The able Scots family of Gregorie can trace its descent from the Macgregors of Roro, the younger branch of the Glenlyon family. The name Gregorie,—which is the Saxon form of M’Gregor—had, most fortunately for its owners, been assumed before 1603, the darkest time in the annals of that clan. The proscription which then fell upon everyone bearing the name of M’Gregor could not touch the Gregories; but the change of name, which saved them from the penalties that fell so heavily upon their Highland cousins could not and did not alter their natures, and all the Gregories, with perhaps the single exception of the Dean of Christ Church, were at heart M’Gregors. Nothing that civilisation, education, wealth and society could do to modify their disposition was able entirely to obliterate in them the warlike character of their Highland forefathers. We remember this, and when in the nineteenth century we see a learned professor of the Practice of Physic beating his fellow-professor in Edinburgh University quadrangle, we know that he was not really James Gregory but James M’Gregor.

The claim of the Gregories to recognition in Scottish biography does not rest on the outstanding genius of any individual member of the family, so much as on the number of great and brilliant men belonging to it, who have, in their day, formed and educated generations of the youth of Scotland. From the middle of the seventeenth century to the middle of the nineteenth century, with a gap of only a few years, some of the Gregorie connection were professing either mathematics or medicine in one or other of the Scottish universities. They were great teachers, lucid, clear-sighted and advanced in their views, and naturally leaders of men. Galton, in his book on Hereditary Genius, in which he ‘endeavoured to speak of none but the most illustrious names,’ cites the Gregories as a striking example of hereditary scientific gifts. He considers that the mathematical power came into the family with Janet Anderson, who married the Rev. John Gregorie, parish minister of Drumoak in the year 1621. From these two are descended no less than fourteen professors, and as there is no record of special power in the Gregorie family till we come to the sons of John Gregorie, it may be taken for granted that the ability came from the Andersons, who were distinguished in the foregoing generations.

Janet Anderson was the daughter of David Anderson of Finzeach, in Aberdeenshire; a man who was possessed of such universal talent that he was popularly called ‘Davie do a’ thing.’ Two of his deeds come down to posterity; the one, the building of St Nicholas steeple in Aberdeen, upon which he himself is said to have placed the weather-cock; and the other, the removal of a great boulder, called Knock Maitland, which lay in the entrance to Aberdeen harbour and endangered the passage of every ship sailing in or out. This he removed by placing chains under it at low tide, and fastening them to a huge raft, which at high tide lifted up the rock and carried it out to the open sea.

Janet Anderson’s near kinsman was the Professor of Mathematics in the University of Paris, and she herself was a great mathematician and is said to have taught her sons. If that was the case, one at least of her pupils did her great credit, for her younger son, James, lived to take a foremost place among the mathematicians of his day, and to be the inventor of the Gregorian Telescope.

In 1621, when the Rev. John Gregorie married Janet Anderson, he was the minister of Drumoak, a remote parish on the Dee, where in peaceful times he might have fulfilled his quiet duties with little to disturb him. Towards the end of the first half of the seventeenth century, however, Scotland was in a ferment, and in a state of civil and religious turmoil which made itself felt throughout the land. In Aberdeenshire, both the clergy and the laity were in sympathy rather with Laud and Prelacy than with Henderson and Presbytery. This brought them into violent collision with the party in power, and among the rural clergy there were few names more distasteful to the Covenanters than the name of John Gregorie. When therefore in 1639, the government sent an army to coerce refractory Aberdeenshire, he knew that he would receive no toleration and fled, meaning to join the king at Newcastle. The ship in which he tried to escape was boarded, and the fugitives were made to return, and in the following year Gregorie’s fears were realised, for General Monro, who was then stationed near Aberdeen on the outlook for rebels from the Covenant—especially rich ones—remembered the minister of Drumoak. Spalding tells us the pitiful story.

‘Upone the second day of Junij, Mr Johne Gregorie, minister at Dalmoak, wes brocht in to Munro be ane pairtie of soldiouris. He wes takin out of his naikit bed upone the nicht, and his hous pitifullie plunderit. He wes cloislie keepit in Skipper Andersonis hous haveing fyve muskiteris watching him day and nicht, sustenit upone his awin expensis. None, no nocht his awin wyfe could have privie conference of him, so straitlie wes he watchit. At last he is fynit to pay generall Major Munro 1000 merkis for his outstanding agains the covenant and syne gat libertie to go. Bot in the Generall Assemblie holdin in July, he wes nevertheless simpliciter deprivit, becaus he wold not subscryve the covenant; and when all wes done he is forst to yield, cum in and subscryve, as ye have hierafter.’

It was not till 1641 that, at St Andrews, the Laird of Drum’s petition for his restoration had effect; when in token of his reinstatement, Gregorie along with his rival, Mr Andrew Cant, was chosen to preach at the visitation of the Presbytery of Aberdeen. This fellowship with a man, whose qualities have been embalmed in his name, very nearly cost him the favour of the party to which he now belonged. Here again is Spalding’s account, naÏve and full of the spirit of the time.

‘Upone Tuysday 6^th September, Mr Johne Gregorie, minister at Dulmoak at the visitatioun of the Kirk of New Abirdene teichit most lernidlie upone the 4^th verss of the 2^nd chapdour to the Collosians, and reprehendit the order of our Kirk and new brocht in poyntes. Mr Andrew Cant, sitting besyde the reidar, as his use was, offendit at this doctrein, quicklie cloissit the reidaris buke, and laid down the glass befoir it wes run, thinking the minister sould the sooner mak an end; bot he beheld and preichit half ane hour longer nor the tyme. Sermon endit the bretheren convenis to their visitatioun, quhair Mr Andrew Cant impugnit this doctrein, desyring the said Mr Johne to put the samen in wreit, who answerit, he wold not only wreit bot print his preiching, if neid so requirit, and baid be all what he had teichit as orthodox doctrien. The bretheren hard all and had their owne opiniouns, and but ony more censure they disolvit, sumwhat perturbit with Cantis curiositie. Upone Thuirsday, he raillit out in his sermon aganes the said Mr Johne Gregorie’s doctrein, and on Sunday likwais. At last, be mediatioun of the toune’s balleis at a coup of wyne, they twa war satled with small credet to Cantis bussines.’

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.

‘It is of veritie that the said James, Viscount of Frendraught and the said James Crichtoun of Kinairdy, and Frances Crichtoun his sone, having unjustlie conceaved ane deidlie hatred and cruell malice against umq^le Mr Alex^r Gregorie of Netherdeall and the said Frances Crichtoun having upon the sevent day of March last by-past rancountered with the said Mr Alex^r Gregorie at the hous of Mr Alex^r Gairdine minister at Forge, the said Frances treacherouslie inveited and desyred the said Mr Alex^r to goe alongs with him from the said hous, which he fearing no harme did, and as they went alongs the said Frances Crichtone without any provocatione (of) foirthought, felony and precogitat malice drew his sword and rane at the said umq^le Mr Alex^r Gregorie thinking to have killed him at one thrust; but the said umq^le Mr Alex^r, everting the stroak and closing with him, not offering to doe him any prejudice at all, the said James Duffus drew his sword and stroke at the said umq^le Mr Alex^r whereat his horse running away and the said Frances mounting on his horse, he divers times ran upon the said umq^le Mr Alex^r and wounded him in his arme, whereupon the said umq^le Mr Alex^r yielded himself prisoner to the said Frances and delivered to him his sword being requyred be him sua to doe, hoping that his honour would therrupon have obliged him to have desisted from all furder trubling and assalting him, but upon the contrair the said Frances baislie and treacherouslie with the assistance of the said James Duffus his servant persewed him more eagerlie than befoir, fyred pistolls at him, gave him several wounds in his breast and head to the effusione of his blood in great quantitie and then caused him to mount up behind the said James Duffus and caryed him to the hous of George Morisone of Boignie, and putt him in ane chamber wherein the said James Viscount of Frendraught was lodged and then the said Frances Crichtone left him and upon the morne, being the last day of March last by past, about thrie hours in the morning, the said Frances Crichtone accompanied with Walter Henry, gairdiner at Frendraught, William Innes yr., George Mearns yr., Rob Tarres yr., James Howie, sone to Georg Howie in Tounslie, and the said James Duffus all in armes cam to the said hous of Boignie, where the said umq^le Mr Alex^r Gregorie was lying bleeding in his wounds, they and the said James Viscount of Frendraught and George Forbes his servant efter many baise and opprobious threatenings uttered be them against the said umq^le Mr Alex^r did most inhumanly and barbarouslie dragg him out of his bed as he was lying bleiding in his wounds, and that without cloak, hat, or shoves, or bootts, and did cast him overthwart ane hors, upon his breast, his head and armes hanging on the ane syd and his leggs on the other syd and so caryed him away in ane cold and stormy morneing to George Yong’s hous in Coanloch being ane obscure place and myles distant from the said hous of Boignie where they keiped him prisoner ... in his wounds be the space of threi days, tanquam in privato carcere; and then, deserting and leaving him, he was upon the threttein day of the said month by the help of some friends caryed to the burgh of Aberdeine, where he lay languishing of the said wounds and the bad usage which he had receaved of the foir-named persons, and then dyed of the samyne and sua was cruelly and unnaturally killed and murdered be them; of which murder under trust, at least slaughter committed upone precogitat malice and forethought felony, as also of the said usurpatione of His Majestie’s authority in takeing and apprehending unwarrantably ane frie leidge, the foirsaids persons and ilk ane of them, as also the said James Crichtoune of Kinairdie by whose instigation and hunding out the foirsaids crymes of slaughter upon foirthought felony and precogitat malice and usurpation of His Majestie’s authoritie were committed and are actors airt and pairt, and the samyne being found be ane assize they aught to be punyshed theirfor in their persons and goods to the terour and example of utheris to commit the lyk heirafter.’

Surely this was not a case for the King’s leniency; yet because Francis Crichtone was a Roman Catholic, and favoured by the Duke of York, a warrant came from His Majesty for the suspension of the trial of Francis Crichtone.

‘Compeired Mr George Mackenzie advocate, and produced ane letter from His Majestie directed to the Justice General and Justice depute whereof the tenor follows, Superscribed Charles R. Whereas we are informed that Alexander Gregorie did not die of the wounds alleged to have been given him by Frances Crichtone now prisoner at Edinburgh, these are to require you to suspend that criminal process against Frances Crichtone until we shall hear further concerning that business from our Privy Council at their next meeting in June, for which this shall be your warrand. Given at our Court at Whitehall the 13^th day of May 1664 and of our reign the 16^th year by His Majestie’s command.

‘To our right trustie and right well-beloved cousin and counselloure and to our trusty and well-beloved our Justice General or Justice Depute.’

James Crichtone of Kinairdy and Viscount Frendraught were acquitted at the trial, the assistants at the murder were ‘put to His Majestie’s horn, and all their goods forfeit.’ As for Francis Crichtone, the principal in this affair, having procured the postponement of his trial, he escaped from the Tolbooth Prison; and after another futile attempt on the part of the Gregories to secure a trial, he obtained a pardon under the Great Seal in 1682.