New Spalding Club > House of Gordon > Gordons under arms

GORDONS UNDER ARMS — CONTINENT. 455
his second wife. Posselt transcribed interesting passages from the original
MS. for Passages from the Diary of General Patrick Gordon, edited by Joseph
Robertson, pp. xxxvi, 244, with a portrait, and presented to the Spalding
Club b}' Beriah Botfield, of Norton Hall, 1859. Alexander Brueckner wrote
an account of him in Russian, 1878 (pp. 184). See also John Hill Burton's
Scots Abroad, 1900 ed., pp. 348-72; Davenport Adams' [/«rf^r il/awj F/ag'i,
1896, pp. 138, 157; and D.N.B.
1796- Patrick. 1657, Jan. 5, Rittmeister in the Polish arm)', met
Patrick Gordon, 1795, then a prisoner at Dantzig (Diary, 25 ; Tagebuch, i.
133)- 1659, tried to recover the goods of his kinsman, the late Lt. Adam,
1641 (Tagebuch, i. 184). i66o, Oct. 8, wounded by the Cossacks (ibid., i.
235). 1661, Jun., the Baron d'Isola, on behalt of the Emperor, engaged
" Lievtennant-Collonell Gordon, commonly called Steelhand," to levy a reg.
of horse ; Steelhand engaged Patrick Gordon of Auchleuchries and two others
to raise 800 horse (Diary, 35) ; Jul. 10, the order was countermanded (ibid.,
37, 38)-
Origin unknown ; Auchleuchries, 1795, calls him " my cousin " (ibid., 84) ;
nicknamed Steelhand, because he had lost a hand, the German text calling
him " mit der stablemen Hand" (Tagebuch, i. 133); he was known to the
English as " Steelhand the Mosser " (Scotland and the Commonwealth, p. 28).
A fierce anti-Covenanter, he had a " troup " of despoilers at Aberdeen, of
whom William Gow, in Birnie, confessed, 1647, Jul. 29, in sackcloth, to have
been a member (Elgin Presby. Minutes, as transcribed by Dr. Cramond).
1647, May, 22, the Commissioners of the General Assembly found that he
and other Gordons had been " prymly active and instrumental in killing, burn-
ing, destroying, robbing, spolying and manv other insolences" (Gen. Assem.
Com. Records, Scot. Hist. Soc, xi. 269) ; Jun. 6, excommunicated (Presb.
Book of Strathhogie, 75). 1649, Jun., he had apparently gone abroad, for at
this time Pari, requested the Aberdeen Magistrates to examine William
Barton, skipper, as to what gentlemen he had brought with him in May from
the Low Countries, in particular Patrick Gordon, " callit Steelhand ". 1650,
Apr., probably the " notable " malignant, Peter Gourdon, who, as reported on
this date, on being searched for at AbtrJeen, with four other men, seized a boat
and boarded a vessel in the harbour, in which were 12 tuns of sack and 1200
bushels of wheat, and carried her away " as it's conceived to Orkney " (W. S.
Douglas's Cro)nwell's Scotch Campaigns, 167, quoting from the " Milton
State Papers," p. 8). 1650, Dec, the parson of Rothlemay was queried as to
his dealings with Steelhand. 165 1, Oct. 29, Gordon appealed against his
excommunication (Aberdeen Kirk Session Records, Spald. Club, 212); the