to Aberdeen, and on the 19th of March 1607 he was summoned before the privy council. Huntly thereupon went to England and appealed to James himself. He was excommunicated in 1608, and imprisoned in Stirling Castle till the 10th of December 1610, when he signed again the confession of faith. Accused of Romanist intrigues in 1616, he was ordered once more to subscribe the confession, which this time he refused to do; imprisoned at Edinburgh, he was liberated by James’s order on the 18th of June, and having joined the court in London was absolved from excommunication by Abbot, archbishop of Canterbury; which absolution, after some heartburnings at the archbishop’s interference, and after a further subscription to the confession by Huntly, was confirmed by the Kirk. At the accession of Charles I. Huntly lost much of his influence at court. He was deprived in 1630 of his heritable sheriffships of Aberdeen and Inverness. The same year a feud broke out between the Crichtons and Gordons, in the course of which Huntly’s second son, Lord Melgum, was burnt to death either by treachery or by accident, while being entertained in the house of James Crichton of Frendraught. For the ravaging of the lands of the Crichtons Huntly was held responsible, and having been summoned before the privy council in 1635 he was imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle from December till June 1636. He left his confinement with shattered health, and died at Dundee while on his journey to Strathbogie on the 13th of June 1636, after declaring himself a Roman Catholic.
George Gordon, 2nd marquess of Huntly (d. 1649), his eldest son by Lady Henrietta, daughter of the duke of Lennox, was brought up in England as a Protestant, and created earl of Enzie by James I. On succeeding to his father’s title his influence in Scotland was employed by the king to balance that of Argyll in the dealings with the Covenanters, but without success. In the civil war he distinguished himself as a royalist, and in 1647 was excepted from the general pardon; in March 1649, having been captured and given up, he was beheaded by order of the Scots parliament at Edinburgh. His fourth son Charles (d. 1681) was created earl of Aboyne in 1660; and the eldest son Lewis was proclaimed 3rd marquess of Huntly by Charles II. in 1651. But the attainder was not reversed by parliament till 1661.
George Gordon, 4th marquess (1643–1716), served under Turenne, and was created 1st duke of Gordon by Charles II. in 1684 (see Gordon). On the death of the 5th duke of Gordon in 1836 the title of 9th marquess of Huntly passed to his relative George Gordon (1761–1853), son and heir of the 4th earl of Aboyne; who in 1815 was made a peer of the United Kingdom as Baron Meldrum, his descendants being the 10th and 11th marquesses.
HUNTLY, a police burgh, burgh of barony and parish of
Aberdeenshire, Scotland, capital of the district of Strathbogie.
Pop. (1901) 4136. It lies at the confluence of the rivers Deveron
and Bogie, 41 m. N.W. of Aberdeen on the Great North of
Scotland Railway. It is a market town and the centre of a large
agricultural district, its chief industries including agricultural
implement-making, hosiery weaving, weaving of woollen cloth,
and the manufacture of lamps and boots. Huntly Castle, half a
mile to the north, now in ruins, was once a fortalice of the Comyns.
From them it passed in the 14th century to the Gordons, by
whom it was rebuilt. It was blown up in 1594, but was restored
in 1602. It gradually fell into disrepair, some of its stones being
utilized in the building of Huntly Lodge, the residence of the
widow of the “last” duke of Gordon, who (in 1840) founded the
adjoining Gordon schools to his memory. The Standing Stones
of Strathbogie in Market Square have offered a permanent
puzzle to antiquaries.
HUNTSMAN, BENJAMIN (1704–1776), English inventor and
steel-manufacturer, was born in Lincolnshire in 1704. His
parents were Germans. He started business as a clock, lock and
tool maker at Doncaster, and attained a considerable local
reputation for scientific knowledge and skilled workmanship.
He also practised surgery in an experimental fashion, and was
frequently consulted as an oculist. Finding that the bad quality
of the steel then available for his products seriously hampered
him, he began to experiment in steel-manufacture, first at
Doncaster, and subsequently at Handsworth, near Sheffield,
whither he removed in 1740 to secure cheaper fuel for his furnaces.
After several years’ trials he at last produced a satisfactory cast
steel, purer and harder than any steel then in use. The Sheffield
cutlery manufacturers, however, refused to buy it, on the ground
that it was too hard, and for a long time Huntsman exported his
whole output to France. The growing competition of imported
French cutlery made from Huntsman’s cast-steel at length
alarmed the Sheffield cutlers, who, after vainly endeavouring to
get the exportation of the steel prohibited by the British government,
were compelled in self-defence to use it. Huntsman had not
patented his process, and its secret was discovered by a Sheffield
ironfounder, who, according to a popular story, obtained admission
to Huntsman’s works in the disguise of a tramp.
Benjamin Huntsman died in 1776, his business being subsequently
greatly developed by his son, William Huntsman
(1733–1809).
See Smiles, Industrial Biography (1879).
HUNTSVILLE, a city and the county-seat of Madison county, Alabama, U.S.A., situated on a plain 10 m. N. of the Tennessee river, 18 m. from the northern boundary of the state, at an altitude of about 617 ft. Pop. (1900) 8068, of whom 3909 were of negro descent, (1910 census) 7611. There is a considerable suburban population. Huntsville is served by the Southern and the Nashville, Chattanooga & St Louis railways. The public square is on a high bluff (about 750 ft. above sea-level), at the base of which a large spring furnishes the city with water, and also forms a stream once used for floating boats, loaded with cotton, to the Tennessee river. The surrounding country has rich deposits of iron, coal and marble, and cotton, Indian corn and fruit are grown and shipped from Huntsville. Natural gas is found in the vicinity. The principal industry is the manufacture of cotton. The value of the city’s factory products increased from $692,340 in 1900 to $1,758,718 in 1905, or 154%. At Normal, about 312 m. N.E. of Huntsville, is the State Agricultural and Mechanical College for Negroes. Huntsville was founded in 1805 by John Hunt, a Virginian and a soldier in the War of Independence; in 1809 its name was changed to Twickenham, in memory of the home of the poet Alexander Pope, some of whose relatives were among the first settlers; but in 1811 the earlier name was restored, under which the town was incorporated by the Territorial Government, the first Alabama settlement to receive a charter. Huntsville was chartered as a city in 1844. Here, in 1819, met the convention that framed the first state constitution, and in 1820 the first state legislature. On the 11th of April 1862 Huntsville was seized by Federal troops, who were forced to retire in the following September, but secured permanent possession in July 1863.
HUNYADI, JÁNOS (c. 1387–1456), Hungarian statesman and warrior, was the son of Vojk, a Magyarized Vlach who married Elizabeth Morzsinay. He derived his family name from the small estate of Hunyad, which came into his father’s possession in 1409. The later epithet Corvinus, adopted by his son Matthias, was doubtless derived from another property, Piatra da Corvo or Raven’s Rock. He has sometimes been confounded with an elder brother who died fighting for Hungary about 1440. While still a youth, he entered the service of King Sigismund, who appreciated his qualities and borrowed money from him; he accompanied that monarch to Frankfort in his quest for the imperial crown in 1410; took part in the Hussite War in 1420, and in 1437 drove the Turks from Semendria. For these services he got numerous estates and a seat in the royal council. In 1438 King Albert II. made him ban of Szöreny, the district lying between the Aluta and the Danube, a most dangerous dignity entailing constant warfare with the Turks. On the sudden death of Albert in 1439, Hunyadi, feeling acutely that the situation demanded a warrior-king on the throne of St Stephen, lent the whole weight of his influence to the candidature of the young Polish king Wladislaus III. (1440), and thus came into collision with the powerful Cilleis, the chief supporters of Albert’s widow Elizabeth and her
