The Scottish Historical Review, Volume CI, 1: No. 255: April 2022, 123–136 DOI: 10.3366/shr.2022.0550 © The Scottish Historical Review Trust 2022 www.euppublishing.com/shr Note LEIGH T. I. PENMAN The Making of John Slezer Keywords: Scotland, 17th century, John Slezer In 1669 an entrepreneurial foreigner named John Slezer arrived in Scotland. Impressing himself upon local aristocrats, the twenty-four- year-old soon carved out substantial roles for himself in Scottish society, including stints as an army officer, royal engineer, master gunner, topographical draughtsman and publisher. Slezer eventually secured enduring fame—and insolvency—for his Theatrum Scotiae (1693 and six subsequent editions), a lavish folio volume of engravings of Scottish towns, castles and locales reminiscent of the Topographia Germaniae of Matthaeus Merian (1593–1650). It remains a unique and invaluable record of Scotland’s past; when the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh opened in 2011, its inaugural exhibition was dedicated to Slezer’s book. But while Slezer’s Scottish period and the circumstances behind Theatrum Scotiae are well documented, his origins are shrouded in mystery. 1 The ODNB entry relates that he ‘came from a German- speaking area of Europe, perhaps the upper Rhineland, but his parentage is unknown.’ 2 Visitors to an exhibition at Kelso abbey are informed that Slezer ‘was probably born in Poland, son of a Jewish father and a Scottish mother who was possibly a relative of the Straiton 1 Keith Cavers, A Vision of Scotland: The Nation observed by John Slezer (Edinburgh, 1993). See further James Maidment, Analecta Scotica: Collections illustrative of the civil, ecclesiastical, and literary history of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1834), 47–51; David Laing, ‘Papers relating to the “Theatrum Scotiae’’ and “History and Present State of Scotland’’ by Captain John Slezer’, in The Bannatyne Miscellany, ed. Sir Walter Scott et al., Bannatyne Club (Edinburgh, 1827–55), ii. 305–44; R. S. Mylne, ‘Notices of the king’s master-gunners of Scotland, with the writs of their appointments, 1512–1703’, Proc. of the Soc. of Antiquaries of Scotland 33 (1899) 185–94. Significant manuscripts relating to Slezer’s Scottish period are preserved in Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland, MS 573, fos 92r–97v (Papers relating to Captain John Slezer); Adv.MS.29.1.2 (IV) (Papers of John Anderson); Adv.MS.33.3.22 (Topographical and other works), etc. 2 A. H. Millar, ‘Slezer, John (d. 1717)’, rev. M. R. Glozier, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004; http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/25725 [accessed 15 May 2020]). LEIGH T. I. PENMAN is ARC Laureate research fellow at Monash Indigenous Studies Centre, Monash University, Australia.