weakening position of the king in England. At the end of April 1646, King Charles decided that the best course was joining the Covenanters, and ordered his Scottish troops to lay down their arms. Outlaw and exile Huntly and Aboyne doubted the Covenanters' mercy, and with their cavalry, they withdrew into the Highlands to wage a guerilla war. They remained under arms until December 1647, when the Marquess was captured in a Covenanter raid. Aboyne escaped, but he had only a few troops left. Excluded from the general pardons issued to Scots royalists, he is said to have fled to France and died in exile in Paris around February 1649 - of a fever according to some, while others say he died of grief at the news of King Charles's beheading. Viscount Aboyne had never married, and his title thus became extinct, although the title of Earl of Aboyne was later revived for his younger brother. Since his elder brother's death at Alford, he had also been heir to the Marquessate (with the courtesy title Earl of Enzie, although this was rarely used); these dignities now passed to his younger brother, Lord Lewis Gordon. Bibliography The Complete Peerage, ed. G.E.C., s.nn. "Aboyne", "Huntly" (vol i. 52-53, vi. 681) The Scots Peerage, ed. Sir James Balfour Paul (9 vols, 1904–1914); s.nn. "Gordon, Viscount of Aboyne" and "Gordon, Marquis of Huntly", (vol. i. 101, iv. 545-9) Buchan, John, Montrose - A History (1928) Manganiello, Stephen C., The Concice Encyclopedia of the Revolutions and Wars of England, Scotland and Ireland, 1639-1660 (2004) Reid, Stuart, Scots Armies of the English Civil Wars (1999) Stevenson, David, "Gordon, George, second marquess of Huntly (c.1590–1649)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 19 Nov 2010 Stevenson, David, "Gordon, James, second Viscount Aboyne (d. 1649)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 19 Nov 2010 1620 births 1649 deaths Alumni of the University of Aberdeen Viscounts in the Peerage of Scotland 17th-century Scottish peers