's engagement, I found myself in such a labirinth of perplexed thoughts, that I knew not how to wind myself out of them. However of necessity, according to my promise and duty, I must go wait on my ruit- master ; whither being come, he brought me below to the stable and showed me his horses, here being three prime horses for his owne sadle, any of which, he told me, should be at my service and for my use, and that his servant should be as ready to bring my horse as his, and that he would use me as a loveing kinsman, with many fair promises more, which satled my wavering thoughts ; so that, now come what will, I resolved to try my for- tune this way. The ruitmaster his occasions carrying him from this citty to Stade, I stayed in my old lodgeing, not at my owue but his charges now. He told me, that, in a few dayes he would call for me.
Here I continued a fortnight, when, by intemperancy (to the which my nature was alwayes averse) or by some other accident, I fell into a feaver, which the phisitians commonly call the remitting feaver, which continued me bedfast eight dayes, and then turned to a tertian ague. After I had stayed three weeks longer, which made up in all thirteen weeks, I rode with the ruitmaster to Ratzeburg, the residence of the Dukes of Saxen- Laweuburg, one whereof called Frantz Artman was our coUonell, and from thence, the next day, to Lubeck, where the ruitmaster left me, I not being able to travell. After foure or fyve dayes stay, the ruitmaster, bemg on his march, sent for me. I was in this march in a very pittyfull condition, being hardly able to ride that day which I was free of the ague ; and that day I had it, I was forced to ly on an open waggon, above the ruitmaster's baggage, and was very glad of such a convenience.
Wee continued our march through Pomeren to Stetin. 1 am sorry that 1 can give no exact account of my jorney and march now through this pleasant and fruitfull countrey, being hindred in my jorney to Hamborg by ndeing in a closse waggon and want of the Dutch language, and now by my tedious sickness, which took away all appetite to my curiosity. Wee had very good accomodation on this march ; and by that tyme that I was come near Stetin, I was pretty well recovered. I was sent befor to Stetin to buy some necessaries, or swords and boots, for some troupers who wanted.
On the fourteenth of July, 1 rode out of Stetin, and the next morning juij- 14. came to the army, when they were drawing up in a large meadow. It con- sisted of thirty brigades of foot and 7000 ruiters, being in all about 17,000
20
DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON.
[1655
men, witli a gallant traine of artillery. It was a most delightiuU and brave show, the ruiters being very well mounted, and the foot well cloathed and armed, and above all, the officers in extraordinary good equippage.
[Here the Diary digresses ' from the method of a journal!, which,' says the writer, ' I only at first intended,' into a formal recapituation of 'the reasons which the King of Sweden alleadged for his invadeing of Polland.' It is needless to print this dry catalogue of hollow excuses. Gordon clearly enough discerns the true motives of the war, in the bold, restless, and ambitious spirit of Charles Gustavus.]
These were the pretences of the King of Sweden for his invadeing of Polland. It would be too tedious to mention the Polnish objections and reasons, and the Swedish replications. But, to tell you briefly, the maine reason was this. The Swedish King, haveing been bred a souldier, and haveiug now obtained the crowne, by the resignation of his cousin Queen Christina, would needs begin his reigne with some notable action. He knew that the remembrance of the honour and riches obtained by many cavaliers in the German warrs, under the Swedish conduct, would bring great confluence of souldiers to him, when it should be knowne that he was to arme, which, by reason of the late universell peace in Germany, and the many forces lately disbanded, would be mor easily eff'ectuated. Haveing in his conceit already formed an army, there was no prince or people, except Polland, to which he could have the least pretence, (albeit princes, indeed, never want pretensions to satisfy their ambition, and will have their pre- tences lookt upon as solid and just reason). Besides, he could never gett such an occasion, perhaps, as now ; Polland haveing been for some years tossed by their prevailing rebellious Cosakes, who had not only gott the Tartars to joyne with them, but had the last year procured the Mosco- vitc to espouse their interest, who, with very great armyes, had made a great impression in Littau, and, at this time, had brought most of it under his subjection. He wanted not, also, good intelligence and encouragement from some of the discontented Polnish nobility ; and [Hieronymus] Radzievsky, the banished under-chancellour of Polland, added fuell to his ambition ; so that such a tyme, accompanyed with such advantages, was not to be omitted.
The Swedish ricksradcs were very forward, and levyed three regiments on their owne expenses. Cromvell also (who was never backward to make work abroad, that strangers should not liave leisure to pry into his designes
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1655]
DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON.
21
and actions at home), advanced money, for the which four regiments were levved in stift Bremen and Verden.
[The Swedish army began its inarch from Stettin, upon the sixteenth of July. Crossing the river Netz, it encamped near Poscn, which offered no resistance. Here Gordon had an oppor- tunity of revisiting his countrymen who had befriended him a twelvemonth before, but whose joy on again seeing him did not appear to be immoderate. He notes more than one instance of the extreme severity of the discipline enforced by Field-marshal Wittenberg— ' not justice, but tyrrany,' as Gordon calls it. 'A boy of fourteen was hanged for flinging a stone at a Pole who was searching the camp, under an escort, for horses which had been stolen from him. A soldier, pursued by the reproaches of a woman, was carrying off a pot of milk from a farm house, when the Field-marshal happened to be passing The trooper in his terror dropped the can, as well he might, for it was in vain that the good dame whom he had robbed begged his life upon her knees. He was hanged upon the spot.' Gordon was told, on good authority, that between Stettin and Konin, where the King joined the host, and rebuked this excessive rigour, 470 persons were put to death for slight offences, within little more than a month.
On the thirty-first of August, the army resumed its march, the signal being given by great kettle-drums, each of them as large as nine or ten hogsheads. They were carried on a broad waggon drawn by six horses : the drummer stood behind, and the sound might be heard at a distance of two German miles. Four or five days brought the Swedish force to Sobota, where Gordon, while foraging, encountered some personal adventures. The army rested for a day beside a Jesuit monastery, from which the inmates had fled into Silesia. The place, having been plundered of everything but its library, the Field-marshal sent his secretary to select some books for his own use. Gordon was called in to assist in the task, and so had an opportunity of providing himself with a few volumes. Three days afterwards, the rear guard, in which h happened to ride, was, through the imprudence of the officer in command, surprised by the Polish cavaliy, which took the whole body prisoners except a corporal and eight troopers, 5f whom Gordon was one. On galloping up to the main army, they were at once taken to the Field-marshal. That personage had a fit of the gout, and, on hearing that no more than nine had escaped, 'wished only that the devil had taken them too.' In this affair, Gordon received a dangerous wound under the ribs. The surgeon was unable to find the ball until the second day ; and such was the pain for a week afterwards, that, every time the sore was dressed, the patient fainted. But by the assiduity of the leech, and care in diet, he soon recovered.
When the Swedes came in sight of Cracow, they found the northern suburb in flames, the Poles having set it on fire lest it should give shelter to the invaders. On the second day of the siege, Gordon, who was sent out to reconnoitre, naiTOwly escaped being taken prisoner. A fort- night afterwards, he was engaged, under his countryman General Douglas,* in the attack and
July IG. July 29.
August 2. August 7.
August 31,
September 3-5. September 8.
September 11.
September 25. September 26. October 10-11,
* This successful soldier was the youngest son of Patrick Douglas of Standingstane, the ninth son of William Douglas of Whitting-
hame, a judge of the Court of Session from 1575 to 1590. Joining the banners of Gustavns Adolphus, along with his three brothers, Wil-
20 DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. [1655
men with a gallant traiue of artillery. It was a most delighttuU and brave show, the ruiters being very well momited, and the foot well cloathed and armed, and above all, the officers in extraordinary good equippage.
[Here the Diary digresses ' from the method of a journal], which,' says the writer, ' I only at first intended,' into a formal recapituation of 'the reasons whieh the King of Sweden alleadged for his invadeing of Polland.' It is needless to print this diy catalogue of hollow excuses. Gordon clearly enough discerns the true motives of the war, in the hold, restless, and ambitious spirit of Charles Gustavus.]
These were the pretences of the King of Sweden for his invadeing of Polland. It would be too tedious to mention the Polnish objections and reasons, and the Swedish replications. But, to tell you briefly, the maine reason was this. The Swedish King, haveing been bred a souldier, and haveiug now obtained the crowne, by the resignation of his cousin Queen Christina, would needs begin his reigne with some notable action. He knew that the remembrance of the honour and riches obtained by many cavaliers in the German warrs, under the Swedish conduct, would bring great confluence of souldiers to him, when it should be knowne that he was to arme, which, by reason of the late universell peace in Germany, and the many forces lately disbanded, would be mor easily effectuated. Haveing in his conceit already formed an army, there was no prince or people, except Polland, to which he could have the least pretence, (albeit princes, indeed, never want pretensions to satisfy their ambition, and will have their pre- tences lookt upon as solid and just reason). Besides, he could never gett such an occasion, perhaps, as now ; Polland haveing been for some years tossed by their prevaiUug rebelHous Cosakes, who had not only gott the Tartars to joyne with them, but had the last year procured the Mosco- vite to espouse their interest, who, with very great armyes, had made a great impression in Littau, and, at this time, had brought most of it under his subjection. He wanted not, also, good intelligence and encouragement from some of the discontented Polnish nobility ; and [Hieronymus] Radzievsky, the banished under-chancellour of Polland, added fuell to his ambition ; so that such a tyrae, accompanyed with such advantages, was not to be omitted.
The Swedish ricksradcs were very forward, and Icvycd three regiments on their owne expenses. Cromvell also (who was never backward to make work abroad, that strangers should not have leisure to pry into his designes
1655] DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. 21
and actions at home), advanced money, for the which four regiments were levyed in stift Bremen and Verden.
[Tlie Swedish army began its march from Stettin, upon the sixteenth of July. Crossing the J"'y ^^■ river Netz, it encamped near Posen, which ofiPered no resistance. Here Gordon had an oppor- J"'y -*• tunity of revisiting his countrymen who had befriended him a twelvemonth before, but whose joy on again seeing him did not appear to be immoderate. He notes more than one instance of the extreme severity of the discipline enforced by Field-marshal Wittenberg— 'not justice, but tyrrany,' as Gordon calls it. ' A boy of fourteen was hanged for flinging a stone at a Pole August 2. , who was searching the camp, under an escort, for horses which had been stolen from him. A August 7. soldier, pursued by the reproaches of a woman, was carrying off a pot of milk from a farm house, when the Field-marshal happened to be passing. The trooper in his terror dropped the can, as well he might, for it was in vain that the good dame whom he had robbed begged his life upon her knees. He was hanged upon the spot.' Gordon was told, on good authority, that between Stettin and Konin, where the King joined the host, and rebuked this excessive rigour, 470 persons were put to death for slight offences, within little more than a month.
On the thirty-first of August, the army resumed its march, the signal being given by great August 31. kettle-drums, each of them as large as nine or ten hogsheads. They were carried on a, broad waggon drawn by six horses: the drummer stood behind, and the sound might be heard at a distance of two German miles. Four or five days brought the Swedish force to Sobota, where September 3 Gordon, while foraging, encountered some personal adventures. The army rested for a day September 8, beside a Jesuit monastery, from which the inmates had fled into Silesia. The place, having been plundered of everything but its library, the Field-marshal sent his secretary to select some books for his own use. Gordon was called in to assist in the task, and so had an opportunity of providing himself with a few volumes. Three days afterwards, the rear guard, in which h^ September l: happened to ride, was, through the imprudence of the officer in command, surprised by the Polish cavalry, which took the (vhole body prisoners except a corporal and eight troopers, 5f whom Gordon was one. On galloping up to the main army, they were at once taken to the Field-marshal. That personage had a fit of the gout, and, on hearing that no more than nine had escaped, 'wished only that the devil had taken them too.' In this affair, Gordon received a dangerous wound under the ribs. The surgebn was unable to find the ball until the second day ; and such was the pain for a week afterwards, that, every time the sore was dressed, the patient fainted. But by the assiduity of the leech, and care in diet, he soon recovered.
When the Swedes came in sight of Cracow, they found the northern suburb in flames, the September 2." Poles having set it on fire lest it should give shelter to the invaders. On the second day of the September 2( siege, Gordon, who was sent out to reconnoitre, narrowly escaped being taken prisoner. A fort- October 10-1 night afterwards, he was engaged, under his countryman General Douglas,* in the attack and
* This successful soldier was the youngest hame, a judge of the Court of Session from son of Patrick Douglas of Slandingstane, the 1575 to 1590. Joining the banners of Gustavns ninth son of William Douglas of Whitting- Adolphus, along with his three brothers, WiU
22 DIAKY OF PATRICK GORDON. [1656
route of a body of about 10,000 Poles, who occupied certain heights from which they annoyed the Swedish foragers. The pursuit was entrusted to Colonel Konigsmark, who, finding that 400 of the fugitiyes had taken refuge in a fortress, summoned them to surrender at discretion. They complied, and were hanged to a man. In this engagement, which cost the Swedes 1600 men, Gordon had his horse killed under him, and received a shot in the leg. »r 17. Cracow having capitulated on what are called ' good terms,' although a contribution of not less than 300,000 rix-dollars was exacted, Gordon succeeded in obtaining his discharge from Rittmeister Gardin, in whose company he had hitherto served. He continued free until the army was about to leave Cracow, and to retire into winter quarters, when he engaged to serve as a volunteer under his countryman, Rittmeister Duncan, in the regiment of the Swedish Count Pontus de la Gardie.
A.D. 1656.
Having one day been sent out to reconnoitre, Gordon found, on his return, that his regiment had left its quarters. As he was riding after it, he was captured by the Poles, and taken to the house of one of their nobles, into whose hands he was persuaded to commit his money and valuables, worth in all 150 ducats. The noble promised, from this store, to supply the young captive's wants, but failed to keep the promise. Gordon, meanwhile, was carried to Sandets, where he was kept in close arrest for seventeen weeks. At length the intercession of a country- man, ' P. Innes, Provincial of the Franciscans,' procured his liberty, but only on the condition that he should take service with the Poles. So much choice being left him, he entered as a dragoon in the company of Constantine Lubomirski, the Starost of Sandets, the most dis- tinguished of three distinguished brothers. So ended Gordon's first brief service with the Swedes.
His first and not more lengthened service with the Poles began with a march, the day after he joined their banner, from Sandets towards Warsaw. That capital, then in possession of the Swedes, had already been beleaguered for three weeks, by the Lithuanian army, which had opened trenches and made approaches towards the walls, before the arrival of the force in which July. Gordon served. The appearance of these troops decided the fate of the city, which was so feebly fortified, that, after a brief siege, and several partial assaults, the Swedish garrison capi- tulated. During these operations, Gordon was placed as guard over a village, a few miles from the city, belonging to the brother of his commanding officer. Here he found an excellent op- portunity of learning the Polish language. The wife of the Podstarost, Arcziferski, in whose house he seems to have had his quarters, treated him with great kindness. She herself was elderly, but she had a daughter who sang Polish love songs to the young Scot, puzzled him with Polish riddles, and was indefatigable in teaching him the right Polish pronunciation. Mean-
liam Archibald, and Richard, all of whom Three years afterwards he was lieutenant- died in the Swedish service, Robert Douglas general. He obtained a birth-bnef, under the had risen to the rank of major-general in 1645, great seal of Scotland, on the 1st of November, when he captured the baggage of the Empe- 1648. He appears as general m 1655, and as ror Ferdinand II. after the battle of Jankowitz. lieutenant field-marshal in 1656.
1656] DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. 23
while, be neglected no opportunity of gaining experience in his profession, never failing to re- pair to the camp on the eve of any feat of arms, in order that he might take part in it. Some of his own more private proceedings show considerable likeness to what was known in his own country as the levying of black-mail. Some peasants had taken refuge with their goods and chattels on an island in the Vistula, and, in return for a weekly pension of sixteen guldens and four florins, Gordon undertook to guarantee their safety so long as the siege lasted. He con- fesses another practice still more closely resembling the artifices of the Highland freebooter. Comrades in the camp, with whom he was in concert, would drive ofi" the cattle of the nobles in the neighbourhood of Gordon's station. His aid in recovering the missing herds would then be sought by the owners, and his successful exertions duly rewarded by them. Thus passed his days, neither unpleasantly nor unprofitably, during the siege of Warsaw. By the time that the city surrendered to the Poles, it was obvious that the Podstaroste's daughter had lost her heart to the Scottish trooper. Nor did the mother conceal her willingness to accept him as a son-in- law. But Gordon had no mind for the match.
In less than a month after the Swedes had been driven from Warsaw, it was once more in their hands, as the fruit of the sanguinary defeat which they inflicted upon the Poles in the great battle of three days, fought within sight of the Polish capital. Soon after this conflict, Gordon was taken prisoner by some Brandenburgh troopers. They carried him before his countryman and former commander General Douglas, a soldier who had so highly distinguished himself on every occasion, that the King of Sweden had created him Lieutenant Field-marshal. Gordon's July 18-20. explanation that he had been forced into the Polish ranks, was readily received, on one hand • and he, on the other, as willingly agreed to serve again with the Swedes in a picked corps of Scots which Douglas was about to organise as a training school for officers.
Gordon's second service with the Swedes extended to three years. His first act was to go to Warsaw to seek recruits among his countrymen for the Douglas company, ' Here,' say the German editors, ' some three pages of the original Diary are taken up with interviews which he had with the daughter of his former host, the Podstarost, and her parents, in which'— so they are pleased to say— 'the reader can feel no interest.' Gordon returned from Warsaw with twenty-four men. The Swedish standard, indeed, was in such favour with the adventurers from Scotland, that, as we are told, a month or two previously, 'Lord Cranstoun arrived at Pillau with 2,500 Scotch for the Swedish service.' *
The rittmeister of the company in which Gordon served was John Meldriuu, and its success
* Under the date of March, 1656, a Scottish ' yet, to me its evident, tL.^t the ruine of the
annalist records that 'at this tyme lykewyse King of Sueden is the hazard of all the Pro-
the King of France and the King of Swadin testants round about ... We will stand on
sent over than- commissioneris to Scotland for our watch-tower, and look on with ane earnest
[levying] o sodgeris. The King of Swadin, desyre of any thing may come out of all tS
by the Lord Cranstoun his commissioner, re- dangerous commotions,"^ which may look to!
sayit multitudes; the uther, for France, was wards the performance of the Lord's great
not so weill ansuerit. (Nicoll's Diary of promises. Antichrist's ruine, the bringing in
Transactions in Scotland, p. 175.) of the Jews, the breaking or Christianing thS
'Whatever be the originals of the warre,' Turks and other Pagans."- (Letters and Jour-
wntes Principal Bailhe, in September, 1656, nals, vol. iii., p. 321.)
24 DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. [1656
in driving cattle was such, that Gordon's share of the booty in a short time amonnted to a hundred rix-dollars. "When orders were given for a march towards Dantzic, he had to provide himself with two horses, which he obtained, by the help of his servant, without money. He con- fesses that this was wrong, but adds that it could not be helped. The state of the Swedish army was such, that he who could not make up his mind to live by plunder, must be content to be eaten up with vermin, or to die of hunger and cold. He told the rittmeister how his horses had been come by, and that ofiScer made no scruple in allowing him to ride off before the rest of the troop, so that the stolen steeds might not be reclaimed by their owners upon parade. The com- pany was recruited in its march by forty- three Scots who had come to join the Swedes. It lost several by the plague, which was then desolating the district. Gordon believed that he felt its symptoms after burying one of his comrades, and, as a measure of prevention, drank his own urine.
There was now to be a change in the fortunes of the war. Hitherto the Czar Alexis had been labouring for the overthrow of Poland, but, with the prospect of its falling into the hands of the Swedes, his policy altered. Concluding a twelvemonths' truce with the Polish King, he de- termined to make a diversion in that monarch's behalf, and, marching through Livonia, presented himself before the gates of Riga at the head of 100,000 men. On tidings of this event reaching the camp, the Scottish adventurers were ordered to the relief of the beleaguered town. Gordon's chronicle of the siege is interesting chiefly for the glimpses which it discloses of the state of the Muscovite army. All the superior officers seem to have been foreigners— the commander in- chief being a Scot fi'om Aberdeenshire, Sir Alexander Leslie.* After the failure of one or two at- tempts upon the place, Leslie was ordered by the Czar to summon a council of war, and to make a written report of its deliberations. The issue was unfavourable ; and although the Czar and his ministers believed that the town might be taken, were it not that the foreign officers were unwilling to subject the King of Sweden to such a loss, they determined to raise the siege.
The footsteps of the Scottish regiment were now turned toward Dantzic, which was held by the Poles The besiegers seem to have been left to support themselves as they best might. Some Scottish gentlemen, who had newly joined the standard, had not yet learned to live by plunder, and, receiving no part of their promised pay, were reduced to great straits. In order to free himself of their importunities, the Field-marshal ordered them on an expedition, under Major Sinclair, to collect nails for a bridge about to be built. The device sncceeded— before the novices came back they had acquired the art of pillage. One day a troop, of which Gordon was one, found itself surrounded by superior numbers of the enemy, but cut its way through so gallantly, as to be praised by the King. In this afi"air Gordon was wounded in the forehead.
* ' At one time,' says a memoir of the family, sequent generation, the author of the ' Short
in Macfarlane's Genealogical Collections (MS. Method with the Deists.' Alexander Leslie
Adv. Lib. Edinb.) ' three Lesleys were generals appears to have entered the Muscovite service
of armies in three kingdoms, as Walter Count sliortly before the Wars of the Covena)U broke
Lesley, in Germany ; Alexander Lesley, Earl of out in his native country. A commendatory
Leven, in Scotland ; and Sir Alexander Lesley letter from King Charles I, dated in March,
of Auchintoul, in Muscovy.' The Russian lfi36, intioduced him to the notice of the Czar
commander sprang from the stock of Crichie, Michael Fedorowitsch. He died at an ad-
— the same branch of lialquliain which, plant- vanced age, Governor of Smolcnsko, in the
ing an oflshoot in Ireland, produced, in a sub- year 1663.
1657] DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. 25
A.D. 1657.
He was less fortunate on the next occasion. Some Polish peasants, in the garb of soldiers, surprised him in a solitary ride, and carried him into Dantzic. They searched him by the way but were so little expert, that he was able to conceal from them a purse with fourteen dollars They next proposed that he should take off his new English boots, in order to exchange them for a pair of theirs ; but, perceiving with whom he had to deal, the Scot refused in a high tone, and threatened that he would report them to the commandant of the city. That person on learning that the captive was of the Douglas company, exclaimed, ' Ha ! have we got one of these birds ? ' Gordon was sent to prison under the charge of a corporal, with whom he deal* earnestly for the recovery of his Latin Thomas a Kempis. The corporal was deaf to his prisoner's entreaties, and Gordon is at pains to chronicle the revenge which he afterwards wreaked upon his obdurate jailor.
He was urged to take service with the Poles, but, like most of his Swedish fellow captives refused, and in no long time was set free by exchange. Lieutenant-Colonel Drummond, Major Fullerton, Lieutenant Scott, and others of his countrymen, obtained their liberty about the same time. Among those who tempted him to follow the Polish banner, was a countryman and namesake, if not also a kinsman, Patrick Gordon of the Steel Hand.* The owner of this re- doubtable name, who was then a captain in the Polish cavalry, at once asked if he was not a son of Gordon of Achleuchries. Gordon no sooner returned to the Swedish camp than he pro- ceeded to extort from the peasants who had entrapped him, compensation for the horse and equipments which he had lost. A n attack of fever now stretched him on bed, in a village which was one day surprised by the Poles, when seventy Swedes were killed, and forty made prisoners. The woman of the house n which Gordon lay passed him off as her sick husband • and his countryman and attendant, Alexander Keith, hid himself in a barn. They were the only two of their party who escaped. The Diary here records an example of the impetuous temper of the successor of Gustavus Adolphus and Christina. A complaint having been pre-
* Patrick Gordon, 'with the Steel Hand,' him to haue come to his hous.' Not many was, along with Lord Lewis Gordon, young months afterwards. Steel Hand appears to have Leith of Harthill, and other northern royalists, made his peace with the Kirk. In October, excommunicated by tlie commission of the 1651, he presented himself before the prQvin- General Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland, cial synod of Aberdeen, beseeching release in June, 1647, for rising in arms with the from his excommunication, and appealing to Marquess of Huntly. In December, 1650, the the testimony of the brethren of the presby- brethren of the presbytery of Strathbogie, in tery of the Garioch for proof of his penitence, their visitation of the kirk of Eothiemay, The synod appointed three of its members to made inquiiy of the laird if the minister, Mr. goe apart and conferr with him anent his James Gordon, (author of the ' History of sense off his former guiltiness and gross de- Scots Affairs, from 1G37 to 1641,') 'conversit bordinges.' The report of the reverend dele- frequently with malignants,' and, ' particu- gates was 'that they found in him some signes larlie, if he conversit with Patrick Gordon, of repentance;' and tliesjmod accordingly re- alias Steilhand.' The Inird's answer was, that, mitted him to the presbytery of Aberdeen 'to 'in tyme of the troubles, the said Patrick be relaxed.' His next appearance is, as re- came sumtyme to the minister his hous, but corded in the text, in 1656, when he was a knew not if the minister spoke with him; but, captain of I'olish Cavalrj'. He will be found since the forty-seven year of God [when .Steel to present himself more than once in tlic sub- Hand was excommunicated] he neuer knew sequent pages.
E
26 DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. [1657
ferred to the King against Rittmeister Meldrum, that officer was maintaining his innocence, when Charles Gustavus, bursting into a fit of passion, gave him two cuts on the head, and several strokes across the shoulders, and ordered him into arrest. In one of their foraging expeditions, Gordon and his comrades came upon a party of Finlanders (sending in the Swedish army), who were maltreating a young Polish beauty. The interference of the Scots in her behalf resulted in a conflict, in which the Finlanders were beaten, when Gordon rode off with the lady, and placed her in the hands of a kinsman named Koitzi. Gordon's gallantry was such, that he not only refused the ten ducats which were pressed upon him in name of ransom for the fair captive, but next day sent her a number of articles of female apparel, from the ample store of his booty. Having rejoined his company, he had the good fortune, along with his countryman James Elphinstone, to make prize of a number of horses, of which he gave two to his rittmeister, and bestowed others upon his friends. Soon afterwards, leaving his baggage behind him, he had to take up his station where there was nothing to pillage, so that, he says, he had ' often to dine with Duke Humphrey'— whom the German editors suppose to be a veritable personage of a hos- pitable turn of mind.
Field-marshal Douglas was now recalled into Sweden, to meet a threatened attack from the Danes. His Scotch company was left behind him, much to its miscontent. It was slowly re- treating, followed by the Imperial troops, when a fierce skirmish took place, in which Ritt- meister Meldrum fell mortally wounded, after fighting like a lion, and Gordon was taken prisoner, after his horse had been shot under him, and he himself had been severely woundcvl in two places. He complains that a Scotch Captain Leslie in the Emperor's sei-\ice, the heir presumptive of Walter Count Leslie,* showed no interest in his captive countrymen, who were
* 'Walter Lesley, second son of the third ror's guard, colonel of u regiment, marshal- marriac'e of [John Lesley of Balquhaine, with general of the Emperor's camp, privy counsel- Jean Erskine, daughter of Alexander, Master lor, governor of Sclavonia and Fitrinia, and a of Erskine,! would have succeeded to the for- Count of the Empire. Yea, and the patent tune, next to Wiiliam his brother. But ac- was to him and to his two brothers, Wilham quirin"' a great estate in (iermany, he was and Alexander also, and their posterity, that, created a Count of the Empire, and was de- in case he should die without children as he sit'ned Count Lesley, and staid tliere all his did) they might succeed to him in his estate days He quit his ritrht to the estate of Bal- and honours. He was made ambassador both whaine to his youn;,'er brother Alexander Les- to the Pope and the Grand Seignior, which ley of Tullos, and'also he often sent home employment he discharged with great abilities money both to him and liis son, whereby he and honour, and so much to the satisfaction recovered the fortune to its antient splendour. of the Grand Vizier, that he acknowledged, in This Walter served long in the wars, under the his letters to the Emperor of Germany, that Emperor Ferdinand 11., against the Swedes, the whole court at Constantinople was better with great honour, being lir-st sayremuH myili- pleased witii that goodly person he had sent, arum firaefedus. But that which raised him so than if he had sent a million of presents : and lii^h was the Killing of Wallcnstein, Duke of the Grand Seignior himself, beholdmg his Freedland (who was the Emperor's general of eutry into the seraglio through a window, was his forces, and designed to betray tlie army to heard to say, that, in all his life, he never saw the enemies, as was discovered by his letters such a show. (See Mr. Ricaut, his Preface to to the Swedes, which this gentleman gave up the Book of the Turkish Fasliions.) He was to the Emperor), with John Gordon, a Scots- governor of Verasdan and of the confines of man in amio 1634, whereby he came to gi-eater Sclavonia and Petrinia, lord of Pettow and honour abroad than any Scotcliman in his Neostadt, privy counsellor to the Emperor, time. For he was made captain of the Empe- and marishall of his army. He married Anna
16571 DIAKY OF PATRICK GORDON. 27
left to support themselves by charity. They were kindly treated by the Imperial officers gene- rally, who laboured by every means to persuade them to join the Imperial standard. Appealing to their royalisr. feelings, the Austrians urged that true cavaliers ought rather to serve the Em- peror, -who had befriended their King, than the Sweilish monarch who was the confederate of the arch-traitor Cromwell. Gordon answered that it was for sovereigns themselves to requite the benefits which they received one from another; that the King of England would doubtless discharge any obligations of this kind, when he got his own again ; but that, meanwhile, his subjects were under no obligation to neglect their own fortunes in foreign countries, out of regard to such considerations of state policy.
Escaping after a confinement of six weeks, in company with a John Smitli, Gordon, with no little dirticultj', found his way back to the Swedish camp He now demanded his discharge from the Douglas company, urging that, during the whole period of his service, he had never re- ceived a forthing, either for pay or for equipment ; and that, as he had delivered himself from captivity at the risk of his life, he Had a right to look upon himself as a free man. After some little delay he obtained a discharge from the generalissimo, couched in laudatory terms, and recommending him for the place of an ensign in the King's body guard— an appointment which Gordon seems to have been in no great haste to obtain.
Engaging, in the meantime, along with Lieutenant Hugh Montgomery and sixteen others of their countrymen, in a marauding expedition very much on their own account, Gordon had his feet frozen. The doctor pronounced the case hopeless, but an old woman effected a cure. The Scotch adventurers had the good fortune, more than once, to make prisoners of foraging parties of the Imperial troops, by whose ransom they enriched themselves. Un one occasion Gordon's party, although numbering no more than eighteen, captured a village in which were twenty three men-at-arms, and thirty five dragoons, and carried them, along with forty horses, in triumph to the Swedish head quarters, where the Field-marshal was boundless in his commen- dations of their skill and courage. Such a name had the Scots now achieved as successful foragers, that, whenever prisoners were brought in, or any exploit was performed, the credit of it was given to them.
Francisca, the Princess of Dietriechsteine Pettovij, et Neostadij ad Meltoviani, Sac. Caes. (daughter to Maximilian avlae Cesareae pre- Mnjestatis a consilijs intimis, et aulae belli- fectu.s), but had no issue by her. He died cis, campi marcscliallus, et confiniorum Scla- (short while after his return from that ftimous voniac et Petriniae gencralis, Aurei Velleris embassy to Constantinople) 4th March anno eques, succiiicta narratione exposita, atque il- 1667, actatis 61, whither he was sent by Leo- Ivstrissimo domino. Domino Jacoho S.R.I, pold, the present Emperor, which embassy Comiti de Leslie, domino Pettovij et Neo- was written by Taferncr the Jesuit, one of his stadij ad Meltoviani, Sac. Caes. Mnjestatis retinue." (Genealogy of the Leslies, in Mac- camcrario, et pedcstris reginiiniscoloncllo, ex- farlane's Genealogical Collections, MS. Adv. cellentissimi oratoris nepoti, in perennem Lib., Edinb.) The work alluded to in the last laudatissimi patrui mcmoriani dicata a H [eve- sentence was published at Vienna in 16G8, rendo] P[atre] P[aulo] T[rafltTiicr] S[ocie- under the title of ' Caesarea Legatio, quam tatis] J[esu], itineris comite, et excellentissimi mandante augustissinio Rom. Impcratore Leo- oratoris capellano.' The volume has an en- poldo I. ad Portam ottomannicam suscepit, graved full-length portrait ol Walter Count perfecitque excellentissimvs dominvs Dominvs Lesly. Waltcrus S.R.L Comes de LesUe, Dominus
28 DIARY OF PATRICK G JRDON. [1658
A.D. 1658.
[The next passage of the Diary, bearing date in January or February 1658, must be given in Gordon's own words.]
Whilst wee lay In this Werder, an English ambassador, called Brad- shaw, having been on his jorney to Moskovia, and not admitted,* returned this way, and was lodged in Lamehands taverne. Wee getting notice thereof, and thinking him to be that Bradshaw who sat president in the highest com*t of injustice upon our soveraigne King Charles the First, of blessed memory, wee resolved, come what will, to make an end of him ; and being about fifteen, with servants, six whereof might be accounted trusty, wight men, the others also indiiFerent, wee concluded, that doing the feat in the evening, wee could easily make our escape by the benefitt of the strait ground and darknes of the night ; and so, being resolved, wee tooke our way thither. Being come neai', and asking a boore, come from thence, some questions, he told us that just now some officers were come from Elbing to the ambassadour, and about forty dragounes, who were to guard and convey him to Marienburgh ; which made us despair of doing any good, and so wee returned. Wee had resolved to make our addresses to him, as sent with a commission from Field-marshall von der Linde to him ; and, being admitted, seven or eight of us to have gone in and stabbed him, the rest guarding our horses and the doore, and so being come to horse, made our escape to Dantzick.
[Not without regret for the free and profitable career which he quitted, Gordon now entered the Swedish regiment of Colonel Anderson as ensign. While on duty at Stum, he one day, in company with his friend Captain Forbes, rode after some Poles who were carrying off horses belonging to the garrison. Falling into an ambuscade, they were set upon by about a hundred of the enemy, when Forbes was wounded and taken prisoner. Gordon, floundering through a bog, dashed through three Poles who had marked him for their prey, and, spurring past twenty others, escaped with the loss of his sabre, his cap, and a handful of hair which was torn with it from his head. His clothes were riddled with shot, and had three arrows sticking in them, one of which wounded him in the side. On regaining the Swedish lines, his colonel, who, with
* [The German editors observe, that, from vileges. There are in the Russian archives,
the death of King Charles I. until the rcsto- it is added, numerous notices of the friendly
ration of King Charles II., no English am- feeling which the Czar displayed in dal'viivnt
bassador was received in Russia. The Eng ways towards King Charles II. during his
lish merchants, in consequence, lost their pri- exile from England.]
1659] DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. 29
some other officers, had quietly beheld the whole affair, rode up to him with a cocked pistol, and threatened to shoot him for venturing so far without orders. Gordon made no other answer than that he would not desert his captain ; but he was so aflFected by this incident and by the loss of his friend, that, in despair, he rode back to seek death in another skirmish with the Poles. He escaped once more, and Captain Forbes, after a captivity of six weeks, recovered his liberty.
In a sally by a handful of the garrison against a numerous body of the enemy, Gordon again November 22. fell into the hands of the Poles. He was allowed to walk about on parole, and made the ac- quaintance of divers of his countrymen serving in the Imperial ranks, among whom was Captain Leslie, son of Tullos, and nephew of Count Leslie* Proposals to liberate Gordon by exchange were made by the Swedes, but refused by the Poles, who wished to see him again in their ser- vice. Nor was he at heart much averse to joining their banner, although he thought it right to affect some outward show of reluctance. The renowned John Sobieski tempted him with the offer of a dragoon company in a body of troops stationed on the Sobieski estates, but this ap- pointment would have withdrawn him from the path of promotion, and was therefore declined. The future deliverer of Vienna— whom he characterises as a 'hard bargainer but courteous'— could offer him no other service, but undertook to speak for him to Field-marshal Lubomirski. The latter, soon afterwards, offered Gordon the rank of ensign in his body guard of foot ; but the aspiring Scot had already held the same rank in a Swedish regiment of dragoons, and de- clared that there was no potentate upon earth whom he would serve any longer as ensign.
A.D. 1659.
At length, after a captivity of eleven weekS; he accepted the appointment of quarter master. 1659. He takes great pains to vindicate this change of standard— his chief reason resolving itself into this, that his main object was to make his fortune, and that the Swedes had too many enemies to have much chance of success. His own experience had already satisfied him, that, 'in the Swedish army, the soldier is in danger of being starved to death by hunger.'
* 'James Lesley, the second son [of Alex- chamber in anno 1660, and received the golden ander Lesley of Tullos, the third and youngest key that same year, and, in 1666, was made son of John Lesley, the tenth Laird of Bal- colonel of a regiment of foot, and after his quhain by his third marriage with Jean Erskine, uncle's death was one of the marishalls of the daughter of Alexander, Master of Erskine,] Empire. He at last had some competition when young, went to Germany to his uncle, with Count Staremberg, whereupon he retired Walter, Count Lesley, and was educate with from the court to his city of Pettaw, where he him as his heir. He sent him to his travels was seized with an apoplexy and the "out through France, Italy, Spain, Poland, and Ger- which kept him, till his death in aniio'l69'> many ; and, at his return, he married in anno without issue of his body. But his brother 1666, Maria Theresa, the Princess of Leichten- Patrick, his son James Ernest Lesley, suc- stem, daughter to Prince Charles of Leichten- ceeded to him, to whom he left the lordship stein. Duke of Trappau, and spent at his of Pernegg which he had bought, which was marriage 50,000 rex- dollars, for there were pre- to foil to Franciscus Jacobus, son to Alex- sent at the marriage, for respect to the uncle, ander his own brother, if he had no heirs- the Count, the Emperor, Empress, and most of and he gave the lands of Balwhaine etc., to the nobility at the court For his uncle and George the second son of his brother Patrick ' his own deservings, he was in great reputation —(Genealogy of the Leslies, in Macfarlane's in the Emperor's court, and was created coun- Genealogical Collections, MS., Adv. Lib Edin ) sellor and gentleman of the Emperor his bed-
30
DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. [1659
One of Gordon's first duties, in his second campaign with the Poles, was with a party of seven di-agoons to protect the Staroste of Libiish, not from the enemy, but from the Tolish troops as they marched past. This task detained him for six weeks. He is warm in his praises of the kind and friendly Podstaroste, and records that such were the gains of this service, that they supplied him with a new uniform, two horses, a carriage, and a couple of servants, besides a parting gift of one hundred gulders and an old but serviceable Turkish steed. Among the gentry whose hospitality he shared was a German of the name of Milgost, who had an only daughter, whose hand he signified his willingness to bestow upon the young quarter master, if only he would renounce the profession of arms. He had another affair of the same sort at the next place to which he was sent. A wealthy widow, in whose house they were quartered, wished to marry his major, and the major, in turn, wished his quarter master to marry the widow's daughter. To all these proposals the Scot returned soft but evasive answers.
About this time Gordon encountered two countrymen— James Burnett of Leys, whom he found in the train of an envoy from the waywodc of Kiew in the Ukraine; and Dr. William Davidson, then physician to Field-marshal Lubomirski, and subsequently first physician to John Casimir, King of Poland.*
The Polish army, under Lubomirski, now sat down before Grandcnz. Gordon had often been in the place while he was in the Swedish ranks, and the Field-marshal now consulted with him as to the best point of attack. His counsel was followed, and with a successful issue. The town was taken by storm, but, although the mutinous garrison capitulated, the commandant re- treated to a tower of the citadel, and declared that he would rather die than give himself up to ' the knaves the Polls.' Gordon was sent to parley with him, and succeeded in persuading him to sun-endcr to the Imperial auxiliaries of the Polish army. Meanwhile the soldiers pillaged his boxes, nor did Gordon disdain the spoil of twelve or fifteen volumes, from his not inconsiderable store of books. The captured garrison immediately took service with the Poles.
Gordon records about this time the arrival of a letter from his father at Auchleuchries ; the death of Lieutenant Adam Gordon, and of Ensign John Kennedy; and the vain endeavours of Major Patrick Gordon of the Steel Hand to get the property of the lieutenant, who was his kinsman, out of the hands of the colonel of the regiment. Quarter master I'atrick Gordon was pressed into this last business, with the promise of 'a share and half of all that might be re- covered ; but although he almost came to blows with the colonel, and made a perilous journey to the coast, all was to no purpose. William Gordon, a trader in Konigsberg. who acted as banker for the deceased, refused to give up his moneys to Steel Hand, alleging that there were nearer relatives in Scotland-an argument to which the quarter master could only oppose a threat of future vengeance. This journey gave Gordon an opportunity of sending a letter to October 15. his father, by the hands of Adam Gordon of Ardlogy, whom he met at Konigsberg about to
* Of this once eminent physician who, af\er 617; the Book of Bon-Accord, pp. 316, 317;
Dracusin- in Pari^ where he is said to have Fasti Abcrdoncnscs, pp. 400, 403, 404; Father
held Ic^otnce of intendant of the Jardin dcs Blakhal'sBreille Narration, pp. : 92, 198; James
Plantes finally settled in Poland, notices will Gordon's Description of Both Touns of Aber-
be found in the Biographic Uuiverselle, t. x., p. deen, p. 8,
16G0] DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. 31
take ship for Scotjand. Ou his way bacit to the camp, he waited on the commandant of Pillau, by whom, much against his will, he was constrained to stay to a marriage feast. He was much rallied for his temperance at dinner, nor was it without difficulty that he was persuaded to join in the gaieties which followed. The charms of hi': host's daughter having prevailed against his dislike of dancing, the officers assailed him with fresh provocations to drink, but he turned a deaf ear to them all.
When he returned to the anny, the general sent for him to say that a regiment of dragoons was about to be raised, and that he should have a company in it. His first care was for the health of his men, and for this purpose he repaired to I'osen to take counsel with a Jew doctor in gi-eat repute for his successful treatment of the plague. Of this practitioner he bought ten dol- lars' worth of pills. Several pages of the Diary are tilled with details of marches and counter marches, of which the only object seems to have been the subsistence of the soldiers. It was 'the custom of the couutrj'' that recruiting parties and troops on march should be supported by the districts through which they passed; but this privilege had been so much abused by self- constituted bands, that Gordon was received very much as if he had been invading a hostile country. His entrance into towns and villages was opposed by the inhabitants in arms; and his men had often to march with matches lighted. He spared a visit to one town, of his own accord, ho tells us, because it belonged to a prince who befriended foreigners, and because its ' provost' or chief-magistrate was a Scot. But he repented this precipitate piece of courtesy, for which his countryman showed no gratitude.
A.D. 1660.
He was at the Castle of Lubowna, near Guesen, in the summer of IGCO, when the Podstaroste IfiGO. infonncd him that the King of England had been recalled to his throne. Gordon was so over- joyed with the tidings that he departed for once from his accustomed abstemiousness. He had to pay the forfeit of his loyal festivities next morning.
Field-marshal Lubomirski, compelled by the jealousy of the nobles to abandon his design oi raising a dragoon regiment, proposed that Gordon's company should be merged in his own body-guard, and that that the whole should, in the meantime, be under Gordon's command. In this capacity of Captain-lieutenant, he served in that campaign of the Poles and Crim-Tar- tars, against the Cossacks of the Ukraine and the Muscovites, which terminated in the disastrous route of the latter at Czudno or Slobodischtsche, in June, 1660. In this battle, June. in which the Russians lost 115 standards, C7 guns, and 36,000 men killed or taken prisoners, Gordon greatly distinguished himself, and received several wounds. His friend Lieutenant colonel Menzies,* who fought in the Muscovite ranks, was taken prisoner by
* Thomas Menzies of Balgownie, the son of at Riga in Leifland with Ladie Marie Farser-
aRoman Catholic family driven from Scotland son, borne of noble and honourable parentage
by the Covenant, bus been mentioned in a pre- in the dukedomc of Curland.' It was given in
vious page, as Patrick Gordon's fellow travel- evidence by Lord ilenry Gordon, at Aberdeen
lerfrom i->antzic to Braunsberg in the summer in 1672, 'that the said deccast Lievtennant-
of 1651. In the same year ' he wes married Collonell Thomas Mcnzcis, being, in anno 1667,
32
DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON.
[1661
Lord Henry Gordon,t then a colonel in the Polish army, but died of his wounds a few days afterwards.
A.D. 1661.
1661 Peace being concluded, the Polish army took up its winter quarters in the Ukraine. Here Gordon, hearing of the happy restoration of King Charles II., resolved to return home, in the hope of obtaining service in his own country. He had already apprised his father of his intentions, and now petitioned the Field-marshal for his discharge. He was easily persuaded, bruary. however, to retain his command until the spring, when he conducted his company to Warsaw, where Lubomirski was in attendance on the Diet. Meanwhile the army in the Ukraine mutinied, and choosing leaders for itself, began to march towards Warsaw in order to obtain redress of its grievances. At this point the Diary is again resumed in Gordon's own words.]
The prisoners of the Moscovites taken at Czudnow, Mogilow, and Bassa or Guharj, were convoyed, with the collours taken, in a kind of pro- cession to the pallace where the parliament sate. The woywods, or gene- rall and principal! persons, were brought in to the upper house to the pre-
in that charge, vndcr the command of his Im- periall INIajestie of Russia, in fighting against the Polonianes beseid Szudna, was deadlie woundit. and takin prisoner be the said Lord Hendrie Gordone, collonell vnder the com- mand of his Maje>tie of Polland, and dyed of his woundes in Vkrain, and wes buried in the fields at Szudna.' — (Miscellany of the Spalding Club, vol. v., pp. 352, 353.) Cf Spald- ing's Jlemorialls of the Trubles in Scotland, vol ii., pp. 236, 372, 433, 441.
f Lord Henry Cordon was the youngest son of George, second Marqviess of Huntly. ' Horn in France, he was,' says the historian of the family, 'by Dr. Davidson carried to Poland, with his youngest sister twins : he served there several years in veiy honourable employment, and came home [before 1666] and died at Strathbogie.' The querulous Robert Mylne writes that Lord Henry, 'quho was a little hair-brained, but wery couragious, in his latter dayes mamcd one Mrs Rolland, ane innkeeper in Aberdeen.'— (Gencalogie of the Familie ot Gordon, collected by R. M., anno Domini 1707, MS. in the Library at Skene.) The same work gives this account of Lord Henry's twin sister: " Kathrine, daughter to George, second Mar- quis of Huntley, went abroad to France, and thereafter she and the daughter of the Cardi- nall of Arquien went to Polland with the Queen thereof, Mary Lodovica de Gonzaga, daughter of the Duke of Nevers, of the house of Mantua, in order to many Uladislaus, King of Polland; and the two were both her maids
of honour; and this Queen procured Kathrine Gordon to be married to [John Andrew] Count Morstein, great thesaurer of Polland, betwixt quhom was procreat the Count of Chateau Villain, quho was killed at the seidge of Na- muir, quho had married a daughter of the Duke of Chevreuse, by whom two daughters. This Count .Morstin had .also a daughter married to Count Bielinski, great chamberlaine of the crown of Polland. This Kathrine, Countess of Morstin, was ane active woman, and had as much credite among the nobility of Polland, as over her husband's mind ancnt the election of the Prince of Conti to be King of Polland. This Count Morstin is descended from the cheife of ane old fiimily in Polland, and was great thesaurer thereof, but, haveing more re- guard to his own private iutrest than the pub- lict benefitt, sent all the riches of the thesaur- ary into France, quhairunto he retired himself, anno 1683, to prevent the Diets calling him to ane account. He purchased in France the whole county of Chateau Villan, worth 100,000 livers a year." Lady Catharine Gordon had a birth-brief under the great seal of Scotland, on the 21st of August, 1687.
Lord Henry Gordon, in 1658, obtained for himself and his heirs, the right of Polish no- bility. In 1667, King Charles TI. gave in- structions that he should have a life annuity of five thousand mcrks Scots from the estate of Huntly, which was at that time estimated to be worth about thirty thousand pounds Scots a-year.
1661] DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON.
33
sence of the King, the collours being cariyed bcfor, and throwne downe on the floore at tli^ Kings feet. They were ordered to do their reverence to the King as they used to do to the Tzaar, which they refused, especially the Kniaz Gregory Affonasseovits Koslofsky, who also openly upbraided them with breach of the capitulation. But he was silenced, and reconducted to the quarters allotted them. These collours were afterwards, on Corpus Christi day, caryed in procession to the new towne, to the church dedicated to the Blessed Margin, with great solemnity.
The Swedish ambassadour, GrafFe Steno Bielke, received satisfaction ; for albeit the peace had been allowed by a convocation of the estates the yeare befor, yet it was now fully ratifyed and confirmed.
The newes from the Ukraina, of the confederacy of the armyes, was the greatest perplexity ; and Lubomirskij, being disgusted, though best able, yet contributed least to the composeing of this mischieffe, and most because his method and counsells were not allowed nor followed. And surely no- thing proceeded from him which did please the court, he being suspected to act against its interest ; and, even now, they suspected him to be the hote- feau of the armyes confederacy, whereof at this tyme, he was, without doubt, guiltles. But, if hereafter, when he was forced into a foreigne countrey, he fomented the dissension or division betwixt the King and army, as it is said, I cannot tell : only I say this, which 1 had great reason and occasion to know, haveing been, in a manner, his domestick, and con- stantly present at table, and many private discourses, and likewise being very intimate with his secretaryes and chieffe servants for the space of two yeares and a halfe, that I never heard, nor could perceive any thing from him, but setled and constant resolutions to adhere to the setled constitutions of the realme, a hatred against innovations, a great zeale for the preserva- tion of the libertyes and priviledges of the people. /. n-i truly he was by na- ture a great lover of vertue and vertuous persons, and as great a hater of vice; a good sojour ; a great politician as to the understanding of state effaires, but no good practicioner, as the event showed ; very prudent and just in all his private actions. This, in short, I do in verity affirme of this noble prince.
The Prince Bogoslaw Radziewill went away from the parliament dis- gusted ; his former behaviour, in the late warrs, being objected to him in parliament by some of the senatours ; he being forbidd also to let his chap- laine preach in his lodging, because it belonged to the church, he haveing
F
34 DIAEY OF PATRICK GORDON. [1661
hired it ; the lo(lgiii<>; or house belonging to that family not being built since its mine by the Sweds.
The parliament not coraeincj; to any resolution concerning the contenting the army and prosecuting the warr against the Moskovite, save only the sending some deputies to the army, to perswade them to returne to their obedience and duty, with promise of contentment at the commission, which was shortly to be held at Reusse Lemberg ; wherewith the army, not being satisfved, marched out of their quarters to a generall rendevous by . . . where they choose to themselves a generall director ; and all or most of the superiour officers being absent, they choose out of their owne number per- sons to command them ; whereby the fairest opportunity that the Polls ever had, since the beginning of the warr, of reducing the Ukraina, was lost.
The parliament breaking up befor things were thoroughly regulated, and most of the nobility quitting Varso, the King, being much perplexed with the newes comeing from the confederate army, that they were not satisfyed with the results of the parliament, sent for most of the nobility to consult upon the meanes to satisfy the army, and bring them to their duty ; but whatever measures were taken here (the fates of PoUand not permitting it), the army remained still dissatisifyed, which afterwards turned to an in- testine warr, like to have utterly ruined that nation.
Shortly after my comeing to Varso, I received a letter from my father, giveing me notice of the receit of myne of the third of May the year be- for, wherein I had written, that hearing of his Sacred jMajesties happy re- stauration, 1 intended to come home, in hopes to be accomodated under his Majestic. But, my father informing me that the armyes were disbanded, and that only a few troops were continued in pay, and that the charge of these were given to the nobility, and to such persons who had extraordi- narily deserved and suffered for his Majestic, and that without a good stock it was very hard liveing in Scotland ; this deterring me from thinking of going home, 1 resolved not to quite the service wherein I was, and so not to mention or seeke ray passe.* Yet, haveing sqllicited my pass with so great
* [Gordon could not have foreseen that his dome.' A few days afterwards, the Trivy
reliffion would have proved an obstacle to his Council removed Colonel VVhytford from his
employment in Scotland. By proclamation, company in the Earl of Linlithgow's regiment,
dated on the sixteenth of December, 1673, and ordered 'the mustermaster generall to give
King Charles II. inhibited and discharged in lists of the haill officers of the militia troupes
' any person or persons who arc of the Popish and regiments, that it may be knowne who of
profession after the lirst of March nixt to ac- them are I'opish that order may be taken
cept of or exercc any public imployuient or with them conform to the late proclamation.'] officeeithercivillor military within this king-
1661] DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. 35
pressing eaniestiies, and liaveing rejected or refused the conditions offered me in Crosna, by Collouel Laniziinsky, to take a compagny, and which, he told me, he did by the generall's command ; being afrayed that it might be objected to me hereafter, I thought fitt to looke about me for other service, though not to engage but upon good conditions. And, first, I had great temptations from the Moskowitish ambassadours ; for haveing, by ordor, con- ducted some of their chieffe officers to them, about their ransome, as also, they haveing ransomed two officers from me, they very earnestly desired their colonells to engage me in the Tzaars service, to the which I seemed to give halfe a willing eare. So they promised that I should not be longer detained as three yeares, one yeare whereoff to serve for major, and two for lievtennent-colonell. Yet did I not accept of these offers, but only kept them in hand, to have another string for my bow ; nor, perhaps, had ever embraced them, if another accident had not fallen out.
About the same tyme, the Roman Emperours ambassadour, the Baron d'Isola, gott orders from the Emperour to engage officers to levy a regiment of horse ; to which purpose he engaged Lievtennant-collonell Gordon, commonly called Steelhand, who, useiug all the pressing reasons he could to perswade me to engage with him, telling me of the honourable service, the good pay, with the advantage and easines of the levyes at this tyme, wherewith being overcome, after mature consideration, I resolved to engage ; and so wee entered into capitulation, fowre of us, to levy a regi- ment of 800 horse. The persons were Steelhand, colonell ; Lievtennant- collonell John Watson, Maior Davidson, and myself. I engaged to levy two compleet compagnyes, being to receive for each horseman forty reichs dollars, the nominating of the officers behig the colonells ; and I made an apart capitulation with the colonell, being to take on officers for the two compagnyes, except the ruitmaster, I myself to be eldest ruitmaster, and to have thirty-fyve reichs dollers for each hor.seman tl;at I should bring to muster place or rendevows above my two companyes. One of the reasons which induced me to engage here, was the great advantage I expected by the levying ; for I had notice that the Elector of Rrandeburg had disbanded foure regiments of horse in Prussia, so that many would be glad to enter into service againe, and I doubted not to bring my companyes and more to the locality which wee were to have in Silesia, and the rendevous, at the rate of fyfteen or twenty reichs dollers a horseman, besides the advanta^-e
36 DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. [1661
I should have had by my officers, who must have fm'nished so many horse- men according to their charge. I gave surety or caution for my levy- monev James Biruey, Georg Gordon, and James Wenton, all merchants and indwellers in Zamoisiz.
Being fully resolved now to engage in the service of the Roman Em- perour, upon the above said conditions, I thought it tyme to desire my passe ; and haveing watched a fitt opportunity, with great difficulty, 1 ob- teined a grant of it, the generall commanding me to cause writt it myself, which 1 did in plaine termes, without any hyperbolicall or superfluous praise or expressions, and haveing delivered it to his excellency, he was pleased to read it, and seeming not well satisfyed, gave it to the secretary, Bartholo- meus Pestritsky, commanding him to writt it over, saying. He deserveth a better recommendation. Two dayes thereafter, my pass being ready, and brought to the generall, I standing by, he was pleased to ask me, if I would not resolve to stay in the service ? I answering that I could not, he gave me my pass, the exact and true copy whereof I have here inserted.
Georgius Sebastianus Lubomirsky, Comes in Wisnicz et laroslaw, Sacri Romani Imperii Princeps, Supremus Mareschallus Regni Poloniae et Generalis Exercituum Dux campestris, Generalis Minoris Poloniae, Cracoviensis, Chmielniviensis, Nizinensis, Casi- miriensis, Olstinensis, Pereaslaviensisque Gubernator . Universis et singulis, cujuscunque status, gradus, honoris, dignitatis, officii et praeeminentiae personis, hasce nostras visuris, lecturis, aut legi - audituris, humanissimam officiorum nostrorum contestationem . Quicunque egregiis clarent factis, praesertim illi quorum generosa pectora militari sese eiferunt laude, omnes tales a ducibus sub quorum gubernatione militarunt, decore gloriaque meritorum suorum debere ornari omnes postulat aequitas . Hinc generosum Patricium Gordon, natione Scotum, nobili in suis partibus genere ortuui, per menses octodecem sub nostra legione dragonum legionarii hospitiorum magistri, et per duodecem menses sub praesidiaria corporis nostri cohorte capitanei locum tcnentis muneribus functum, dimitti a nobis postulantem, nee non alias in partes quaerendae fortunae causa conferre se volcntcm, nequaquam testimonio promeritarum laudum privandum esse ar-. bitrati sumus . Itaque coram omnibus et singulis, ad quorum notitiam prae- sentes venturae sint, testamur, cum omnibus in proeliis, conflictibus, occa-
1661] DIARY OF PATEICK GOKDON. 37
sionibus quaecunque sub tempus servitiorum illius contra plurimos regiil istius liostes, nempe, Suecos, Moschos, Cosacos acciderant, interfuisse dcpug- iiasscque strenue, et ita exactum boiii simul milltis et officialis munus imple- visse, ut tarn sibi laudcm honorcmque paraverit, quam nomini gentis Scoti- cae virtute bellica ubique inclitae optime correspondent . Huie ergo prae- noniinato Patricio Gordon non tantum liberara ex more et ritu militari cum honore dirais-ionem, et amplam meritorum attestationem concedimus ; sed etiam pro eodem tanquam Sacrae ac Serenissimae Regiae Majestati domino nostro clementissimo huicque reipublicae ac nobis optime, strenue fideliter- que probato militi, omnes et singulos pro ea qualis cuiquam secundum suam congruit dignitatem et statum, observantia requirimus, ut sive in Scotiara patriam suam, sive in exteras nationes conferre se statuerit, [eum] cum- primis decenter, libere lionorateque dimissum reputent, gressum, regressum, commorationemque ubivis locorum tutam concedaut, omni honore, benevo- lentia, ac bumanitate, complectantur, ac ad quaevis in re militari, promo- tionis, officiorum, graduumque incrementa habeant commendatum . In cujus rei fidem meliorem praesentes liberae dimissionis commendationisque nostrae literas extradi illi jussimus man us nostrae subscriptione et soliti impressione sigilli munitas . Datae Varsaviae die 2 mensis Julii, anni Domini 1661 .
Georgius Lubomirsky I I. s. 1 Bartholomeus Pestriecky
suae Excellentiae Secretarius .
Haveing gott my pass, I made preparation for my jorney to Prussia, and wanted nothing but the maine business, the levy money.
The tenth of Julii, by an express frcm Vienna, the Roman Emperours Ju'j lo. ambassadour received an order not to engage any officers, or to capitulat for levying of men, and, if he had engaged any already, to discharge them the handsomest way he could ; whereupon he sent imediately for Steel- faand and imparted his orders to him, and I comeing thither at the same tyme, was made acquainted therewith also ; whereat, I being surprised and greatly troubled, said that none was a losser by it but I, haveing disengaged my self of such good service, and thereby even disobUged the best and powerfullest prince in the countrey ; that the great desire I had to have served the Roman Emperour had ruined me, not knowing where to find
38 DIARY OF PATRICK GORDOl^. [1661
such service agalne ; with which the ambassadour was very much moved, Steelhand also regrateing my condition. At last, the ambassadour recol- lecting himself, profered me, if I would go with him to Vienna, he should procure me the place of a ruitmaster or capitaine of horse, under a stand- ing regunent or then give me a thowsand reichs dollers to beare my ex- pences and losses ; which, seeing I could not otherwise do or better, I ac- cepted. He offering me a writeing, I modestly refused it, telling him that I trusted his word. He desired me also to come and stay in his lodging, where, as upon way to Vienna, I should be defrayed ; which I promised to do, how soone I had set my business in order.
Two dayes thereafter, I comeing to wait upon the ambassadour, he told me that he had found a way to make me deservmg to the Roman Em- perour ; which was, that haveing letters and business of great concernment which he must despatch very soone, he would entrust me with these dis- patches, as being well acquainted with the countrey, and haveing such an ample passe, whereby I should be kuowne at court, and have a pretension upon the account of service ; whereof I was glad, and promised to performe it with all care, fidelity, and diligence
In the meane tyme, many of my acquaintances and ffriends hearing of my determination to engage in the Roman Emperours service without levy- ing, and of the conditions proffered me, began seriously to diswade me from it telling me that a peace being lyke to be concluded, betwixt the Roman Emperour and the Turkes, soldiers of fortune, unless of great merit and long standing in that service, would be hardly admitted, and little regarded ; that if at last I should obtaine a company in a standing regiment, the officers in such regiments, at least the captaines, being, for the most part, men of great birth and rents, or well stocked and acquainted with the wayes of that countrey, where quarters, accidences, and shifts are the greatest part of their subsistance, I should not be able to beare out an equall part with them without running my self in debt, or makehig unusuall and not allow- able shifts ; that I might dance attendance long enough at court, befor I could be accommodated, and albeit in the tyme of my waiting for a chai-ge, I might get some allowance for a subsistance, which would even be very difficult to obtaine, yet would it come farr short of what I should be obliged to spend there ; that, by putting my self in a garbe fitt for appearing at com-t, and conversing with persons of quality, I should soone spend the
1661] DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. 39
small stock I had ; as for the 1000 reichs dollers promised me, I might pos- sibly wait for that some tyme too, and spend the most part of it befor I should get from thence ; and so, at last, being dismounted and ill provided of money, and without ffriends or acquaintance in any other place, in a tyme of peace, a lyvelyhood or honourable charge would be very difficult to gett.
These and many other things considering, I began to waver in my re- solution, and, at last, found my self very apprehensive of the foresaid rea- sons, and convinced so that I resolved not to go to Vienna ; to the which the great soUicItatlons and promises of the Russe ambassadour, Zamiatv Fiodorovitz Leontiuf, and Colonell Crawfuird, with others, contributed very- much. The only difficulty was, how to come handsomely of from the am- bassadour d'Isola ; for, albeit, I should have been very welcome againe to the crowne and I'eltniarshall ; yet was I ashamed, and feared to have it ob- jected to me hereafter ; and also, albeit, I should have been accommodated in the crowne or Littawish army, with a charge to my contentment, yet durst I not, for fear of offending such a prince, who had been so gracious to me, and who was of so great power, and whom I had already but too nmch offended by soUiciting for my pass, and quitting the service. So, haveing made sure with the Russe ambassadour, and let of the most of my servants, I went to the Roman Emperours ambassadour, and desired to know how long it would be befor his dispatches w^ould be ready. He told me that it would be eight dayes. Then I told him, that I had all my best things lying in Thorun, thirty miles from hence, and that he would permitt me to go and fetch them, promiseing to returne precisely against that tyme ; which he granting, and desireing me not to delay, nor disapoint him, I tooke my leave.
I had nothing now to do but to prepare for my jorney ; so, haveing gott Colonell Crawfuird and Captain Menezes* ready, I tooke leave of my ffriends, and, to make clear with the Roman Emperours ambassadour, I left
* (PaulMenzies, the younger brother of the land in the beginning of 1672; and, m the gallnnt boy who bore the royal standard in next year, was sent as envoy from the Czar Mor.trose's last battle, was a son of Sir Gilbert Alexis to the Republic of Venice, the Pope, Menzies of Pitfoddels, by his marriage in :623 the Emperor, and the Elector of Brandenburg, with Lady Ann Gordon, daughter of John, When at the court of Rome, he prevailed with twelfth Earl of Sutlu^rland. He entered the Pope Clement X. to sanction a service in corn- Roman Catholic College of Douay when at the memoration of St. Margaret, Queen of Scot- age of ten, in the summer of 1647. In 1G61, land — (Pinkcrt. Yitt. Autiq Sanctt. Scotiae, he appears as a captain in the Polish ranks. pp 301,309) He died, a lieutenant general in Joining the Muscovite l)anner in the same the Russian service, on the 9th of November, year, along with Patrick Gordon, he rose to 1G94.] the rank of major in 1663. Ue was in Scot-
40 DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. [1661
two letters Idj a trusty ffriend, one dated three dayes befor the tyme I had promised to returne, giveing him notice, that, upon my comeing to Thorun, I was fallen into a heavy sicknesse, being a hott feaver, so that I could not be able to come at the appointed tyme, promising how soone I were re- covered to make all possible hast ; the letter not writt by myself, but sub- scrived ; the other letter, dated a fortnight thereafter, from the same place, infonning his excellency that the violence of sickness was relented, but that I was taken with a sort of a quotiduan feaver, and want of appetite, which had weakened me, so that I was out of hopes of being able to travel in hast, makeing a great regrait, that, by this misfortune, 1 had lost the hon- our which I thought to have had to serve his Imperial! Majesty, and such expressions more. iiy 25. Haveing taken my leave of ffrlends, I crossed the river Vistula, and novo. jQ^gg^ 'y^ ^jjg Prague all night ; and the next morning after breakfast, and a iiy 26 merry cup with the ffriends who had convoyed us, wee began our jorney. Colonell Crawfuird, being a prisoner to the Colonell Lord Henry Gordon, was not only maintained by him at a plentifull table in Varso, but dismissed ransome free, and gave him a pass for a capitaiue of horse. Captain Pawl Menezes had a pass for a capitaine of foot. The colonell had a servant, and I fowre, so that wee were in company but eight persons, I acting the chiefFest by the way.
The first night wee lodged in a village fyve miles from Varso ; and the
iiy 27. next day afternoone came to Vengrova, which is twelve miles from Varso,
where wee lodged and stayed the next day, exspecting Andrew Burnet and
WilUam Guild, who had promised to go with me.
\\j 29. Wee went from hence, and, crossing the river Bug at a ruined towne
called Ostrow, wee came to Tikoczino, where is a strong castle by the river
Narew. Here is also a Jewish sinagogue, and very many Jewes. From
thence, wee went down by the river syde, and crossing the said river at
Wizna, wee lodged there. Wee crossed thereafter the river Leek, where
the Polls and Tartars beat the Sweds and Brandeburgers, and tooke Duke
Bogoslaw Radziwill prisoner ; am I comeing to Raggrod, wee dined there ;
then passing by Augustowa, Eokalarzova, and PhiUppova, where the same
Polls and Tartars were, eight dayes thereafter, beat by the Sweds and
■ Brandeburgers, and Duk Radzivill recovered. This was done, anno Domini
1656, in September.
Being come to Znin, wee lodged there all night, and were merry with
1661] DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. 41
Captaine Fortes and Ensigne Martin. Wee crossed the river Niemcn at Vilsk, where wee lodged all night ; and the next day to Kiadany. This towne belongeth to the family of tlie Radzivills, where is the pubhck exer- cize of tlie Protestant religion, and, because of that, many Scotsmen here livcing, by one whereof wee lodged, and being welcomed by some of our countreymen with a hearty cup of strong meade, it did so cnflame my blood, that the same night a hott feaver seized me. The next day I caused blood to be let. Towards night I gott ease, and slept indifferent well.
The next day, being Sunday, I went to church, where the feaver againe seized me, so that I was not able to heare out the devotion, and with much ado gott to my lodging. The feaver continued very violent, with a delirium. On Tuesday, by the help of a glister, I gott ease. On Wednesday I kept bed till noone, and then rose. On Thursday wee diued by Maior Karstares, were very kindly entertained, and not pressed with drinking. On Fridday, haveing bought akaless to sitt in, wee tooke jorney, and lodged in a village, a mile and a halfe from Kiadany. Tn the morning Maior Karstares sent a note with a long gunne to me, desireing to have my tent, which I sent to him. We dined in a towne called Novymiasto, and the next day to Len- kova, where was a market day. Wee dined, and, setting forward, came to Gemelly, the best towns of Samogitia, where wee lodged ; and came the next day to Bowsky, a towne belonging to "the Duke of Churland, where findmg Dutch people and good beer, wee made merry, and took a guide to show us over the river [Aa] without the towne. At the confluence of the two rivers Mussa and [Niemen], is a castle well situate and fortifyed for a siege. Wee lodged in a krue, where wee had of the same Bawskyes beer, and made merry among ourselves.
The next day wee rose early, dined by the way, and crossing the river Dwina came to Riga, and tooke up lodging in the suburb without the Sand Port ; where hearing that the Generall Duglas was gone but two or three [houres] befor towards Derpt, and that he was to lodge two miles from Riga, being very desirous to have seen him, and to ask his advice concerning my going to Kusseland, (for I was upon the repenting the whole way from Var- schow, as Captaine Menezes also), so that, if he had but diswaded me (which he was sure to do) I was resolved not to go further, unles it had been to put Colonell Crawfuird in a sure place, and then returne. But, to my great
G
42
DIARY OF PATEICK GORDON. [1661
raisfortuue I could not gett for any money horses to hire, and my owne be- ing weary, all the horses being taken up for those who convoyed the Gene- rail and who did not returne till evening ; so that being disappointed of such an occasion of comeing of handsomely, I was very sorry, and so went into the towne to looke out for acquaintance. Comeing to the market place, I did meet with my old comerades and ffriends Alexander Landells and Walter Airth, with whom 1 went to a taverne and tooke a glass of wine, to whom I revealed my intentions. These being out of service themselves, haveing been lately disbanded by the Sweds, were in a poor condition and willing to engage any where, and told me that no service was to be had among the Sweds, and besides, that it was so poore, they haveing but pittyfull allow- ances, that it was not worth the seeking ; that they heard that the Mosko- vites pay, though not great, was duly payed, and that officers were soone advanced to high charges ; that many of our countreymen of great quality were there, and some gone thither lately ; that they themselves, with many others of our countreymen and strangers, were resolving to go thither, not knowing how (in such a conjuncture of tyme when a generall peace was concluded by most, and shortly exspected by others), to do better ; so that the considerations of a certaiue (at least) lyvelyhood, preferment, good com- pany, and my former promises and engagements confirmed me in my re- solution to go to Mosko. So, "haveing promised to writt to them from the first garrison of the Moskovites, wee parted.
Haveing conferred with Colonell Crawfuird about the engageing of some good officers in the Tzaars service, I went the next day into the towne againe ; and meeting with the same ffriends againe, at a hearty morning draught, I engaged them further, promiseing each of them a degree of pre- fennent, and that they should bespeake so many as they could of the charges of captaines, leivtennants, and ensignies.
Haveing hired a fuirraan with two horses to Kokenhausen, more upon the accorapt of showing us the way as of any need wee had of him, have- ing horses of our owne enough to serve our turne, wee went from Riga about noone, rideing along by the river Dwlna, and lodged in a village about foure miles from Riga ; which Riga is distant from Revel fyfty miles, from Derpt thirty, from Vilna forty, from Konigsberg in Prussia sixty miles ; a strong and well fortify ed towne.
1661] DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. 43
Wee rose early, and, towards eveniug, came to Kokenliausen, a towne and castle situate by the river Dwina, on a high rocky ground. Hercui was a garrison of the Moskovites. I seeing the streets so dirty, and every where such nastines, the people so morose, and the houses so decayed and wast, I presaged, ex ungue Uoncm^ a great change ; for, considering that I was come from a countrey pleasant, citties well inhabited, neat and cleanly, and a people generally well bred, courteous, and civill, I was much troubled. The governour here was called Basilius Volshinsky. Here was also a Dutch colonell called John Meves.
The next day, wee dined at a christening feast, with the governour, by a captaine called John von Arnheim ; and, haveing gott some post horses, after noone wee went from thence and lodged in the fields. Wee tooke jorney early, and rode through a pleasent but depopulated countrey, and lodged in the fields. Here did overtake us Captaine Smith and Lieveten- nant John Muris, with their wiwes, who were come from Riga, and going for Mosko to serve. They had gott posthorses, but scarse to serve their turne, and were in a very poor condition. Wee were glad of their company, and so jogged on together. Wee came to a ruined place called Marienburg. Here is a castle within a lake, wherein a Russe garrison. Wee went to wiew the place, but non was permitted to enter the castle but the Colonell. The governour sent us some small provisions and a sort of small drink called quass. Being come to Niewenhausen, wee found the Sweds takeing pos-, session of the barneyards and corne, which was standing in the fields ; for by the treaty of peace or truce, this and the former two places which they had taken in Liefland, were to be restored to the Sweds. In Kokenhausen, I had seen some great cannon, which they retired from Riga, and which, by the treaty, the Sweds were to furnish horses to bring to Plesko.
Haveing lodged by a barneyard at Niewenhausen, the next morning, about three verst from thence, wee passed the borders and came to Petshure, a ruined towne, where a monastery environed with a stone wall. This place is called Petshure, of the subterranean caves. Wee lodged in a village not farr from the lake Peipus, where I sold my passeganger for nine rubles copper money, imageining each ruble to be two reichs dollers. He cost me thirty reichs dollers in Varso, and that from a good ffriend, but was growne lame by the way, and I could not get any body to cure him.
About midday wee had a sight of Plesko or Opsko, which had a glorious
44 DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. [1661
show, being environed with a stone wall, with many towers. Here are many churches and • monasteries, some whereof have three, some fyve steeples or towers, whereon are round globes of six, eight, or ten fathomes circumference, which being covered with white iron or plate, and thereon great crosses covered with the same, make a great and pleasant show. One of these globes, being the biggest, is overgilt.
This citty was a free principality in former tymes, and had suffered many changes, untill subdued by Tzaar Ivan Vasiliovits, anno Domini 1509 who sent most of the principall inhabitans to Mosko, and returned colonies of Moskovites in their places. It hath since rebelled diverse tymes, and as often reduced. It hath held out diverse sieges of the 8weds and Polls. It had freedome of coyning of money. The Bweds and Lubeckers have their houses of traffick without the towne, on the other side of the river Vellka Reka, or the great river, which some versts below the towne falleth into the lake Peipus, and so to Narva, below which it emptyeth itself into the sea. This citty is distant from Riga and Velikij Lukij sixty Polonian miles ; and from Novogrod thirty six.
Here I perceived the low rate of the copper money ; and finding every- thing so deare, and the extraordinary morosnes of the people, I was almost at my wits end with vexation. Here one William Hay, who was lately come fi-om Scotland, came to us and made one of our company to Mosco.
Haveiug lodged in the towne, which stunk with nastines, and was no wise answerable to the glorious show it hath afarr of, and our expectation, wee breakfasted with Madam Hayes, who furnished us also with plenty of provisions upon the way. Wee tooke jorney through a pleasant wooddy countrey, the particular description whereof I thought not worthy of my paines, nor had the patience, being out of conceit with the people, to take notices of the places of their habitations. Being come to a large village called Solnitsa, sending our horses by land, wee went in boats down the river Solona into the lake Ilmen, and so to Novogrod.
The lake Ilmen is twelve miles or sixty verst broad, and eighteen Polonian miles or nynety verst long, receiveth about seventy small rivers, and letteth out one called Volcha, which, running by Novogrod, falleth in the lake Ladoga, a himdred and eighty verst, or thirty-six Polonian miles below the citty. The principall rivers which fall into this lake are Solona, Lowat, Mpsiaga, etc. The towne of Novogrod, called the Great, haveing
1661] DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. 45
been one of the three greatest market cittyes of Europe, giveth name to a large dukedome, and the greatest of all Russia, where Rurick, from whom all the Russian princes and dukes draw their oi'iginall, did reiorne. It is distant from Mosco a hundred and fyve miles, or fyvc hundred and twenty fyve versts, from Plesko thirty-six, and from Veliklj Lukij, and Narwe forty miles.
Anno Domini 1570, Tzaar Johannes Basilidcs began a warr with the Novogrodians, which lasted seven yeares, when, haveing beat their forces at the river Solona, he forced them to submitt, and placed a governour over them. But thinking that he had not such ane absolute power over them as he would, by the m canes of Theophilus the archbishop, he gott entrance into the towne ; where, what cruelty he used to the citizens and to the archbishop himself, I referr to those who have written at large thereof; as also conceni- ing their idoll Rerun, from whence the Perunsky monastery hath its deno- mination.*
Being provided with a large boat, wee went up the river Msta to Brunits, twenty fyve verst, where, by an order from the governour of Novogrod, the boyar Kniaz Ivan Borisoyits Repenin wee had ten post horses given us, whichwere changed at diverse stages, and so my horses were spared. Wee crossed the river Volga at Twere, which giveth name to a great tract of land with the title of duke, and had in former tymes dukes of its owne, till of late, when it, as well as others, were swallowed up by the great Duke of Mosco. It is distant from Mosco thirty-six miles.
Wee came to Mosko, and hired a lodging in the Slabod, or village September 2. where the strangers live, ^'y'" "«'«"■
Wee were admitted to kiss his Tzaarsky Majesties hand at Columinsko, September r. a countrey house of the Tzaars, seven werst from Mosko, below by the river of the same name. The Tzaar was pleased to thank me for haveing been kind to his subjects who were prisoners in Pollaud ; and it was told me that I should have his Majesties grace or favour, whereon I miaht relv.
In the morning, the boyar EUa Danielovitz Miloslavsky, Avho being septemhe, the Tzaars father in law, had the command ff the stranger office, ordered me to come in the afternoon to a field without the citty called the Gar- toly, and to bring the other officers who came in with me along. Being
* [The German editors here think it no- torical notices are not always to be implicitly cessary to warn the reader that Gordon's his- relied upon.]
46 DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. [1661
come into the field, wee found the Boyar there before us, who ordered us to take upplkeand musquets (being there ready) and show how wee could handle our amies ; wherewith being- surprized, I told him, that if T had knowne of this, I should liave brought forth one of my boyes, who perhaps could handle armes better as I myself; adding, that it was the least part of an officer to know how to handle armes, conduct being the most materiall. Whereat, he, takeing me up short, told me, that the best cdIoucU comeing into this countrey must do so ; to which I reply ed, Seing it is the fashion, I am content. And so haveing handled the pike and musket, with all their postures, to his great satisfaction, I returned.
On Moonday, it was ordered that 1 should be enrolled for maior, Pawl Menezes for captaine, William Hay for lievtemiant, and John Hamilton for ensignie, to foot, under the regiment of Colonell Daniell Crawfuird, and a gratuity for our comeing in or welcome to the countrey, being to me twenty fyve rubles in money, and as much in sables, foure ells of cloth, and eight ells of damask ; the rest accordingly, and our monthly pay equall with others of these charges. But the chancellour,* being a most corrupt fellow, delayed us from day to day in expectation of a bribe, which is not only usuall here, but, as they think, due ; whereof I haveing no information, after expostulateing with him twice or thrice, and receiving no satisfactory . answers, I went to the Boyar and complained ; who, with a light check, ordered him againe, which incensing the Diack more, he delayed us still. But when, after a second complaint and order wee received no satisfaction, I went a third tyme to the Boyar, and very confidently told him, 1 knew not whither he or the Diack had the greatest power, seing he did not obey his so many orders. Whereat, the Boyar, being vexed, caused stop his coach (he being on his way out of the towne to his countrey house) and caused call the Diack ; whom, being come, he tooke by the beard and shak'd him three or foure tymes, telling him, if I complained againe, he would cause knutc him The Boyar being gone, the Diack came to me, and began to scold 5 and I, without any respect (whereof they gett but ever too much here), payed him home in his owne coync, telling him that I cared not whither they gave me any thing or no, if they would but permitt me to go out of the countrey againe. With which resolution I went to tlic Slobod, and now began in
* [That is, as Gordon iinmediaiely afterwards calk him, the dyuh, or scribe.]
1661] DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. 47
good earnest to consider how I might ridd myself of this countrcy, so fnrr short of my exspectation, and disagreeing witli my humour. For, liaveing served in such a countrey, and amongst such peopk% where strangers had great respect and were in a great reputation, and even more trust as the natives themselves ; and where a free passage, for all deserving persons, lav open to all honour, military and eivill ; and where, in short tyme, by good husbandry and industry, an estate might he gained ; and, in marrying, no scruple or difference was made betwixt the natives and strangers whei'cbv many have attained to great fortunes, governemcuts, and other honourable and profitable connnands; as indigenation, also, being usually conferred on wellqualifycd and deserving persons ; where a dejected conntenance or sub- missive behaviour is noted for cowardice and faintheartedncs, and a con- fident, majestick, yet unaffected, comportment for virtuons geuerositv • the peoples hio;h mindednes being accompanied and qualifycd with courteousnes and affability, wherein, meeting with the lyke humours, they contend for transandeney. Whereas, on the contrary, I perceived strangers to be looked upon as a company of hirelings, and, at the best (as they say of women) but necessaria mala ; no honours or dei;rees of preferment to be exspected here but military, and that with a limited connuand, in the attain- ing whereof a good mediator or mediatrix, and a piece of money or other bribe, is more availeable as the merit or sufficiency of the person ; a fjiint heart under faire plumes, and a cuckoe in gay cloths, being as ordinary here as a counterfeited or painted visage ; no marrying with natives, strangers being looked upon by the best sort as scarcely Christians, and by the plebeyans as meer pagans ; no indigenation without ejeration of the former religion and embvaceing theirs ; the people beinnj morose and niggard, and yet overweening and valuing themselves above all other nations ; and the worst of all, the pay snuill, and in a base copper coyne, which passed at foure to one of silver, so that I foresaw an impossibility of subsistance, let be of em-iching my self, as I was made belecve I should, befor I came from Polland. These, and many other reasons were but too sufficient to setle my self for disengagcing my self of this place. The only difficulty was, how to attainc to it, which troubled me very nuich ; every one, of whom I asked advice, alleadging it impossible. However I resolved to try and not to take any of their money, albeit I had irottcn at Plesko and Novoi^rod some for expenses on the way.
Hearing that the Boyar was to stay a weeke out of the citty. T resolved
48 DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. [1661
not to 20 to the prikase iintill he should returne, and then give up a petition or request for ray dismission ; bringing in for my reasons, that the ambas- sadour Zamiaty Fiodorovits Leontiuf, with whom I capitulated in Polland, had promised me to be paid in silver or other equivalent coine, which I found farr otherwise now, and that I found the constitution of my body not agreeable with this climate. But the Diack, getting notice of my intentions, and fearin^r the wrath of the Boyar at his returne, colluded with my Colouell to entice me into the towne ; so that I being come one morn- ing to pay my respects to my Colonell, he desired me to accompany him to the towne, which after some tergiversation I di'l ; and being come and takeing a walke on the piazza, a writer, with a couple of catchpoles with him, came to me and desired me to come into the prikase, which I refused. He told me, that he had order to force me, if I would not come fairely. Being come into the chiefFe writer, Tichon Fiodorovits Motiakin received me very courteously, desireing me to sitt downe ; and then, after some very civill discourse, presented me with orders to diverse offices for money, sables, damask, and cloth for me and those who came with me ; which I absolutely refused, tellinu him that I would stay untill the Boyar returned, with whom I hoped to prevalle and procure my dismission out of the countrey. This Avriter, being a courteous person, began to reason with me very civilly, showing me many reasons to divert me from such resolu- tions ; and haveing sent for my Colonell (who was not farr to seeke) they both tooke me aside, and among other reasons told me, that it would be my ruine to desire out of the countrey, because the Russe would presume that comeing from such a countrey, with which they were in open warr, and being a Roman Cathohck, I was come to spy out their countrey only, and then returne ; and that, if I mentioned any such thing, they would not only not dismiss me, but send me to Sibiria or some remote place, and that they would never trust me thereafter. This, indeed, did startle me, con- sidering the nature of the people ; so that, with great reluctancy, I consented to accept of the orders for our comeing into the countrey.
I gott orders to receive from a Russe seven hundred men, who were to be in our regiment, being runneway sojours out of severall regiments, and fetched back from diverse places. Haveing received these, 1 marched through the Sloboda of the strangers to Crasna Cella,* where wee gott our
* [The German editors explain cella or sclo would have been known to Gordon as a Url^ to be a village with a church— what in Scotland, town.]
1661] DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. 49
quarters, and exercized these souldiers twice a day in faire weather. I re- September 2 ceived money, twenty fyve rubles, for ray welcome ; and the next day, sables, and two dayes thereafter, damask and cloth.
I received a months meanes, in cursed copper money, as did these who September ■>; came along with me.
About thirty officers, most whereof I had bespoke in Riga, came to September 2: Mosko, most of them being our countreymen, as Walter Airth, William Guild, Georg Keith, Andrew Burnet, Andrew Calderwood, Robert Stuart, and others, most whereof were enrolled in our regiment.
I marched, by order, into the utmost great tovme, and to the Sloboda October. Zagrodniky, and tooke up my quarters
At the first, some contentions did fall out betwixt the officers and sojours, with the rich burgesses, who would not admitt them into their houses. Amongst the rest, a merchant, by whom my quarters were taken up, whilst my servants were cleansing the inner room, he breake downe the oven in the utter roome, which served to warme both, so that I was forced to go to another quarter. But, to teach him better manners, I sent the profos* to quarter by him, with twenty prisoners and a corporalship of sojours, who, by connivence, did grievously plague him a weeke ; and it cost him near a hundred dollers, bcfor he could procure an order out of the right office to have them removed, and was well laught at besides for his uncivilitv and obstinacy.
During my abode here, two notable passages happened, which follow :
The first : The souldiers takeing a liberty to keep brandy for their owne uses, and sometimes to sell, which being prejudicial! to his Majesties reve- nues (the profitt of all strong liquor brewed or made in his countrey, come- ing into his treasure), it is not only strictly forbidden to all to sell any by smalls, but the breach hereof most severely punished ; spyes and searchers being every where, who, getting notice of the selling of any such liquor, delate and immediately give notice to the office On a Sunday afternoone, whilst I was in the Sloboda of the Strangers, a writter, with twenty or thirty Streltsees, comeing to a house where the sojours had brandy, the doore being shutt, befor they gott entrance, the sojours carryed their brandy back into the garden, so that, after a narrow search, and nothing found, the sojours
* [Profos, that is. provost,— the provost marshal] H
50 DIAEY OF PATKICK GORDON. [1661
pretending themselves affronted, began to convoy the writer with the Strelt- sees rudely out of doores ; who, being come out into the streets, called their comerades to help, and breake into the house againe, and into the garden, where they found the brandy, which they tooke, and some souldiers with it. But more souldiers comeing upon the tumult, not only tooke back the souldiers and brandy, but falling by the eares with the Streltsees, drove them to the citty gates, where, being recruited with others, who lived there, they drove the souldiers back againe. By this tyme the party es encreased, the Streltsees being about seven hundred, and the sojours about eighty ; but the street being narrow, and the sojours more desperate and resolute, drove the Streltsees into the gates of the White Wall, at which tyme six hundred Streltsees comeing from the maine guard of the Castle, cut of the passage of those who were gott within the gates, and tooke twenty seven of them, who, after examination, the next day, were beat with the knute, and sent to Sibiria.
The next : A Russe captaine, called Affonasse Constantino [witsch] Spiri- donuf, haveing commanded these souldiers befor wee received them, and being now in the regiment, and a crafty fellow, had acquired and assumed such authority among and over the sojours, that he acted many things in- consisting -with command. I told and forbidd him many tymes, but all would not help. I complained to the Colonel [Crawfuird] who, being a person un- willing to be troubled with any business, slighted it ; wherewith, I being not well satisfyed, and this captaine haveing one night entrapped some souldiers playing at cards, he not only tooke all the money which they had at play, but imprisoned them by the provost marshall untill they gave him a great deale more, in all about sixty rubles, and then let them go ; and all this without my knowledge, which ought not to be, I haveing the chieffe com- mand. I being advertised of this the next day, could not containe myself, but sent for him in the evening, and, haveing dispatched the guard and my servants, all except one, out of the way, he being come into the roome, I began to expostulate with him, telling him, that I could not suffer such abuses any longer, and that I would break his neck one tyme or another. Whereat he beginning to storme, I gott him by the head, and flinging him downe, with a fresh, short, oaken cudgcll, T so belrboured liis back and sides, that he was scarce able to rise ; whereupon, telling him that I would break his neck if he played such tricks hereafter, I packed him out of doores. He
1661] DIARY OF PATIUCK GORDON. 51
went the next day and complained to the Colonell, who promised to take inquisition and give satisfaction ; but I denying all, according to the fashion ^ of this countrey, where there are not witnesses, which, upon his complaint to the Boyar, and in the office, I did also ; so that he, seeing the Boyar to befriend me, as one lately come and unacquainted with the fashions of the countrey, desisted from his suite, and made meanes to be gone from the regiment, which was that I wished and aimed at.
Whilst I was here, I was at two weddings, in the Slobod of the Strangers, the one, Ruitmaster Ryter, marryed to the -widdow of Lievetennant Collonell Thomas ]\[enezes, who, being wounded by Czudnow, dyed there ; the other, Captaine Lidert Lome, marryed to Bannerman, at both which I was merry, and gott my first acquaintance with the females.
By order, I removed and quartered over the river Yausa, in the December. Tagany and Potters Slobod, within the Earthen Wall. Here I had my quarters in a rich merchants house, who used all meanes to gett me removed, and brought two orders out of the court office to this purpose ; but, I being loth to quite such a convenience, did not obey them of the stranger office. I would not remove, and keeped the orders by me.
At this tyme ane accident did fall out, which I cannot omitt to relate. At my removall from the Zagrodniky, a Russe liewtennant, called Peter Nikiforuf, came to me with a Serjeant, tellino; me, that three souldiers the night befor, in a quarrell with the Streltsees, were so beat and maimed, that they were not able to remove with the regiment, and that without ane underwritten petition from me, they could not be permitted to stay in their quarters. So bringing a petition and reading it, that they might stay in their quarters fyve or six dayes mitill they might be able to remove, which I, suspecting no deceit, unadvisedly put my hand to it. But when I mustered the regiment in the Taijany Slabod, these mens names being called, their comerades answered, that they were let of to their habitations, after which euquireing, I understood, that this lieutennant being bribed by these sojours, had either not read the petition right, or shufled in another into my hands 10 subscrive ; for the petition I subscrived was to let of three sojours to their houses for six weekes. These three comeing to Vologda, where their habi- tations were, the governour apprehended them, and sent them to Mosko with the petition ; which, thereafter, by the malice of the chauncelor, who was my enemy, had like to have bred me Great trouble.
52 DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. [1661
The Boyar Elia Danielovits Miloslawskj mustered our regiment, and p-ave six hundred of them to a Golova,* ncnvly created, to be Streltsees. The Golova was called Nikifor Kolobuf. The sojours grieved exceedinuly hereat, and many of them rann away.
My landlord continuing his solliciting to be freed of me out of his house, a writer very well accoutred, and attended by twenty fellowes called Trub- nikes, such as are called by us catchpoles, came of the court office, haveinu- a written order in his hand to remove me out of my quarters to another. I bein"- at dinner, and he, admitted into the roome, began very uncivilly to command me to be gone. I desireing him to shew his order, he told me he would not entrust me with it, because I had kept or torne the two former ; and I telling him, I would not be gone except he shew me the order he commanded some of the catchpoles, who were gott into the roome with him, to carry out my trunkes ; and he himself layd hold of one of the rewiment coUours, which were on the wall, to bring it out, which incensed me so being heated befor by his uncivill behaviour, that getting up, by the help of two officers (who were at dinner with me) and my servants, I drove him and his rude attendants out of the roome, and downe staires, where they rallying with these below, essayed to ascend the staires againe by force. But wee, being on the toppe of the staires, easily repulsed them, they haveing no weapons but staves and sticks, and wee the staffes of the collours, which at the driveing of them out wee had laid hold on. But some sojours by this noise being come together, and seeing this, needed no watchword or command to fall on ; for, immediatly, with their fists, and such clubs or cudgels as they could gett, they so exercized these rude guests, that they were glad to take them to their heeles, and ran downe the street ; the sojours convoying them to the Yaus bridge, and basting them soundly, takeing from them their caps, and from the writer his with pearles, and a necklace of pearle, in worth sixty rubles according as he complained after- wards. This had bred me great trouble, if there had not been at that tyme a great dissension betwixt Fiodor Michaelowitz Artistow, who had charge of the court office, and our Boyar, whereby, after some formall inquisition, the business was slighted. Yet, by perswasion of some officiers, who under- stood the fashion of the countrey better as I, I removed to another quarter.
* [That is, as (Jordon explains in the next page, a colonel.]
1661-2] DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. 63
The Boyar, Ella Danielovitz Miloslawsky, mustered six hundred soul- diers of our regiment, and makeing them to a new regiment of Streltsees, gave thera to a Golova called Nikifor Ivan[ovItz] Kolobuf, whereat the sojours grieved exceedingly.
At the same tyme, I was ordered to teach