Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 22.djvu/200

 Gordon in 1660 created Earl of Aboyne by Charles II the fifth, Lord Henry, distinguished himself in the service of Poland. Of the daughters, Anne was married to the third earl of Perth; Harriet, first to George, Lord Seton, secondly to John, second earl of Traquair; Jean to Thomas, second earl of Haddington; Mary to Alexander Irvine of Drum; and Catherine to Count Morstain, high treasurer of Poland.

[Reg. Privy Council Scotl.; Spalding's Memorials of the Troubles; Gordon's Scots Affairs; Balfour's Annals of Scotland; Rothe's Relation; Henry Guthry's Memoirs; Gordon Papers in Spalding Club Miscellany, vol. iv.; Douglas's Scottish Peerage (Wood), i. 652; William Gordon's Hist. of the Family of Gordon, ii. 163-631; Robert Gordon's Genealogy of the Earldom of Sutherland, ii. 479-545; Burton's Hist. of Scotland; Gardiner's Hist. of England.]  GORDON, GEORGE, fourth and first  (1643–1716), was the eldest son of Lewis, third marquis of Huntly, by his wife Isabel, daughter of Sir James Grant of Grant. He succeeded his father in 1653, when about ten years of age. Charles II had nominally restored the titles and estates, which had been forfeited when his grandfather, George Gordon, second marquis [q. v.], was executed in 1649, but it was not till 1661 that the attainder was reversed by act of parliament. At about the age of eighteen he went to France, where he completed his education in a catholic seminary. Afterwards he travelled in Italy, Germany, and Hungary. In 1672 he returned to Scotland by London, but in the following year he joined the French army at Oudenarde, and was present in July at the surrender of Maestricht. In 1674 he took part in the campaign in Burgundy, after which he served with Turenne, and subsequently with the Prince of Orange, in Flanders. In November 1675 he returned to London. In October 1676 he married Elizabeth Howard, eldest surviving daughter of the sixth Duke of Norfolk, and afterwards returned to Scotland, but being precluded by his religion from public employment, he spent his time chiefly on his estate. When in 1680 to keep the highlands quiet it was decided to give 500l. a year to each of the nobles of the four districts or tetrarchies, Huntly's jurisdiction, as being too large, was divided into two, the other half being given to the Earl of Moray (, Historical Notices, 261). By patent dated 1 Nov. 1684 he was, chiefly at the instigation of Claverhouse (, Memoirs of Viscount Dundee, ii. 330), created by Charles II Duke of Gordon. When Argyll landed in the west highlands in 1685, Gordon was appointed commander of the northern forces raised to oppose him, but Argyll's enterprise collapsed so rapidly as to render any action on his part unnecessary. On the confiscation of the estates of Argyll in 1681, he got the gift of his forfeitures so far as they extended to the Huntly estates (Memoirs of Ewan Cameron, p. 210). He also obtained a gift of the superiority of that portion of Lochiel's lands which Lochiel had held as the vassal of Argyll. Lochiel went to London with a view of securing the superiority to himself, but before the necessary documents were completed the king died, 6 Feb. 1685, and during Lochiel's absence the duke raised an action against him in the court of session to get his rights and titles to the whole of the Cameron estates annulled, and also another on account of a debt due by Lochiel to the forfeited Earl of Argyll. After long litigation the king at last interfered on Lochiel's behalf, and by a letter to the commissioners of the treasury, 21 May 1688, intimated his royal will and pleasure that he should be discharged of his debt, and should also have new rights and charters of the property of his lands, of which Gordon was superior, for a small and easy feu duty not exceeding four merks for every thousand merks of free rent (ib. pp. 220-3). In other respects Gordon soon began to experience considerable advantages from the accession of James to the throne. On 12 Nov. 1685 he was named among twenty-six other catholic commissioners of supply whom the king empowered to act without taking the test (, Historical Notices, p. 676). On 11 March 1686 a letter was read from the king to the privy council appointing him captain and constable and keeper of the castle of Edinburgh, in room of the Duke of Queensberry, and being a catholic he was admitted to the office without taking any oath (ib. p. 713). In a private letter to Queensberry, 23 Feb. 1686 (printed in Napier's' Memoirs of Viscount Dundee,' iii. 469), the king explained that his reason for superseding him by Gordon was that he wished the town at this time to have more regard to his commands, and be ‘civiler to catholics by seeing it in the hands of one of that persuasion.’ On 11 Nov. a letter was read from the king naming him a privy councillor, but he declined to accept office on the usual conditions (, Historical Notices, p. 759), and on the 18th the king by letter intimated his desire that he should be received into the council without taking the test. On the revival of the order of the Knights of St. Andrew and the Thistle he was installed a knight 27 July 1687 (ib. p. 814). Gordon declined to be a party in assisting James's policy for the establishment of the catholic