Tam Dalyell of the Binns
Scottish general
General Sir Thomas Dalyell, 1st Baronet (1615–1685), better known as Tam Dalyell of the Binns, was a Scottish army officer who served in the Huguenot rebellions, Russo–Polish War of 1654–1667 and Wars of the Three Kingdoms. He was also known by the soubriquets "Bluidy Tam" and "The Muscovite De'il".
Life
Dalyell was born in Linlithgowshire, the son of Thomas Dalyell of The Binns, head of a cadet branch of the family of the Earls of Carnwath, and of Janet, daughter of the 1st Lord Bruce of Kinloss, Master of the Rolls in England.
He appears to have accompanied Charles I's expedition to La Rochelle in 1628 (to aid the Huguenots during the Siege of La Rochelle) at the age of thirteen. Latterly as a colonel, he served under General Robert Munro and General Alexander Leslie in Ulster.
Hearing of the execution of Charles I on 30 January 1649, it is said that he refused to shave his beard as a penance for the behaviour of his fellow countrymen. He was taken prisoner at the capitulation of Carrickfergus in August 1650, but was given a free pass, and having been banished from Scotland, remained in Ireland.
He was present at the Battle of Worcester (3 September 1651), where his men surrendered, and he himself was captured and imprisoned in the Tower of London. In May he escaped abroad and, in 1654, took part in the Highland rebellion and was exempted from Cromwell's Act of Grace, a reward of 200 guineas being offered for his capture, dead or alive.
Dalyell evaded capture and fled to Russia.
The public source identifies “Tam Dalyell of the Binns” as scottish general. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Dalyell, Binns and Scottish.
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This entry incorporates text from “Tam Dalyell of the Binns” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.