LEARMONTH-LERMONTOV. A HYISTORY OF THE NAME AND FAMILIES

of the documents.
These estates were given by the state to a person who had
provided military or public service and could not be sold, but could
be inherited by the owner’s next of kin. In the 16 th and 17 th
centuries an ancestral ownership of the land gradually approached
and was later to be secured under a decree in 1714. The ancestral
lands were the most ancient kind of land property in Russia passed
by right of succession.
George Leirmont was now an individual who intended to
live and work in the State of Moscow, having served Russia with
great honour. George had three sons probably living in Scotland
who in 1628 came to join their father. William, Peter / Patrick and
Andrew / Henry, their names were always spelt in English as
illustrated by the original documents and not in the Russian
equivalents. We know that these children were from his first
marriage which was most probably in Scotland. The name of his
first wife is not known. As time went by, William and Peter
retained their English names but Andrew / Henry became known
as Andrey.
In the year 1634, William Learmonth served in the Russian
army with Prince Ivan Borisovich Cherkassky’s regiment and was
reported to be well paid. William never lived on his father’s estates
but preferred to make his own way. It is believed that he was killed
in action during 1636 (“Georg Lermont the Progenitor of the
Russian Lermontov Family” by V. Storozhev, Moscow 1894, p.
16).
George Leirmont’s life during the period 1620-1628 was
obviously directed to the management and improvement of his
estates. His second marriage was to Ekaterina Fedorovna, a decent
practical Russian lady who welcomed her stepsons Peter and
Andrew and treated them as if they were her own children. During
the years 1623 to 1625, Ekaterina and George had a daughter who
they named Ekaterina.
The expected war with Poland broke out once again after
the termination of the Deuline’s armistice on 1 st July 1633. The
Tsar and the government had already started to modernize the
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army in anticipation of a new conflict, employing training experts
and strengthening the army with foreign officers and men. These
soldiers were Poles, Lithuanians, Scots, English, Irish, German,
Danes, Greeks, Serbs and Romanians. In April 1630, two new
Russian regiments had been brought up to strength with the
addition of mercenary soldiers commanded by an outstanding
Scottish officer, Colonel Alexander Leslie of Auchintoul (1590-
1663), who had been sent to assist the Russians by King James VI
of England.
Captain George Learmonth was recalled by Prince Ivan
Borisovich Cherkasski in June 1632 to train and to command the
‘Rider Company’ which consisted of about 200 men. George’s son
William also served in the same regiment until at least 1635.
Also in May 1632, a Thomas Learmonth (most probably
the son of John Learmonth of Balcomie) joined the Russian army
as part of a newly-recruited levy of mercenaries and became an
ensign in James Williamson’s regiment. We do not know if this
Thomas ever met George or even knew of his existence. However
it is possible that they were cousins.
From 1632 up to the end of the Smolensk war in 1634, the
Russian government had reformed 10 regiments and strengthened
all the mercenary regiments (in all about 17,000 soldiers) all under
the leadership of Colonel Alexander Leslie. He was the son of
William Leslie, third Laird of Crichie, a branch of the Balquhain
Leslie‘s.
Smolensk was besieged by a Russian army commanded by
the Boyar Sheina. This siege lasted for 8 months before the Poles
surrendered which was a disastrous defeat for King Vladislay of
Poland. However, by 1634 this Russian army had to withdraw as
by then only 8,056 soldiers remained from the 30,000 who started
the campaign having failed to retake all the occupied territories.
In 1634, George Leirmont was killed during the fighting at
Smovilensk but the exact date and circumstances of his death are
unknown. His estates at home had prospered and his family’s
situation was secure, and his wife Ekaterina had an excellent
relationship with George’s children. As a result, the settling of the
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