Excerpt from Soldiers of Fortune in Camp Court
The sword has always been the resource of the adventurous or impecunious, and the roll of celebrated soldiers of fortune is so long that the choice may be much a matter of fancy or predilection. But there were epochs when the trade was exceptionally flourishing, there were times when men were typical or when circumstances forced them to the front, as there were illustrious careers sensationally dramatic. So there is justification for a selection not altogether arbitrary. One naturally begins with the medi?val Condottieri and as naturally ends with the Indian Adventurers, their modem representatives. The war which for thirty years desolated Europe saw the developments of a science then in its infancy, with a revolution in the methods of campaigning. Our countrymen, and especially the Scots, had a special interest in that war from the numbers who flocked to the standards of the Lion of the North, the Catholic League, or the Empire. Of the many Scottish soldiers of fortune, Marshal Keith of the next century was by far the greatest. All are familiar with him as one of Frederick's most trusted lieutenants, but less is known of his concern in the Jacobite intrigues, and as little of the vicissitudes of his life in Russian camps and courts, where, after rising to the highest rank, his Scottish caution saved him from the scaffold or Siberia.
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