FORBES, John 8th Lord Forbes ²

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John married Margaret GORDON, daughter of George GORDON 4th Earl of Huntly and Elizabeth KEITH Countess of Huntly, 21 February 1546(1547)(contract) married November 1558.^{1 2} The marriage ended in divorced 22 march 1573(1574). (Margaret GORDON was born 1542(1543) ¹ and died on 6 January 1606 in Ghent, Belgium ².)

  Marriage Notes:

"Of his (John Forbes') childhood and very early youth not much record remains, but before he was six years old, a contract was made in his name by his father (who had then succeeded to the title) for a marriage with one of the daughters of the hereditary enemy, George, 4th Earl o:f Huntly, 'the Cock o' the North.' The said contract provide that the Master of Forbes shall marry 'ane of my Lord Huntly's daughters now oncontractit,' viz., MargareT or Jane, who were then respectively three and two years old, the date of the contract being February, 1547-48. It is still at Castle Forbes, and is here given in full. The object of the proposed alliance was to endeavour to compose the age-long feud existing between the two families which had long striven for mastery in the county of Abercleen and had almost invariably (as they were to do in the future) embraced opposite sides in politics, and when the division between Catholic and reformed religion arose, opposite sides on that point also. As a result of the marriage and its consequences, the feud became ten times more bitter and a good deal of actual bloodshed occurred."

from House of Forbes




"He (John Forbes) married, first, in November 1558, Margaret, eldest daughter of George Gordon, fourth Earl of Huntly, to whom he had been contracted on 21 February 1547, and by her he had issue" (page 58)

"The marriage with Margaret Gordon is said to have been dissolved 24 June 1573, and she died at Ghent 1 January 1606. The epitaph on her monument gives the dates just quoted, but the date of the divorce is certainly wrong. It has been assumed, and frequently asserted, that Lord Forbes (then Master) repudiated his first wife on the ground of adultery, that he endeavoured to obtain a divorce for that reason, but that he failed, and that the divorce was at last obtained upon the ground of religious differences. Unhappily the sentence, still extant, refutes this theory, and narrates that while her husband was immured in Spynie Castle, Margaret Gordon associated intimately with Mr. Patrick Hepburn, parson of Kinnoir, at various periods specified, within the houses of Drumminor or Rinaloch, so much so that their intercourse was matter of 'public fame and common voice.' On this ground, after hearing evidence, and on this ground alone, decree was pronounced. The Master of Forbes was released after 23 February 1572-73, and the case was first called in the Commissary Court of Edinburgh on 28 July 1573, with sittings at intervals until 22 March 1573-74, the date of divorce." (page 59)

from Scots Peerage (vol 4) ^{1 2}

John next married Janet SETON, daughter of Sir Walter SETON 4th of Touch, Sheriff of Stirling and Elizabeth ERSKINE, before 15 July 1580.³ (Janet SETON was born about 1544, died on 2 February 1616 in Aberdeen, Scotland ^{2 3} and was buried in 1616 in Aberdeen, Scotland ².)

  Marriage Notes:

"Lord Forbes married, secondly, in 1580, Jonet, daughter of Walter Seton of Touch, widow of Sir John Bellenden of Auchnoull, who survived him, and died, 2 February 1616, at Aberdeen, where she was buried. They had two sons and one daughter"

from Scots Peerage (vol 4) ²