Leopold de Rothschild's colours on Brag in the Brighton Cup of 1883, and his last race the Park Stakes at Windsor in August 1884. He carried the most implicit confidence of all his employers, and was kind to young jockeys. It was said that he never attempted to take advantage of a youngster at the start.
Fordham was twice married: first to Miss Hyde of Lewes, who died in 1879; and secondly to her cousin, Miss Leith. After the loss of his first wife he went to reside at West Brighton, where an accident in riding produced a concussion of the brain. He was for weeks in a serious condition. At the close of 1884 Fordham left Brighton and returned to Slough, where he had previously lived, and he died there 12 Oct. 1887.
Fordham was devoted to his family. He was never known to give a vote for a parliamentary candidate in his life. He was extremely reticent on horse-racing, had a deep aversion to gambling of all kinds, and ever showed the greatest anxiety to keep his son from being in any way associated with the turf. His own career was scrupulously honourable.
[Times, Sportsman, and Morning Post, 13 Oct. 1887.]
FORDUN, JOHN (d. 1384?), is the writer upon whom Walter Bower [q. v.] based the earlier part of his great work, the 'Scotichronicon.' At the end of his chronicle Walter Bower claims for himself books vi-xvi., while to his predecessor he allows books i-v. (Scotichron. i. 1, ii. 513). Fordun wrote fifteen of the first twenty-three chapters of book vi. also (ib. i. 338), and the rest of Bower's work down to 1383 is very largely based upon Fordun's notes (Prolog. Scotichron. i. 1). Even in the first five books of the 'Scotichronicon ' there are, however, many passages [see Bower, Walter] interpolated by Bower.
The prefaces to the later redactions of the 'Scotichronicon' are our only authority for Fordun's life. He only once intimates his name by an acrostic (Fordun, p. 3; Scotichron. i. 3). The important manuscript of the 'Scotichronicon' in the British Museum (Royal Library, 13 EX), commonly known as the 'Black Book of Paisley' (a fifteenth-century manuscript), calls John de Fordun 'capellanus ecclesiæ Aberdonensis,' while the 'prologue' to the 'Scotichronicon' styles him 'dominus Joannes Fordoun, presbyter' (Skene, pref. p. xvii; Murray, pp. 2, 15). From these indications Mr. Skene has inferred that he was a 'chantrey priest' in the cathedral at Aberdeen (p. xiv). From the preface to another manuscript we learn that Edward 'Langschankes,' the tyrant, had carried off to England or burnt all the truly national records of the Scotch history. After their loss, 'a certain venerable' priest, Lord John Fordon, desired to repair the loss, and, after collecting in his own country, wandered like a 'curious bee' with his manuscript ('Codex Sinualis') in his breast, 'in prato Britanniæ et in oraculis Hiberniæ, per civitates et oppida, per universitates et collegia, per ecclesias et cœnobia, inter historicos conversans et inter chronographos perendinans' (Pref. to Book of Cupar; the Dublin MS. of Scotichron. ap. Skene, pp. 49, 50). This journey in quest of materials is calculated, from internal evidence, to have taken place between 1363 and 1384. In the prologue to the 'Scotichronicon' Bower tells us of a conversation in which a certain venerable doctor remarked that he could very well recollect this writer of whom the company made so much: 'He was an unlearned man (homo simplex), and not a graduate of any school' (Scotichron. i. 1). Mr. Murray suggests that the John Fordun whose name appears in the 'Exchequer Rolls of Scotland' as making certain payments on behalf of the burgesses of Perth in 1393-5 was the historian (Murray, pp. 2, 3; cf. Exchequer Rolls of Scotland, iii. 366). He also remarks that Fordun must have been the friend of Walter Wardlaw, the bishop of Glasgow and legatus a latere in Scotland, and, if a chantry-priest of Aberdeen, must likewise have known John Barbour [q. v.] (Murray, pp. 2, 3; cf. Fordun, bk. v. c. 50). Fordun probably died soon after 1384, the year in which his annals end.
Fordun's writings, as now preserved, consist of:
- 'Chronica Gentis Scotorum.'
- 'Gesta Annalia.'
Some manuscripts also include certain 'materials.' Of these materials a great part has been worked up into the later books of his 'Chronica;' the rest consist of documents relating to the 'controversy with England as to the independence of Scotland.' These 'Independence' documents appear in book vi. of the 'Chronica' as contained in the Wolfenbüttel MS., and before the 'Gesta Annalia.' In the Trinity Coll. Cambridge MS. they are found in the middle of the 'Gesta Annalia' at the year 1284. Of the 'Chronica Gentis Scotorum,' book i. is almost entirely mythical; book ii. continues the story of the Scots from their first king in Great Britain, Fergus, to the days of Maximus and Theodosius (c. 395 A.D.); book iii. extends to the days of Charles the Great (c. 814 A.D.); book iv. down to the reign of Macbeth (1057 a.d.); book v. from Malcolm Canmore's accession to the death of King David (1153 A.D.) The
