Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Fleetwood, George (1605-1667)
FLEETWOOD, GEORGE (1605–1667), Swedish general and baron, was second son of Sir Miles Fleetwood of Cranford and Aldwinkle, Northamptonshire, receiver of the court of wards, and was grandson of the first Sir William of Aldwinkle. Sir Miles had two other sons, William (afterwards Sir William of Aldwinkle) and Charles, the parliamentary general [q. v.] George was baptised at Cople, Bedfordshire, 30 June 1605, and in 1629 raised a troop of horse with which he went to Germany and joined the Swedish army under Gustavus Adolphus, who gave him the rank of lieutenant-colonel. He returned to England, and having collected a regiment of foot conducted it to the scene of war in 1630. He became a Swedish knight 3 June 1632, and in 1636 was sent on a mission to England. He was commandant of Greifswald and Colberg in 1641, and having returned to Sweden in 1653 was raised to the rank of baron by Queen Christina, 1 June 1654. In the following year he was sent by Charles X as envoy extraordinary to Cromwell, in response to Whitelocke's embassy. He was accompanied by his eldest son, Gustavus Miles Fleetwood, who was enrolled among the life-guard of Charles II, and pursued in England his education in the civil and military accomplishments of the day. Fleetwood became a Swedish lieutenant-general in 1656, and, having left England in 1660, member of the council of war in 1665. In 1640 he married Brita Gyllenstjerna, of the family of that Christina Gyllenstjerna who, in 1520, defended Stockholm against the Danes. By that lady he had four sons and two daughters. He died 11 June 1667, and was buried at Nyköping. He was a man of great energy and prudence, much trusted by his superiors. Whitelocke mentions him frequently in his ‘Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the years 1653 and 1654,’ and a letter from Fleetwood to his father in 1632, describing the battle of Lützen, at which he was present, is published in the ‘Camden Miscellany,’ vol. i. 1847. There are several branches of his descendants now in Sweden. Nathaniel Whiting, minister of Aldwinkle, dedicated his ‘Old Jacob's Altar newly repaired,’ 1659, 4to, to the three brothers, William, George, and Charles.
[Information kindly supplied by W. S. Churchill, esq., of Manchester; Whitelocke's Swedish Embassy; Camden Miscellany, vol. i. Attartaflor, or Swedish Tables of Nobility, Stockholm (1859), gives the correct genealogy. Burke in his Extinct and Dormant Baronetcies repeats genealogical errors of Mark Noble.]