2nd Duke of Gordon and the part he played at the battle of Sheriffmuir

HIS FLIRTATION WITH THE
JACOBITES.
The first Duke of Gordon's sense of self-pre-
servation kept him out of the Jacobite intrigues ;
but an error of judgment, which would have been
fatal in a less ludky family, led hie son, the
Ma'rquis of Huntly, to join the plotters. If lie
had gone down with the rest of the wreckage
there might 'have been the excuse of picturesque-
ness in his venture; 'but Huntly's sense of pre-
servation also came to the rescue, and leaves him
a dubious figure in that sad gallery of enthusiasts
who surround the name of Stuart. Huntly's
entering the plot was clearly due to his mother,
eveu if we 'had noit Sir Hew Dairy m pie's
assurance. Writing to Lord Stair from Edin-
burgh, on February 9, 1716, Sir Hew says ("Stair
Annals," i., 306): — "The 'Marquis owes his mis-
fortune in a great measure to the Duchess, who
both drew him into the snare and discouraged
all means of bringing him out of it." The atti-
tude of the Duchess was actuated as much by
her feminine tenacity and sense of paying off an
old score, as by (her intense Catholicism. She
had quarrelled irretrievably with her husband,
and while he clearly did not wish to be mixed
up in any pother, she was only too delighted to
give the Jacobite plotters every encouragement.
At the first eat off with Hooke in 1705, the Marquis
had just returned from his travels. Hooke had
a little talk with him : —
The young Lord told me that he knew the sen-
timents of his father; that for his own part he
was overjoyed to have returned so apropos to
assure me that 'when it should please the King-
to take Scotland under his protection, he himself
would be the first to take horse with bi6 father
and all their vakssals, and that they should hazard
all the interest of the Gordon family in His
Majesty's service.
As a matter of fact, however, he soon after mar-
ried Lady Henrietta Mordaunlt, a lady who came
out of a family with very different traditions.
Her father, Charles Earl of Peterborough, is said
by Bishop Burnet to !have been the first to press
the Prince of Orange 'to ' 'undertake the business
of England'." The marriage was not popular
with the Gordon family, as we learn from a letter
Iby the 1st Duke of Perth, whose son married the
Marquis's aunt, Jean. He wrote to the Duchess of