CLERK, JOHN [SSNE 8345]

Surname

CLERK, CLARK, CLARKE

First name

JOHN, JOHNE

Title/rank

CAPTAIN

Nationality

SCOT

Social status

OFFICER

Text source

Captain John Clerk was a Scottish officer who commanded a cavalry corps for the Danish Crown against the Swedes in the early 1560s and was then sent in June 1567 to recruit 1,000 troops in Scotland for King Frederick II’s war against Sweden. Among his activities, Clerk served as the agent of regent James Stewart, first Earl of Moray, despatched from Scotland to demand Bothwell’s immediate execution and Clerk helped to capture one Captain William Blackadder, who was suspected in the murder of Lord Darnley (King Consort of Scotland and husband of Mary, Queen of Scots). With the end of the war in 1570, Clerk faced a court martial in Denmark, accused of not preventing the defection of some of his soldiers to the enemy, obstructing the levies in Scotland, and of using men in Danish service against Queen Mary. It was also implied that Clerk had defrauded the Danish treasury. These were serious accusations. The new Protestant regimes of both James VI and Queen Elizabeth intervened on his behalf but to no avail. Clerk was tried in Copenhagen, incarcerated, and died having spent some six years in Danish custody.

At some point between 1568-1587 John Clerk added his signature to an autograph album (a stambog) belonging to a Danish man named Morten Knudsen (son of Aarhus university treasurer and mayor of Copenhagen). Clerk signed his name in Latin, describing himself as "Scoticorum cohortium supremus capitaneus", and also appended a quote in French.

John Clerk should not be confused with the eponymous pirate who stood accused of committing depredations against Danish subjects in late 1570s. 

 

Sources:

A Diurnal of Remarkable Occurrents that have Passed within the Country of Scotland since the Death of King James the Fourth till the year MDLXXV (Edinburgh, 1833), p. 115; P. Scannell and J. Black 2015, Conflict and Soldiers’ Literature in Early Modern Europe: The Reality of War (London, 2015), pp. 105-6; P. D. Lockhart, 2004, Frederik II and the Protestant Cause: Denmark’s Role in the Wars of Religion (Leiden, 2004), pp. 148; Cambridge University Library, Cambridge, Mm.1.43. Copies of Letters from the Bishop of Ely’s Library, p. 28; National Records of Scotland, Edinburgh, Cuninghame of Caprington Muniments, GD149/266, fos. 161v, 163r, for his 1571 testimony in response to accusations made against him (for which see fos.159v-63r); Thomas Riis, Should Auld Acquaintance be Forgot, vol.1 (1988), p.147.

For the eponymous pirate of the 1570s see S. Murdoch, The Terror of the Seas?: Scottish Maritime Warfare, 1513-1713 (Leiden, 2010), p. 143.

 

This entry was created by Mr Jack Abernethy and updated by Dr. Thomas Brochard.

Service record

DENMARK-NORWAY, SCOTLAND, SCOTLAND

Arrived 1567-01-01, as CAPTAIN

Departed 1567-06-30, as CAPTAIN

Capacity OFFICER, purpose MILITARY