Lewis Gordon (Jacobite): Difference between revisions

Lord Lewis Gordon
Lewis Gordon, aged 13, from a portrait by John Alexander
Born	1724 Huntly, Aberdeenshire
Died	15 June 1754 Montreuil, Seine-Saint-Denis
Allegiance	Great Britain (c.1744-5) Jacobites (1745-54)
Rank	Lieutenant (British); Colonel (Jacobite)
Unit	Lord Lewis Gordon's Regiment
Battles/wars	Jacobite Rising of 1745

Lord Lewis Gordon (22 December 1724 - 15 June 1754) was a Scottish nobleman, naval officer and Jacobite, remembered largely for participating in the Jacobite rising of 1745, during which Charles Edward Stuart appointed him Lord-lieutenant of Aberdeenshire and Banffshire.

During the rising Gordon and his agents raised a large number of men, often by force, from the lands of his brother the Duke of Gordon: the north-eastern counties ultimately provided up to 24% of the Jacobite army's rank and file. After the failure of the campaign he escaped to France, dying at Montreuil in 1754.

Life

Gordon was the fourth son of Alexander Gordon, 2nd Duke of Gordon, and Lady Henrietta Mordaunt, daughter of Charles Mordaunt, 3rd Earl of Peterborough. As a younger son, he used 'Lord' as a courtesy title. His father, as Marquis of Huntly, had fought on the Jacobite side in the 1715 rising, but later obtained a government pardon.

Taking service in the Royal Navy, he was commissioned Lieutenant in 1744, serving on HMS Dunkirk.

1745 Rising

Gordon was serving with the Mediterranean Fleet when he abruptly deserted his post in May 1745; this coincided with Charles Stuart putting in motion his plans for a Scottish rising. Gordon made his way to Scotland and on 16 October 1745 swore allegiance to Charles at Holyrood.

The anonymous contemporary author of Memoirs of the Rebellion in Aberdeen and Banff, probably Rev. John Bissett, commented that Gordon "met so many old friends and acquaintances engaged in the rebellion, who all laid oars in the water to gain him; and this indeed was no hard matter to a forward young lad like him, especially as he was to have a Feather in his cap, and to be made Lord Lieutenant of Aberdeenshire and Governor of the towns of Aberdeen and Banff". However, his Jacobite adherence may at least in part have been as proxy for his brother Cosmo George Gordon, 3rd Duke of Gordon, one of the largest landowners in Scotland; several leading families took similar actions during the 1745 rising in order to maintain influence with both sides. The Duke himself claimed to be indisposed by illness, and did not issue an order expressly forbidding his tenants to join the rebellion until November.

Lord Lewis Gordon's Regiment

Gordon was made a member of Charles's 'Council of War' before being sent northwards to raise men from the Gordon estates. Tenants in this area of Scotland still held their land under the feudal obligation of vassalage, which included an expectation of military service on demand. Gordon was an effective recruiter, though his methods have been characterised as "drastic": Alexander MacDonald, then with the Jacobite army in Musselburgh, wrote to his father in October 1745 that Gordon was "putting in to prisson [sic] all who are not willing to Rise." He briefly experimented with quartering Highlanders on those who refused, but then moved on to threats of burning property; Bissett noted that the firing of one haystack or house "soon had the desired effect".

Further conscription was handled by Gordon's agents, factors or tack holders, who often used similar methods. At the start of the rising John Gordon of Glenbucket raised a regiment, largely by force, from among Gordon tenants in Banffshire and western Aberdeenshire. The bulk of Lord Lewis Gordon's own regiment, however, was raised in three battalions: the 'Aberdeen' battalion, mainly volunteers from Aberdeen itself led by James Moir of Stonywood; the 'Strathbogie' battalion, largely unwilling feudal levies under John Gordon of Avochie; and the 'Mar' battalion, mostly Highlanders raised by Francis Farquharson of Monaltrie in Braemar and upper Deeside. An additional unit known as the 'Enzie' battalion was raised by John Hamilton of Sandistoun, Gordon's factor in the Huntly area, along with further men forced out in Strathbogie by another wealthy Gordon tenant, David Tulloch of Dunbennan. Gordon's regiment ultimately became one of the largest in the Jacobite army with a complement of over 800 men.

With his regiment up to strength, Gordon organised the defence of Aberdeen before moving against government forces under the Laird of Macleod; he scattered them at the Battle of Inverurie on 23 December 1745. Linking up with the recently arrived forces of Lord John Drummond, Gordon marched to Perth and joined the main army of the insurgents. His regiment was present at Falkirk in January, where the Jacobites won a confused tactical victory against Hawley's government army.

At the Battle of Culloden in April 1746 Gordon's regiment was positioned with the Jacobite reserve. After the Jacobite defeat he was supposed to have hidden at Balbithan House for several months before taking a ship at Peterhead and escaping to France.

After 1745

Gordon's name was included in the Act of Attainder passed after the rebellion by the government. In 1749 he was one of six prominent Scots appointed to the commission sitting at the Scots College in Paris examining the claims of Scottish refugees to financial assistance from King Louis XV, while a British report of 1752 identified him as one of a number of Jacobite exiles who had recently been in Scotland undetected. He is said to have "exhibited symptoms of insanity, and to have mutilated himself" before his death in France on 15 June 1754; he was unmarried.

His name was remembered in Scotland in a popular Jacobite air, "Lewie Gordon"; James Hogg identified its author as the Catholic theologian Alexander Geddes (1737-1802).

References

• "Gordon, Lewis" . Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.