HISTORY OF THE

Scottish Expedition

to Norway in 1612.

By

THOMAS MICHELL, C.B.,

Her Majesty's Consul General for Norway.

London:

T. NELSON AND SONS, PATERNOSTER ROW.

EDINBURGH; AND NEW YORK.

CHRISTIANIA: T. BENNETT, Tourist Agent.
1886.

Rights of Translation and Reproduction reserved for the benefit of
the Anglican Church at Christiania.

Preface.

The idea of investigating the story of the Scottish Expedition to Norway in 1612 occurred to the author on a trip through the beautiful valleys of Romsdal and Gudbrandsdal in the autumn of 1884—many of the statements made on that subject in guide-books, and in almost every work on Norway, having appeared incredible when he left the highway and explored the old bridle-path along which the Scots marched on their way to Sweden.

Subsequent researches in State Archives, made with the kind assistance which has been heartily acknowledged in the pages that follow, resulted in the discovery of official documents hitherto unavailable, and with their aid the traditional account of the "Skottetog" has, in its chief outlines, been reduced to strict historical proportions.

The information thus acquired was utilized by the author in a lecture delivered in 1885 at the University of Christiania, in the gracious presence of His Majesty the King of Sweden and Norway, for the benefit of the Building Fund of the Anglican Church in that city.

It is with the same practical object that, with the generous co-operation of the publishers, the lecture has been embodied in the little book now commended to the attention of those who take an interest in Scottish history, as well as to that of the British and American travellers who visit in such largely increasing numbers the beautiful and hospitable valleys and highlands of Norway, in which they find so much sympathetic evidence of a common origin of both race and language.

London, March 1886.

Contents.

Part I.

---

Historical.

I.

SOURCES OF INFORMATION.

More than two centuries and a half have elapsed since the date of the occurrence so well known in Norway as the "Skottetog," or Scottish expedition, of which but little has hitherto been authentically known in Scotland. Notwithstanding, therefore, the conspicuous position which the so-called "Sinclair Expedition" holds in the traditions,[1] and to some extent also in the literature and the art,[2] of Norway, a fresh examination of the subject by the impartial light of historical truth is justified by the recent discovery of several documents in the State Archives of England, Scotland, and Sweden.

Although Mönnichhofen's expedition through Stordalen, and the Scottish invasion of Romsdalen and Gudbrandsdalen which formed an integral but unsuccessful part of that expedition, took place in 1612, no account of the latter appeared in print earlier than the year 1688, when Puffendorff wrote his "Introduction to Swedish History;" and it was only three years later that Widikindi, another Swedish historian, gave a narrative of it in a History of Gustavus Adolphus.

Among Danish historians, Niels Slange was the first of any eminence to reproduce the now palpable errors of Puffendorff and Widikindi, in a History of Christian IV., written in 1732.

In 1782, the subject of the Skottetog first became popularized in Norway by the publication, in a periodical journal called the Dansk Museum, of the spirit-stirring poem by Edvard Storm, which Norwegian children still learn by heart and in song, and which has even been well circulated in the English and German languages.[3]

But the first really important contribution towards the history of the event was made in 1838, when Dean Krag of Vaage dedicated to the descendants of the Bönder[4] who had fought at Kringelen the Sagas, or traditions, he had personally collected in Gudbrandsdalen, annotated with such historical references as were then available.[5]

While the traditions he has so scrupulously preserved for us are of great interest, if only because they indicate plainly the source of the information on which Swedish, Danish, and even Scottish accounts of the expedition into Romsdalen had been chiefly based, he enriched history with copies of the first and only documents that had apparently ever been drawn before his time, from State or other archives, relative to the Scots who landed in Romsdalen. Those documents were: a Report by the Norwegian Stadtholder, Envold Kruse, to the Danish Chancellor, dated Aggershuus, 17th September 1612; and three deeds of gift of land (all dated 3rd September 1613) to Lars Hage, Peder Randklev, and Berdon Sejelstad, for their bravery and loyal devotion on that occasion.

In that laborious little work Dean Krag pointed out that, with the exception of Kruse's first Report (of which he had obtained a copy from Copenhagen), all the writers after Puffendorff (1688) and Widikindi (1691) had repeated, more or less, only what those two historians had related. He also showed that Storm's poem had been preceded by a popular ballad on the same subject, and of which he collected and printed as much as was still extant in Gudbrandsdalen.

More recent historical research resulted in the discovery, also at Copenhagen, of a second Report from Envold Kruse, the Stadtholder, dated 3rd October 1612. It was first published between 1858 and 1860,[6] and was reproduced in a little work printed at Molde in 1877.[7]

The history of the Scottish expedition to Norway in 1612 has, therefore, until this day been supported in Scandinavian accounts by only two documents of indisputable authority—namely, the two Reports of Envold Kruse, of which the second was brought to light less than twenty years ago.

Nor have Scottish and English historians[8] and writers, so deeply interested in the question, been more successful in discovering and making use of authentic contemporary documents. A careful examination of their several descriptions, both of Mönnichhofen's expedition and of that of the Scots, reveals the fact that their information had been derived either from the old Danish and Swedish historians already mentioned, or more recently from the traditions current in Gudbrandsdalen. Those accounts may consequently be dismissed as unworthy of serious attention.

But the Public Record Office in London has at last delivered up its long-hidden treasures, consisting of the correspondence that passed between King James I. of England (VI. of Scotland) and Sir Robert Anstruther, his ambassador or envoy at Copenhagen, on the subject of the Scottish levies for Sweden in 1612.[9] In the General Register House, Edinburgh, have also been preserved[10] the acts and proclamations of the Scottish Privy Council in respect of those proceedings; while the keeper of the State Archives in Stockholm has supplied copies of several documents[11] that have not hitherto been published, amongst which must be mentioned a letter or commission issued by Gustavus Adolphus II.[12] to Sir James Spens of Wormiston, a Scottish officer of high rank, found sometimes in the service of James I., sometimes in that of Sweden.

That commission is of more especial value, since it explains the connection between the expedition of Mönnichhofen and that of the Scots.

The former enterprise—an important part of the famed Skottetog—is not the subject of any Norwegian Sagas, or of any popular ballads, but Scandinavian historians have dealt with it somewhat more correctly than with the Scottish expedition, probably because the Dutch contingent reached Sweden, and thereby supplied living testimony as to the circumstances that attended its march through Stordalen into Jemtland.

Nevertheless, the first documents relating to that daring exploit were not published before 1858, in a Norwegian historical magazine. These were copies of letters from Steen Bilde, amtmand, or prefect; Christian Jensson Jude, burgomaster; and Jacob Pederson, lagmand,[13] all of Trondhjem—addressed to the Danish Chancellor, and dated severally between the 15th August 1612 and the 19th February 1613.

Some years later—namely, in 1877—Dr. Yngvar Nielsen of Christiania published[14] "Some Notices respecting Johan von Mönnichhofen," derived from a series of letters from Swedish agents at Amsterdam which he found in the State Archives at Stockholm.