James Jefferyes

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

James Bavington Jefferyes , also James Jeffries and James Jeffreys (* 1679 or 1680 in Stockholm ; † 1739 ) was a Scottish diplomat in the English service and at times English ambassador to the Swedish King Charles XII. when he was in exile in Turkey .

He is also known as Captain Jefferyes. His letters are an important source for the story of Charles XII.

He was the son of Brigadier General (Brigadier General) Sir James Jefferyes, who was in the service of Charles XI. and from 1690 by William of Orange , and his Swedish wife Katherine Drokenhelmen. Jefferyes was born in Stockholm but went to Scotland with his father and studied in Dublin from 1697 to 1701. In 1702 he was back in Sweden and served as a volunteer in the army of Charles XII. He reported regularly on the campaign of Charles XII. to the British Ambassador Dr. John Robinson (1650-1723) in Stockholm. He was captured by the Russians after the Battle of Poltava in 1709 and returned to England. In 1711 he was appointed ambassador to Charles XII by the British government. sent into exile in Turkey, where he stayed until 1715. In 1718 he was ambassador to Saint Petersburg , where he counteracted Jacobite circles at the court of Peter the Great (including Admiral Thomas Gordon , the doctor Robert Erskine , Sir Henry Stirling ). After England broke up with Russia towards the end of the Great Northern War , he was in Danzig from 1719 to 1725 , where he lived with his family and where two of his daughters were born. After that he was like his father Governor of County Cork in Ireland and lived in Blarney Castle .

Letter issues

  • Ernst Carlson (ed.): Kapten Jefferyes bref till engelska regeringen från Bender och Adrianopel 1711-1714, från Stralsund 1714-15, Hist.handl.Kong.Samf., Volume 16, No. 2, Stockholm 1897
  • Ragnhild Hatton (Ed.): Captain James Jefferyes's letters to the secretary of State, Whitehall, from the Swedish army, 1707-1709, Historiska Handlingar, Volume 35, 1954

literature

  • Steve Murdoch: Network North. Scottish Kin, Commercial and Covert Associations in Northern Europe 1603-1746, Brill, Leiden 2006, pp. 326f
  • Peter Paul Bajer: Scots in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, 16th to 18th Centuries, Brill, Leiden 2012, p. 167f (biography)
personal data
SURNAME James Jefferyes
ALTERNATIVE NAMES James Bavington Jefferyes (full name); James Jeffries; James Jeffreys
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Scottish diplomat
DATE OF BIRTH 1679 or 1680
PLACE OF BIRTH Stockholm
DATE OF DEATH 1739