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There is certainly a touch of greed in the man ; he leaves no
stone unturned where a chance offers of obtaining money.
On the 4th of July 1649 he writes to the Pfalzgraf Karl
Gustaf, cousin of Queen Christina, and begs not to be
forgotten when the German war-indemnity came to be
discussed. Later in the year we find him in Stockholm,
where he was not only gratified by receiving his pension,
but also got his hotel expenses paid by the good-natured
Queen, and a letter of recommendation to King Charles as
well, which latter favour does seem rather supererogatory.1
Ruthven died at Dundee on the 2nd of February 1651,
leaving two women, his late son’s wife and his own
widow, to fight his last will in a lawsuit of the usual length.2
Christina’s age was also the age of donations.
Whatever may be the final judgment of the historian, the
queen certainly never forgot the services rendered by her
Scotch officers to the Crown of Sweden during her great
father’s time and her own. These donations were mostly
given in land, not in money. It would be wrong, however,
to think of rich and well-appointed English estates in
connection with it. There were no mansions or castles
given away with the land. The donee simply received the
rents of so many u hemmans,” as they were called, that
is small farms. Now of course the value of these
“hemmans” varied according to their being situated in
Finland or Lifland, or the uncultivated regions of Sweden,
or in the rich districts of Southern Sweden or Pomerania.
Sometimes the value of these donations expressed in
money only reached the modest sum of four or five
hundred Thaler; nay, the cases were frequent where no
rents at all were forthcoming, and where these so-called
properties became a burden to the owner, which he was
1 See Riks A. Registry 1649.
2 Riks A. Biogr.
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