Robert Douglas, Count of Skenninge
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Robert Douglas (17 March 1611 – 28 May 1662), Count of Skenninge,
Baron Baron is a rank of nobility or title of honour, often hereditary, in various European countries, either current or historical. The female equivalent is baroness. Typically, the title denotes an aristocrat who ranks higher than a lord or knig ...
of Skalby, was a Scottish cavalry general during the
Thirty Years' War The Thirty Years' War was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (80 ...
rising to the rank of
Field Marshal Field marshal (or field-marshal, abbreviated as FM) is the most senior military rank, ordinarily senior to the general officer ranks. Usually, it is the highest rank in an army and as such few persons are appointed to it. It is considered as ...
(1657–1662) in the Swedish-Polish wars that followed. He founded the Swedish branch of Clan Douglas.


Youth

Douglas was born at Standingstone, near
Garvald, East Lothian Garvald is a village south-east of Haddington, East Lothian, Haddington in East Lothian, Scotland. It lies on the Papana Water south of the B6370, east of Gifford, East Lothian, Gifford. The combined parish of Garvald and Bara, East Lothian, Bar ...
.Douglas, Robert
-
Svenskt biografiskt handlexikon ''Svenskt biografiskt handlexikon'' () is a compact Swedish dictionary of biography first published in 1873–1876 by the physician and antiquarian Herman Hofberg (1823–1883). The second, updated edition was published in 1906, under the editor ...
at
Project Runeberg Project Runeberg ( sv, Projekt Runeberg) is a digital cultural archive initiative that publishes free electronic versions of books significant to the culture and history of the Nordic countries. Patterned after Project Gutenberg, it was founded ...
His father, Patrick Douglas of Standingstone (d.1626), was a son of
William Douglas of Whittinghame William Douglas of Whittingehame (c. 1540 – 17 December 1595) was a Senator of the College of Justice at Edinburgh, and a Royal conspirator. Family William Douglas was the eldest son and heir of William Douglas of Whittingehame (died bef. 24 ...
(d.1595) by his spouse Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Richard Maitland of Lethington, Knt.


Career

Many Scottish soldiers, infantry and cavalry, found themselves engaged in the various wars that are collectively called the
Thirty Years' War The Thirty Years' War was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (80 ...
and Robert Douglas was one of these. In 1627 he was received as a
page Page most commonly refers to: * Page (paper), one side of a leaf of paper, as in a book Page, PAGE, pages, or paging may also refer to: Roles * Page (assistance occupation), a professional occupation * Page (servant), traditionally a young m ...
in the Swedish service under
John Casimir, Count Palatine of Kleeburg John Casimir, Count Palatine of Zweibrücken-Kleeburg (20 April 1589, Zweibrücken – 18 June 1652, Stegeborg Castle) was the son of John I, Count Palatine of Zweibrücken and his wife, Duchess Magdalene of Jülich-Cleves-Berg. He was marri ...
, castellan of Stegeborg Castle, brother-in-law of King
Gustav II Adolf Gustavus Adolphus (9 December ld Style and New Style dates, N.S 19 December15946 November ld Style and New Style dates, N.S 16 November1632), also known in English as Gustav II Adolf or Gustav II Adolph, was King of Sweden from 1611 to ...
. In 1630, when Sweden joined the
Thirty Years' War The Thirty Years' War was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (80 ...
, Douglas followed the main army into Germany (where he joined the German literary society Der Fruchtbringenden Gesellschaft). Although a competent military commander, he only began to earn some notoriety in the aftermath of the
Peace of Prague (1635) The Peace of Prague (, ), signed on 30 May 1635, ended Saxony's participation in the Thirty Years War. Other German princes subsequently joined the treaty and although the Thirty Years War continued, it is generally agreed Prague ended it as a ...
. Then serving as a lieutenant colonel, Douglas had been tasked with the defence of Egeln in Saxony, and so was left very much within the territory of the newly hostile Elector Johan Georg who had defected to the Empire. Douglas spectacularly broke out rather than change sides and managed to return with most of his men through hostile lines to Swedish controlled territory He participated in the
Battle of Wittstock The Battle of Wittstock took place during the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648). It was fought on 24 September (Julian calendar) or 4 October (Gregorian calendar) 1636. A Swedish-allied army commanded jointly by Johan Banér and Alexander Leslie ...
the following year, now with the rank of full colonel and actually in command of two cavalry regiments. With these he participated in the famous flanking charge led by Lieutenant General James King, the senior cavalry commander in
Alexander Leslie Alexander Leslie, 1st Earl of Leven (15804 April 1661) was a Scottish soldier in Swedish and Scottish service. Born illegitimate and raised as a foster child, he subsequently advanced to the rank of a Swedish Field Marshal, and in Scotland b ...
's Army of the Weser. Unlike many of his countrymen who opted to return to Scotland to participate in the
Bishops' Wars The 1639 and 1640 Bishops' Wars () were the first of the conflicts known collectively as the 1639 to 1653 Wars of the Three Kingdoms, which took place in Scotland, England and Ireland. Others include the Irish Confederate Wars, the First and ...
against
Charles I Charles I may refer to: Kings and emperors * Charlemagne (742–814), numbered Charles I in the lists of Holy Roman Emperors and French kings * Charles I of Anjou (1226–1285), also king of Albania, Jerusalem, Naples and Sicily * Charles I of ...
, Douglas opted or was selected to remain behind in Swedish service. In March 1638 he was campaigning in the region of Delitzsch in the army of
Johan Banér Johan Banér (23 June 1596 – 10 May 1641) was a Swedish field marshal in the Thirty Years' War. Early life Johan Banér was born at Djursholm Castle in Uppland. As a four-year-old he was forced to witness how his father, the Privy Councillou ...
, getting complaints from the town for his alleged 'deprivations'. Within days units under Major General Adam von Pfuel pressed into Thuringia, with Douglas's regiment among them. It was during this period that the Scot captured the Imperial Fälttygmästare (master of ordinance) Salis and his regiments, who were heading towards Eger (Cheb) in Bohemia. He pressed the captured troops into his service and participated with them at the Swedish victory at
battle of Chemnitz The Battle of Chemnitz (14 April 1639) took place near the town of Chemnitz, in what is now eastern Germany, during the Thirty Years' War. Swedish forces under Johan Banér inflicted a crushing defeat on Rodolfo Giovanni Marazzino who commande ...
. By 1642, Douglas served in the army of Field Marshal
Lennart Torstensson Lennart Torstensson, Count of Ortala, Baron of Virestad (17 August 16037 April 1651), was a Swedish Field Marshal and military engineer. Early career He was born at Forstena manor in Västergötland. His parents were Märta Nilsdotter Posse a ...
under whom he campaigned in Silesia before participating at the
battle of Leipzig The Battle of Leipzig (french: Bataille de Leipsick; german: Völkerschlacht bei Leipzig, ); sv, Slaget vid Leipzig), also known as the Battle of the Nations (french: Bataille des Nations; russian: Битва народов, translit=Bitva ...
where he was accredited with playing a significant part in the victory. For this and other services, Douglas was promoted major general, though not without protest from some of his German co-commanders. Nevertheless, his reputation continued to grow. At the battle of Jankowitz in 1645, Douglas commanded the left wing of the Swedish army, with some twenty-three out of forty-seven of the cavalry units on the field under his control. In December 1646, Douglas received instructions to travel to
Ulm Ulm () is a city in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Danube on the border with Bavaria. The city, which has an estimated population of more than 126,000 (2018), forms an urban district of its own (german: link=no, ...
as one of Sweden's representatives to negotiate a
ceasefire A ceasefire (also known as a truce or armistice), also spelled cease fire (the antonym of 'open fire'), is a temporary stoppage of a war in which each side agrees with the other to suspend aggressive actions. Ceasefires may be between state act ...
with Maximillian of Bavaria. This was eventually agreed on 14 March 1647. However, when Douglas returned to Sweden in June to brief the Riksråd on the progress of negotiations, he delivered the news that the Bavarian truce had effectively expired. For his good offices as both soldier and negotiator, Douglas was promoted to the rank of lieutenant general at which station he saw out the remainder of the war, seeing his last main action at
Zusmarshausen Zusmarshausen is a municipality in the district of Augsburg, Bavaria, Germany. The 1648 Battle of Zusmarshausen The Battle of Zusmarshausen was fought on 17 May 1648 between Bavarian- Imperial forces under von Holzappel and an allied Franco-S ...
in May 1648. On the conclusion of hostilities, Douglas was tasked with the reduction and dismissal of the troops around Ulm and Schwaben. Queen
Christina of Sweden Christina ( sv, Kristina, 18 December ( New Style) 1626 – 19 April 1689), a member of the House of Vasa, was Queen of Sweden in her own right from 1632 until her abdication in 1654. She succeeded her father Gustavus Adolphus upon his death ...
ennobled Nobility is a social class found in many societies that have an aristocracy (class), aristocracy. It is normally ranked immediately below Royal family, royalty. Nobility has often been an Estates of the realm, estate of the realm with many e ...
him as a baron in 1651, and on 28 May 1654, created him a count. In 1652, she made him the kingdom's Lord Master of the Horse. In the Polish Wars, Douglas was in the service of King
Charles X Charles X (born Charles Philippe, Count of Artois; 9 October 1757 – 6 November 1836) was King of France from 16 September 1824 until 2 August 1830. An uncle of the uncrowned Louis XVII and younger brother to reigning kings Louis XVI and Loui ...
. He was with the king at the battle of Warsaw in 1656. On 13 May 1657, the king promoted him to
field marshal Field marshal (or field-marshal, abbreviated as FM) is the most senior military rank, ordinarily senior to the general officer ranks. Usually, it is the highest rank in an army and as such few persons are appointed to it. It is considered as ...
. He served between 1658 and 1661 as military governor of
Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...
and
Livonia Livonia ( liv, Līvõmō, et, Liivimaa, fi, Liivinmaa, German and Scandinavian languages: ', archaic German: ''Liefland'', nl, Lijfland, Latvian and lt, Livonija, pl, Inflanty, archaic English: ''Livland'', ''Liwlandia''; russian: Ли ...
. In 1660, he and the Swedes took
Jacob Jacob (; ; ar, يَعْقُوب, Yaʿqūb; gr, Ἰακώβ, Iakṓb), later given the name Israel, is regarded as a patriarch of the Israelites and is an important figure in Abrahamic religions, such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. J ...
,
Duke of Courland The Duchy of Courland and Semigallia ( la, Ducatus Curlandiæ et Semigalliæ; german: Herzogtum Kurland und Semgallen; lv, Kurzemes un Zemgales hercogiste; lt, Kuršo ir Žiemgalos kunigaikštystė; pl, Księstwo Kurlandii i Semigalii) was ...
as their prisoner. He also led the Swedish forces in the conquests of Valmiera and
Mitau Jelgava (; german: Mitau, ; see also #Name, other names) is a state city in central Latvia about southwest of Riga with 55,972 inhabitants (2019). It is the largest town in the region of Zemgale (Semigalia). Jelgava was the capital of the unit ...
. Douglas was rewarded with numerous properties and fiefs in Sweden, such as
Skänninge Skänninge () is a locality situated in Mjölby Municipality, Östergötland County, Sweden with 3,140 inhabitants in 2010. It lies about 10 km north of the municipal seat Mjölby. Before the local government reform in 1971 the ''City of Skä ...
, Skälby, Zewen and Sannegården near Göteborg.


Family

In 1646 Douglas married Hedvig Mörner, (1754) Matrikel öfwer Swea rikes ridderskap och adel .
p.19
/ref> who bore him six sons (of whom four lived to adulthood) and a daughter. Three sons became officers and died without issue. The daughter married an
Oxenstierna Oxenstierna ( , ) is a Swedish noble family, originally from Småland in southern Sweden which can be traced up to the middle of the 14th century. The Oxenstierna family held vast estates in Södermanland and Uppland during the late Middle Ages a ...
. The remaining son, Gustaf, was first of the Swedish-born noble line of Douglas. He became a Colonel and Governor of Västerbotten. The Swedish noble family of Douglas descends from him. His grandson, Count
Gustav Otto Douglas Count Gustaf (also Gustav) Otto Douglas (23 February 1687 – 2 February 1771) was a Swedish mercenary of Scottish descent, grandson of Robert Douglas, Count of Skenninge. He was captured by the Russian army in the Battle of Poltava during the ro ...
, was captured by the Russians during the
Battle of Poltava The Battle of Poltava; russian: Полта́вская би́тва; uk, Полта́вська би́тва (8 July 1709) was the decisive and largest battle of the Great Northern War. A Russian army under the command of Tsar Peter I defeate ...
, entered Russian service, and in 1717 was made
Peter the Great Peter I ( – ), most commonly known as Peter the Great,) or Pyotr Alekséyevich ( rus, Пётр Алексе́евич, p=ˈpʲɵtr ɐlʲɪˈksʲejɪvʲɪtɕ, , group=pron was a Russian monarch who ruled the Tsardom of Russia from t ...
's
Governor General Governor-general (plural ''governors-general''), or governor general (plural ''governors general''), is the title of an office-holder. In the context of governors-general and former British colonies, governors-general are appointed as viceroy t ...
over
Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...
.Atina Nihtinen, 'Field Marshal James Kieth', p.99 In the 1890s the then head of the family, Count
Ludvig Douglas Ludvig Vilhelm August Douglas, Count of Mühlhausen, Gondelsheim, Skenninge and Stjernorp, Lord of Langenstein and Stjernorp castles (24 November 1849 - 20 July 1916), was a conservative Swedish politician and official. He was a direct patrilinea ...
, was the Swedish foreign minister and Marshal of the Realm. His father Count Carl Israel Douglas (1824-1898) had married a morganatic daughter of
Louis I, Grand Duke of Baden Ludwig I (9 February 1763 – 30 March 1830) succeeded as Grand Duke of Baden on 8 December 1818. He was the uncle of his predecessor Karl Ludwig Friedrich, and his death marked the end of the Zähringen line of the House of Baden. He was suc ...
who inherited
Langenstein Castle Langenstein Castle is a Renaissance building of the sixteenth century. Today it is owned by the Douglases, descendants of the Swedish count Ludvig Douglas. It is located within the territory of Orsingen-Nenzingen, a municipality in the Hegau regi ...
and
Gondelsheim Gondelsheim is a municipality in Northern Karlsruhe district in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is located on Bertha Benz Memorial Route 3 km northwest of Bretten and shares a direct border with that city. Sights are the gothic-revival cas ...
Castle, and became thus the first count of the Douglas family in the nobility of
Baden Baden (; ) is a historical territory in South Germany, in earlier times on both sides of the Upper Rhine but since the Napoleonic Wars only East of the Rhine. History The margraves of Baden originated from the House of Zähringen. Baden is ...
in 1848. Ludvig Douglas' son, General Archibald Douglas-Stjernorp, was the Chief of the Swedish Army during World War II. Robert Douglas is buried in the Douglas chapel in the church of
Vreta Abbey Vreta Abbey ( sv, Vreta kloster), in operation from the beginning of the 12th century to 1582, was the first nunnery in Sweden, initially Benedictine and later Cistercian, and one of the oldest in Scandinavia. It was located in the present-day m ...
.


Sources

* C. Conermann, ''Die Mitglieder Der Fruchtbringenden Gesellschaft 1617-1650'' (Weinheim, 1985), III, no.420, pp. 502–503. * Archibald Douglas, ''Robert Douglas: en krigaregestalt från vår storhetstid'' (Stockholm, 1957) * Alexia Grosjean, 'A century of Scottish Governorship in the Swedish Empire, 1574-1700' in A. Mackillop and Steve Murdoch, Military Governors and Imperial Frontiers, 1600-1800: A Study of Scotland and Empires (Brill, Leiden, 2003), pp. 53–78. * Steve Murdoch and Alexia Grosjean, ''Alexander Leslie and the Scottish Generals of the Thirty Years' War, 1618-1648'' (London, 2014). * Atina Nihtinen, 'Field Marshal James Keith: Governor of Ukraine and Finland, 1740-1745' in A. Mackillop and Steve Murdoch, Military Governors and Imperial Frontiers, 1600-1800: A Study of Scotland and Empires (Brill, Leiden, 2003), p. 99.


Primary Sources

* Swedish Riksarkiv, Adolf Johans Arkiv i Stegeborgssamlingen: 81 letters of Robert Douglas to Duke Adolf Johan, 1652–1661; * Swedish Krigsarkiv, Muster Roll, 1631/22-24; 1659/13, 1660/4, 11, 17


External links


Douglas, Robert
-
Svenskt biografiskt handlexikon ''Svenskt biografiskt handlexikon'' () is a compact Swedish dictionary of biography first published in 1873–1876 by the physician and antiquarian Herman Hofberg (1823–1883). The second, updated edition was published in 1906, under the editor ...
at
Project Runeberg Project Runeberg ( sv, Projekt Runeberg) is a digital cultural archive initiative that publishes free electronic versions of books significant to the culture and history of the Nordic countries. Patterned after Project Gutenberg, it was founded ...
*
1659. document from Estonian Historical Archives
{{DEFAULTSORT:Douglas, Robert 1611 births 1662 deaths Scottish soldiers Scottish emigrants to Sweden Field marshals of Sweden 17th-century Swedish military personnel Robert Douglas People from East Lothian 17th-century Scottish people Scottish mercenaries Scottish people of the Thirty Years' War Military personnel of the Thirty Years' War