Catherine Gordon, Duchess of Gordon
Catherine Gordon, Duchess of Gordon (20 October 1718 – 10 December 1779) was the wife of Cosmo George Gordon, 3rd Duke of Gordon, and the mother of the 4th Duke. After the duke's death, she married General Staats Long Morris.
Lady Catherine was born at Haddo,[1] the daughter of William Gordon, 2nd Earl of Aberdeen, and his wife, the former Lady Susan Murray.[2] She married the Duke of Gordon, to whom she was distantly related, on 3 September 1741 at Dunkeld.[3]
In 1754, Horace Walpole described the duchess as looking "like a raw-boned Scottish metaphysician that has got a red face by drinking water", and implied that she had made advances to Stanisław August Poniatowski (the future King of Poland).[4]
Their children were:
- Lady Susan Gordon (died 1814), who married twice: she had children by her first husband, John Fane, 9th Earl of Westmorland, and none by her second husband, Lt.-Col. John Woodford.
- Alexander Gordon, 4th Duke of Gordon (1743-1827), who married Jane Maxwell and had children
- Lord William Gordon (1744-1823), who married Hon. Frances Ingram-Shepheard and had one daughter
- Lady Anne Gordon (1748-?), who married Reverend Alexander Chalmers[5]
- Lady Catharine Gordon (1751-?), who married Thomas Booker[5][6]
- Lord George Gordon (1751-1793), who died unmarried
The Duke of Gordon died in 1752. In March 1756, the widowed duchess married Staats Long Morris, an American soldier who had become a British MP.[7] In 1759, Catherine decided to raise a new regiment as a career opportunity for her second husband, but they were posted to India. She later went with him to America, where they travelled widely in 1768-9. They then returned to Scotland and set up home at Huntly Lodge. Morris became MP for Elgin Burghs in 1774, largely due to the influence of his stepson, the new Duke of Gordon.[8]
References
- ↑ George Naylor, The Register's of Thorrington (n.n.: n.n., 1888). Hereinafter cited as Registers of Thorrington.
- ↑ Mosley, Charles, editor. Burke's Peerage and Baronetage, 106th edition, 2 volumes. Crans, Switzerland: Burke's Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd, 1999. Page 10.
- ↑ G.E. Cokayne; with Vicary Gibbs, H.A. Doubleday, Geoffrey H. White, Duncan Warrand and Lord Howard de Walden, editors, The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct or Dormant, new ed., 13 volumes in 14 (1910-1959; reprint in 6 volumes, Gloucester, U.K.: Alan Sutton Publishing, 2000), volume VI, page 4.
- ↑ Horace Walpole; Peter Cunningham (1857). The letters of Horace Walpole, earl of Orford. R. Bentley. pp. 383–.
- 1 2 John Debrett (1790). The Peerage of England, Scotland, and Ireland: Or, the Ancient and Present State of the Nobility. ... In Three Volumes. W. Owen; L. Davis; and J. Debrett. pp. 16–.
- ↑ Daniel Lysons, The Environs of London: volume 3, County of Middlesex (n.n.: n.n., 1795), page 404-417.
- ↑ John Burke (1838). A genealogical and heraldic history of the commoners of Great Britain and Ireland. 4. Colburn.
- ↑ "MORRIS, Staats Long (1728-1800), of Huntly Lodge and Knaperna, Aberdeen". History of Parliament Online. Retrieved 12 October 2018.