3 Celts & Company • "GORDON" In the year 1040, Duncan I., King of Scotland, was defeated and slain near Elgin by Maclbeatha, Maormer of Moray (Shakespeare’s Macbeth) who certainly had some claim to the throne being a grandson of Malcolm II. The son of Duncan, Malcolm Canmore fled to England and was received at the Court of Edward the Confessor where he lived for some fifteen years. Risings took place against Maclbeatha, who incidentally was not the villain Shakespeare made him out to be, and one of the most powerful lords, Duff, Thane of Fife, went to England and persuaded Malcolm to make an effort to regain the throne. Edward the Confessor granted Malcolm the aid of some ten thousand men under Siefried, Earl of Northumberland, and with these and some French and Norman knights then at the English Court, Malcolm marched into Scotland. Eventually he met Maclbeatha at Lumphanan, some twenty miles west of Aberdeen, when the usurper was defeated and slain in 1057.
It was in this manner that the Gordons first came into Scotland for among the foreign knights who accompanied Malcolm was Adam de Gordun who, for his services in aiding Malcolm to regain the throne, was granted lands near the lower Tweed, and these lands were called Gordon after his name. We hear no more of Adam till 1093 when Malcolm Canmore invaded England and was defeated and killed near Alnwick. Among the slain was Adam who left a son - this Adam is mentioned in two charters of the Chartubary of Kelso.
The 'Gay Gordons,' also the name Huntly, had their Scottish origin in these Berwickshire lands of Gordon. Here, as a Norman family they became settled under David I, and retained estates for three centuries. Sir Adam de Gordon was one of the ambassadors who conveyed to the Pope that 1320 Declaration of National Independence, first of its kind. For this and other services, Bruce granted him land of the forfeited Cummings at Strathbogie in Aberdeenshire. From that centre the Gordons came to exert great power (their chief often called 'The Cock of the North'), and were much in feud with neighboring clans, quite often on the side of governmental stability. They founded in 1777 and 1794 the regiments that became the Gordon Highlanders.
Septs: ADAM, ADAMS, ADAMSON, ADDIE, ADDISON, ADIE, AITCHISON, AIKEN, AITKEN, ATKIN, ATKINS, ATKINSON, BARRIE, CONNON, CRAIG, CROMB, CROMBIE, CULLEN, DARG, DARGE, DORWARD, DUFF, DURWARD, EADIE, EDDIE, EDIE, EDISON, ESSLEMONT, GARDINER, GARDNER, GARIOCH, GARRICK, GARRIOCK, GEDDES, GERRIE, HUNTLY, JESSIMAN, JOPP, JUPP, LAING, LANG, LAURIE, LAWRIE, LENG, MARR, MAVER, MAVOR, MELDRUM, MILL, MILLS, MILN, MILNES, MOIR, MORE, MORRICE, MORRIS, MUIR, MYLNE, TOD, TODD, TROUP
"GORDON." Scots Kith and Kin and Illustrated Map Revised Second Edition. Edinburgh, SCOT: Clan House, c.1970. p.56,57. Print.
Gordon, Edward, of Cairnfield. "History of the House of Gordon." XVIII Vols. 1973. web.
keywords[x] tartan, wool, kilts, Gordon, clan, septs
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