Robert Gordon of Straloch, 1580-1661

Sir John Gordon of Botharie, Pitlurg and Kinmundie (d 1600), alias Gordon of Pitlurg, was the only son of John Gordon, who died at the Battle of Pinkie in 1547, and his wife, a daughter of James Ogilvie of Cullen. He was descended from the cadets of John Gordon of Essie, alias "Jock of Scurdarg" [Scurdargue, Rhynie], son of John Gordon (d 1394), from whose father the three main branches of Gordons in North of Scotland are descended ("Jock of Scurdarg", "Tam of Ruthven" and the ducal line of the Seton-Gordons, who became the Earls of Huntly).

A trusted friend and confidant of the Earls of Huntly, whose estates were forfeited after the Reformation, and a favourite of King James VI, he was appointed administrator in 1594 to Huntly's forfeited Castle of Strathbogie. He married Isabel, daughter of the seventh Lord Forbes, and had three children, a daughter, Barbara, who married the Honourable John Elphinstone of Wartle, third son of Alexander, fourth Lord Elphinstone, and two sons, John and Robert. Their eldest son, John Gordon, inherited Pitlurg after his father's death in 1600, but he died in 1619, without issue, and the estate passed to his brother Robert Gordon of Straloch (1580 - 1661).

Robert, who had received the estate of Straloch as a gift from his brother in 1609, was an academic, though with Jacobite sympathies and a talent for public affairs. He was an intimate political associate of George Gordon, 6th Earl and 1st Marquis of Huntly (1562 - 1636), and of his son, George Gordon, 2nd Marquis of Huntly (d 1649), by whom he was sent to treat with Montrose in March 1939. Educated in Aberdeen and Paris, he is best known as a geographer and antiquary, but was also an accomplished linguist, poet, musician and classical scholar. At the request of King Charles I, and assisted by his son, James Gordon, parson of Rothiemay, he undertook corrections to Timothy Pont's surveys of Scotland, which were subsequently published by John Blaeu of Amsterdam in 1654 in Blaeu's Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, sive Atlas Novus . He wrote a history of the family of Gordon, Origo et Progressus Familiae Illustrissimae Gordoniorum, and many other minor treatises on the history and antiquities of Scotland. He died in Paris 1661, aged 81, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Robert Gordon, one of seventeen children from his marriage to Catherine Irvine of Lynturk.

Robert (junior), who is believed to have served under Gustavus Adolphus, married a daughter of Sir Alexander Burnett of Leys (Crathes), and was succeeded by his son, also Robert Gordon, who died in 1680, leaving an only son, Alexander, to the guardianship of his great uncle and namesake, Alexander Gordon, the 'Tutor of Pitlurg.' Alexander, who sat as MP for Aberdeenshire in the first Union Parliament, suffered severe financial losses through his investment in the Mississippi scheme, and sold the estates of Pitlurg and Kinmundy in 1724. He died without issue, and was succeeded in the estate of Straloch by Dr James Gordon of Hilton, who married Barbara, daughter and heiress of Robert Cumming of Birness and Leask, in Buchan. Their eldest son, John Gordon Cumming married Mary Fullerton of Galary but died early, leaving two young sons, John and Thomas. The eldest son, John (b 1761) had a long minority, during which his guardians sold the estate of Straloch. He joined the army in 1779, and enjoyed a distinguished career abroad, returning to Scotland in the early nineteenth century, whereupon, in 1813 he gave the united estates of Birness and Leask the name Pitlurg in memoriam, and succeeded in 1815 to the estates of Dyce and Parkhill, left to him by his relative, Mr Skene of Dyce.

For further details see Margaret Gordon, John Gordon of Pitlurg and Parkhill (London: James Nisbet, 1885); The House of Gordon, ed. by John Malcolm Bulloch, 3 vols (Aberdeen: New Spalding Club, 1903 - 1912).; and The Miscellany of the Spalding Club, ed. by John Stuart, Vol. 1 (Aberdeen: Spalding Club, 1841).

From the guide to the Papers of the Gordon family of Pitlurg and Straloch (The Straloch papers), 1585 - 1665, (University of Aberdeen)