GORDON, HENRY [SSNE 6541]

Surname
GORDON
First name
HENRY
Title/rank
LIEUTENANT-COLONEL
Nationality
SCOT
Region
STRATHBOGIE, ABERDEENSHIRE
Social status
NOBILITY

Text source

Henry Gordon was the youngest son of the the 2nd Marquis of Huntly, who had been brought up in Paris before migrating to Poland in the 1650s along with his sister Catherine and their guardian Dr William Davidson. In late 1657, a letter from Colonel Alexander Durham noted that Major-General Thomas Rokeby was in command of all 'strangers' in the Polish army. He noted that Henry Gordon served as lieutenant-colonel to him while Durhame himself served as regimental major. The following year, Henry Gordon became the first of 13 Scottish soldiers who was granted the right of "indygenat" which allowed them to become Polish noblemen. By 1665 he took part in the civil war against John Casimir. He later returned to Scotland on the death of his brother Lewis, 3rd Marquis of Huntly.

Swedish Riksarkiv, Extranea 135: IX, 4, interciperade brev 1600-talet, II brev till Skotska officerare, Alex Durhame to Erskine, 24 October and 28 November 1657; R. Frost, "Scottish soldiers, Poland-Lithuania and the Thirty Years' War" in S. Murdoch ed. Scotland and the Thirty Years' War, 1618-1648 (Brill, 2001), p.211.

Service record

POLAND-LITHUANIA,
Arrived 1658-01-01, as LIEUTENANT-COLONEL
Capacity OFFICER, purpose MILITARY