who had invaded Mesopotamia, and were threatening Antioch. Under the guidance of Misitheus, Gordianus was very successful. The Persians were driven out of Syria, and in the next campaign it was proposed to press forward to Ctesiphon. The mutinous spirit of the soldiers was suppressed, and something like the old Roman spirit appeared to animate the army and dishearten the enemy. Suddenly, however, Misitheus was cut off—according to some by natural causes, according to others by poison administered by his successor, Philip; and instantly the progress of victory was stayed and the old seditions reappeared. The new prefect was an Arab by birth, and consequently master of an immense amount of crafty cunning. He produced an artificial scarcity in the army, and when the soldiers began to murmur, he was politic enough to avert their discontent from himself and turn it upon Gordianus. The usual consequences followed, and a tumult ended in the murder of the emperor in 244. A monument was erected to his memory near the spot where the Aboras flows into the Euphrates.—W. H. W.
GORDON, the name of a noble Scottish family—the "gay Gordons"—which has figured conspicuously in the history of the country, and attained the ducal rank in 1684. It is of Norman origin, and the founder of it probably removed from England into Scotland in the time of Malcolm Canmore. According to tradition he obtained from that monarch a grant of land in Berwickshire as a reward for having killed a wild boar which greatly infested the Borders. It is certain that the family was originally settled at Gordon and Huntley in the shire of Berwick, and took a prominent part in Border warfare. Adam de Gordon, who fell at the battle of Halidon Hill in 1333, embraced the patriotic side in the War of Independence, and obtained from Robert Bruce a grant of the forfeited estate of David de Strathbolgie, earl of Athol; but the earl, having returned to his allegiance, was allowed to retain possession of his property. In 1376 John de Gordon, great-grandson of Adam, obtained from Robert II. a new charter of the lands of Strathbolgie, which had been once more and finally forfeited by David, earl of Athol, slain in the battle of Kilbane; and thus transferred the martial clan of the Gordons from the Borders to the Highlands. Sir John, who was a redoubtable warrior, famous for his exploits in Border warfare, ultimately fell at the battle of Otterburn in 1388. His eldest son and successor, Adam Gordon, was killed at Homildon in 1402. He left an only daughter, who married Alexander Seton, second son of Sir William Seton of Seton, who assumed the name of Gordon, carried on the line of the family, and was created Earl of Huntley in 1449. Alexander, third earl, commanded the left wing of the Scottish army at the fatal battle of Flodden, where his brother, Sir William Gordon of Gight, maternal ancestor of the poet Byron, was killed. His sister, Lady Catherine, the most beautiful and accomplished woman in Scotland, was bestowed in marriage by James IV. on the adventurer Perkin Warbeck. George, fourth earl, lord chancellor of Scotland, was one of the most powerful nobles in the kingdom during the reign of James V. and his unfortunate daughter Mary, and was possessed of almost regal influence in the northern counties. The earl was subsequently lord-lieutenant of all the country beyond the Forth. He was at one time the most influential of the Roman catholic nobles; but in 1560 he joined for a season the party of the reformers, though he failed to give them any material aid. His vast wealth and power were only equalled by his inordinate ambition; and his jealousy of the influence possessed by the earl of Moray, afterwards the regent, led him to engage in a rebellion, which terminated in his own violent death, and the temporary ruin of his family. He took up arms against Queen Mary in 1562, and was defeated and slain at the battle of Corrichie, near Aberdeen, by his rival the earl of Moray. He is said to have been suffocated through his extreme corpulency. His second son was executed. His own dead body was produced in parliament, when the doom of forfeiture was pronounced against him and his family, his immense estates were confiscated, and the powerful house of Gordon reduced at once to insignificance and beggary. His son George, fifth earl, who was also sentenced to be executed for treason, was pardoned by the queen, made lord chancellor in 1556, and ultimately obtained the restoration of his honours and estates as the reward of his consent to the divorce of his sister from the earl of Bothwell, in order to the marriage of that infamous baron with Queen Mary. Huntley was an accomplice in the murder of Darnley, and was a zealous partisan of the queen, whose cause, however, he ultimately abandoned. His son George, sixth earl, and first marquis of Huntley, was one of the most powerful noblemen in the kingdom, and for a number of years greatly disturbed the public tranquillity. Along with the earls of Crawford and Errol, he intrigued with the king of Spain and the pope for the overthrow of protestantism, and the restoration of the Romish faith. In 1589 he and his associates took up arms against the government, but were speedily overthrown, almost without a struggle. Huntley surrendered to the king, and was carried a prisoner to Edinburgh. He was tried and found guilty of treason, but was merely sentenced to imprisonment by James, with whom, in spite of his turbulence, he was a great favourite. The marquis, however, made a very ungrateful return for this leniency, for in a short time he renewed his treasonable intrigues with Spain, and was deeply implicated in the conspiracy called "the Spanish Blanks." He was in consequence excommunicated by the church, and after some delay, a sentence of treason and forfeiture was also passed against him in 1594. Huntley, however, took up arms in his own defence, and gave a bloody defeat to the earl of Argyll, the royal lieutenant, in the battle of Glenlivat. The king immediately marched against the audacious traitor; but Huntley, deserted by his followers, fled to Caithness, and thence to the continent; and James levelled his magnificent castle of Strathbogie to the ground. He returned secretly to Scotland in 1596, and in the following year was reconciled to the kirk on making a public renunciation of the popish faith. He speedily resumed his intrigues, however, and was once more excommunicated in 1609. This factious and unpatriotic noble was held in great dislike by the great body of the people, not merely on account of his religion and his intrigues with the jesuits, but also because of his connection with the murder of the "bonnie earl of Moray," the hereditary rival of his house. To the end of his life Huntley continued to disturb the public peace. In 1630 he was imprisoned in the castle of Edinburgh on account of some lawless proceedings in which he was implicated. He was shortly after released, but died at Dundee on his way home, in the seventy-fourth year of his age. His son George, second marquis, a weak but consistent man, was a zealous supporter of Charles I.; and in 1639 was taken prisoner by Montrose, and confined a year in the castle of Edinburgh. In 1644 Huntley again took up arms on behalf of the king, but was defeated, and compelled to seek refuge in the wilds of Caithness. He subsequently fell into the hands of the covenanters, by whom he was tried and condemned for treason. He was kept a prisoner for sixteen months, and ultimately executed in 1649. His eldest son, Lord Gordon, joined Montrose, and was killed at the battle of Alford. His second son. Lord Aboyne, who was also a zealous partisan of Montrose, died in exile in 1649. His third son, Lewis, was restored to the family titles and estates by Charles II. His son, who was created Duke of Gordon in 1684, served under Turenne at the battle of Strasburg, and at the Revolution of 1688 was governor of Edinburgh castle, which he continued to hold for some time in the interest of James. The Gordon family long retained their attachment to the Jacobite cause, and a part of the clan fought both at Sheriffmuir and Culloden. Jane, duchess of the fourth duke, was famous in her day as a zealous partisan of Pitt, and one of the leaders of fashionable society. She was a woman of strong mind, high spirits, and extraordinary tact, combined with much wit, but was rather free of speech. She was a successful match-maker, and secured no fewer than three dukes and a marquis as sons-in-law. The ducal title became extinct in 1836, on the death of her son George, fifth duke of Gordon, whose estates were inherited by his nephew, the duke of Richmond; but the marquisate of Huntley, and the earldoms of Aberdeen and Aboyne, still remain in the family. A junior branch of the house of Gordon long possessed the estate of Lochinvar in the stewartry of Kirkcudbright, and attained the dignity of Viscount Kenmure in 1663. They were devoted adherents of the Stewarts, and William, sixth viscount, was taken prisoner at Preston, and executed on Tower Hill for his share in the rebellion of 1715. The honours were restored by act of parliament in 1824, but have been dormant since the death of Adam, eleventh Viscount Kenmure, in 1847.
Another branch of the Gordon family has been ennobled under the title of Earl of Aberdeen.—Sir John Gordon, of Haddo, the first baronet of this line, was executed in 1644
