BORTHWICK, WILLIAM (d. 1542), fourth Lord Borthwick, was the eldest son of the third Lord Borthwick and Maryota de Hope Pringle. He succeeded to the title on the death of his father at the battle of Flodden on 9 Sept. 1513. Immediately afterwards the council of the kingdom ordered the castle of Stirling to be victualled and fortified to receive the young king, James V. Lord Borthwick was to be captain and the king’s guardian (Cal, State Papers, Henry VIII, vol. i. (1509-14) 4556). He set his seal to a treaty with England on 7 Oct. 1517 (Fœdera, xiii. 600). After the coronation of James V in 1524 he swore to be true to the king and disavow the Duke of Albany. He died in 1542. By his marriage to Margaret, eldest daughter of John Lord Hay of Yester, he had two sons and two daughters.
[Douglas's Peerage of Scotland, ii. 654; Cal. State Papers, Henry VIII.]
BORTHWICK, WILLIAM (1760–1820), general, was the eldest son of Lieutenant-general William Borthwick, R.A., and entered the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich as a gentleman cadet in 1772. He became a second lieutenant R.A. in 1777, lieutenant in 1779, and captain-lieutenant in 1790, with which rank he served in Flanders. As brigadier-general he prepared the siege train with which Wellington bombarded Ciudad Rodrigo in January 1812, and was severely wounded during the siege. He also prepared the siege train for the last siege of Badajoz; but in April 1812 he was promoted major-general, and had to hand over his command to Colonel Framingham, because the number of artillerymen in the Peninsula was supposed not to justify the presence there of a general officer, After his return he received a gold medal for the capture of Ciudad Rodrigo, but was not even made a C.B. He died at Margate on 20 July 1820.
[Jones's Siege Operations in the Peninsular war; Duncan’s History of the Royal Artillery.]
BORUWLASKI or BORUSLAWSKI, JOSEPH (1739–1837), dwarf, is chiefly known by the ‘Memoirs of Count Boruwlaski, written hy himself,’ He had no legal right to the title of ‘count,' being an untitled member of the Polish nobility. According to his own account, Boruwlaski was born in the environs of Halicz, Polish Galicia, in 1739. His parents had six children, three of whom were exceptionally short in stature, whilst the other three were above the middle height. The eldest brother was forty-one inches in height; the second, who was killed in battle at the age of twenty-six, was six feet inches inches; and Joseph, who was the third, did not quite reach thirty-nine inches. His sister Anastasia, who died at the of twenty, was but two feet four inches high. Joseph was neither delicate nor disproportionate. Brought up at first, by a widow, the Starostin de Caorlix, he was, soon after her marriage with the Count de Tamon, transferred to the Countess Humiecka, and travelled with her in France, Holland, Germany, &c. When at Vienna, Maria Theresa took him on her lap and presented him with a ring, which she took from the finger of the young princess Marie Antoinette. At the court of Stanislaus, the titular king of Poland, he met with Bébé (Nicolas Ferry), who was a little taller, and jealous of his rival, and with the Comte de Tressan, who mentions him in the ‘Encyclopédie’ as fully developed and healthy, At Paris he met Raynal and Voltaire, and one of the fermier-generals, Bouret, gave an entertainment in his honour, in which everything was proportioned to the size of the tiny guest. On his return to Poland Boruwlaski fell in love with Isalina Barboutan, a young girl whom his patroness had taken into ber house. Effrts to break off the match were fruitless, and on his marriage Pioruwlaski was discarded by the countess, but the king of Poland gave him a small pension, and, when he decided to travel, provided him with a suitable coach. He now began a wandering career. A comparison of measurements showed that between his visits to Vienna in 1761 and 1781 he had grown ten inches. By the advice of Sir Robert Murray Keith he decided to visit England; but previously he states that he passed through Preshurg, Bellgrade, Adrianople, and, after traversing the deserts, found himself dangerously ill at Damascus, where he was restored by the aid of a Jewish physician. He describes subsequent joumeys to Astrakan, Kazan, Lapland, Finland, and Nova Zembla, and through Croatia, Dalmatia, and Germany. The ‘count’ lived meanwhile upon the proceeds of concerts and the gifts of his acquaintances. From the margrave of Anspach he obtained aletter of introduction to the dukes of Gloucester and Cumberland. After a stormy passage he reached England, und had an audience of George III, when ‘the conversation was often interrupted by the witty sallies of H.R.H. the Prince of Wales.’ He travelled in England. Occasional concerts were still the only source of his income. At Blenheim he saw the Duke of Marlborough, who added the dwarfs shoes to his cabinet of curiosities. An attempt to provide for the count by a subscription failed. He again
