GORDON, ALEXANDER [SSNE 2504]
- Surname
- GORDON
- First name
- ALEXANDER
- Title/rank
- CAPTAIN
- Nationality
- SCOT
- Social status
- OFFICER
- Religion
- CATHOLIC
Text source
Alexander Gordon was the eldest son of Sir Alexander Gordon of Navidale born on 17 December 1614. The Catholic Alexander Gordon served in Sweden as captain under Colonel Alexander Cunningham. Interestingly, this Alexander Gordon, cousin of John, fourteenth Earl of Sutherland, must have been the eponymous kinsman of the earl whom the Spanish ambassador in London referred to in December 1634 who proposed to levy a tertio by the summer 1635 to serve the Spanish Crown in Flanders. Alexander spent the summer of 1634 in Brussels, no doubt in conjunction with the scheme but also ran into a legal suit brought by a local tailor. The materialization of the project is doubtful. With a royal warrant of November 1635, Alexander junior levied and transported his detachment of troops to serve the Crown of Sweden. He was accompanied by his brother John and ‘some other young gentlemen out of Southerland’. They initially shipped at the ferry of ‘Unes’ (modern Littleferry in Golspie parish in Sutherland) on the way to Aberdeen and then sailed on 19 October 1637 from Aberdeen with ‘a strong companie of able and resolute men, for Germanie’. They first landed about the Sound and then resorted to the Baltic Sea. They entered the regiment of colonel Alexander Cunningham under the Swedish Crown. Alexander was a captain in Colonel Alexander Gordon's [SSNE 2499] regiment in Swedish service from 1638-9. He was reformed in 1639. Alexander Gordon died of wounds received at the battle of Edgehill on 23 October 1642. Alexander was then buried in the graveyard of St Michael's Church, Warmingon, two days later. The inscription reads:
HERE LIETH THE BODY OF ALERXANDER GOURDIN CAPTAINE BVRIED THE 25 DAY OF OCTOBER ANNO DOMI 1642,
Swedish Krigsarkiv, Muster Roll, 1638/3, 24-27; 1639/13-15, 18; TNA, State Paper Office, State Papers Foreign, Flanders, SP77/24, fos. 303r-4v, 323r-4v; Gordon under Arms, eds. C. O. Skelton and J. M. Bulloch (Aberdeen, 1912), nos. 122, 1656, 1754; D. Worthington, Scots in Habsburg Service, 1618-1648 (Leiden, 2004), pp. 108-9, 294-5; R. Gordon, A Genealogical History of the Earldom of Sutherland (Edinburgh, 1813), pp. 485-6; J. M. Bulloch, The Gay Adventures of Sir Alexander Gordon Knight of Navidale (Dingwall, 1925), pp. 13, 15, 19, 21-3, who confused Sir Alexander with his son Alexander in these instances.
This record was kindly updated by Dr Thomas Brochard. We thank John Mann for the information and text from his headstone in Warmington.
English Civil War
Service record
- SWEDEN, ALEXANDER CUNNINGHAM
- Arrived 1637-10-19, as CAPTAIN
- Departed 1639-12-31, as REF. CAPTAIN
- Capacity OFFICER, purpose MILITARY
- STUART KINGDOMS, EDGEHILL
- Departed 1642-10-23, as DEAD
- Capacity OFFICER, purpose MILITARY