Clan Gordon

History

The Gordons are a Border family who became a north-east power. The name comes from Gordon in Berwickshire. The first of the family on record is Richard of Gordon, a lord there around 1200, who is said to have been of Norman descent. His descendant Sir Adam Gordon supported William Wallace and later Robert the Bruce. After Bannockburn in 1314, Bruce gave him the forfeited estate of Strathbogie in Aberdeenshire. The family's future lay there.

A later Sir Adam Gordon was killed at Homildon Hill in 1402, and the inheritance passed by marriage to the Setons. Around 1445 Alexander, 2nd Lord Gordon, was created Earl of Huntly. Some accounts give the date as 1449. He and his heirs took the Gordon name and arms. Within a few years he had beaten the Earl of Crawford at Brechin, in 1452, and the earls of Huntly were on their way to running much of the north.

At their height the Gordons dominated the north-east. Their chief became known as the Cock o' the North. They stayed Catholic after the Reformation, and that brought trouble. The 4th Earl died at the Battle of Corrichie in 1562. In 1594 the Gordons won the Battle of Glenlivet. Five years later, in 1599, James VI made the 6th Earl Marquess of Huntly, and he went on to embellish the palace at Huntly Castle with heraldic carving.

The 2nd Marquess took the royalist side in the civil wars and was beheaded in 1649. In 1684 the 4th Marquess was created Duke of Gordon. In the Jacobite risings of 1715 and 1745 there were Gordons on both sides.

In 1794 the 92nd Regiment, the Gordon Highlanders, was raised, and the 4th Duchess is credited with recruiting for it. The Gordon tartan belongs to this moment. The Duke wanted the Black Watch pattern with a yellow stripe added, and a Huntly weaver, William Forsyth, supplied samples in 1793. The dukedom died out in 1836 when the 5th Duke left no legitimate heir. The marquessate passed to his kinsman the Earl of Aboyne, and the Marquesses of Huntly have been chiefs since, with their seat at Aboyne Castle.