After Huntly's defeat at Corrichie, he went into exile, and shortly after his return to Scotland he was murdered by a kinswoman.
John, although still a minor, attended the Parliament of Scotland, in December 1543, which rejected the Treaty of Greenwich.
[3] In the Autumn of 1554 Mary of Guise paid for a ship, troops and a cannon to be used by John, 11th Earl of Sutherland and his step-brother Hugh Kennedy of Girvanmains to arrest Iye du Mackay, chief of the Clan Mackay, who had caused mischief in Sutherland.
[4] In September 1562, Mary, Queen of Scots and her half-brother James Stewart newly made Earl of Moray came north to Inverness and Aberdeen.
Their discussions with John's cousin the Earl of Huntly led to armed conflict.
After the battle of Corrichie, secret letters between John Gordon and the Earl of Huntly were discovered.
[5] In 1565 Queen Mary of Scotland restored the Earls of Huntly, Sutherland and others of the name Gordon who had been forfeited.
George Sinclair, 4th Earl of Caithness may have been behind the plot because he envied the Sutherland earldom.