of her own subjects. The story of his subsequent efforts and troubles in her service, in the quality of her ambassador to Queen Elizabeth, is long and complicated, and cannot be told here even in the briefest manner; at this point his biography becomes history, and may be found written in the annals of the reign of Elizabeth. "The state papers as well as the histories of that period," as Dr. Irving observes, "exhibit him in the light of a subtle, restless, and dangerous plotter, who resorted to a great variety of expedients for promoting the interest of the unfortunate queen; and the English statesmen seem to have been much inclined to treat him as they ultimately treated Mary herself:" but from the peculiarity of his position as the accredited ambassador of one queen to another, they never ventured to bring him to open trial, but contented themselves with subjecting him to a long imprisonment, sometimes in the Tower, and sometimes in the palaces of the bishops of Ely and Winchester. It was while lying in the Tower that he composed for the use of Mary his "Piæ Consolationes," and his "Animi tranquilli Munimentum," from which she is said to have derived no small religious consolation in her long captivity, and which must have solaced her not a little as an affecting proof of the fidelity of her trusted councillor and bishop. In January, 1574, Lesley having been at length dismissed from custody, landed in France, and there he remained till the following year, when Mary again employed him on a mission to Rome. He continued in Rome three years, and partly occupied his time in finishing for the press and publishing his important historical work, "De Origine, Moribus, et rebus testis Scotorum," which appeared at Rome in 1578. Soon after he was employed by Pope Gregory XIII. as his nuncio to Maximilian, emperor of Germany, and he resided for some time at the imperial court in Prague. He also visited the duke of Bavaria and other catholic princes of the empire on his way from Bohemia to France. In France he found a powerful patron in the Cardinal de Bourbon, archbishop of Rouen, who made him suffragan and vicar-general of his diocese—an office which he continued to hold for the next fourteen years. But the strange vicissitudes of his life were not yet ended. The troubles of the kingdom forced him at the end of that time to seek another place of refuge in Flanders, where he was received with great distinction, and had reason to expect the archbishopric of Mechlin, which fell vacant at that time. But his health rapidly declined, and he died in Brussels on the 31st of May, 1596, in the sixty-ninth year of his age. He was an accomplished writer, as well as an able man of affairs. Several of his works have a permanent value as historical pieces, and are useful as counterparts to the narratives which have come down to us from writers of the opposite party. Such are his "History of Scotland," before mentioned; his "Defence of the honour of Princess Mary, Queen of Scotland;" and his "Negotiations" at the court of England as Mary's ambassador. The Scottish original of his Latin history has also happily been in part preserved, and was edited by Thomas Thomson, Esq., in 1830, from a MS. belonging to the earl of Leven and Melville. It has high value "as a specimen of fine and vigorous composition in his native language, by one of the most able and accomplished Scotchmen of the sixteenth century."—P. L.
LESLIE, Alexander, a Scottish general, who took a conspicuous part on the side of the parliament in the first civil war, was the son of Captain George Leslie of Balgonie. Having made choice of the military profession, he obtained at an early age a captain's commission in the regiment of Lord Vere, who was then assisting the Dutch in their memorable contest against Spain, and soon rendered himself conspicuous by his valour and military skill. He afterwards served with great distinction under Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, by whom he was ultimately promoted to the rank of field-marshal. His successful defence of Stralsund in 1628 against a powerful army of imperialists under the celebrated Count Wallenstein, gained him great reputation; and the citizens not only made him a handsome present, but had medals struck in honour of their deliverer. In 1639, when the Scottish covenanters were preparing to resist by force, if necessary, the attempts of Charles I. and Laud to compel them to submit to the liturgy, Leslie returned to his native country along with a number of his brother officers, and was appointed to the chief command of the army which was raised by the committee of the Scottish Estates. His plans were sagaciously formed and promptly executed. Nearly all the strongholds of the country were soon in possession of the covenanters; and Charles, finding himself unable to resist the formidable army which General Leslie had led to the Borders, was fain to come to an amicable agreement, 28th June, 1639. In the following year, however, the covenanters found it necessary to reassemble their forces. Leslie once more assumed the chief command, and marched into England at the head of a well-equipped army, consisting of twenty-three thousand infantry, three thousand cavalry, and a train of artillery; defeated the royal forces who opposed his passage of the Tyne; and took possession of Newcastle and other important towns in the north of England. These successes led to the treaty of Ripon, and a compliance on the part of the king with all the demands of the Scottish presbyterians. In the following year, 1641, Charles visited Scotland for the purpose of conciliating the covenanting party, and created General Leslie Lord Balgonie and Earl of Leven. When the civil war, however, broke out, and the Scots resolved to send assistance to the parliament, the earl once more took the command of the army. He was present at the battle of Marston Moor, and was driven out of the field by Prince Rupert, though David Leslie assisted in retrieving the day. On the termination of the war he resigned his command on account of his great age, but was present as a volunteer at the disastrous battle of Dunbar. In the following year he was surprised by one of Cromwell's officers, along with a number of noblemen and gentlemen who had met to concert measures for the restoration of Charles II., and was thrown into the Tower. He regained his liberty through the intercession of Christina, queen of Sweden, and returned to Scotland in 1654. He died at a very advanced age in 1661.—J. T.
LESLIE, Charles, a distinguished theological and polemical writer, was the son of Dr. John Leslie, bishop of Clogher, and was born in Ireland. From the royal school of Enniskillen he entered Trinity college, Dublin, in 1664. On the death of his father in 1671, he went to London to prosecute the study of the law, for which his great reasoning powers eminently qualified him. Notwithstanding the great prospects of success in this profession, he abandoned all thoughts of law and took holy orders in 1680, and was appointed chancellor of the diocese of Connor in Ireland in 1687. Tyrrel, a Roman catholic, having been made bishop of Connor by James, he held a visitation at which he gave a challenge to the protestant divines to discuss the two religions. This was accepted by Leslie, who acquitted himself with great ability. The victory was claimed by each party. A second public disputation took place, which issued in the conversion of a Roman catholic gentleman. Leslie was now recognized as the champion of protestant rights, and was called upon to resist the appointment of a Roman catholic sheriff in his capacity of justice of the peace; this he did with vigour and firmness, and committed the sheriff for intrusion and contempt. But while Leslie was ever ready to resist illegal proceedings, he never withdrew his allegiance from James; and accordingly, refusing in 1689 to take the new oaths, he was deprived of his ecclesiastical appointments, and retired with his family to England. Here he wrote his answer to Archbishop King's State of the Protestants in Ireland under the late King James' Government, in which he exhibits his strong sympathy and zeal for that monarch. As a theologian, too, he was not idle, writing with great ability in the cause of Christianity against Jews, Deists, and Socinians. A tract, entitled "The Hereditary right of the Crown of England asserted," was with good reason attributed to him, and he was in consequence forced to leave the kingdom, and he joined the court of the Pretender. While unchanging in his allegiance to the Stewarts, he was uncompromising in his religious principles, and is said to have endeavoured to convert his master to the protestant faith. When the Pretender withdrew to Italy in 1715, Leslie attended him thither. Finding all his efforts for the spiritual or temporal advancement of his master unavailing, he returned to England in 1721, and was allowed to retire without molestation to Ireland, where he died in 1722 at Glaslough in the county of Monaghan. Besides those political tracts so important in their day, Leslie has left some works of great and permanent interest. Amongst these, his "Short and Easy Method with Deists," claims a pre-eminent place, and is still the best book of its kind. He was a man of vigorous intellect, of acute understanding, and of great argumentative powers, "a reasoner," says Dr. Johnson, "who was not to be reasoned against."—J. F. W.
LESLIE, Charles Robert, R.A., was born in Clerkenwell, London, of American parents, on the 19th of October, 1794; but he was taken in 1799 by his father to Philadelphia, America, and was there apprenticed to a bookseller. In 1811
