Born when his father was commander of the Garde Écossaise, he was named after Louis XIII of France, and brought up until the age of ten by his grandfather, George Gordon, 1st Marquess of Huntly.
When he was thirteen, the First Bishops' War broke out, and the young nobleman sneaked out of Gordon Castle (one account says he climbed over the wall) and hurried to the Highlands, where he raised a brigade of clansmen from his father's estates to fight the Covenanters.
He served on both sides in the Scottish Civil War, playing an important role in his father's occupation of Aberdeen in 1646, where he engaged an enemy cavalry commander in single combat and then storming the town.
He died aged 26 or 27, leaving a young widow (whom he had apparently converted to Catholicism), three daughters, and a four-year-old son who would eventually become the 1st Duke of Gordon.
[5] His reputation among historians has varied; he is the clearest hero in the Civil War narrative of his kinsman Patrick Gordon of Ruthven, while John Buchan regarded him as wild and headstrong to the point of insanity.