GORDON, THE FAMILY OF. The origin of this great Scottish historical house is still wrapped in some measure of obscurity. Uncritical genealogists of the 17th c. affected to trace its descent from a mythical high constable of Charlemagne, a duke of Gordon, who, it was said, flourished about the year 800, and drew his lineage from the Gordoni, a tribe which, taking its name from the town of Gordunia, in Macedonia, had settled in Gaul before the days of Julius Csar. These fables and fancies have long ceased to be believed. Nor is more credit given to the conjecture that the family, having carried its name from Normandy to England in the train of the conqueror, soon afterwards passed on from England to Scotland. No proof has been found of any connection between the Gordons of France and the Gordons of Scotland. There is little or no doubt now that the Scottish Gordons took their name from the lands of Gordon in Berwickshire. Their earliest historian, writing in the 16th c., says that these lands, together wills the arms of three boars' heads, were given by king Malcolm Ceantnohr (1057-93 A.D.) to the progenitor of thehouse, as a reward for slaying, in the forest of Huntly, a wild boar, the terror of,all the Merse, But du the llth there were neither heraldic bearings in Scotland nor Gordons in Berwickshire. The first trace of the family is about the end of the 12th c., or the beginning of the 13th e., when it appears in record as witnessing charters by the greatlearls of March or Dunbar, and as granting patches of land and rights of pasturage to the monks of Kelso. About a century after
wards it enters the page.of history in the person of sir Adam of Gordon. He is found in 1305 high in the confidence of king Edward I. of England, holding under that prince the office of joint justiciar of Lothian, and sitting in the English council at Westmin ster as one of the representatives of Scotland. He scents to have been among the last to join the banner of Bruce, who rewarded his adherence, tardy as it was, by a grant of the northern lordship of Strathbogie. The grant failed of effect at the time; but it was renewed by king David II. in 1357, and by king Robert II. in 1376. Under this last renewal, sir John of Gordon, the great grandson of sir Adam, entered into possession, and so transferred the chief seat and power of the family from the Merse'and Teviot dale to the banks of the Dee, the Deveron, and the Spey. Its direct malt line came to an end in his son sir Adam, who fell at Homildon in 1402, leaving ad only child, a daughter, to inherit his lands, but transmitting his name through two illegitimate brothers—John of Gordon of Scurdargue, and ThomaS of Gordon of fluthven—to a wide circle of the gentry of Mar, Buchan, and Strathbogie, who, calling themselves " Gordons," styled the descendants of their niece " Seton•Gordons."