My Lady Marischall[323] is very kind to me, and her son also.
ABERDEEN, _June 17, 1637_.
[323] Lady Marischall, whose maiden name was Margaret Erskine, being the eldest daughter of John Erskine, seventh Earl of Mar, by Lady Margaret Stewart, daughter to Esme, Duke of Lennox, was the wife of William, sixth Earl of Marischall. In 1635 she became a widow, his Lordship having died on the 28th of October that year, aged about fifty. She had to him seven children, four sons and three daughters (Douglas' "Peerage").
Lady Marischall's son, whose kindness also Rutherford gratefully records, was William, who succeeded his father. He was a devoted adherent of Charles II.; and entering with zeal into the engagement in 1648 for the King's liberation, commanded a regiment of horse at the battle of Preston, where the Scottish army was routed by the English. When he and others of the King's friends, who had assembled at Alyth in 1650 for the support of the royal cause, were surprised by a large body of English horse, the Earl and some of his friends were sent prisoners to the Tower of London by sea, where he was kept for a long time. He died in 1670, at his house of Inverringie.
CCVII.--TO JOHN HENDERSON, _in Rusco_.
[He was probably tenant in the farm of Rusco, which is at the foot of the hill Castramont, a farm on the property of Gordon of Rusco.]