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Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 57 Turner, James by Albert Frederick Pollard

TURNER, SIR JAMES (16151686?), soldier and author, born in 1615, was eldest son of Patrick Turner (1574?1634), minister

successively of Borthwick and Dalkeith, by his wife, Margaret Law. His father, a man of some learning, contributed three Latin

poems to Hieroglyphica Animalium, published by Archibald Simson [q. v.] in 16224. The younger son, Archibald Turner (1621?

1681), was minister successively of Borthwick, North Berwick, and the old church, Edinburgh (H EW SCOTT, Fasti Eccl. Scot. i. 10,

263, 266, 344, 394, 398). James was educated at Glasgow University, where, much against his will, he graduated M.A. in 1631

(Memoirs, p. 1;Munimenta Univ. Glasguensis, iii. 19). His father wished him to enter the church, but Turner was bent on becoming a

soldier, and in 1632 he enlisted in the service of Gustavus Adolphus under Sir James Lumsden [q. v.] He landed in that year at

Rostock, and during the following winter was engaged in establishing Swedish authority in lower Germany. In February 16323 he

served under the Duke of Brunswick at the siege of Hameln and defeat of the imperialist army sent to relieve it (28 June), and in the

following year was present at the siege of Oldendorf and other places. On the news of his father's death in August 1634 he returned to

Scotland, but was back at Bremen in the summer of 1635, when he was attached to a mission which the merchants of that town

proposed sending to Persia to develop their trade. It came to nothing through the hostility of Russia, and Turner served in 1636 at the

siege of Osnaburg, and at that of Frstenau in 1637. He was promoted successively ensign, lieutenant, and captain. After an abortive

visit to Scotland in 1639 in search of employment there, he returned to Germany, and in 1640 proceeded to Stockholm to prosecute

before chancellor Oxenstiern a complaint against his superior officer, Burgsdorff.

From Gothenburg Turner, according to his own account, endeavoured to reach Hull in order to offer his services to Charles I, but,failing in the attempt, he returned to Scotland, and then made his way to the headquarters of the covenanting army at Newcastle. Here,

through the influence of the Earl of Rothes, he was appointed major in the Earl of Kirkcudbright's regiment, but never took the

covenant. After ten months' service with the Scots army of occupation in England, Turner was appointed major in Lord Sinclair's

regiment and sent to Ireland to aid the Ulster Scots against the Irish rebels. He served in the garrison at Newry and in several minorengagements against Owen Roe O'Neill [q. v.], but in 1644 delivered Newry to the English and returned to Scotland, where only thefailure of his expedition in April prevented him from joining Montrose [see G RAHAM, JAMES, fifth EARL and first MARQUIS OF

MONTROSE]. He reluctantly retained his commission in the covenanting army, and with it invaded England in 1645; it penetrated as

far as Hereford, when the battle of Naseby practically ended the war. During Charles I's sojourn with the Scots army in 1646, Turner

had interviews with him and pressed upon him the necessity of escaping. In 1647 he was made adjutant-general of the Scots army.

In 1648 Turner welcomed the proposal of the Duke of Hamilton and the committee of Scottish estates to send an army into England to

rescue the king. He was sent to Glasgow to raise levies and enforce obedience to the decrees of the committee, and while thereanticipated the methods by which Louis XIV afterwards attempted to convert the Huguenots, by quartering soldiers on the refractory

inhabitantsa method which he found effectual with the most stubborn covenanters (GARDINER, Civil War, iv. 155, 182; TURNER,

Memoirs, pp. 53 et seq.). Turner accompanied Hamilton in the invasion of England, and at a council of war held at Hornby on 13

Aug. urged Hamilton to turn aside into Yorkshire and meet the enemy. His advice was rejected, Cromwell routed the Scots at Preston,

and Turner capitulated to Lilburne at Uttoxeter on the 25th (Hist. MSS. Comm. 11th Rep. App. pt. vi. p. 129). He was taken to Hull,where he remained a prisoner in the custody of Colonel Robert Overton [q. v.] from September 1648 until November 1649. He wasthen released by Fairfax on condition of going abroad for twelve months, and retired to Hamburg, whence he made his way to Breda.

Inability to raise money prevented Turner from joining Montrose's ill-fated expedition in January 1650, but he made his way to

Scotland in September, landing near Aberdeen on the 2nd, the day before Dunbar. That defeat made the covenanters more tolerant of

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their episcopalian countrymen, and Turner denounces the hypocrisy which led them to accept as genuine oaths to the covenant which

they knew to be counterfeit (GARDINER, Commonwealth and Protectorate, i. 420). Turner was himself absolved after some

difficulty, and was appointed colonel and adjutant-general of foot. In this capacity he accompanied Charles II to the battle of

Worcester (3 Sept. 1651). He was taken prisoner and sent up to London, but escaped on the way at Oxford. He then walked to

London, where he lay hid for a time, and afterwards joined Charles at Paris, where he remained two or three months and learnt the

language. For two years he spent most of his time at Amsterdam or Bremen. In June 1654 he landed in Fife on a rash expedition to

inquire into the chances of a royalist rising there. His report was unfavourable, but he got away safely and for three years more was

engaged in royalist missions on the continent. In 1657 he went with John, first earl of Middleton [q. v.], to Danzig to offer his services

to Casimir, king of Poland, against Cromwell's ally, Charles Gustavus of Sweden. Poland was, however, overrun by Swedes, and

Turner, after some delay at Danzig, sought employment in Denmark against the Swedes. Peace between the two countries compelled

him to return to Breda, where he was in attendance upon Charles II during 165960.

At the Restoration Turner was knighted; in an undated petition (Addit. MS. 23117, f. 1) he requested a gratuity for his services, and

in August 1662 he was appointed sergeant-major of the king's foot-guards in Scotland. He received a commission as major on 12 Feb.

16634, and in July following was employed as one of the visitors of Glasgow University (Munimenta Univ. Glasguensis, ii. 476,

478, 481, 486). On 28 July 1666 he was made lieutenant-colonel; he was in command of the forces in the south-west of Scotland,

whose object was to crush the opposition of the covenanters to Charles II's and Archbishop Sharp's attempts to enforce episcopacy on

the Scottish church. He resorted to his old method of billeting soldiers on the recalcitrant covenanters, and was very active in extortingfines for non-attendance at public worship. It appears that he did not go beyond his commission, nor as far as he was urged by Sharp,

Rothes, and others. His measures, however, provoked the Pentland rising in November 1666. Turner was at Dumfries, where he was

surprised by the covenanters on the 15th and taken prisoner. They carried him with them on their march towards Edinburgh, and he

was frequently on the point of being put to death; during the engagement on the Pentland Hills (28 Nov.) his guards fled and he

recovered his liberty. He was chief witness at the trial of James Wallace (d. 1678) [q. v.], the leader of the covenanters, on 26 Feb.1667, but the blame of the insurrection was laid on his rigour, and on 26 Nov. following Charles II ordered the Scottish privy council

to inquire into his conduct. On their report in the following February, Turner was deprived of his commissions (10 March 1668).

Thenceforth he lived in retirement at Glasgow, or on his property at Craig, Ayrshire, occupied with his Memoirs and other

compositions. In October 1683 he was again put in command of some troops in view of renewed disturbances in the south-west of

Scotland (Hist. MSS. Comm. 11th Rep. App. pt. vi. p. 167), and on 3 Jan. 16834 he was commissioned to try the rebels (WODROW,

1829, iv. 5). He was granted a pension by James II (Cal. State Papers, 168990, p. 383), and probably died soon after 1685. Anengraving by R. White was prefixed to Pallas Armata, 1683. A portrait medal is in the National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh. His

wife, Mary White, the granddaughter of a knight, whom he met at Newry in 1643, and married at Hexham on 10 Nov. 1646, survived

him, and resided with the family of Lieutenant Richard Turnbull at Lamlash, Arran, dying about 1716.

Turner was a soldier to the backbone (GARDINER); he was naturally fierce, but was mad when he was drunk, and that was very

often he was a learned man, but had been always in armies, and knew no other rule but to obey orders (BURNET, Own Time, 1766,

i. 296). Wodrow describes him as very bookish.

He published in 1683 Pallas Armata. Military Essayes of the Ancient Grecian, Roman, and Modern Art of War. Written in 1670 and

1671, London, fol., dedicated to the Duke of York. He also left a volume of manuscripts (now Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 12067),comprising memoirs, philosophical essays, biographical notices of Mary Stuart, Mary Tudor, Mazarin, Lucrezia Borgia, and others;

translations into English verse from Petrarch, Ronsard, and other poets; a criticism of Guthry's Memoirs, which Turner saw in

manuscript; and various letters to him from Burnet, the Dukes of Hamilton, and others. The memoirs, with a few other pieces, were

privately printed about 1819; 101 copies were purchased by the Bannatyne Club and issued with its name on the title-page in 1829.

Turner divides with Major-general Robert Monro [q. v.] the honour of being the original of Dugald Dalgetty, whose character is,

however, more akin to Turner's than to Monro's (SCOTT,Legend of Montrose, pref.;Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. viii. 144;Blackwood's

Mag. October 1898;Literature, 22 Oct. and 5 Nov. 1898). Turner's career may also have suggested some incidents in Old Mortality.

The Pallas Armata is there mentioned as the literary pabulum of Major Bellenden, and its author forms the subject of a note (chap.

xi. and note).

A contemporary Colonel JAMES TURNER (d. 1664), born at Hadley, near Barnet, the son of a minister there, and said to have been

apprenticed to a lace merchant in Cheapside, became a goldsmith and lieutenant-colonel of the city militia during the civil war. Pepys

describes him as a mad swearing, confident fellow, well known by all, and by me. His vices and extravagances led him into debt andcrime, and he was executed at Lime Street on 21 Jan. 16634 for committing a burglary at the house of Francis Tryon, a London

merchant. His death was witnessed by Pepys (who paid a shilling and stood upon the wheel of a cart, in great pain, above an hour

before the execution was done), and was made the occasion of many catch-penny tracts (see Life and Death of James Turner and

other pamphlets in Brit Mus. Cat.; PEPYS,Diary, ed. Braybrooke, ii. 2704; GRANGER,Biogr. Hist. iv. 213).

[Turner's Memoirs; Cal. State Papers, Dom. passim; Add. MSS. 23117 f. 1, 23119 f. 126; Egerton MSS. 2536 f. 341; Burnet's Own

Time, ed. 1766, i. 296, 326, 346, and Lives of the Dukes of Hamilton; Hamilton MSS. Ap. Hist. MSS. Comm. 11th Rep. App. pt. vi.;

Lauderdale Papers (Camden Soc.), ii. 82, 83; Lamont's Diary (Maitland Club), p. 194; Lauder of Fountainhall's Hist. Notices, pp. 388,

391, 426, Baillie's Journals, iii. 457, Nicoll'sDiary of Transactions, pp. 409, 451 (all these in Bannatyne Club); Guthry's Memoirs,1748, pp. 272, 275, 277; Wodrow's Hist. of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland, ed. 1829, passim; Granger's Biogr. Hist. iii. 397;

Lingard's Hist. of England, ix. 69; Gardiner's Civil War, iv. 155, 182, Commonwealth, i. 420.]A. F. P.

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Pallas Armata.Military Essayes of the Ancient Grecian, Roman, and Modern Art of War. Written in the Yeares

1670 and 1671.Publisher: London, Printed by M.W. for Richard Chiswell, 1683http://www.peterharrington.co.uk/store/military-naval/product/pallas-armata/

First Edition. Inscribed the front free endpaper, "For His Grace, My Lord Duke of Hamilton." This would refer to William Douglas-

Hamilton, 3rd Duke of Hamilton, who had married Anne the daughter of James Hamilton, 1st Duke of Hamilton, with whom Turnerhad served in the invasion of England in 1648. Described as "one of the most valuable authorities for the history of military sciences",

Pallas Armata was the work of man with a wealth of practical experience to draw upon. Turner had graduated as a Master of Artsfrom Glasgow before joining Lumsden's levies for the Swedish service, seeing much service in the Thirty Years' War and thereafter in

Britain in both the Covenanter and Royalist forces. His experiences inculcated in him a brutal but honest freelance ideology; "I had

swallowed without chewing, in Germanie, a very dangerous maxime, which militarie men there too muche follow, which was, that so

we serve our master honestlie, it is no matter what master we serve." Captured at the Battle of Worcester in 1651, he escaped and fled

the country and joined the King in Paris, spending the next "few years in a mixture of royalist intrigue and the search for employment,offering his services against the Swedes to the Poles and the Danes. On the outbreak of peace he settled at Breda with the exiled court

of Charles II in 165960." [ODNB] On the Restoration he received a knighthood and in 1662 was appointed Major of the King's

Footguards in Scotland. Scapegoated and forced into retirement following the failure of his brutal suppression of the Presbyterian

risings in South-west Scotland, he spent his time in the composition of the present work. Turner begins with sections reviewing the

practices of the Greeks and Romans, before going on to a thorough discussion of all aspects of modern warfare, including gunpowder

& artillery, drill, the duties of the various officers, "Of Intelligence, Spys, and of a General Scout-Master", Orders of Battle,encampments, besieging, "Of Prisoners, Parleys, Treaties, and Articles", all illustrated with copious examples. He concludes with a

chapter considering whether "... it is lawful to serve as a soldier for pay, rather than through conviction or obedience to superiors, and

concludes that men "may serve for wages, though they neither know nor examine whether the cause be just or not." Thus he remained

loyal to the mercenary's creed." In his history of the Civil War Gardiner describes Turner as "a soldier to his backbone", whilst Burnet

gives a more vivd picture he was "naturally fierce, but was mad when he was drunk, and that was very often he was a learned man,

but had been always in armies, and knew no other rule but to obey orders."

Folio (308 192 mm). Contemporary speckled calf, rebacked, red morocco label to spine. Engraved portrait frontispiece, title page

printed in red and black, wood-cut head-pieces. Light browning, corners worn, else

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SIR JAMES TURNER (1615-1686), Scottish soldier and military writer, was educated with a view to his entering the Church, but

early showed his preference for the profession of arms by enlisting in the Swedish army, then the most famous trainingschool in

Europe. He saw considerable service in the Thirty Years' War, and in 1640 returned to Scotland as a captain. It was not long before he

secured employment, and as a major he accompanied the Scottish army in its invasion of England in the same year, successfully

avoiding the imposition of the "Covenant" as a test. With Lord Sinclair's regiment Major Turner served in Ulster, and subsequently,

after failing to join Montrose's army, accompanied the Scottish army until Naseby practically ended the Civil War. Turner was often

with Charles I. during his detention at Leslie's headquarters, and continually urged him to escape. Up to this time he had served

against the king, but always with some repugnance, and he welccmed the opportunity when in 1648 the cause of the king and the

interests of the Scottish nation for the moment coincided. In the disastrous campaign which followed Turner was at Hamilton'sheadquarters, and it was owing to the neglect of his advice that the rout of Preston took place. Taken in the final surrender at

Uttoxeter, he spent some time in captivity, but in 1649 was released and sent abroad. He was unable for want of means to reach

Montrose in time to join in the final venture of the noblest of the Royalist commanders, but he landed in Scotland on the day before

Dunbar, and in the grave crisis that followed was a welcome ally. As a colonel and adjutant-general of foot he was with Charles II. at

Worcester. In that battle he was captured, but regained his liberty, and after many adventures escaped to the Continent, where for

some years he was engaged in various Royalist intrigues, conspiracies and attempted insurrections. At the Restoration he was

knighted, and in 1662 he became a major in the Royal Guards. Four years later, as a district commander in Scotland, he was called

upon to deal severely with Covenanter disturbances. Though not, it appears, unjust, his dragooning methods eventually led to his

being deprived of his command. The rest of his life was spent in retirement. A pension was granted to him by James II. in 1685. In

1683 he had published his Pallas armata, Military, Essayes of the Ancient Grecian, Roman and Modern Art of War, one of the most

valuable authorities for the history of military sciences.