Tour Scotland short 4K travel clip, with Scottish music, of Kinrara House by the River Spey on ancestry, genealogy, family history visit near Aviemore in the Scottish Highlands. In 1799, Jane Gordon, Duchess of Gordon became depressed and ill. Her eldest son, George, the later George Gordon, 5th Duke of Gordon, had gone off to the wars, and she wrote in a letter to a friend: “ Oh where and oh where has my highland laddie gone? ” Her second son, Alexander, born 1785, died 1808, died at 23, and her Duke Of Gordon husband had moved his mistress, Jane Christie, into Gordon Castle and built a small house on the Spey, called Kinrara, for his estranged wife. Jane lived there for the next six years, continuing her entertaining and partying. Jane Gordon, Duchess of Gordon, née Maxwell; born in 1748, was a Scottish Tory political hostess. Together with her husband Alexander, 4th Duke of Gordon, and son George, Marquess of Huntly, the future 5th Duke of Gordon, she founded the Gordon Highlanders, a British Army infantry regiment which existed until 1994. Jane was the fourth child of Sir William Maxwell, 3rd Baronet of Monreith, and his wife, Magdalene Blair. She was born at Myrton Castle, the now ruined castle a short distance from Monreith House, the present seat of the family, which was not built until 50 years later. The Monreith Maxwells were closely related to the Maxwells at Caerlaverock, Earls of Nithsdale, who in the 17th century had been considered one of the most powerful families in Scotland. Additionally, their grandmother was the daughter of the 9th Earl of Eglinton, head of the great Ayrshire landowning family and distinguished Member of Parliament. In 1760, Sir William sold much of his 30,000-acre estate in order to pay debts. In Edinburgh, Jane lived together with her mother and her two sisters in Sir William's Edinburgh house: Shrub Hill on Leith Walk. They may have also rented a second-floor flat in Hyndford's Close near Royal Mile for events in town. Jane's family lived in humble circumstances in Edinburgh, where the children played in the streets. When Jane reached 16, it was said she was so strikingly beautiful that a song was written about her: " Bonnie Jennie of Monreith, the Flower of Galloway. " The object of her affections was a young officer who was probably a Fraser, a relative of Lord Lovat. Soon after they met, he left with his regiment, probably to go to America, and word later reached her that he had died. On 18 October 1767, Jane married the 24-year old Alexander Gordon, 4th Duke of Gordon. The young Duke lived in the Gordon townhouse almost opposite the Maxwells, and he had inherited a considerable fortune and the title at the age of nine. It was while they were on honeymoon at the Fordyce’s country seat, Ayton in Berwickshire, that she received a note from her former love, the young Fraser, very much alive, asking her to marry him. She is said to have read the note and fainted. However, she kept in touch with the young Fraser. For the next 20 years, the Duke and Duchess lived at Gordon Castle in Morayshire, Jane’s marriage had been more or less an arrangement from the beginning. The return from the dead of her first love during the honeymoon was an inauspicious start. The Duke having an illegitimate son by Jane Christie at the same time as his heir was born was an unfortunate sequence, to be followed by the birth of his illegitimate daughter a few years later. The Duke openly kept his mistress at Gordon Castle while the Duchess seems to have preferred assignations with her lover on the windswept moors. By 1805, the marriage was officially over, and the couple reached a financial agreement whereby the Duchess would be given a new house, capital payments, and generous annual payments. The Duke was by then in financial difficulties, however; he acknowledged his liability to the Duchess, but he did not pay all the monies legally due her. Jane was reduced to living in hotels, and she became increasingly eccentric. She was involved in an acrimonious dispute with her estranged husband over money, and she died in 1812 at Poultney’s Hotel, Piccadilly, London, surrounded by her four daughters and surviving son. Her body was taken north to be buried at the old Celtic Chapel by the banks of the Spey at Kinrara. Kinrara House was built in about 1804, possibly to designs by John Smith and later extended. In 1939, Sir Reginald Fairlie carried out further alterations for the Bilsland milling family, who bought the property in 1937. In the early 1920s, Kinrara was home to another formidable woman, Lucy, Lady Houston, who married the shipping magnate Sir Robert Houston; they lived as tax exiles in Jersey and frequently visited Kinrara. Of interest to folks with ancestry, genealogy or Scottish Family Roots in Scotland who may wish to visit one day. Find things to see and do in Scotland where you are always welcome.
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