3-034-806 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Duff House, near Banff [in Scotland], the seat of the Earl of Fife, 1871. 'The eldest son and heir of the Earl of Fife, Alexander William George Duff, Viscount Macduff, having come of age last year, the event was celebrated with agreeable festivities at Duff House, near Banff, on Friday, the 10th November. That day was the young nobleman's twenty-second birthday; but the festival had been postponed from his twenty-first because of the lamented death of the Countess of Fife. This ancient family is descended in a direct line from the identical Macduff, the eighth hereditary Thane and first Earl of Fife, who contributed to the overthrow of the usurper Macbeth and to the accession of King Malcolm Canmore, in the middle of the eleventh century...The proceedings at Banff commenced with a dinner given by the tenantry of the Fife estates to Lord Macduff...Five hundred persons sat down to dinner...The health of Lord Macduff was proposed by Lord Kintore, and the young nobleman returned thanks in a sincere and straightforward speech...The dinner was followed by a display of fireworks and a ball given by Lord Fife...where nearly a thousand ladies and gentlemen were assembled'. From "Illustrated London News", 1871.