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LEITH, John 3rd of Harthill
(About 1575-1642) |
LEITH, John 3rd of Harthill 1 2
User ID: W727. John married Beatrix FRASER.1 (Beatrix FRASER was born about 1576.) Marriage Notes: "It also appears that the younger John was twice married: his first wife (perhaps Beatrix Fraser), bearing him a son, heir and namesake who was destined to a notoriety beyond that of any of his forebears; while by a later union, with Janet, daughter of William Gordon of Gight, he had at least five children .... " John next married Janet GORDON, daughter of William GORDON 5th of Gight and Isobel OCHTERLONY.2 3 (Janet GORDON was born about 1583.) Marriage Notes: "Janet. (daughter of William Gordon, 5th of Gight) The Balbithan MS. says that one of the fifth laird's daughters married a Leith of Harthill. Dr. Davidson in his Earldom of the Garioch notes that John Leith, second of Harthill, married as his second wife a Janet Gordon, whom I take to be Gight's daughter. Dr. Davidson further adds that Leith had by his first wife (Beatrice Fraser) a son John, third of Harthill, the notorious rebel who broke out of the Tolbooth of Aberdeen, July, 1640; and that it was his son Patrick who was executed as a rebel in Edinburgh, Oct. 26, 1647 ( at the age of twenty-five). Now Spalding (Troubles, ii., 392) speaks of this Patrick as the 'cousing' of Nathaniel Gordon. Hence I am inclined to believe that Gordon of Gight married John the third, not the second, laird of Harthill, as Dr. Davidson says. In any case, the Spalding reference makes it clear that Patrick Leith was descended from a Gight Gordon (whereas Dr. Davidson's statements make no relationship at all). She was either the mother or the grandmother of 'young Harthill,' who was hand-in-glove with Nathaniel Gordon, notably in the raid on the Aberdeen merchants at St. James' Fair, Elgin, July 24, 1644, and at the capture of Forbes of Craigievar's troopers at Inverurie on Sunday, Feb. 23, 1645." |
1 e-books, The Leiths of Harthill : the story of some turbulent lairds and a royalist martyr by F.L. Bickley (1937).
2 e-books, The House of Gordon vol. 1 ed. John Malcolm Bulloch (1903) Gight.
3 e-books, Records of the Sheriff Court of Aberdeenshire vol. 2 1598-1649 ed. David Littlejohn (1906).
4 e-books, Records of the Sheriff Court of Aberdeenshire vol. 3 1642-1660 ed. David Littlejohn (1907).
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