Thank you Malcolm for that rich treasure of information. I've plenty to work on now. With regards to my ABC of "Germanie Thomas" I will cut out all the Possibilities before I publish it and leave all romantic speculation to the reader. I'll just leave in the source as "Colonel David Balfour B:Ancient Orkney Melodies 1885 Ballantyne & Hanson, Edinburgh".
But could I leave in that the song MAY have been written about SOME Scot soldiering in the "The Thirty Years War" around 1630? Making it clear that I'm not claiming it was written AT that time, but could have been later. What other wars could he have been fighting in Germany before 1885? Do not Hector MacNeil's words of 1895: "in Germanie, fighting for royalty" refer to a later war fighting for English royalty?