17/04/2023
WARLD'S END’s Jacobite Link
ON THE 270TH ANNIVERSARY of the BATTLE OF CULLODEN 16th April 1746 we highlight a local Jacobite connection.
In fact if it had not been been for the owner of this house the Rebellion might never have happened.
LINK WITH '45
THE Warld's End " building was the property of a robust Jacobite and was believed to have been a hiding place of Lord Pitsligo.
Before harbour improvements of the 19th century changed the face of' the foreshore, the sea came up quite near to its entrance.
A born fighter, the owner of "The Warld's End" was a famous Jacobite John Gordon, the laird of Glenbucket, Strathdon, whose family occupied it during the bathing season.
Gordon was a man a fiery disposition, a born fighter, and a staunch supporter of any cause he espoused. He was out in the "Fifteen," and it is said * that he was the man who went to Italy and induced the Pretender to come over and endeavour to set the Stuarts back on the throne.
Glenbucket was present and at the head of the Gordons in the victorious part of the Jacobite army at the Battle of Falkirk, and was all along conspicuous among the Highland leaders in that war.
After the battle of Culloden, 270 years ago today, on the 16th of April 1746 he was one of the few men of mark who escaped to France. It is said that his name was so formidable that George II used to start from his disturbed dreams in efforts to pronounce the name of Glenbucket, accompanied by exclamations of terror!
For his part the rebellion all Glenbucket's property, including "The Warld's End," was forfeited to the Crown. The latter was exposed for sale by public roup at the Cross of Edinburgh on July 2, 1766 and was purchased by a Charles Gordon, writer to the signet, for the sum of £38/1/1/3.
A copy the disposition in his favour was formerly in the possession of the late Provost Finlayson, Fraserburgh. And it should be noted that The Warld's End" property in those days comprised a large area of around now occupied by a part of Commerce Street, Dalrymple Street and Seaforth Street.
*In December 1736 Gordon sold his Glenbucket estate to Lord Braco for £700 and used the money to fund an expedition to the Stuart court in Rome in January 1738.
In Rome Gordon presented the exiled James with his ‘Memorial’, dated 17 January 1738, urging the Jacobite king to return to Scotland,with a “small foreign” force’ of 8,000 to 10,000 troops—promising that the Scots would rise.
Glenbucket was about seventy-two years old when, in August 1745, he met the James’s son the Young Pretender, Charles Edward Stuart, “Bonnie Prince Charlie” at Glenfinnan at the start of what became the 'Forty-Five rising.
