Malcolm, thanks once again for the cool links in the previous thread. I recently learned the Burns version (which I like much better than the other) and tried looking up George Gordon in the only relevent reference I had lying around the house, which is "Mary, Queen of Scots" by Antonia Fraser. There was quite a bit in a chapter titled "The Fall of Huntly". The whole bunch of them were presented as a powerful and fairly obstreperous family. I couldn't find any mention of Sir Charlie Hay, but I'm guessing if we do enough research on the reign of James V or James VI, we might come up with something. The Scottish nobles of that period were forever doing each other in in complex feuds.