Annotation:Marquis of Huntly's Welcome to the Royal Highlanders (The)
Back to Marquis of Huntly's Welcome to the Royal Highlanders (The)
MARQUIS OF HUNTLY'S WELCOME TO THE ROYAL HIGHLANDERS. Scottish, Strathspey. F Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AAB. The melody appears in Malcolm MacDonald's 3rd Collection (c. 1792), dedicated to Miss Drummond of Perth.
George Gordon (1770-18), the Marquis of Huntly (afterwards 5th Duke of Gordon), was appointed Captain of an independent company of Highlanders raised by himself at the age of twenty, in 1790. The company was assumed by the 42nd Regiment, or Royal Highlanders, the following year, and spent the next twelve months garrisoning Edinburgh Castle. His association with the Royal Highlanders was short-lived, however, for in 1793 he entered the 3rd Regiment of Foot Guards as Captain-lieutenant.
In 1793, when orders were issued by his Majesty to embody seven regiments of Scottish fancibles, the Duke of Gordon not only raised the Gordon Fencibles, but the Marquis made an offer to furnish the regimient for more extended service. Early in 1794 he accordingly received authority for this purpose, and so much did the family enter into the spirit of constitutional loyalty, that, besides the Marquis, both the Duke and Duchess of Gordon "recruited in their own person." The result of such canvassing was soon manifest; in the course of three months the requisite numbers were completed, and the corps embodied at Aberdeen on the 24th of June. As a matter of course the Marquis was appointed Lieutenant-colonel Commandant."
Source for notated version:
Printed sources: MacDonald (A Third Collection of Strathspey Reels), c. 1792; p. 3. Stewart-Robertson (The Athole Collection), 1884; p. 304.
Recorded sources: