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History?
editHow long has the name Gordon been applied to this part of the country? And which came first: the family or the geographical designation? Please see:
We could do with explaining the history of the area, because it is so much more than simply a transient unit of local govt. --Mais oui! 01:40, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
- Hi sorry guys, another South v. North win on this one surely(see-Clan Keith and Keith Marischal, another great North-Eastern house that took its original landholding as a surname and proceeded to apply that to another site). The progenitor of the Gordons would appear to be another Norman adventurer that arrived in Scotland and obtained lands around Gordon in the present day Berwickshire, soon after the invasion of England in 1066, or later during David I's 'Normanisation'. His descendant from the Merse, Adam, Lord Gordon was given the lands of Strathbogie for backing the right horse in the War of Independence. He named his new residence and the surrounding area Huntly after a hamlet on his lands in the Merse. His descendants obtained the title Earl of Huntly. "The Cock of the North" described later Gordon chiefs, they acted as autonomous princes in the region, and it is from those newly assimilated Gaelic Chiefs surname, that that part of the North-East takes its name.