Monro His Expedition by Robert Monro

INTRODUCTION

Monro His Expedition with the Worthy Scots regiment called Mac-Keys

Introduction

The Thirty Years' War was one of the great catastrophes of the Seventeenth Century in Europe. It started as an attempt by the Holy Roman Emperor to suppress the Protestants of Bohemia (modern Czech Republic) and metastasized into a war involving most of the countries of continental Europe, who fought, massacred, sacked and plundered back and forth across Germany for decades. In addition to the various German and Austrian states, there were Spaniards and Italians, Swedes and Danes, Poles, Finns and Croats. At a late stage the French became involved, surprisingly on the Protestant side. In addition, there were hired troops of mercenaries from the British Isles. Robert Monro was an officer in such a Scottish regiment, which served first the King of Denmark and afterwards the great King of Sweden Gustavus Adolphus.

Readers of Scott's A Legend of Montrose will have come across references to Monro in Scott's Introduction to that novel; and the character of the swashbuckling cavalier Dugald Dalgetty is based on Monro. The Swedish historian Magnus Bengtsson wrote a long account of Monro in his collection A Walk to an Ant Hill and other essays (Norstedt and Soners, Stockholm, 1950)

Monro's service ran from 1626 to 1634, when he was sent back to Scotland to recruit more soldiers. While he was there, the Swedes and their allies suffered a crushing defeat at the Battle of Nördlingen. His occupation gone, he turned to the pen, and wrote this account of his adventures which was published in 1637. It is one of the first, if not the first, accounts of the war in English from a participant, unvarnished and showing alike the courage, brutality and atrocity of war.

Bibliographic and Editorial Note

This Ex-classics edition of Monro his Expedition with the Worthy Scots Regiment Called Mac-Keys has been prepared from a facsimile of the first edition, 1637. Spelling of English words has been modernised, and obsolete words have been standardised at the primary spelling in the Oxford English Dictionary. The glossary has definitions of these obsolete words, as well as translations of Latin tags used by Monro.

Monro was very variable in his spelling of names of people and places. In this edition we have standardised placenames at the spelling used in the early 20th Century, except for those which have long-established English versions e.g. Munich, Elsinore not München, Helsingør. After the First and Second World Wars, many of these names were changed, mostly for nationalistic or political reasons. The modern names of these places are given in the Current Placenames section. Peronal names have for the most part been left as Monro had them except for a few who are very well-known, such as Wallenstein.

Title Page of the First Edition

MONRO
HIS EXPEDITION
VVITH THE VVORTHY
SCOTS REGIMENT (CALLED
Mac-Keyes regiment) levied in August 1626.
by Sr. Donald Mac-Key Lord Rhees, Colonell for
his Majesties service of Denmark, and reduced
after the battle of Norling, to one Com-
pany in September 1634 at
Wormes in the Paltz.

Discharged in severall duties and observations of service
first under the magnanimous King of Denmark, during his warres
against the Emperour; afterward, under the Invincible King of
Sweden, during his Majesties life time; and since, under the
Directour Generall, the Rex-chancellor Oxensterne and his Generalls.