Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 22.djvu/188

 Gordon the troubles which happened to the Gordons, ‘was the sincere and loyal affection that they had to the queen's preservation; and it is most certain that the Earl of Huntly gathered these forces, at her majesty's own desire, to free her from the Earl of Moray's power’ (Earldom of Sutherland, p. 142). Knox states that the body of Huntly, ‘becaus it was laitt,’ was ‘cassen overthorte a pair of crealles, and so was caryed to Abirdene, and was laid in the Tolbuyth’ (Works, ii. 357). According to the same authority, this was in fulfilment of a prophecy of the earl's wife's witches, ‘whay all affirmed that that same nycht should he be in the Tolbuyth of Abirdene, without any wound upoun his body’ (ib.) When, therefore, the countess blamed her principal witch, called Janet, for having deceived her, ‘sche stoutly defended hir self (as the devill can ever do), and affirmed that sche geve a trew answer, albeit sche spack nott all the treuth; for sche knew that he should be thair dead’ (ib.) The body of the earl, after being disembowelled at Aberdeen and filled with spices by physicians (account of expense, manuscript in Register House, quoted in preface to Inventaires de la Royne Descosse, Bannatyne Club, 1863, p. xxii), was sent to Edinburgh by a ship which in company with another carried the furniture taken by Mary from his castle of Strathbogie (for list, see ib. pp. 49-56). The body was kept at Holyrood till the meeting of parliament on 28 May 1563, when, after it had been brought to the bar, an act of forfeiture and attainder was passed, declaring his ‘dignity, name, and memory to be extinct,’ and his posterity ‘unable to enjoy any office, honour, or rank within the realm’ (quoted in, Officers of State, pp. 87-8, but not elsewhere preserved). The body, after being deposited in a vault of the chapel royal, Holyrood, was removed to the Blackfriars Monastery, Edinburgh, where it lay unburied till April 1566, when it was permitted to be carried north to the tomb of the Gordons in Elgin Cathedral (''Acta Par1. Scot''. ii. 572-6). By his wife, Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Robert, lord Keith, son and heir apparent of William, third earl Marischal, he had nine sons and three daughters. The sons were: Alexander, lord Gordon, who married Lady Margaret Hamilton, second daughter of the Duke of Chatelherault, but died without issue about 1553; George, fifth earl [q. v.]; Sir John, executed, as above stated; William, who was educated for the church, and died in the college of Bons Enfans, Paris, before 1567; James [q. v.], a Jesuit, who died at Paris in 1620; Sir Adam of Auchindoun, who was taken prisoner at Corrichie, but was pardoned on account of his youth, burnt down the old castle of the Forbesus at Corgarff in 1551 or 1571 (as described in the old ballad ‘Edom O'Gordon’), took up arms in the queen's cause after her imprisonment at Lochleven, and died in 1580; Sir Patrick of Auchindoun and Gartly, killed at the battle of Glenlivet in 1594; Robert and Thomas. The daughters were: Elizabeth, married to John Stewart, earl of Atholl; Jean or Jane, who married (1) on 22 Feb. 1566 James, fourth earl of Bothwell (who got the marriage annulled to enable him to marry Queen Mary), (2) Alexander Gordon, eleventh or twelfth earl of Sutherland [see under (Gordon, John (1526?-1567) (DNB00), 1526 ?-1567], and (3) Alexander Ogilvy of Boyne; and Margaret, married to John, eighth lord Forbes.

[Crawfurd's Officers of State, pp. 82-9 ; William Gordon's House of Gordon, i. 126-241; Gordon's Earldom of Sutherland, 98-241; Douglas's Scottish Peerage (Wood), i. 647-8; Gordon Papers, Spalding Club Miscellany, vol. iv.; Reg. Privy Council Scotland, vol. i.; Acta Parl. Scot. vol. ii.; Cal. State Papers, Scott. Ser. vol. i. : Cal. State Papers. For. Ser., Edward VI and Elizabeth: Sadler State Papers; Lord Herrics's Memoirs of the Reign of Mary (Abbotsford Club) Diurnal of Occurrents in Scotland (Bannatyne Club); Histories of Knox, Buchanan, Leslie, Calderwood, Spotiswood, Keith, Tytler, Burton, and Froude.]  GORDON, GEORGE, fifth (d. 1576), lord high chancellor of Scotland under Queen Mary, was the second son of George, fourth earl of Huntly [q. v.], by his wife, Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Robert, lord Keith. He was carefully educated with the view of his entering the church, but became prospective heir of the earldom on the death without issue of his elder brother, Alexander, lord Gordon, 7 Aug. 1553. The elder brother had been married to Margaret Hamilton, second daughter of the Duke of Chatelherault, and to continue the advantages of this alliance, George, lord Gordon, was now married to Anne, the third daughter. On 7 Aug. 1556 he was appointed sheriff of the county of Inverness and keeper of Inverness Castle. After the battle of Corrichie in 1562, at which he does not seem to have been present, he fled for protection to his father-in-law, who, having been warned to deliver him up, brought him to Edinburgh on 26 Nov. (Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 74;, Works. ii. 360). On Saturday the 28th he was committed to the castle of Edinburgh, where he remained till 8 Feb., when, without any indictment until the day he was brought to the bar, he was convicted of treason and sentenced to be executed, drawn, and quartered, ‘at our soverains plesor.’ Queen Mary 