MIDDLETON, JOHN [SSNE 6698]
- Surname
- MIDDLETON
- First name
- JOHN
- Title/rank
- EARL OF MIDDLETON
- Nationality
- SCOT
- Region
- MIDDLETON, MIDLOTHIAN
Text source
The career of General John Middleton is well documented. He served with Hepburn's regiment in France in the 1630's, in the Army of the Covenant in Scotland in the 1640s, withthe Parliament of England's Army at Edgehill in 1642, and led a Royalist uprising in Scotland against Cromwell in the 1650s.
In 1656, Middleton served as Stuart ambassador in Berlin. The following year, along with Major General Thomas Rokeby, Colonel Alex Durhame and Mr Davissone, he targeted the ex-Royalist officers of Cranstoun's Swedish regiment in Thorn in the hope they may be persuaded to hand over the city to the Poles as this would demonstrate his loyalty to Charles II. From the date and context, he may have been within the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth when he wrote these letters.
Sources
DNB; Swedish Riksarkiv, Extranea 135: IX, 4, interciperade brev 1600-talet, II brev till Skotska officerare, including 1) Middleton to Erskine, no date 2 & 3) Alex Durhame to Erskine, 24 October and 28 November 1657 4)Thomas Rokeby to Erskine, 28 November 1657 5) Mr Davissone to 'my honest friends the Scots officers in Torne' no date; A. Grosjean, 'Royalist Soldiers and Cromwellian Allies? The Cranstoun Regiment in Sweden 1655-1658' in S. Murdoch and A. Mackillop (eds.), Fighting for Identity: Scottish Military Experience c.1550-1900 (Leiden, 2002), pp.61-82; L. Bittner and L. Gross, Reportorium der diplomatischen vertreter aller lander, vol. 1, 1648-1715 (Oldenburg and Berlin, 1936), p.180; Steve Murdoch, Network North: Scottish Kin, Commercial and Covert Associations in Northern Europe, 1603-1746 (Brill, Leiden, 2006), pp.79-80, 359; Steve Murdoch and Alexia Grosjean, Alexander Leslie and the Scottish Generals of the Thirty Years' War, 1618-1648 (London, 2014), p.122.
English Civil War
Service record
- STUART KINGDOMS, EDGEHILL
- Arrived 1642-10-23, as COLONEL
- Capacity OFFICER, purpose MILITARY
- STUART KINGDOMS, BRANDENBURG-PRUSSIA (Preussen), BERLIN
- Arrived 1656-01-01
- Capacity ENVOY, purpose DIPLOMACY
- STUART KINGDOMS, POLAND-LITHUANIA? THORN/TORUN?
- Departed 1657-12-31
- Capacity OFFICER, purpose MILITARY