Red Beards and Razor Blades

The Disguise That Saved Alexander Gordon

In the annals of Covenanting resistance, few tales are as simultaneously desperate, comical, and heroic as that of Alexander Gordon’s unlikely escape in the town of Hamilton. Known as The Bull of Earlstoun, Gordon was a man of imposing stature and immense physical strength—a figure born to stand out. Yet in 1685, during the height of Scotland’s “Killing Times,” when men were hunted like wild animals for their religious convictions, the very traits that made Gordon fearsome became deadly liabilities. His salvation came not by sword or sermon, but through a razor, a plaid skirt, and the scandalous ingenuity of a soldier’s hostess.