Andrew Rutherford, 1st Earl of Teviot

Andrew Rutherford, 1st Earl of Teviot (died 4 May 1664; sometimes spelt "Rutherfurd") was a Scottish soldier.

Andrew was the fifth and youngest son of a merchant burgess of Edinburgh—William Rutherfurd (died 1624) of Wrightslands and of Easter and Wester Quarrelholes in Restalrig—and his wife Isobel (married 1608), daughter of James Stewart of Traquair. He received his education at Edinburgh University, and later took up a career in the military in France.

During the Commonwealth (or, to monarchists, the Interregnum), Rutherford served the French government, which maintained regiments of Scottish soldiers throughout the Thirty Years's War. On the restoration of Charles II, Rutherford was taken into employment by his own king on the recommendation of Louis XIV of France.^[1] According to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, he became a lieutenant general in France and had a high reputation for personal courage; however, the Dictionary of National Biography states that he "never rose beyond the rank of colonel in French service, and was certainly not promoted to the prestigious rank of lieutenant général."^[2][3]

Rutherford returned to Scotland in 1660. In 1661 Charles II gave him the Scottish title of Lord Rutherfurd and the governorship of Dunkirk, which had been acquired by the Protector Oliver Cromwell. When Charles II sold the town to France in 1662 Rutherford was consoled by the command of the Colony of Tangier and the Tangier Regiment, and was made Earl of Teviot.^[1]

He was sent in 1663 as governor to Tangier. His tenure of office was very short, for on 4 May 1664 he was trapped at the Battle of Tangier in an ambush by the Moors, who had been carrying out incessant irregular warfare against the English garrison, and was killed, together with nineteen officers and nearly five hundred men of the garrison.^[1]

In his will he donated funds to his former university in Edinburgh, for the construction of 8 chambers, and gave directions that a Latin inscription which he had composed should be placed upon the building. By his death without lawful male issue the earldom of Teviot became extinct; but on 23 Dec 1663 he had executed at Portsmouth a general settlement of his estates and dignities to his cousin Sir Thomas Rutherford of Hunthill, who on 16 December 1665 was served heir in his title of Lord Rutherford and also in his lands.^[4]

References[]

• Matthew Glozier, Scottish Soldiers in France the service of the Sun King (Brill, Leiden, 2004).
• W. F. Lord, The Lost Possessions of England (London, 1896).