LYALL, ALEXANDER [SSNE 1137]

Surname: LYALL, LEYELL, LEIJEL
First name: ALEXANDER
Nationality: SCOT
Social status: GENTRY
Education: UNIVERSITY

Text source

Alexander Lyall or Leyell was a son of councillor David Lyall of Elsinore. He studied at Soro 1586 and letters at the University of Leiden in 1593. Peter Leyel has discovered information which ties him to expeditions to Greenland. At the beginning of May 1605, King Christian IV of Denmark dispatched an expedition of three of his ships to explore Greenland. On board the smallest of the three, the 20 ton pinnace Katten, was Alexander Leyell who wrote a handwritten diary of this voyage, the journal consisting of 6 pages, each 21cm by 16.5 cm written in a neat, firm handwriting. The journal, entitled Sandferdigh Beretningh om thenn Groendlandess reise som Konng. May. 3 skiff giorde Anno 1605, was found in the library of Soro, Sjaeland, Denmark and carried away as war booty by King Carl X Gustaf of Sweden during his war with Denmark in 1658/9, subsequently being placed in the Royal Library of Stockholm.

The commander of this expedition was a Scotsman, Captain John Cunningham [SSNE 1497], with James Hall [SSNE 1316], an Englishman from Hull, as his pilot. The Captain of the pinnace Katten was an Englishman, John Knight [SSNE 1357], with Alexander Leyell as his mate. The expedition returned to Denmark in August, arriving in the harbour of Copenhagen on 12th August, 1605. Although not stated directly that Alexander Leyell was from Elsinore the book does say that a possible relative, Villom Leyell, an officer in the Danish Royal Navy, is a native of Elsinore. Alexander Leyell of the Greenland voyage was clearly an educated man – his Journal is written in a “neat, firm” handwriting and if he was indeed the mate of the Katten, then he was of good birth, as were all Danish Naval officers of that period. As the son of a councilor, Alexander was educated at the renowned Soro Academy and at the University of Leiden, Holland. The Journal was discovered in the library of the Soro Academy, the “alma mater” this Alexander. The Journal contains many loan words from the Dutch language - “see for instance the journal of Alexander Leyell, telling of his journey to Greenland in 1605, which abounds in Dutch loan-words”. This could be expected of someone who had spent some years at a university in Holland. Nothing further seems to be known of Alexander Leyell following his return to Denmark in August 1605.

Some sources state that Alexander died outside of Denmark about 1605. Captain John Knight of Katten left Denmark in 1606 and was given command of the 40 ton barque Hopewell on an English expedition to discover the North-West Passage, financed by the East India Company. In August 1606, John Knight together with four others disappeared after landing from a small boat on the coast of Labrador. It seems possible that Leyell accompanied his Captain on this expedition, although there is no mention of him in any of the contemporary journals of this ill-fated voyage. This seems to fit with what Thomas Riis thought; that Alexander died outside of Denmark about or after 1605.

Sources: T. Riis, Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot (Odense, 1988), II, p.230.

Many thanks to Peter Leyel for his reseach into this man. He provides the following references: Danish Arctic Expeditions , Book 1, edited by C C A Gosch, printed in London in 1897 for the Hakluyt Society; “The Kensington Rune Stone: is it the oldest native document of American History?” by Hjelmer Rued Holand published in the Wisconsin Magasine of History, VOL 3 No.2 (dec 1919) pp 153-183; Voyages of Sir James Lancaster to the East Indies and the Voyage of John Knight (1606) to seek the North-West Passage, edited by C.R.Markham, printed in London in 1877 for the Hakluyt Society. See the text of the journal on: http://www.archive.org/stream/cihm_08551/cihm_08551_djvu.txt

Service record

DENMARK-NORWAY, ELSINORE, SORO: Arrived 1586-01-01; Capacity STUDENT, purpose ACADEMIC
THE DUTCH REPUBLIC, LEIDEN: Arrived 1593-01-01; Capacity STUDENT, purpose ACADEMIC
DENMARK-NORWAY, LABRADOR COAST: Arrived 1606-08-01; Capacity OFFICER, purpose NAVAL EXPEDITION
DENMARK-NORWAY, GREENLAND EXPEDITION: Departed 1605-08-12; Capacity OFFICER, purpose NAVAL EXPEDITION