CONWAY, THOMAS [SSNE 6634]
Text source
Sir Thomas Conway (born 1590s?) served as a colonel who levied Irish troops for Swedish service between 1627-1631. On Christman Eve 1630 his regiment took part in the storming of Grippenhagen and the author of the Swedish Intelligencer noted that his forces suffered a few casualties from those of Sir Alexander Leslie who stormed the same town from a different angle. The mistake only being noted because one of Conway's Swedish soldiers cried out in Swedish when hit. Conway himself drowned off the coast of Denmark on his journey to Germany. His lieutenant colonel, George Stewart [SSNE 1982], and about 300 men died with him. It appears that two survivors at least did enter Swedish service: Major Thomas Grave [SSNE 3738] and Captain Anthony Tallfell [SSNE]. He was the brother of Edward Lord Conway [SSNE 1556], who claimed that Thomas had been a captain for 20 years by then and that he should be placed as a lieutenant-colonel or sergeant-major for Ireland. At this time Edward's son, also called Thomas, was also a captain and had served in the Palatinate and there is some confusion between themThe Swedish Intelligencer: Part One (London, 1632), p.71; The Swedish Intelligencer: The Fourth Part (London, 1633), p.126; Robert Monro, Monro his expedition with the worthy Scots regiment called Mac-keys (2 vols., London, 1637), II, List of Scottish Officers in Chiefe; Calendar of State Papers Ireland, 1647-1660, Addenda 1625-1660 (London, 1903), pp. 48-49; Swedish Riksarkiv, P. Sondén, Militärachefer i svenska arméen och deras skrivelser.
Service record
- STUART KINGDOMS, IRELAND
- Departed 1625-12-31, as CAPTAIN
- Capacity OFFICER, purpose MILITARY
- SWEDEN,
- Departed 1631-11-05, as COLONEL
- Capacity OFFICER, purpose MILITARY + RECRUITER