John Gordon, 11th Earl of Sutherland

John Gordon, 11th Earl of Sutherland (1525–1567) was a Scottish magnate. John Gordon supported the chief of his family, his cousin the Earl of Huntly against the Earl of Moray. After Huntly's defeat at Corrichie, he went into exile, and shortly after his return to Scotland he was murdered by a kinswoman.

John Gordon was the son of Janet Stewart, daughter of the Earl of Atholl and Alexander Gordon, Master of Sutherland, son of Elizabeth de Moravia (d.c. 1535) a sister of John de Moravia, 9th Earl of Sutherland, and Adam Gordon, a son of the Earl of Huntly (d. 17 March 1538). Elizabeth and Adam quashed a rival claimant to the earldom in 1518 at the Battle of Alltachuilain.

Alexander Gordon, Master of Sutherland, was made Earl of Sutherland in December 1527 when his mother the Countess Elizabeth resigned her rights. Alexander died in 1530, and Janet Stewart married Hugh Kennedy of Girvanmains, and subsequently, Henry Stewart, Lord Methven.

John, although still a minor, attended the Parliament of Scotland in December 1543 that rejected the Treaty of Greenwich. Some time after May 1544, John married Elizabeth Campbell, daughter of Colin Campbell, 3rd Earl of Argyll. She was the Countess of Moray, being the widow of James Stewart, Earl of Moray, who was a son of James IV of Scotland and Janet Kennedy.

On 4 May 1546 John was formally made the Earl of Sutherland. In the following year John commanded part of the rear guard at the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh.

Elizabeth Campbell, Countess of Moray died in 1547, and in 1548 John married Helenor Stewart, who had previously been married to William Hay, 6th Earl of Erroll, (d.1541). She was the daughter of John, Earl of Lennox, and her sister Elizabeth had a son with James V of Scotland, Adam Stewart, Prior of the Charterhouse at Perth.

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