Steve Murdoch
Strong research interests in early modern warfare and conflict resolution. I have published widely on aspects of the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) and Maritime Warfare (1513-1713). My main monographs include Britain, Denmark-Norway and the House of Stuart 1600-1660 (2003); Network North: Scottish Kin, Cultural and Covert Associations in Northern Europe, 1603-1746 (2006); The Terror of the Seas? Scottish Maritime Warfare 1513-1713 (2010) and, with Alexia Grosjean, Alexander Leslie and the Scottish Generals of the Thirty Years’ War, 1618-1648 (2014). I am currently working on a project focussing on Women and Warfare in the 17th Century.
I worked at the University of Aberdeen 2000-2003 and the University of St Andrews 2004-2021. I held the Swedish Academy's "Olof Palme Visiting Professorship in Peace Studies" in 2013-2014 at the Centre for Maritime Studies, University of Stockholm. I am presently employed as Professor of Military History at the Swedish Defence University. I have also the honour to be Visiting Professor at the University of Highlands and Islands, Center for Northern Studies.
Address: Twitter: @Prof_Murdoch
I worked at the University of Aberdeen 2000-2003 and the University of St Andrews 2004-2021. I held the Swedish Academy's "Olof Palme Visiting Professorship in Peace Studies" in 2013-2014 at the Centre for Maritime Studies, University of Stockholm. I am presently employed as Professor of Military History at the Swedish Defence University. I have also the honour to be Visiting Professor at the University of Highlands and Islands, Center for Northern Studies.
Address: Twitter: @Prof_Murdoch
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This is a pilot project for a much larger survey on the topic and the authors welcome feedback on it.
This article gives an overview for the arrival and motivations of soldiers from Great Britain who served in the Thirty Years' War. While highlighting the well understood service of Scots, it especially adds to our understanding of English recruits. It will surprise many that from both kingdoms, the 1640s saw large scale recruitment particularly to the Dutch and French armies.
The table of contents for NS 48 is available on the accompanying link.
One off copies of the journal are available from the Scottish Society of Northern Studies for £10 (£9 for overseas students). Please note it is also only £9 for overseas students to join the society. Contact: Ian Giles - [email protected]
Back copies of the journal (up to 2019) are available for free download from the society's website here: https://ssns.org.uk/publications/journal.html
REF information: The historical and linguistic introduction is 100% by Steve Murdoch. The transcriptions are the combined work of the three editors.
Scholars citing the article should follow the link to the published article if they have access to the Spanish language.
diplomatic machinations which sought to recover ships, goods or compensation in the years following the conclusion of the war.
Records of Swedish interaction with the British colonies in North America in the later seventeenth century are quite spartan when compared to other trading nations who operated around them. However, in 1672 a Swedish ship, the Burgh of Stade, fell foul of the English Navigation Acts and was tried at a Court of Admiralty in Maryland.2 This event has been overlooked by both scholars of maritime history in the Americas and Swedish historians due to the fact that the documents themselves have been preserved in a file reserved for Swedish shipping taken as prize by the English during the third Anglo-Dutch War (1672-1674). Thus the name of the ship the Burgh of Stade is missing from the most complete work on the subject of the Maryland ‘Courts of Admiralty’ published in 1995.3 The question of what the ship was doing in British colonial waters is not directly answered by the documents, though trade in an unusual commodity is at the heart of the matter. The Burgh carried a cargo of 50,000 bricks. By c.1674 brick buildings were unusual in Maryland, with the chapel in the capital being one of the few examples.4 The opportunity to rectify this by bringing in a consignment of bricks was taken by some ‘opportunistic’ Swedish citizens, though their action eventually cost them their ship and the profits from their consignment.
This is a pilot project for a much larger survey on the topic and the authors welcome feedback on it.
This article gives an overview for the arrival and motivations of soldiers from Great Britain who served in the Thirty Years' War. While highlighting the well understood service of Scots, it especially adds to our understanding of English recruits. It will surprise many that from both kingdoms, the 1640s saw large scale recruitment particularly to the Dutch and French armies.
The table of contents for NS 48 is available on the accompanying link.
One off copies of the journal are available from the Scottish Society of Northern Studies for £10 (£9 for overseas students). Please note it is also only £9 for overseas students to join the society. Contact: Ian Giles - [email protected]
Back copies of the journal (up to 2019) are available for free download from the society's website here: https://ssns.org.uk/publications/journal.html
REF information: The historical and linguistic introduction is 100% by Steve Murdoch. The transcriptions are the combined work of the three editors.
Scholars citing the article should follow the link to the published article if they have access to the Spanish language.
diplomatic machinations which sought to recover ships, goods or compensation in the years following the conclusion of the war.
Records of Swedish interaction with the British colonies in North America in the later seventeenth century are quite spartan when compared to other trading nations who operated around them. However, in 1672 a Swedish ship, the Burgh of Stade, fell foul of the English Navigation Acts and was tried at a Court of Admiralty in Maryland.2 This event has been overlooked by both scholars of maritime history in the Americas and Swedish historians due to the fact that the documents themselves have been preserved in a file reserved for Swedish shipping taken as prize by the English during the third Anglo-Dutch War (1672-1674). Thus the name of the ship the Burgh of Stade is missing from the most complete work on the subject of the Maryland ‘Courts of Admiralty’ published in 1995.3 The question of what the ship was doing in British colonial waters is not directly answered by the documents, though trade in an unusual commodity is at the heart of the matter. The Burgh carried a cargo of 50,000 bricks. By c.1674 brick buildings were unusual in Maryland, with the chapel in the capital being one of the few examples.4 The opportunity to rectify this by bringing in a consignment of bricks was taken by some ‘opportunistic’ Swedish citizens, though their action eventually cost them their ship and the profits from their consignment.
As Professor T.C. Smout says in his Foreword, "The present volume is a breakthrough, surely the biggest advance in the field for a hundred years."
As Professor T.C. Smout says in his Foreword, "The present volume is a breakthrough, surely the biggest advance in the field for a hundred years."
Section two provides an analysis of Scottish networks in an economic context providing both quantitative and qualitative evidence to describe their success and failures in a variety of situations and locations. The final section provides three meticulously researched case studies of subversive networks including an espionage network operating in Poland on behalf of Sweden, the confessional network of the irenicist John Durie and rounded off with a review of the Jacobite network stretching across Russia, Sweden, Prussia and Rome.
Field Marshal Alexander Leslie was the highest ranking commander from the British Isles to serve in the Thirty Years’ War. Though Leslie’s life provides the thread that runs through this work, the authors use his story to explore the impacts of the Thirty Years’ War, the British Civil Wars and the age of Military Revolution. Based on research from archival material from across Europe, Murdoch and Grosjean are able to explore how Leslie and his fellow officers brought a unique set of cultural and societal factors to the European theatre of war. Their new level of professionalism, learned on the battlefields of central Europe, is set alongside their close kin networks and cultural loyalty both on and off the battlefield. They excelled as infantry, cavalry and fortifications commanders. They developed new artillery and artillery techniques. As one reader stated:
"Focused on a range of Scottish military officers, the volume goes well beyond familiar discussions of tactics, logistics, even supply systems, to examine the interface of ideology, kin and patronage within the dynamics of early modern warfare."
Arthur Williamson, California State University, Sacramento
More Info: Co-authored with Dr Alexia Grosjean
Publisher: Pickering and Chatto
Publication Date: Mar 1, 2014
"Focused on a range of Scottish military officers, the volume goes well beyond familiar discussions of tactics, logistics, even supply systems, to examine the interface of ideology, kin and patronage within the dynamics of early modern warfare."
Arthur Williamson, California State University, Sacramento