Though Gregorie was not censured by the whole body of the clergy in 1642, as there seems little doubt Mr Cant had intended, he was not absolutely free from anxiety. No doubt life went smoothly enough with him at times, for he amassed quite a large fortune. The estates of Kinairdy and Netherdale were given to him on the insolvency of the Crichtons in satisfaction of £3,800 which he had lent to them; and his wife on her part had succeeded on her father’s death to a portion of the estates of Finzeach. The land brought its sorrow with it, and passed out of the hands of the family again, but that was afterwards. In 1649 John Gregorie was once more deposed, and for the last time. The Synod recommended that he should be reinstated, but he did not long survive this recommendation. He died in 1650, and was buried at Drumoak. Among the slaty monuments in the churchyard there is none that bears the name of John Gregorie. Two hundred and fifty years have obliterated what must once have been written, and the Dee is gaining ground from the graveyard at every time of spate. The old church stands and the manse, which has been turned into a farmhouse, but that is all. There is a memorial of John Gregorie and his wife in a mortification for the education and maintenance of ten poor orphans ‘within the said Burgh’ of Aberdeen. John Gregory left three sons, Alexander, who was served heir to his father’s very considerable property in 1651, David, known as David of Kinairdy, and James, the great professor of astronomy. His two daughters, Margaret and Janet, were both married, the latter to Thomas Thomson of Faichfield. Loving and generous, as no one who reads about Alexander Gregorie can doubt that he was, he would yet barely have been included in this book, if it had not been for his terrible death, which made the family estates fall into the hands of his younger brother. Kinairdy and Netherdale, which had been allotted by law to his father on the bankruptcy of the Crichtons, were too much favoured by their former possessors to be relinquished without disturbance into the hands of their rightful owners. The Crichtons harried Alexander Gregorie, and that so frequently, that he was obliged at last in 1660 to seek the shelter of the law. James, second Viscount Frendraught, took no notice of the summons to appear at court, and so was outlawed, but this sentence was remitted upon his giving security (in a bond of £40,000 Scots or £3,333, 6s. 8d. sterling) to keep the peace and to appear before the Privy Council to answer the charges made against him. Bonds such as this succeeded each other, till the final outbreak which occurred on the 7th of March 1664. Then with the shed blood of Alexander Gregorie came peace, but at what a cost. In the records of the Justiciary Court there is a description of the murder, which somehow belies its dusty origin, and sounds as if some old Aberdeenshire gossip were telling the tale with real enjoyment over her peat fire.