Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 1 Vol 4.djvu/50

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GORDON.

his 32d year, and was bur. in Elgin cathedral. Fun. entry in Lyon office. His widow m. (lic. from Fac. 25 March 1756), Staats Long Morris, at that time of New York in America, aged 25 and a bachelor, but afterwards a Gen. in the Army, Col. of the 61st Foot, and M.P. for Elgin boroughs, 1774-84. She d. 10 Dec. 1779, in London and was bur. in Elgin cathedral. Will pr. Feb. 1780.

IV. 1752.

4. ALEXANDER (GORDON), DUKE OF GORDON, &c. [S.], 1st s. and h., b. 18[O.S.] June 1743, at Gordon Castle; was styled Marquess of Huntly till, on 5 Aug. 1752, he suc. to the peerage [S.]; ed. at Harrow; entered the Army as Capt. of the 89th Foot (raised on his estate) in 1759, becoming, finally, 1793, Col. in the Army. REP. PEER [S.], 1761 till 1784, in which year, 2 July 1784, he was cr. BARON GORDON OF HUNTLEY, co. Gloucester,[1] and EARL OF NORWICH.[2] He had previously, 11 Jan. 1775, been cr. K.T. ; Keeper of the Great Seal [S.], 1794-1806, and again 1507-27; Lord Lieut. of co. Aberdeen, 1794-1808. By the death of his cousin, the suo jure Baroness Mordaunt, in 1819, he became (thro' his grandmother abovenamed) entitled to her peerage dignity as LORD MORDAUNT[3] and possibly also as LORD BEAUCHAMP.[4] He was F.R.S., 1784, &c. He m.[5] firstly, 23 Oct. 1767, at Ayton, co. Berwick, as also at Mr. Fordyce's house in Argyll street, Edinburgh, Jane, 2d da. of Sir William Maxwell, 3d Bart. [S.], by Magdalen, da. of William Blam, of Blair, co. Ayr. She who was b. 1748 at Hyndford's close, Edinburgh, formed for many years (1787-1801) a social centre for the Tory party.[6] Having been long bitterly estranged from her husband, she d. at Pulteney's hotel, Piccadilly, Midx., 14 April 1812, aged 63, and was bur. at Kinrara, co. Inverness. The Duke m. secondly, July 1820, at the Kirk of Fochabers, Jane Christie, of that place, by whom he previously had had four children. She d. s.p. legit. 17 June 1824. The Duke d. 17 June 1827, in Mount street, Berkeley square, in his 84th year.

V. 1827, to 1836.

5. GEORGE (GORDON), DUKE OF GORDON, &c. [S.], also EARL OF NORWICH, LORD MORDAUNT [possibly also LORD BEAUCHAMP] and BARON GORDON OF HUNTLEY, 1st s. and h., b. at Edinburgh, 2 Feb. 1770, being styled Marquess of Huntly till 1827; ed. at Eton and at St. John's Coll., Cambridge; cr. M.A., 1791; entered the Army in 1790, becoming, finally, 1819, General; was Col. of the 921 Foot (the Gordon Highlanders raised from his father's estates) in 1796; Col. of the 42d Foot, 1806; of the 1st Foot, 1820, and of the 3d Foot Guards, 1831, having served in Ireland during the rebellion in 1798; in Holland (where he was wounded) in 1799 and at Walcheren in 1809. He was M. P. for Eye, 1806 to 1807, being in that year, on 11 April 1807, sum. v.p., in his father's Barony, as Lord Gordon of Huntley, by writ directed "George Gordon of Huntley, co. Gloucester, Chevalier." Lord Lieut. of co. Aberdeen, 1808. 'G.C.B., 20 May 1820; Lord High

Constable [S.], for the coronation, 19 July 1821; suc. his father, in the Dukedom of

  1. ↑ (a) The village of Huntley, four miles from Newent, in Gloucestershire, had apparently no connection with the Gordon family or with the district of Huntly in north Britain.
  2. ↑ (b) His great grandmother, as mentioned in the text, was da. of the 1st Earl of Norwich, but tho' that title had become extinct in 1777 the representation thereof did not vest in the issue of that lady.
  3. ↑ (c) The Barony of Mordaunt, cr. by writ 1529, remained in that family till 1819, when the representation devolved on the heir of the body of Henrietta, wife of the 2d Duke of Gordon [S.], as in the text.
  4. ↑ (d) The representation of the Barony of Beauchamp [of Bletsoe], cr. by writ 1363, but which had remained dormant sicoe about 1412, devolved through the family of St. John and Howard to that of Mordaunt and thence to Gordon. See vol. i, p. 277 note "g."
  5. ↑ (e) "At the time of his marriage the Duke was reputed one of the handsomest men of his day and was described by Lord Kaimes as the greatest subject in Britain in regard not only of the extent of his rent roll but of the number of persons depending on his rule and protection." Stephen's "Nat. Biogr."
  6. ↑ (f) She is well described in Wraxall's "Memoirs." Her capacity for match making was unrivalled. Out of her five daughters three were married to Dukes (Richmond, Manchester, and Bedford), and one to a Marquess (Cornwallis.) Her portrait by Reynolds (1785) has been often engraved.
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