A Broad Swathe of Signatures

Thank you and a warm welcome to all who have signed on and to all who continue to share and promote our petition! Little by little, the word is spreading and with it, I hope, an awareness of Edmé Bouchardon’s iconic bust of Sir John as a precious link to our local and national histories.

From the Western Isles, from Brora, Dornoch, and Tain north of Invergordon, then through to Alness, Evanton, Dingwall, all round the Black Isle and on to Inverness, Aberdeen, as well, of course, as to Glasgow and Edinburgh; each signature is an important voice affirming our heritage and our responsibility to it.

How interesting too that we even have a few signatures from our Scottish diasporas in Canada, Northern Ireland, and France, as well as from England, with one signature from as far away as Hawaii, and still another from Thailand! But by far the majority are from Scotland and the Highlands and Islands especially. 

Sir John Gordon's Social and Political Place During Culloden

Sir John’s influence was an extension of his inherited embedded role in the social and political strata of the Highlands at the time. Did you know, for example, that he was brother-in-law to George MacKenzie, the 3rd Earl of Cromartie (to use the old spelling)? Sir John’s sister Isabel – the “Bonnie Bell” Gordon pictured above, thanks to the Kirkmichael Trust website - had married Lord Tarbat, as he was also called, in 1724. 

Sir John, a staunch Hanoverian, would seek to use his influence as an MP and later as Prince Frederick’s Secretary for Scotland to spare his in-laws from the perils of joining the Stuart cause. During the ’45 uprising, Sir John tried to dissuade the Earl and his son from joining the Jacobites, warning (see Dr. Jim MacKay’s essay for the excellent Kirkmichael Trust) that in such an exercise he saw “nothing … but ruin, destruction, and death attending the indiscretion". Indeed, Sir John's published Correspondence concerning Culloden allows us in on his specific perspective on the threat of Jacobitism and his efforts to support the government side.

However, the indomitable Lord Lovat held too much sway over the Earl of Cromartie who, “fascinated by the Prince”, as Malcolm Bulloch – the self-avowed Gordoniana historian - tells us, would raise about 400 men and, along with his 18 year-old son Lord MacLeod, march to join the second Jacobite army at Keith.

Lord Lovat would be the last man in Britain to be publicly beheaded. And interestingly, when he faced trial for treason in 1747, it would be Sir John’s brother Charles Hamilton Gordon who would act as his advocate. Bulloch confirms that, though there is no record of his graduation, the younger Gordon had indeed read law at Aberdeen University.

The Earl and his son themselves would be arrested and taken to the Tower of London, and Sir John’s correspondence shows the tenacity and eloquence of his pleas to spare their lives. These were no doubt helped by Bell’s own entreaties, given that she was very pregnant at the time. We learn from the superb Castle Leod website that “she was made of sterner stuff; she managed to get a Petition together and succeeded in presenting this to the King George II outside Kensington Palace chapel”. 

But Horace Walpole, the son of Sir Robert Walpole, offered another explanation for the MacLeods’ pardons. Bulloch quotes his declaration that the Prince of Wales saved Cromartie after the '45 in return for Sir William's (Sir John’s father) "coming out of his death-bed to vote for Sir Robert Walpole at the Chippenham election".

Whether it was ultimately down to Sir John’s own efforts, or indeed due in whole or in part to his sister Bell or his father Sir William, clearly, Sir John’s political angling as the fallout of Culloden unfolded more generally deserves further research. But at the very least, the combined narratives attest to the influence of the Gordons of Invergordon at a crucial historical moment for Scotland.

Bouchardon's bust of Sir John was sculpted just 17 years earlier. Rather than selling it off, does the Highland Council not have the heart, not to mention the duty, to acknowledge and respect this evidence of our material and cultural history?