FORBES, ALEXANDER [SSNE 1616]

Surname

FORBES, FORBUS

First name

ALEXANDER

Title/rank

10/11th LORD FORBES

Nationality

SCOT

Region

DRUMMINOR, CLATT, ABERDEENSHIRE

Social status

NOBILITY

Text source

Born c.1601, eldest son of Arthur 9/10th Lord Forbes and his wife Jean, daughter of Lord Alexander Elphinstone, Alexander Forbes succeeded to his title in 1641. Forbes acted as a recruiter in Scotland for Christian IV of Denmark assissting Donald Mackay to raise his regiment. Either he or his father put £1,000 into the expedition. His brother John joined Morton's expedition against La Rochelle in 1628. The brothers then all served in the Swedish army including John [SSNE 4332], William [SSNE 2262], Arthur [SSNE 2226] and James [SSNE 3881]. They also had an illigitimate half-brother, Major John Forbes [SSNE 2243]. In 1630 the Master of Forbes himself went into Swedish service and according to the "Memoriale" of his brother William Forbes [SSNE 1616] Alexander is said to have commanded two regiments of Scots (2,600 men) in Gustav II Adolf's service. On 29 July 1631 Sir Arthur Forbes and Captain Baillie acknowledged receipt from Alexander Forbes of 1,500 rixdaler for the raising and transportation of 500 men from Ireland. This was part of some 6,000 rixdaler which Forbes received in London. Alexander himself returned briefly to Scotland in 1632, but soon after returned to Swedish service wherupon he was captured between Gluckstadt and Hamburg by the Imperialists and held for 18 (some sources say 21) months before being released after the battle of Hessisch-Oldendorf on 8 July 1633 and the conquest of Hameln. He was exchanged for the Imperial colonel Bernhard Hackfort, Baron of Westerholt zu Lembeck (1595-1638). In the summer of 1634 he returned to Britain with a Swedish envoy only to find the Scottish regiments had been largely destroyed at Nordlingen. When Johan Skytte jr. [SSNE 6280] went to Scotland to recruit an infantry regiment Forbes arranged for a brother to meet Skytte and to help his major, John Beaton [SSNE 471] in his recruitment, providing he could enlist as a captain. Forbes returned to Britain in 1635 where he entered Stuart diplomatic service. In 1636 he travelled to Denmark and Sweden as a diplomatic and commercial envoy. His brief was to establish trading staples in each country. These objectives were not achieved, probably due to the outbreak of the Bishops' Wars which occupied Charles for some time. His family had been with him on this trip and his wife Elizabeth gave birth to a daughter Lucia while in Bremen in 1636. Forbes returned to Scotland by 1638, although one source notes his official decommissioning occurred as late as 1645. After service in Ireland, Forbes briefly returned to Scotland in 1644 but then returned to Sweden. Once there he tried to get Queen Kristina to mediate between the opposing factions in Britain. He returned to London but was imprisoned for debt. In 1649 he returned to Sweden where he received a pension from Queen Kristina. He also got permission to try to salvage sunken ships in order to provide both artillery and a fleet for Charles II (1652). Forbes's business partners in this venture were three in number with one Ian Bulmer among them. He then expanded this into a consortium including the Scot, Jacob Maul [SSNE 3070], and a Swedish Colonel, Hans Albrecht von Treileben. By 1658, these employed some 20 helpers. Forbes held onto these privileges until 1663 when they were transferred to von Treileben, presumably for a sum of money.

In 1651 an annual pension of 1000 riksdaler was established for Alexander Forbes. He appears to have remained in Swedish military service after that date. There is a letter from him to King Karl X Gustav dated Elbing 1656 and the following year Elizabeth gave birth to their daughter Marie in Stade (in Swedish Bremen). Alexander Forbes died in 1672 and 2 copies of his testament dated in Stockholm [with translations] can be found in the National Records of Scotland. These are witnessed by James Auchterlony [SSNE 1661].  Alexander Forbes married first to Anna Forbes, daughter of John Forbes of Pitsligo in 1618. His second marriage was to Elizabeth Forbes daughter of Robert Forbes of Rires in 1627. With these two women he produced eighteen children, many of whom remained in Sweden. 

 

Sources: 

Swedish Riksarkiv, bref till Konung Karl X Gustaf; Svenska Riksrådets Protokoll, VI, pp.771-780, proceedings, 16 December 1636; Swedish Riksarkiv, Adolf Johans Arkiv i Stegeborgssamlingen, letter from Alexander Forbes to Duke Adolf Johan, Stade January 1657; Swedish Riksarkiv, Depositio Skytteana A:5, E5412; P. Wieselgren, (ed.), De La Gardiska Archivet, part 9, (Lund, 1837), p.64; Danish Rigsarkiv, TKUA England 14 (1636); National Records of Scotland [NRS], Lord Forbes Papers, GD 52/93, Contract between Alexander Forbes, Arthur Forbes and Captain Baillie, 29 July 1631; NRS, Lord Forbes Papers, GD 52/94, 'Discourses between the Lord Reay and John Master of Forbes. Certaine Speeches that past betwuix the Lord Reay and the Mr of Forbes since 15 December 1630 in Stralsound ... concerning the Master of Hamilton and the Earl of Seaforth"; NRS, Lord Forbes Papers, GD 52/1159, Testament of Alexander, Lord Forbes, Stockholm, 6 April 1672; Swedish Riksarkiv, P. Sondén, Militärachefer i svenska arméen och deras skrivelser.

 

R. Monro, His Expedition with a worthy Scots Regiment called Mac-Keyes (2 vols., London, 1637), II, The List of the Scottish Officers in Chiefe, list 1; The Swedish Intelligencer: The Fourth Part (London, 1633), p.127; A. and H. Tayler (eds.), The House of Forbes (Bruceton Mills, 1987); E. Furgol, A Regimental History of the Covenanting Armies (Edinburgh, 1990), pp.177-201; Lars Åke Kvarning och Bengt Ohrelius, Vasa: Kungens Skepp (Stockholm, 1998 ed), pp.41-42; Steve Murdoch, Network North: Scottish Kin, Commercial and Covert Associations in Northern Europe, 1603-1746 (Brill, Leiden, 2006), pp.23, 37, 151, 298, 311.

 

For Forbes's receipt of 6000 rixdaler in London at the end of July 1631 see Hans Landberg, Lars Ekholm, Roland Nordlund and Sven A. Nilsson, Det kontinentala krigets ekonomi: Studier i krigsfinansiering under svensk stormaktstid (Uppsala, 1971), p. 227.

 

Thanks to Dr Bernd Warlich for the following references: Detlev PLEISS, Das Kriegstagebuch des schwedischen Offiziers William Forbes: Von seiner Landung an der Unterelbe im Sommer 1634 bis zu seiner Rückkehr nach Stade im Winter 1649/50, in: Stader Jahrbuch Neue Folge 85 (1995), pp.135-153. I thank Alex Green for the information on the Sunken Vasa which he drew from Anders Franzen, The Warship Vasa (1961), p.12.

 

Bishops Wars; English Civil War

 

Alexander Forbes is mentioned in Riksarkivets ämnessamlingar. Personhistoria: https://sok.riksarkivet.se/bildvisning/A0069635_00190#?c=&m=&s=&cv=189&xywh=762%2C1428%2C2306%2C1264

 

Swedish Riksarkiv, Depositio Skytteana A:5, E5412. Alexander Lord Forbes to Colonel Johan Skytte, March 1635

Service record

DENMARK-NORWAY, SCOTLAND

Arrived 1626-01-01

Departed 1626-12-31

Capacity RECRUITER, purpose MILITARY

SWEDEN, SWEDISH ARMY

Arrived 1630-01-01, as COLONEL

Departed 1632-12-31

Capacity OFFICER, purpose MILITARY

SWEDEN, GERMAN PRISON

Arrived 1632-12-01

Departed 1634-06-30

Capacity PRISONER, purpose MILITARY

SWEDEN, BRITAIN

Arrived 1634-07-01

Departed 1634-12-31

Capacity RECRUITER, purpose MILITARY

SWEDEN, SWEDISH ARMY, ENGLAND

Arrived 1635-01-01

Departed 1635-12-31

Capacity OFFICER, RECRUITER, purpose MILITARY

STUART KINGDOMS, DENMARK

Arrived 1636-01-01

Departed 1636-12-31

Capacity DIPLOMAT, purpose DIPLOMACY

STUART KINGDOMS, SWEDEN

Arrived 1636-01-01

Departed 1636-12-31

Capacity DIPLOMAT, purpose DIPLOMACY

STUART KINGDOMS, SCOTLAND, ABERDEEN

Arrived 1638-01-01

Departed 1641-12-31

Capacity COVENANTER, purpose CIVIC

STUART KINGDOMS, ENGLAND, LONDON

Arrived 1641-01-01

Purpose MISC

SCOTLAND, IRELAND

Arrived 1642-01-01

Departed 1642-12-31

Capacity OFFICER, purpose MILITARY

SCOTLAND, THE DUTCH REPUBLIC, SWEDEN

Arrived 1644-01-01

Departed 1645-12-31

Capacity DIPLOMACY, purpose DIPLOMACY

SWEDEN, LONDON

Arrived 1646-01-01

Departed 1648-12-31

Capacity PRISONER, purpose MISC.

SWEDEN, STOCKHOLM

Arrived 1649-01-01

Departed 1672-04-30

Capacity OFFICER, purpose MILITARY

SWEDEN, STADE, DUCHY OF BREMEN

Arrived 1657-01-01, as COLONEL

Capacity OFFICER, purpose MILITARY