Golden Fleece, and appointed ambassador extraordinary to the Ottoman Porte for the purpose of completing the treaty of Vasmar by the formal exchange of ratifications at Constantinople. He left Vienna on 25 May (N.S.) 1665, with a large and splendidly equipped retinue, and accompanied by his friend, Lord Henry Howard, afterwards sixth duke of Norfolk [q. v.] A flotilla of six-and-thirty gaily decorated barges of state bore the party down the Danube to Belgrade. The rest of the journey was performed in coaches. Constantinople was reached early in September, and the imperial cortège was met outside the gate by the train of the English ambassador, Heneage Finch, second earl of Winchilsea [q. v.], and the principal English merchants. During his stay at Constantinople Leslie was treated by the sultan with great distinction. He left about Christmas, and arrived at Vienna loaded with presents, with sixty liberated prisoners in his train, and a quartan ague on his person, on 27 March (N.S.) 1666. He died in the Roman catholic faith, which he had adopted after the assassination of Wallenstein, on 3 March (N.S.) 1667, and was buried with great pomp in the Scottish Benedictine Abbey at Vienna.
Leslie married in 1640 Anna Francesca, daughter of Maximilian, prince of Dietrichstein, by whom he had no issue. He amassed a considerable fortune, out of which he made remittances to his brothers in Scotland to help them to clear off incumbrances on the family estates. The rest, with his landed estate, he devised to his nephew, Colonel (afterwards General) Leslie, who by an imperial patent of 31 May (N.S.) 1662 inherited his title.
[Antiq. of the Shires of Aberdeen and Banff (Spalding Club), i. 528–9; Maurice's Le Blason des Armoiries de tous les Chevaliers de l'ordre de la Toison d'Or, No. cccl.; Colonel Leslie's Records of the Family of Leslie, iii. 241 et seq.; Grant's Memoirs of Sir John Hepburn, pp. 188–90; Apologia und Verantwortungs-Schrift auss hohen wichtigen und fürdringenden Ursachen von etlichen redlich und getrewen Käys. Kriegs Obristen und Cavaliren, &c., 1634, 4to; Aussführl. und Gründtl. Bericht der vorgewesst. Fridtländtsch. und sein. Adhaerent. abschewl. Prodition, Vienna, 1634, 4to; Alberti Fridlandi Perduellionis Chaos sive Ingrati Animi Abyssus, 1634, 4to; The Relation of the Death of that great Generalissimo (of his Imperial Majesty) the Duke of Meckleburg (sic), Fridland, Sagan, Glogaw, &c., London, 1634, 4to; Archivio Storico Italiano (nuova serie), iii. 99, 101; Abelin's Theatr. Europ. iii. 183 et seq. iv. 369, 613, vol. v. pt. i. p. 575; Khevenhüller's Ann. Ferd. xii. 1156 et seq.; Chemnitz's Königl. Schwedisch. in Teutschland geführt. Kriegs Th. ii. 329, 532; Förster's Albrechts von Wallenstein ungedruckte Briefe (Berlin, 1828–1829), iii. 308 et seq.; Burbury's Relation of a Journey of the Right Hon. Lord Henry Howard and his Brother, the Hon. Edward Howard, from London to Vienna, London, 1671; Tafferner's Cæsarea Legatio quam mandante … Leopoldo I ad Portam Ottomannicam suscepit perfecitque … Walterus S. R. I. Comes de Leslie, Vienna, 1672; Brit. Mus. Addit. MS. 23125, f. 134; Rycaut's State of the Ottoman Empire, 3rd ed., Epist. Dedicat.; Granger's Biog. Hist. of England, also authorities cited under Butler, Walter, Count. Recent writers who have endeavoured to rehabilitate Wallenstein's character, and have consequently sought to prove Leslie and his associates at Eger in 1634 as hired assassins, are Hallwich, Wallenstein's Ende, Leipzig, 1879, 8vo, and Schebek, Lösung der Wallensteinfrage, Berlin, 1881. Cf. also Hallwich's article on Leslie in the Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie. Ranke justifies Leslie's act.]
LESLIE, WILLIAM (d. 1654?), principal of King's College, Aberdeen, belonged to the family of Leslie of Aikenway or Aiknavy in Banffshire. Bishop Keith erroneously calls him a brother of John Leslie, bishop successively of the Isles and Raphoe, the father of Charles Leslie (1650–1722) [q. v.] Educated at King's College, Aberdeen, he became humanist there in 1603, regent in 1617, sub-principal in 1623, and on the presentation of Bishop Patrick Forbes (1564–1635) [q. v.], whose patronage was a testimony to his piety and learning, principal in 1632. On the attempt of John Durie to unite the Lutherans and the reformed churches, Archbishop Spotiswood requested the theological faculty of Aberdeen to give their judgment in the matter, and Leslie was one of six doctors (the others being John Forbes (1593–1648) [q. v.], Robert Baron (1593?–1639) [q. v.], Alexander Scroggie, James Sibbald, and Alexander Ross) who, ‘drawing a distinction between absolute consent in every thing, and agreement in essential points, declared that both the Lutherans and the Reformed, rightly understood, agreed in those matters of faith as to which the ancient church had been of one opinion,’ whereupon Samuel Rutherford, then in banishment at Aberdeen, wrote that ‘a reconciliation with popery was intended.’
At the royal visitation of the university in April 1638, Leslie was ‘found to have been defective and negligent in his office,’ but as he ‘was known to be ane man of gude literature, lyff, and conversation,’ the commissioners were content to admonish him to attend better to his administrative duties and teach less, confining him to one lecture in theology and one in Hebrew in the week. By this time the national covenant had been
