SPENS, JAMES [SSNE 6860]

Surname

SPENS

First name

JAMES

Title/rank

DRUMMER MAJOR

Nationality

SCOT

Region

EDINBURGH

Text source

James Spens was the son of James Spens and Agnes Walker. James Spens served as a soldier in the Dutch Republic from 1617 to 1621 in the capacity of drummer in William Brog's [SSNE 7842] regiment. He then served in the Swedish army from at least 1624 when he was a drummer in Colonel James Spens' [SSNE 1642] regiment alongside compatriot D. Manson, and leaving Swedish service in 1631. His father, also James Spens, was servitor to the Lord Privy Seal. Spens has been previously confused with Sir James Spens of Wormiston [SSNE 1642]. He was clearly not this man, although he did know him and even served in his regiment for a time. In one of his letter witten from Riga on 29 May 1629 he even noted that his wife had encountered Sir James while tavelling through Sweden to join him in Riga. She had told her husband "I com to Stockholm I had not so much as my sark to put upone my back not nothing to live upon war not my Lord Wormiston and his son Lieutenant James Spens gave me money". James served in Riga between October 1628 and early 1631. In a letter written from Amsterdam on 12 November 1631, "I taking my pass from me Lord of Wormistoun and hes left the King of Swadin service". He lamented the passing of his wife whom he swore to remember for the rest of his life. It was probably her death that prompted him to leave Swedish service and try for a new life in Dutch service. Spens met up with a friend in Amsterdam, one George Borthwick [SSNE 6862]. He was clearly known to him from Scotland as he asked his parents to greet Borthwick's wife and their mutual friends at home in Edinburgh. The men enlisted on the VOC ship the Leiden on 17 November 1631 and the Leiden sailed out of the Dutch Republic on 11 December 1631. The ship continued on from the Texel to Sierra Leone on the Guinea Coast and then to Batavia in the Dutch East Indies in service of the VOC, where it arrived by 16 July 1632. It was from Sierra Leone that Spens wrote his last surviving letter on 23 February 1632. Spens was married to Elizabeth Baillie (d.1631) and with her had his 'bairne' William.

 

Sources:

National Archives of Scotland, RH9/2/231-242: 12x letters of James Spens to his mother, father and wife 1617-1632; T. Fischer, The Scots in Sweden (Edinburgh, 1907), p.218; Steve Murdoch, Network North: Scottish Kin, Commercial and Covert Associations in Northern Europe, 1603-1746 (Brill, Leiden, 2006), pp.9, 76, 234, 349, 358. 

Amsterdam Notarial Archief, no. 5075, inv.nr. 583, aktenummer 215797, 17-11-1631. 

Alexia Grosjean, Steve Murdoch and Siobhan Talbott, 'Drummer Major James Spens: Letters from a Common Soldier Abroad, 1617-1632' in Northern Studies no.47 (2015), pp. 76-101

On the Leiden: https://www.vocsite.nl/schepen/detail.html?id=11729&fbclid=IwAR1Nat690XOnH5pb6qBznKwLB1LcUJSbrj1EteIF1rkrsQxxyhYg0A6WFI0 

 

This entry updated by Mr Jack Abernethy.

Service record

THE DUTCH REPUBLIC, DOESBURGH, GELDERLAND, THE SCOTS BRIGADE, COL. BROG

Arrived 1617-08-01, as DRUMMER

Departed 1621-12-31, as DRUMMER

Capacity DRUMMER, MUSICIAN, purpose MILITARY

SWEDEN, RIGA, JAMES SPENS

Arrived 1624-10-01, as DRUMMER

Departed 1631-04-30, as DRUMMER MAJOR

Capacity OFFICER, DRUMMER MAJOR, MUSICIAN, purpose MILITARY

THE DUTCH REPUBLIC, AMSTERDAM

Arrived 1631-11-12, as DRUMMER MAJOR

Capacity OFFICER, purpose MILITARY

THE DUTCH REPUBLIC, SIERRA LEONE, GUINEA, VOC

Arrived 1631-11-12

Departed 1632-02-23, as DRUMMER MAJOR

Capacity VOC DRUMMER, purpose MILITARY

THE DUTCH REPUBLIC, BATAVIA DUTCH EAST INDIES

Arrived 1632-04-01, as DRUMMER MAJOR

Capacity VOC DRUMMER, purpose MILITARY