Family’ (ii. 64) Rothes is said to have married subsequently Elizabeth Gray, widow of the Earl of Huntly, but in the charter referred to in proof (Reg. Mag. Sig. 1513–46, entry 315) she is not described as Countess of Rothes. Some time between 18 Dec. 1526 (ib. 409) and 29 Jan. 1529–30 (ib. 895) Rothes married Agnes, daughter of Sir John Somerville of Cambusnethan, Lanarkshire, and widow of John, second lord Fleming. By this marriage he had four sons—Andrew, fifth earl [q. v.], Peter, James, ancestor of the Leslies of Ballybay in Ireland, and John, for some time a prisoner in Ireland—and two daughters, Janet, married to Crichton of Naughton, Fifeshire, or Cockburn of Langton, and Helen to Mark Kerr [q. v.], commendator of Newbottle. In various charters granted while he was married to Agnes Somerville his obligations to Margaret Crichton are recognised, and after the death of Agnes Somerville he married her canonically before 31 May 1542 (ib. entry 2679). He had subsequently by her one son, Robert, ancestor of the Leslies of Findrassie, and four daughters—Agnes, married to Sir William Douglas of Lochleven; Beatrix to Beaton of Creich; Euphemia to Learmonth of Balwearie; and Margaret to Archibald, eighth earl of Angus. After her death he married Isobel Lundy, daughter of Lundy of Lundy, and widow of David, seventh earl of Crawford, but by her he had no issue. He is said to have had an illegitimate son, Walter, and an illegitimate daughter, who married Lord Kelly.
[Histories of Buchanan, Lesley, Lindsay, Knox, and Calderwood; Sadler's State Papers; Hist. MSS. Comm. 4th Rep.; Colonel Leslie's Historical Records of the Leslie Family, 1869, ii. 46–68; Douglas's Scottish Peerage (Wood), ii. 477–8.]
LESLIE or LESLEY, GEORGE (d. 1637), Capuchin friar, known as Father Archangel, was son of James Leslie of Peterstone, Aberdeenshire, and his wife, Jane Wood, who afterwards married John Leslie, laird of Belcairn. He was brought up in the reformed faith, but he was converted to catholicism, was enrolled in 1608 as a scholar in the Scots College at Rome, and afterwards became a Capuchin friar. Dempster, writing before 1625, describes him briefly as an eminent preacher, mentions that he had just gone to Scotland, and names a book, ‘De potestate papæ in principes sæculares, et in rebus fidei definiendis,’ which Leslie had written and was preparing to publish. Leslie was in the neighbourhood of Aberdeen towards the end of 1624, when catholic manifestos or pasquils were stuck on the church door in Aberdeen, some of them probably being by Father Archangel, who certainly wrote some controversial works. One of these was noticed by Andrew Logie, parson of Rayne, in his work entitled ‘Cum bono deo. Raine from the clouds upon a Choicke [sic] Angel, or a returned answer to the common quæritur of our adversaries, “Where was your Church before Luther?”’ Aberdeen, 1624. In March 1626 Leslie complained to Propaganda that catholics attended protestant sermons, and failed to provide for the missionaries; he suggested that the congregation should give to certain priests an allowance of two hundred florins (Bellesheim, Hist. of the Catholic Church in Scotland, iii. 77). Afterwards he fled from Scotland in consequence of the persecution, and sought refuge in France. In a letter dated Paris, 20 Jan. 1629–30, and addressed to Colonel Sempill at Valladolid, he mentions that he intended to go to Italy to exculpate himself from some calumnies which had been imputed to him before the Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith. His case came before the Propaganda on 22 April 1631, when on the petition of Father Leonard of Paris, ‘prefect of the mission of the East and of England,’ and on the testimony of Scottish catholics, he was acquitted, and allowed to return to the Scottish mission. He remained in Scotland till his death in 1637. Father William Christie, a jesuit, who became superior of the Scots College at Douay, says ‘he died in his mother's poor house, just over the river Dee, against the mill of Aboyne, and, I believe, was buried in ane old ruinous church in the way betwixt that and Kanakyle or Hunthall.’
Although no further authentic facts have been ascertained respecting Lesley's career, many marvellous incidents appear in the biographies of him which have been circulated in many languages throughout Christendom. Leslie is stated to have told John Baptist Rinuccini, archbishop of Fermo, who made his acquaintance in 1631, and employed him in preaching and other ministerial work in his diocese, a romantic story of his conversion and adventures. Rinuccini printed the story for the edification of the faithful, under the title of ‘Il Cappucino Scozzese di Monsignor Gio. Battista Rinuccini, Arcivescovo e Principe di Fermo,’ Macerata, 1644. The dedication, with a short preface to ‘Illustrissimo Sig. Cavalier Tomasso Rinuccini,’ is signed by Pompeo Tomassini. According to this work Leslie's mother was a lady of great wealth and the owner of Monymusk House, Aberdeenshire, in and around which place the principal scenes of the narrative are laid. The work passed through many Italian editions, and was republished in French, Spanish,
