MELVILLE [aka Mr EDWARD], DAVID [SSNE 5000]

Surname

MELVILLE [aka Mr EDWARD]

First name

DAVID

Text source

David Melville (1660-1728), 3rd Earl of Leven and 2nd Earl of Melville was the son of George, 1st Earl of Melville. David became Earl of Leven in 1681 and later acted as "confidential agent" of the Prince of Orange. As a devout Calvinist, Melville was in exile in the mid-1680s in the wake of the debacle of Argyll's uprising of 1685. He had been in contact with his kinsman, Andrew Melville [SSNE 3071] in Hannover before the uprising, and it would have been surprising had the two men not met as he progressed towards Berlin. After all, Leven had signed the attestation which allowed the granting of a birthbrieve for Andrew in 1683. Another of Leven's family, Patrick Melville [SSNE 7154], was in Giffhorn in May 1685 (en route to the Hague) and expressed surprise to Andrew Russell [SSNE 143] that he had not heard from Leven in a while. Indeed he enquired of Russell whether Leven had returned to Scotland. He had not. Indeed, he spent much of the year travelling around Germany and the Netherlands. He wrote numerous letters to Andrew Russell [SSNE 143] from Berlin, Cleve, Helmstad, Potsdam and Hamburg in a search for funds and friends in his Calvinist crusade. In December 1686, Leven (back in Berlin) was approached by the Reverend James Brown [SSNE 6314] to use his influence with the Elector of Brandenburg to allow Britons to become burgesses of Konigsberg. He was further urged to ensure that this privilage was extended to Scots as well as the English. Leven contracted himself to the Duke of Brandenburg as a colonel in September 1687. The following year he raised a regiment composed of Scottish refugees for Dutch service and distinguished himself at Killiekrankie in 1689. He is also reported to have gained distinction during William of Orange's campaign in Ireland. Melville returned to serve the Dutch in Flanders in 1692 and reported back on the campaign in 1695. He later became Major-General of Scottish forces in 1703. It fell to David Melville to supress the Jacobite rising of 1708. By 1712 he was deprived of all offices by the Tory administration.

National Archives of Scotland, Russell Papers, RH15/106/609. Numerous letters, Lord Leven to Andrew Russell (1686); National Archives of Scotland, GD26 Leven and Melville muniments: GD 26/13/369. James Brown to Leven, 13 December 1686; GD 26/5/471, letter home 1695; GD 26/9/13, list of deserters from Leven's regiment c.1690-93; GD26/9/25, letters from David Melville to his wife, c.1692-1693; GD 26/9/285, Wiliam Blaithwaite on behalf of Wiliam of Orange to Melville re sending of troops to Flanders in 1690; Torick Ameer-Ali (ed), Memoirs of Sir Andrew Melvill (London, 1918), pp.10, 12, 290; DNB; Sir James Balfour Paul, The Scots Peerage (8 vols., 1904-1911), VI, p.110; Steve Murdoch, Network North: Scottish Kin, Commercial and Covert Associations in Northern Europe, 1603-1746 (Brill, Leiden, 2006), pp.112-113, 145, 349.

Service record

SCOTLAND, BERLIN, HELMSTAD, CLEVE, POTSDAM, HAMBURG

Capacity REFUGEE, purpose MISC.

BRANDENBURG, EAST PRUSSIA, BRANDENBURG'S ARMY

Departed 1687-12-31, as COLONEL

Capacity OFFICER, purpose MILITARY

THE DUTCH REPUBLIC, SCOTLAND, SCOTLAND, IRELAND, FLANDERS

Departed 1702-12-31, as COLONEL

Capacity OFFICER, purpose MILITARY

SCOTLAND, GREAT BRITAIN, SCOTLAND

Departed 1712-12-31, as MAJOR-GENERAL

Capacity OFFICER, purpose MILITARY