The remarkable fact that, in all these stringent and detailed regulations for the disbanding and landing of so many men, no mention whatever is made of the most ordinary military precaution of disarming them will be noticed in a succeeding chapter.
FOOTNOTES:
[29] Sir James Spens was the son of "Spens of Wormiston," who made Lennox, the regent of Scotland, captive at the seizure of Stirling by the forces of Kirkaldy in 1571, and who was slain at the same time while protecting his prisoner. The personage in question, so high in the favour of Gustavus Adolphus, was a prominent type of the Scottish adventurer of that age. He went to Sweden in 1610 as envoy from King James I., there being at the time a question of betrothing Gustavus Adolphus, then Crown Prince, to an English princess—namely, to Elizabeth, the daughter of James I., married subsequently to Frederick, the Elector Palatine of the German Empire. We find him later in Denmark, offering the mediation of England between Christian IV. and Charles IX. On this occasion he was so ungraciously received at Copenhagen that he narrowly escaped with his life. Sir James Spens entered the Swedish military service, from which, however, he was recalled by King James, who, a short time after, sent him back to Stockholm as ambassador, in which character he invested Gustavus Adolphus with the Order of the Garter, and took part in the negotiations that resulted in the Peace of Knäröd. On one occasion he went to England as ambassador from the Swedish Court. In 1622 he was created Baron Spens of Orreholmen, in Vestergotland. He died at Stockholm in 1632, after having been made, in 1629, General in Command of the English and Scottish regiments in the pay of Sweden.
[30] It appears from the correspondence of Sir Robert Anstruther that the "Lord of Wormiston" landed at Elsinore on the 4th June 1612, having been sent simultaneously with Sir Robert Anstruther to arrange a peace between Denmark and Sweden. The Danish Chancellor was induced to grant him a safe-conduct into Sweden; "whereupon a nvmber hath wondred and thinks he shall haue small thank for his panis." F. H. Jahn, the Danish historian of the Calmar War, asserts that Spens was "secretly supported in his recruiting business."
[31] When as yet only King of Scotland, James was married (November 24, 1589) at Oslo, now a suburb of Christiania, to Anne, sister of Christian IV. of Denmark. She had previously gone through the ceremony of marriage with Earl-Marshal Keith, as proxy for the king, at the castle of Cronenberg; but on their way to Scotland the Danish ships, driven by storms to the coast of Norway, landed the princess at Oslo. With great gallantry King James came over to fetch her with a large fleet, and remained at Oslo, after his marriage there (performed by Robert Bruce, court chaplain), until the 21st January 1590, when he sailed with his bride for Copenhagen. The ties of relationship, and the duties and obligations of King James towards his "good brother" the King of Denmark, are fully recognized in the documents now published; but the impartial historian cannot fail to take into consideration the character of that sovereign and his conduct in other matters, such as the negotiations with Spain and the family interests connected with them.
[32] King's Secretary to Sir Robert Anstruther, 9th August 1612.
[33] The latter threat meant, in Scottish law, a declaration of outlawry, after three blasts of a horn, and the putting up of a citation at the quay, pier, or shore in Leith, or at the market cross in Edinburgh.
[34] Vide text in [Appendix].
[35] The Border counties of Scotland were ordered to be called the middle shires on the union of the two kingdoms.
[36] Plural of ado, business.