George Gordon, 1st Earl of Huntly

“ George, fifth duke, died without issue on 28th May 1836. At his death the title of Duke of Gordon became extinct, as well as that of Earl of Norwich in the British peerage, and the Marquisate of Huntly devolved on George Earl of Aboyne, descended from Charles, fourth son of George, second Marquis of Huntly, while the Duke of Richmond and Lennox, son of his eldest sister, succeeded to Gordon castle, Banffshire, and other estates in Aberdeenshire and Inverness-shire.
The clan Gordon was at one period one of the most powerful and numerous in the north. ”

“ GORDON, GEORGE, fourth Marquis of Huntly and first Duke of Gordon (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.] ”

“ The Gordons fill a considerable place in Scottish legend and ballad. “Captain Car,” or “Edom (Adam) of Gordon” describes an incident in the struggle between the Forbeses and Gordons in Aberdeenshire in 1571; “The Duke of Gordon’s Daughter” has apparently no foundation in fact, though “Geordie” of the ballad is sometimes said to have been George, 4th earl of Huntly; “The Fire of Frendraught” goes back to a feud (1630) between James Crichton of Frendraught and William Gordon of Rothiemay; the “Gallant Gordons Gay” figure in “Chevy Chase” ”

“ For I have won them free:"
"If there is a good woman in the world, 115
Your one sister is she."
GEORDIE. From the Musical Museum, p. 357.
"Geordie, an old Ballad," was first printed in Johnson's Museum, from a copy furnished by Burns. The occasion of the ballad has not been satisfactorily determined. In the opinion of Mr. Kinloch, it is to be found in the factions of the family of Huntly during the reign of Queen Mary. George Gordon, Earl of Huntly, having been sent by the Queen to apprehend a notorious robber, was thought not to have been faithful to his trust. ”

“ Then he gets ready, though he knows how certain is his doom.
“An’ he stooped low, and said, as he kissed his proud dame,
‘There’s a Gordon rides out that will never ride hame.’” There is a narrow glen near by which popular tradition still points out as the spot where they “pierced bonny Brackley wi’ mony a woun’.” The ballad closes in darkness and sadness, but one is glad to learn from contemporary history that the Earl of Huntly made a foray and avenged the death of his kinsman. ”

“ To serve God and to do his duty were the great objects of his life, and he died as he had lived, carrying out the work that lay before him to the best of his ability. The last words of his last letter to his sister, written when he knew that death was very near, sum up his character: “I am quite happy, thank God, and, like Lawrence, I have tried to do my duty. [1]
Authorities.—The Journals of Major-General Gordon at Khartoum (1885) ; Lord Cromer, Modern Egypt (2 vols., 1908) ; F. R. Wingate, Mahdiism and the Egyptian Sudan (1891) ; the British Parliamentary Paper on Egypt (1884–1885) ”

“ The Clanchattan, who, of all that faction, most eagerly endeavored to revenge the Earl of Murray his death, assembling their forces under Angus Donald Williamson his conduct, entered Strathdee and Glenmuick, where they invaded the Earl of Huntly his lands, and killed four of the surname of Gordon, Henry Gordon of the Knock, Alexander Gordon of Teldow, Thomas Gordon of Blaircharrish, and the old baron of Breaghly, whose death and manner thereof was so much the more lamented because he was very aged, and much given to hospitality, and slain under trust. ”

“ But there is another and very practical sense in which Gordon was a British Empire-Maker. This realm of ours is what it is, not only because we have fought for some parts of it and successfully stolen others. It is ours because we knew how to make use of it after we got it; because of all other men now existing on the face of the earth the Anglo-Saxon is the best leader and governor of savage and semi-savage men that has so far been evolved, and of such leaders and governors Gordon plainly proved himself to be one of the very best.
Under the British flag he never won a battle for255 Britain. ”

“ Several local races of the species have been named.
HUNTINGDON, EARLS OF. George Hastings, 1st earl of Huntingdon1 (c. 1488-1545) , was the son and successor of 950 Edward, 2nd Baron Hastings (d. 1506) , and the grandson of William, Baron Hastings, who was put to death by Richard III. in 1483. Being in high favour with Henry VIII., he was created earl of Huntingdon in 1529, and he was one of the royalist leaders during the suppression of the rising known as the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536. ”

“ I wrote it to my wife—when I was a Bond Street lounger, a London cicisbeo and fan-carrier to a woman.”
The man who stared across the sill with a painful fascination was witnessing a glaring, vulgar travesty of himself. Not the George Gordon he was, or, indeed, had ever been, but the George Gordon the world believed him; the abandoned profligate of wassail and blackguardism, whom tourists boasted of having seen, and of whom an eleventh commandment had been promulgated for all British womankind—not to read his books. ”

“ But a man of thirty was counted older than he {193} would not be reckoned, in an epoch when it was possible for a young man just come of age to lead the House of Commons. Lord George Gordon had led a somewhat varied life. He had been in the navy, and had left the service from pique, while the American war was still in its earliest stages, in consequence of a quarrel with Lord Sandwich concerning promotion. The restless energy which he could no longer dedicate to active service he resolved most unhappily to devote to political life. ”

“ If Earle succeeds the “national honour” thanks him and I hope rewards him, but it is altogether independent of me, who for failing incurs its blame. I am not the rescued lamb, and I will not be.
[94]
Had Gessi dared to have communicated with me like these men have, he would have heard of it; but he never did.
The Towfikia steamer went up and saw no Arabs at Giraffe to-day.
Look at this: I send down a spy, A. Kitchener and Co. send him back with answer. If Kitchener and Co. thought, they would know that A., being seen passing to and fro, must incur suspicion ”

“ In fact, except personal courage, great fertility in military resource, a lively though sometimes ill-directed repugnance to injustice, oppression and meanness of every description, and a considerable power of acquiring influence over those, necessarily limited in numbers, with whom he was brought into personal contact, General Gordon does not appear to have possessed any of the qualities which would have fitted him to undertake the difficult task he had in hand. ”

“ Gordon enjoys in a high degree the confidence and esteem of the political party with whom he acts. We happen to know that the present Earl of Derby values his counsel and co-operation very highly, and as for Mr. Disraeli he has long made it a principle to consult Mr. Gordon on questions specially affecting Scotland. He is regarded as a decidedly safe man. Prudent and unassuming, he never seeks to catch the eye of the Speaker unless he has something of importance to say, and hence he is listened to by both his own and the opposite parties with attention and deference. ”

“ The contrast is sufficient to enable the world to believe that if any man were capable of restoring order to the country, that man was Gordon. But when he left England for the Soudan as the Envoy of Her [xxvii] Majesty’s Government, he had no authority to act, for his mission was only to advise. He was to report to Her Majesty’s Government on the military situation in the Soudan, and on the measures which it might be deemed advisable to take for the security of the Egyptian garrisons still holding positions in that country, and for the safety of the European population in Kartoum ”

“ For this reason, therefore, Gordon, after three years’ labour, resigned his post as Governor of the Equator. But the step was taken in a wavering spirit; and these are among his last words ere he left: “By retiring I do not aid anything; by staying I keep my province safe from injustice and cruelty in some degree. Why should I fear? Is man stronger than God? Things have come to such a pass in these Mussulman countries that a crisis must come about soon.” ”

“ It is a not altogether curious fact that, although Gordon was one of the very ablest leaders and organisers of men, and although he, shortly after253 thirty, proved to demonstration that he possessed most of the qualities of a great soldier, his native country didn’t appear to have any use for him, or at least no adequate use. ”

“ An amiable writer has declared that "it would be much beneath the dignity of history to record the excesses of so coarse a fanatic but for the fatal consequences with which they were attended." The amiable defender of a detestable phrase does not understand that it was the excesses of the fanatic that led to the fatal consequences, and that Lord George Gordon, as the ostensible head and conspicuous cause of one of the gravest events of the history of England in the eighteenth century, is in no sense beneath the "dignity of history." ”

“ This “give away your medal,” to use his own words, is the keynote of his whole life. Gordon worked “for honour, not honours,” and that one letter makes a great deal of difference. We see257 here, too, the sign of his kinship with other Empire-Makers, the faculty of seeing what work had to be done and the power of doing it for its own sake, whatever difficulties there might lie in the way. ”

“ While Huntly was confined in the castle of Edinburgh, the Gordons, encouraged by the rumours of the king's advance towards Scotland, began to plunder the covenanters, and, having convened all the inhabitants of Turriff, compelled them to sign the king's covenant; but shortly afterwards the minister of Turriff convened the inhabitants, and, after causing them to crave public pardon for their breach of the covenant, absolved them from their oath and subscription of the covenant of the king (Gordon, ii. 259) . ”

“ They charged the English at the head of a hundred horsemen, and inflicted much slaughter, but were overpowered and slain. Gordon left two daughters, one of whom died early; the other, Elizabeth de Gordon, married Alexander, son of William Seton of Seton, Edinburgh. On 28 July 1408 the Duke of Albany, regent of the kingdom, granted a charter confirming to Alexander Seton and Elizabeth Gordon, heiress of Gordon, the barony of Gordon and Huntly, Berwickshire, with other lands which had formerly belonged to Gordon there and in Aberdeenshire. ”

“ The skill, dexterity, and eloquence, together with the complete devotion to the interests of his client, which he displayed in the conduct of cases, led to an extensive and lucrative practice; and in 1781 he was retained as counsel for the silly but then enthusiastically Protestant Lord George Gordon, whom he defended with brilliant power and signal success. ”

“ In 1640 Huntly's lands were plundered, and his castle of Strathbogie taken by General Monro, who placed a garrison in it (Balfour, Annals, ii. 382; Gordon, iii. 212; Spalding i. 298) . In 1641 Huntly accompanied Charles to Scotland, and in the procession to the parliament rode after the lord high commissioner, but as he refused to subscribe the covenant he was debarred from taking part in the deliberations (Spalding, ii. 65) . He was nominated one of the king's privy councillors (Balfour, iii. 66) , but his name was subsequently deleted by the estates (ib. p. 148) . ”

“ Becoming Duchess of Gordon in 1827, at the age of thirty-three, she deliberately began a life of earnest devotion. She became interested in schools, chapels, and other Christian undertakings among her own people, and when in 1836 the death of her husband, with whom she had lived in much affection, made her independent, her devotion became more intense than ever. Huntly Lodge, her residence, was situated in Strathbogie, one of the chief fields of the well-known conflict between the church and the civil courts previous to 1843, when the disruption of the church of Scotland occurred. ”

“ Charles George Gordon never added a square yard to the British Empire, considered as a geographical expression. He very seldom fought at the head of British troops, and when he did, it was not to any very great purpose—in fact his witnessing of the murder of many hundreds of gallant British soldiers by the officials who were guilty of the criminal mismanagement of the Crimean War was about the sum total of his experiences of warfare under the Flag. ”

“ Lord George Gordon was also committed to the Tower on a charge of high treason; but no jury of his countrymen could be found to consider his undaunted attempt to redress the people's grievances as treasonable, and he was, consequently, honorably acquitted! The influence of her majesty, however, kept a minister in office, though contrary to the sense of the wisest and best part of the community; and a ruinous war was still permitted to drain the blood and money of the many.
War might probably be considered by those in power a legal trade ”

“ Victory was replaced by defeat and success by disaster. This incompetent person being removed, the hitherto obscure officer of Engineers stepped into his place. It was a time when a leader of men was badly wanted. It was also the moment when Fate knocked at the door of Charles George Gordon and found him in.
Within a very short time disorganisation was replaced by discipline, despair by confidence, and the Ever-Victorious Army was once more made worthy of its name. It was here that Gordon really began his career as a soldier of fortune. ”