national service in Australia.

The Gordons of Wardhouse, to whom he belongs, are descended (as the
curious will find set forth in detail in the genealogical table) from a
Churchman, Adam Gordon, Dean of Caithness (died 1528), younger son of the
first Earl of Huntly, and they have remained staunch to the Church of
Rome to this day: that indeed was one of the reasons for their sojourning
aboard. The Dean's son George (died 1575) acquired the lands of
Beldorney, Aberdeenshire, which gradually became frittered away by his
senior descendants, the seventh laird parting with the property to the
younger line in the person of Alexander Gordon, of Camdell, Banffshire,
in 1703, while his sons vanished to America, where they are untraceable.

From this point the fortunes of the families increase. Alexander's son
James, IX of Beldorney, bought the ancient estate of Kildrummy in 1731,
and Wardhouse came into his family through his marriage with Mary Gordon,
heiress thereof. This reinforcement of his Gordon blood was one of the
deciding causes of the strong Jacobitism of his son John, the tenth
laird, who fought at Culloden, which stopped his half Russian wife,
Margaret Smyth of Methven, the great grand-daughter of General Patrick
Gordon of Auchleuchries, in the act of embroidering for Prince Charles a
scarlet waistcoat, which came to the hammer at Aberdeen in 1898.

This Jacobite laird's brothers were the first to go abroad. One of them,
Gregory, appears to have entered the Dutch service; another, Charles, a
priest, was educated at Ratisbon; and a third, Robert, settled at Cadiz.
That was the first association of the Wardhouse Gordons with Spain, for,
though Robert died without issue, he seems to have settled one of his
nephews, Robert (son of his brother Cosmo, who had gone to Jamaica), and
another, James Arthur Gordon (who was son of the twelfth laird), at
Jerez.

But the sense of adventure was also strong on the family at home,
especially on Alexander, the eleventh laird, who was executed as a spy at
Brest in 1769. A peculiarly handsome youth, who succeeded to the estates
in 1760, he started life as an ensign in the 49th Foot in 1766. He
narrowly escaped being run through in a brawl at Edinburgh, and, taking a
hair of the dog that had nearly bitten him, he fatally pinked a butcher
in the city of Cork in 1767. He escaped to La Rochelle, and ultimately
got into touch with Lord Harcourt, our Ambassador in Paris. Harcourt sent
the