John Clerk

• Navn	John Clerk
  Kjønn	Mann
  Occupation	1567	Scotland, Great Britain
  Captain John Clerk was a Scottish officer who commanded a cavalry corps for the Danish Crown against the Swedes in the early 1560s and was then sent in June 1567 to recruit 1,000 troops in Scotland for King Frederick II’s war against Sweden. Among his activities, Clerk served as the agent of regent James Stewart, first Earl of Moray, despatched from Scotland to demand Bothwell’s immediate execution and Clerk helped to capture one Captain William Blackadder, who was suspected in the murder of Lord Darnley (King Consort of Scotland and husband of Mary, Queen of Scots). With the end of the war in 1570, Clerk faced a court martial in Denmark, accused of not preventing the defection of some of his soldiers to the enemy, obstructing the levies in Scotland, and of using men in Danish service against Queen Mary. It was also implied that Clerk had defrauded the Danish treasury. These were serious accusations. The new Protestant regimes of both James VI and Queen Elizabeth intervened on his behalf but to no avail. Clerk was tried in Copenhagen, incarcerated, and died having spent some six years in Danish custody. John Clerk should not be confused with the pirate who stood accused of committing depredations against Danish subjects in late 1570s. https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/history/ssne/item.php?id=8345
  Event	1579	Shetland, Scotland, Great Britain   [1, 2]
  There may have been cases of reprisal piracy by some Scots seized by danes. In January 1579 a royal proclamation of James VI to was placed on the market cross and other places in Orkney and Shetland to the effect that Eatl Robert Stewart, was commissioned to search for and apprehend Captain Clerk, a Scot acused of great piracies on subjecys of the King of denmark. Anyone found helping Clerk was warned that they too would be charged with piracy. It is possible that this was the same John Clerk who had sen a testimonial from Denmark in 1571 responding to acusations made against him offering hostages for his realease, Weather him or not, Robert Stewart thereafter wrote to Fredrik II stating that he had been diligently seeking Clerk, nichnamed "Cair no man" after he had been informed that Clerk had been in Shetland about half a year. A member of the same family? Known cases of violence at sea in the North Atlantic trade in the sixteenth century: 1578 Home port Lübeck; Destination Iceland; Names Hans Delmenhorst and Herman Oldenseel; Actores of violence Thomas Clerk and Anthony Niport; Remarks The ships was from Bremen; Source Calendar of State Papers 1579 no 577
  Event	1580	Shetland, Scotland, Great Britain   [3]
  This problem was also experienced by Denmark as in 1580 king Frederick II ordered the Scot Robert Stewart to apprehend the privateer John Clerk in Shetland.
  Person ID	I41517	My Genealogy
  Sist endret	28 Aug 2022

  
  

• Hendelseskart

  Occupation - Captain John Clerk was a Scottish officer who commanded a cavalry corps for the Danish Crown against the Swedes in the early 1560s and was then sent in June 1567 to recruit 1,000 troops in Scotland for King Frederick II’s war against Sweden. Among his activities, Clerk served as the agent of regent James Stewart, first Earl of Moray, despatched from Scotland to demand Bothwell’s immediate execution and Clerk helped to capture one Captain William Blackadder, who was suspected in the murder of Lord Darnley (King Consort of Scotland and husband of Mary, Queen of Scots). With the end of the war in 1570, Clerk faced a court martial in Denmark, accused of not preventing the defection of some of his soldiers to the enemy, obstructing the levies in Scotland, and of using men in Danish service against Queen Mary. It was also implied that Clerk had defrauded the Danish treasury. These were serious accusations. The new Protestant regimes of both James VI and Queen Elizabeth intervened on his behalf but to no avail. Clerk was tried in Copenhagen, incarcerated, and died having spent some six years in Danish custody. John Clerk should not be confused with the pirate who stood accused of committing depredations against Danish subjects in late 1570s. https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/history/ssne/item.php?id=8345 - 1567 - Scotland, Great Britain Event - There may have been cases of reprisal piracy by some Scots seized by danes. In January 1579 a royal proclamation of James VI to was placed on the market cross and other places in Orkney and Shetland to the effect that Eatl Robert Stewart, was commissioned to search for and apprehend Captain Clerk, a Scot acused of great piracies on subjecys of the King of denmark. Anyone found helping Clerk was warned that they too would be charged with piracy. It is possible that this was the same John Clerk who had sen a testimonial from Denmark in 1571 responding to acusations made against him offering hostages for his realease, Weather him or not, Robert Stewart thereafter wrote to Fredrik II stating that he had been diligently seeking Clerk, nichnamed "Cair no man" after he had been informed that Clerk had been in Shetland about half a year. A member of the same family? Known cases of violence at sea in the North Atlantic trade in the sixteenth century: 1578 Home port Lübeck; Destination Iceland; Names Hans Delmenhorst and Herman Oldenseel; Actores of violence Thomas Clerk and Anthony Niport; Remarks The ships was from Bremen; Source Calendar of State Papers 1579 no 577 - 1579 - Shetland, Scotland, Great Britain Event - This problem was also experienced by Denmark as in 1580 king Frederick II ordered the Scot Robert Stewart to apprehend the privateer John Clerk in Shetland. - 1580 - Shetland, Scotland, Great Britain  = Link til Google Earth

  
  

• Kilder

  [S3158] Steve Murdoch, The Terror of the Seas?: Scottish Maritime Warfare 1513-1713, (Leiden, Boston 2010), 143. [S3187] Bart Holterman, The Fish Lands: German trade with Iceland, Shetland and the Faroe Islands in the late 15th and 16th Century, (2020). [S3183] Alexia Grosjean, Scottish-Scandinavian Seventeenth-Century Naval Links: A Case Study for the SSNE Database in Northern Studies, vol. 32, (1997).