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GEORGE, FIFTH EARL OF HUNTLY
(CONTINUED)—HUNTLY’S COMMUNICATIONS WITH QUEEN ELIZABETH—HIS DEATH—GEORGE,
SIXTH EARL.
THE Regent insisted that, as Huntly
and the Duke of Chatelherault were the chief persons then holding out,
they should be reduced to the King’s authority. In March he issued a
proclamation commanding the Crown vassals to
muster at Perth. The castle of Dumbarton was taken from
the Queen’s party on the 5th of April, 1571,
which weakened Mary’s adherents,
as Archbishop Hamilton was among the prisoners who surrendered. He was
tried, condemned, and executed on the 9th of April. He was the last of the
Roman Catholic Bishops of St. Andrews.
There was much skirmishing between the King’s and
Queen’s parties about Edinburgh, which had little result. Both parties
issued proclamations and counter-manifestoes; and the Regent Lennox
summoned a Parliament, which met at Stirling on the 25th of August. About
the same time the Queen’s party held their Parliament in Edinburgh, in
which sentences of forfeiture were passed against the Earl of Morton and
other leading men of the King’s party; while in the King’s Parliament Acts
were passed in favour of the Earl of Morton and Lord Lindsay, as a reward
for their resistance to the open enemies of the King, and also in favour
of those who had taken the Castle of Dumbarton from the enemy. While the
King’s party were thus mutually helping and congratulating each other, a
body of 300
of the Queen’s adherents, under the
command of the Earl of Huntly, Buccleuch, and Lord Hamilton, marched from
Edinburgh upon Stirling, and on the morning of the 4th of September
completely surprised them and slew the Regent Lennox. The consequences
would have been more serious if the citizens of Stirling had not come to
the rescue of the King’s party and saved them from being carried off
prisoners.
While Huntly was fighting for the
Queen in the south, his brother, Sir Adam Gordon of Auchindoun, held the
north for her. Unhappily the feud between the Gordons and the Forbeses
became intensified in this struggle. On the 17th of October,
1571, the two clans encountered each
other at Tullyangus, where the Forbeses were defeated, and lost 120
men. Afterwards the Master of Forbes and his
allies met the Gordons at the Crabstane, Aberdeen, and a furious conflict
ensued, in which many were slain, and the Master of Forbes and
200
of his men were taken prisoners.
Sir Adam Gordon continued his career
of warfare. In June, 1572,
he entered into the Mearns and surprised the Castle of Douglas of
Glenbervie, wasted his lands, and carried off his goods. Early on the
morning of the 5th July, at the head of 1600 men, he surprised the King’s
forces at Brechin, and took several of the leaders and 200
men prisoners. But, after haranguing
them about the wrongs inflicted upon his family through the death of his
father and the execution of his brother, he dismissed them. Gordon marched
to Montrose and imposed a ransom of £2000 and two tuns of wine upon the
town.
A truce between the King’s party and
the Queen’s adherents was agreed to at the end of July,
1572, to continue for two months. In the
following October the Regent Mar died, and the Earl of Morton was then
proclaimed Regent. Proposals were made to Huntly for his submission, which
he rejected; but on the 18th of December he agreed to a renewal of the
truce. He sent the Laird of Esslemont on a mission to France requesting
aid to continue the struggle. In the winter of 1573
Huntly seems to have seen that the struggle against the
King’s party was hopeless. Accordingly he resolved to make the best terms
he could for himself and his friends.
Huntly had an interview with the
Regent Morton at Aberdour on the 18th of February,
1573. A few days after an agreement was
concluded, under which Huntly and the Hamiltons were to receive a
remission, for past offences and the murders of the late Regents, a
discharge for all the damage done by them during the late troubles; and
they were also to be secured in their estates and titles. The Master of
Forbes and John Glen of Bar, who had been taken prisoners by Sir Adam
Gordon, were to be immediately liberated. Huntly was to discharge his
armed men, and the forfeiture standing against him was to be reduced.
The Earl of Huntly became a firm
supporter of the policy of the Regent Morton, and often corresponded with
Queen Elizabeth and her Ministers. Towards the end of April,
1573,
the sentence of forfeiture pronounced against him was
reduced by Parliament.
In June,
1574, Huntly wrote from Leith to Queen
Elizabeth, and earnestly assured her that all the reports circulated
against him were quite unfounded. Yet suspicion was so strong that, on the
11th of July, Alexander Seton,
younger of Meldrum; Patrick Cheyne of Esslemont; and Alexander Drummond of
Medhope, became sureties for him that he should enter the district of
Galloway before the 22nd inst., and stay there until liberated. On the
30th of July the Earl wrote a long letter to Queen Elizabeth, assuring her
that there was no cause for offence in his behaviour, seeing that his
brother Sir Adam was in France, and for his actions there he was not
responsible. Moreover, he trusted that his brother was innocent of the
charges alleged against him.
The Earl returned from Galloway to
Hamilton in September; and in November he gave surety to the Lords of the
Privy Council that he would return to ward when required. On the 25th of
July, 1575, Sir Adam Gordon
returned from France to Scotland, with twenty of his companions. He was
immediately seized, and imprisoned in Blackness Castle. In January, 1576,
he was released, on the Earl of
Huntly becoming surety, for the relief of his cautioners—Hugh, Earl of
Eglinton, Lord Elphinstone, and others—that he would enter into ward in
the town of Kirkcudbright.
On the morning of the
24th
of October, 1576, the Earl was in good health. In the afternoon, he went
out to play a game of football, and, after kicking the ball once or twice,
he fell upon his face. He was immediately conveyed to his room in
Strathbogie Castle, where he died three hours later. His body was embalmed
by William Urquhart a surgeon from Aberdeen, and, after lying a few days
in the castle chapel, was interred in Elgin Cathedral.
By Lady Anna Hamilton, his countess,
he had three sons and one daughter. These were—George, who succeeded him;
Alexander of Stradoun; William, who became a monk of the Order of St
Bennet, and died in France; and Jean, who married George, fifth Earl of
Caithness.
During the minority of George, sixth
Earl of Huntly, his uncle, Sir Adam Gordon of Auchindoun, managed his
affairs, and sent him to France to complete his education.
The latter part of the sixteenth
century was remarkable for bitter feuds amongst the Scottish nobility,
which sprang from many causes and circumstances. The sad feud between the
Gordons and the Forbeses broke out afresh in
1579,
owing to contentious expressions between George Gordon
of Gight and Alexander Forbes, younger of Towie, uttered in the King’s
presence. There was, however, a more tangible cause of quarrel between the
two families— the possession of the lands in the Barony of Keig and
Monymusk, granted to the fourth Earl of Huntly by Cardinal Beaton. The
Forbeses maintained and complained that these lands were granted to Huntly
over their heads, as they were "the old kindly tenants and possessors";
but now the Earl endeavoured to have them removed, which in the
circumstances they resisted. The interference of the authorities was
disregarded for some time. The Laird of Gight was slain, and a party of
the Gordons rose up in arms to avenge his death; and there were forays and
bloodshed from the valley of the Dee to Strathbogie. For a time the Gordon
lairds and the Forbes lairds mustered their retainers, and the struggle
proceeded until the Privy Council ordered the chiefs of both parties to
sign such assurances as should be presented to them within twenty-four
hours, under the penalty of rebellion. They were commanded to appear in
Edinburgh, accompanied by forty of their retainers, to settle the terms of
an agreement, on the 23rd of April, 1580; and they then made a submission,
by which they became bound to abide by the decision of the Privy Council.
The same year, on the 24th of
October, the Earl of Huntly gave a bond to the Laird of Grant, in which he
promised that the remission he was to obtain from the King for Lachlan
Mackintosh of Dunachton should not take effect until Lachlan desisted from
disturbing Grant in the possession of Rothiemurchus, Laggan, and Dalfour
in Badenoch.
Huntly took an active part in the
suppression of the abortive rising of the Earls of Mar, Angus, Gowrie, and
others in the spring of 1584. He was one of the jury at the trial of the
Earl of Gowrie. This year he obtained bonds of manrent from Mackenzie of
Kintail, Monro of Foulis, Macleod of Lewis, Macdonald of Glengarry,
Macgregor of Glenstrae, and Drummond of Blair.
In 1585 the Earl was engaged in
settling difficulties which had arisen between his kinsmen the Earls of
Sutherland and Caithness. He entered into a lawsuit with the Countess of
Moray and Argyle, which involved him in serious trouble. The following
year, in November, Huntly, through his friendly relations with the
Drummonds of Blair and the Menzies of Weem, came into conflict with the
Earl of Athole. He declined to make peace with Athole until the latter
gave assurance that he would cease from assisting the forays made upon the
lands of Drummond and Menzies. Huntly arrested some of Athole’s servants,
and tried them before his own courts, which resulted in Athole’s tenants
being exempted from Huntly’s jurisdiction.
In 1587 Huntly received, for his
good services, a grant of the lands of the Abbey of Dunfermline from the
King. He was also appointed High Chamberlain of Scotland. Huntly was
present at the meeting of the Estates in May; and on the 15th of May he
attended the great banquet at which King James attempted to reconcile many
of his nobles who were at feud with each other.
An extraordinary meeting of the
General Assembly was held at Edinburgh in February, 1588, for the purpose
of. arousing the nation to a sense of danger from the threatening Spanish
Armada. The alarming character of the crisis had attracted a great
assemblage of members who were animated by one spirit. They drew up an
extremely dark picture of the state of the kingdom. Strong complaints
against Jesuits and seminary priests, who were permitted to seduce the
people and spread their poisonous doctrine, was made in the Assembly. In
the north, where the Earl of Huntly was supreme, the Reformed religion had
taken comparatively little hold upon the people.
James Gordon, a celebrated Jesuit,
and an uncle of the Earl of Huntly, was living at Strathbogie. In
February, 1588, he accompanied Huntly to the Court, and was introduced to
the king. James VI. considered himself a great authority on religious and
theological subjects, and he conversed with the famous Jesuit for some
time, and then ordered him into confinement. Shortly after Huntly, Lord
Claud Hamilton, and others met at Linlithgow to concert measures in the
interest of the Roman Catholics in Scotland. The King, on hearing of this
meeting, asked an explanation, and Huntly protested that he and his
associates had no intention of forming a conspiracy. Huntly soon returned
to Edinburgh, and slept in Holyrood Palace. |
