James Gordon, 2nd Viscount Aboyne (c. 1620 – February 1649) was the second son of George Gordon, 2nd Marquess of Huntly, a Scottish royalist commander in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. Early life Aboyne was a member of the powerful Gordon family, who were notable for their Roman Catholic sympathies in a kingdom where supporters of the Protestant Reformation controlled the central government. Although there is little direct evidence for Aboyne's personal religious views, he was clearly opposed to extreme Protestantism, and he played a significant role in recruiting Catholics for the royalist cause. He was educated at King's College, Aberdeen, and earned youthful military experience in France, where his father commanded of the Garde Écossaise. Unusually for a younger son, James Gordon also inherited a peerage, becoming 2nd Viscount Aboyne in 1636. The Bishops' Wars In 1639, the First Bishops' War broke out, in which the Protestant faction known as the Covenanters attempted to seize control of church and state. The Covenanter army dispatched the dashing young James Graham, Earl of Montrose to deal with the Gordons. Viscount Aboyne was just nineteen, but he seems to have been regarded throughout the campaign as the effective leader of the anti-Covenanter forces, even before his father and elder brother surrendered. Later, he continued the war in spite of a lack of effective support from King Charles's royal government. The teenage general suffered two reverses in June 1639 at Megray Hill and Brig o' Dee, attributed to unsteady infantry and dissent between his officers, but his losses were light, and his cavalry performed credibly, remaining in the field until they learned that the king had made peace with the Covenanters. It is also worth noting that Aboyne's defence of Aberdeen at Brig o'Dee was so determined that the battle lasted two days (18 and 19 June) before Montrose finally dislodged him. In this short campaign, the Gordon cavalry anticipated the tactics of the English Civil War: they often moved as a mounted column without infantry support, and they usually charged with the sword, discovering how ineffective a pistol caracole could be at Megray. Unusually, it seems that Aboyne's elite troop of one hundred "gentleman volunteer cuirassiers" were clad in full armour, in contrast to the buff coats and breastplate now favored by most cavalry regiments. This was still sought-after equipment, as it gave protection against bullet and sword-thrusts, and in the