The condition of parties in the north-eastern counties was not what it had been in the ’Fifteen. At that time the great lords of the counties had been Jacobite, whereas in 1745 most of the Aberdeenshire peers were supporters of the Government. None of them, however, took a prominent lead in the struggle. It is interesting to read the reasons given by the author of these Memoirs for the reticence of the Whig peers. The Duke of Gordon was prevented by indisposition. Lord Findlater’s sickly condition quite disabled him, and Lord Kintore’s incumbrances on his fortune were a drawback. Lord Forbes again had by no means an estate suited to his ability, while Lord Saltoun had no weight in the county. As for Lord Braco (afterwards Earl Fife), the newness of his family would have marred any project of his forming. The author considers, however, that something might have been expected of the Earl of Aberdeen.[63] These explanations carry no conviction, and there can be little doubt that, in the beginning, these Aberdeenshire lords were more or less sitting on the fence. Nor is this to be wondered at; family tradition and family connection would make them very chary of taking any prominent steps against the Jacobites. The Duke of Gordon, whose mother was a daughter of the Earl of Peterborough, had been brought up a Protestant and a Whig in defiance of the Catholic religion and Jacobite principles of his predecessors. Yet he must have had some sympathy with the family tradition. Early in September his father’s old factor, Gordon of Glenbucket, carried off horses and arms from Gordon Castle while the Duke was there, apparently with his connivance. Moreover, Sir Harry Innes of Innes in writing of this to his brother-in-law, Ludovick Grant, adds: ‘I am sory to tell yow that the Duke is quite wronge.’[64] By the end of November, however, he had pronounced for the Government. Lord Findlater was a Jacobite in the ’Fifteen, and had then been imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle. Lord Kintore’s father had fought at Sheriffmuir, and been deprived of his office of Knight-Marischal as a punishment. Lord Braco’s family was deeply concerned on the Jacobite side; his son-in-law, Sir William Gordon of Park, his brother-in-law, William Baird of Auchmedden, his nephew, a son of Duff of Hatton, were all ‘out,’ and his eldest son was only kept by force from joining the Jacobites.[65] Lord Aberdeen had only in March succeeded his father, who, it is known, had intended to join the Stuart cause.[66] Lord Forbes, whose traditions were Whig, and whose father was Lord-Lieutenant of the county in 1715, might have acted, but his family connections were nearly all Jacobite. He was the brother-in-law of Lord Pitsligo and Gordon of Park, while his three daughters were married to prominent Jacobites.[67]