Steve Murdoch

• Professor
• Prefekt / Chair of the Institute at Swedish Defence University

S c o t t i s h W i d o w s d u r i n g t h e T h i r t y Y e a r s ' W a r (1 6 1 8-1 6 4 8) Looks at the attempts of Scottish widows to recoups pensions and property after their husbands died fighting for the Dutch and Swedish armies during the Thirty Years War

This is a survey of British participation during the Thirty Years' War. As noted in the text .... " in an unexpected twist, it is now possible to confirm that many soldiers in the later Thirty Years’ War were, in fact, veterans of the English Civil War." This article gives an overview for the arrival and motivations of soldiers from Great Britain...

This article considers the impact of English seizure of neutral Swedish vessels during the First Anglo-Dutch War, 1651–4. These actions were undertaken at a time when no bilateral diplomatic treaty existed between the two nations and thus the legal basis for such prize-taking was hotly disputed on both sides. Through an examination of extant source...

• “This excellent study is a model of how maritime and naval history ought to be written, from the sources of all the relevant countries, without any anachronistic assumptions of how naval warfare ought to be fought. It is important not only for Scottish history but for the maritime history of all northern Europe, to which the Scottish contribution...

• “From the perspective of a Swedish historian, Steve Murdoch’s and Alexia Grosjean’s penetrating study appears not only as an inspiring contribution to European military history, especially with regard to its analysis of the interaction between Scottish society and Scottish soldiers abroad. It also enhances our understanding of official and unoffi...

THis article explores the settlement of Scottish migrants in Old Stockholm from the 16th-18th century. It looks to where the immigrants settles, their profession and social status, and whether something one might describe as one or more Scottish quarters eveloved. In so doing it discusses the built heritage of Old Stockholm and reviews the military...

This article is based on a military manual by the Swedish colonel and nobleman, Sir Johan Skytte. It considers why the manual was made and what influences caused a Swedish colonel in charge of a Scottish regiment operating in Germany to write his commands in English. To answer these questions, it looks to the canon of literature that may have infor...

This chapter explores the two faced relationship between Scotland and the Danish-Norwegian realm in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. On one hand the relationship was characterized by conflicts and direct warfare like the Kringen Massacre in 1612 and the Scottish-Norwegian war in 1666-1667. On the other hand Scottish soldiers, shipbuilders a...

The Battle of Lemgo (1638) is traditionally viewed as a complete route of the Swedish forces under Lt General James King (an Orcadian) and an allied army led by Prince Karl Ludwig of the Palatinate. In this presentation, Dr Kathrin Zickermann and Prof Steve Murdoch have reassessed the battlefield reports following the battle and the subsequent acti...

This chapter reviews the history of the Stolbova Peace negotiations in 1617. It adds new information to the behind the scenes diplomacy of Jacobean diplomats. While the role of John Merrick is well known, this chapter reveals that it has also been overstated. It introduces a new dimention to the Stuart diplomacy through the person of Sir James Spen...

This chapter looks at relations between the kingdoms of Scotland and Norway over two centuries. In particular it looks to periods of conflict and asks questions about these impacted upon commercial and cultural relations. Celebrated, but localised incidents are put in context against periods of outright warfare between the nations.

THis article looks to the agency of abandoned wives in the 17th century. It does so through two case studies of English women abandoned by their soldier husbands during the Thirty Years' War

This chapter follows the plight of Bohemian refugees during the Thirty Years' War and the subsequent decades. Eschewing the usual focus on the clergy and academics, this follows the unlikely journey of land-locked Bohemians into the Trans Oceanic World. It finds piracy, slavery and commerce in more abundance than one might expect

The history of the Franco-Scottish Auld Alliance has a long pedigree and remains a feature in written assessments of Scotland's military campaigns from the late thirteenth until the mid- sixteenth century. This essay seeks not to rehash these well-known contributions but to query the end date often ascribed to that alliance. Recent scholarship has...

Medical provision in the European armies during the Thirty Years War

This article describes a rare corpus of letters from a common soldier of the Thirty Years' War. They are mostly written to his mother, sister and wife

This article discusses the role of one migrant ethnic group (in this case the Scots) and follows its involvement in the Swedish Parliament (Riksdag) in the Swedish in the early modern period. It seeks to establish whether the Scots used their ethnicity to form a particular constituency within the Swedish Parliament, or if they had become so well in...

This is a review of Scottish migration to Scandinavia in the Early Modern Period

This article overturns the orthodoxy regarding the command structure and events of the Battle of Wittstock in 1636

Do not grudge me my vanity, if I allow yours; or rather, let us laugh at both indifferently, and at ourselves, and at each other […] ‘But Dulcinea del Toboso is peerless, eh?’ says the other. ‘Well, honest Harry, go and attack windmills—perhaps thou are not more mad than other people,’ St John added, with a sigh.2 This quote, from an 1852 novel by...

Piracy is one of those very peculiar aspects of maritime history. Robbery on the open sea has been a feature of the nautical world since the time man first took to the seas in boats. Yet for all that it remains a subject which is difficult for the scholar to address, not least due to the romantic notions and erroneous assumptions which attach thems...

When discussing identity, particularly perceptions of identity, one immediately enters into something of an academic minefield. Nonetheless there are good reasons to review the issues of identity in a British context, not least as a result of the ongoing debates which have been raging about the subject since the opening of the devolved Scottish Par...

This article discusses recent developments in the field of Scottish relations with Europe in the early modern period. It does so in two sections; firstly by précising some of the important scholarship conducted in this field over the last decade. This has revealed in greater depth the important military, diplomatic and commercial links one small At...

This article traces the work of a Royalist refugee from Scotland who posesses the art of Fresh Water Pearl Fishing. It recounts his intrigues with the Swedish authorities among his other ventures

Seventeenth century noble families in many European countries found their elite status challenged by individuals from non-noble backgrounds who had earned favour through their aptitude for commerce, administration and invention. The rise of the meritocracy was as rapid in France as it was elsewhere. In a bid to curb new ennoblements, the French gov...

The Dutch Governor of Ambon, Anthonio van den Heuvel, once wrote 'wild men such as those of Scotland and Ireland are also found throughout the islands of India, especially on Ceylon and many other islands within the territory of the Tarnatan King, namely on the coast of Batochina'.1 Van den Heuvel was obviously comparing dwellers of the islands men...

This article explores the creation of a prosopography of migrants from the British Isles to Scandinavia. Online and Open access since 1995, the database can be found at www.st-andrews.ac.uk/history/ssne

This book is the result of a Masters' Dissertation in Socia-Linguistics. It was foundational in encouraging the General Registers' Office (Scotland) to fact check and confirm the findings and thus led to the Scots Language question forming part of the Census in Scotland.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Aberdeen, 1998.