BUCK, THOMAS [SSNE 5454]
Text source
A Thomas Buck served the Poles in the Zamoyski army against Maximilian Habsburg after 1587. This is probably the same man for whom King James VI and I of Great Britain wrote a letter recommendation to William, Duke of Courland for use in war against King Karl IX of Sweden. He also wrote to the lords, mayor magistrates and council of Riga, on behalf of Captain Thomas Buck who had served in the Livonian war. The letter is undated but was probably written around 1614. He had left his finances with a Polish national, Michael Keffin, who cheated him. King James sought aid from King Sigismund of Poland to help Captain Buck who had been wounded in battle (having lost an arm) and now requested leave to return to Britain where he would obtain recruits and buy horses. In October 1614 King James VI and I wrote King Sigismund requesting that Captain Buck receive his overdue payment, and in 1621 Jan Weiher, the Palatine of Culm, wrote a recommendation for Buck. Buck might have been from Aberdeen. He certainly held some property in the burgh and was dead by December 1634.
See also the Calendar of State Papers Venice:
“l'or the affairs of the company of merchants of Muscovy they are sending Sir John Merich as ambassador, who has been there before. He will also have instructions to try and recover 2 to 300,000 crowns which his Majesty lent to that emperor last year for the needs of the war against the Poles. It appears that recently the King of Poland has renewed Ms old request here, by means of a certain Captain Buch* to buy a few horses and to make levies in this kingdom of infantry for his own needs against the Turks. He is informed that it may be permitted if they can have an assurance that they will not go against the Bohemians and their allies, the Muscovites or any other friends of this crown, but only against the Turks, and that the soldiers shall have prompt payment. However, these things are far from being carried out and cannot so easily be arranged in the present state of affairs”
* "Captain Buck, an old Scotishman that came in my company from London and in the Ambassador's out of Poland", Sir John Finett quoted in Nichols.
From: Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts relating to English Affairs, existing in the archives and collections of Venice, and in other libraries of Northern Italy, eds. H.R.F. Brown, R.L. Brown, A.B. Hinds and G.A.F.C.R.H. Bentinck, (London, 1864-) vol.16 (1619-21), p.297
See also A.F. Steuart, Papers relating to the Scots in Poland, 1576-1793 (Edinburgh, 1915), pp.35-37; R. Frost, "Scottish soldiers, Poland-Lithuania and the Thirty Years' War" in S. Murdoch ed. Scotland and the Thirty Years' War, 1618-1648 (Brill,2001), p.198, p.202; Steve Murdoch, Network North: Scottish Kin, Commercial and Covert Associations in Northern Europe, 1603-1746 (Brill, Leiden, 2006), pp.256-257.
Several letters concerning Buik also exist in the Swedish archives. See Riksarkivet, Anglica 5. James Spens Bekickninshandlingar, 1612-1619.
With thanks to Thomas Brochard for the reference from Aberdeen City Archive, Protocol book of the burgh of Aberdeen, 1630-1637, CA2/1/38, fo. 300v.
Service record
- POLAND-LITHUANIA, RIGA
- Departed 1621-01-01, as CAPTAIN
- Capacity OFFICER, purpose MILITARY