Alexander’s eldest son, John, born about 1525, succeeded his grandfather as eleventh earl. He was lieutenant of Moray in 1547 and 1548, and with George, Earl of Huntly, was selected to accompany the queen regent to France in September 1550.
On the charge of having engaged in the rebellion of the Earl of Huntly in 1562, the Earl of Sutherland was forfeited, 28th May 1563, when he retired to Flanders. He returned to Scotland in 1565, and his forfeiture was rescinded by act of parliament, 19th April 1567. He and his countess, who was then in a state of pregnancy, were poisoned at Helmsdale Castle by Isobel Sinclair, the wife of the earl’s uncle, Gilbert Gordon of Gartay, and the cousin of the Earl of Caithness, and died five days afterwards at Dunrobin Castle. This happened in July 1567, when the earl was in his 42d year.[235] Their only son, Alexander, master of Sutherland, then in his fifteenth year, fortunately escaped the same fate.
The eleventh earl, styled the good Earl John, was thrice married—1st, to Lady Elizabeth Campbell, only daughter of the third Earl of Argyll, relict of James, Earl of Moray, natural son of James IV.; 2dly, to Lady Helen Stewart, daughter of the third Earl of Lennox, relict of the fifth Earl of Errol; and 3dly, to Marion, eldest daughter of the fourth Lord Seton, relict of the fourth Earl of Menteith. This was the lady who was poisoned with him. He had issue by his second wife only—two sons and three daughters. John, the elder son, died an infant. Alexander, the younger, was the twelfth Earl of Sutherland.
Being under age when he succeeded to the earldom, the ward of this young nobleman was granted to his eldest sister, Lady Margaret Gordon, who committed it to the care of John, Earl of Athole. The latter sold the wardship to George, Earl of Caithness, the enemy of his house. Having by treachery got possession of the castle of Skibo, in which the young earl resided, he seized his person and carried him off to Caithness, where he forced him to marry his daughter, Lady Barbara Sinclair, a profligate woman of double his own age. When he attained his majority he divorced her. In 1569, he escaped from the Earl of Caithness, who had taken up his residence at Dunrobin Castle and formed a design upon his life.
In 1583 he obtained from the Earl of Huntly, the king’s lieutenant in the north, a grant of the superiority of Strathnaver, and of the heritable sheriffship of Sutherland and Strathnaver, which last was granted in lieu of the lordship of Aboyne. This grant was confirmed by his majesty in a charter under the great seal, by which Sutherland and Strathnaver were disjoined and dismembered from the sheriffdom of Inverness. The earl died at Dunrobin, 6th December 1594, in his 43d year. Having divorced Lady Barbara Sinclair in 1573, he married, secondly, Lady Jean Gordon, third daughter of the fourth Earl of Huntly, high-chancellor of Scotland, who had been previously married to the Earl of Bothwell, but repudiated to enable that ambitious and profligate nobleman to marry Queen Mary. She subsequently married Alexander Ogilvy of Boyne, whom she also survived. To the Earl of Sutherland she had, with two daughters, four sons—1. John, thirteenth earl; 2. Hon. Sir Alexander Gordon; 3. Hon. Adam Gordon; 4. Hon. Sir Robert Gordon of Gordonstoun, the historian of the family of Sutherland, created a baronet of Nova Scotia, being the first of that order, 28th May 1625.
John, thirteenth Earl of Sutherland, was born 20th July 1576. Many details concerning him will be found in the former part of this work. He died at Dornoch, 11th September 1615, aged 40. By his countess, Lady Anna Elphinston, he had, with two daughters, four sons, namely—1. Patrick, master of Sutherland, who died young; 2. John, fourteenth earl; 3. Hon. Adam Gordon, who entered the Swedish service, and was killed at the battle of Nordlingen, 27th August 1634, aged 22; 4. Hon. George Posthumus Gordon, born after his father’s death, 9th February 1616, a lieutenant-colonel in the army.
John, fourteenth Earl of Sutherland, born 4th March 1609, was only six years old when he succeeded his father, and during his minority his uncle, Sir Robert Gordon, was tutor of Sutherland. In this capacity the latter was much engaged in securing the peace of the country, so often broken by the lawless proceedings of the Earl of Caithness. By Sir Robert’s judicious management of the affairs of the house of Sutherland, his nephew, the earl, on attaining his majority, found the hostility of the enemy of his house, the Earl of Caithness, either neutralised, or rendered no longer dangerous. In 1637, the earl joined the supplicants against the service book, and on the breaking out of the civil war in the following year, espoused the liberal cause. In 1641 he was appointed by parliament a privy councillor for life, and in 1644 he was sent north with a commission for disarming malignants, as the royalists were called. In 1645 he was one of the committee of estates. The same year he joined General Hurry, with his retainers at Inverness, just immediately before the battle of Auldearn. In 1650 he accompanied General David Leslie when he was sent by the parliament against the royalists in the north.
On the Marquis of Montrose’s arrival in Caithness, the earl assembled all his countrymen to oppose his advance into Sutherland. Montrose, however, had secured the important pass of the Ord, and on his entering Sutherland, the earl, not conceiving himself strong enough to resist him, retired with about 300 men into Ross. In August of the same year, the earl set off to Edinburgh, with 1,000 men, to join the forces under General Leslie, collected to oppose Cromwell, but was too late for the battle of Dunbar, which was fought before his arrival. During the Protectorate of Cromwell the earl lived retired. He is commonly said to have died in 1663, but the portrait of John, who must be this earl, prefixed to Gordon’s history of the family (Ed. 1813) has upon it “Aetatis Suae 60: 1669.” This would seem to prove that he was then alive.
His son, George, fifteenth earl, died 4th March 1703, aged 70, and was buried at Holyrood-house, where a monument was erected to his memory. The son of this nobleman, John, sixteenth earl, married, when Lord Strathnaver, Helen, second daughter of William, Lord Cochrane, sister of the Viscountess Dundee. He was one of the sixteen representatives of the Scots peerage chosen in the last Scots parliament in 1707, and subsequently three times re-elected. His services in quelling the rebellion were acknowledged by George I., who, in June 1716, invested him with the order of the Thistle, and in the following September settled a pension of £1,200 per annum upon him. He figured conspicuously both as a statesman and a soldier, and obtained leave to add to his armorial bearings the double “tressure circum-fleur-de-lire,” to indicate his descent from the royal family of Bruce. His lordship died at London, 27th June 1733.
His son, William, Lord Strathnaver, predeceased his father 19th July 1720. He had five sons and two daughters. His two eldest sons died young. William, the third son, became seventeenth Earl of Sutherland. The elder daughter, the Hon. Helen Sutherland, was the wife of Sir James Colquhoun of Luss. The younger, the Hon. Janet Sutherland, married George Sinclair, Esq. of Ulbster, and was the mother of the celebrated Sir John Sinclair, baronet.