Philip Rutherford, near the end of the 15th century, was the first Rutherford heir in 300 years, and perhaps longer, to die before his father; his eldest son Richard was the first head of the family to die without issue, and the present head of the family is descended from Philip’s younger brother Thomas.

The Rutherfords of Hunthill are descended from John Rutherford of Chatto, a younger son of Sir Richard. One of his sixth-generation descendants was Andrew, later Lord Rutherford and Earl of Teviot, who served in the French army in the first decades of Louis XIV’s long reign. He came to England with Charles II, who gave him a peerage, and brought with him his regiment, who became the 1st Royal Scots. Subsequently he was made Earl of Teviot as a reward for helping to negotiate the sale of Dunkirk (taken by Cromwell a few years earlier) to Louis: this gave Charles II a useful lump sum for which he did not have to answer to Parliament. Lord Teviot was appointed Governor of Tangier (which had become an English possession as part of Catherine of Braganza’s dowry) but was killed there by the Moors in a skirmish. Tangier was later abandoned as too expensive to defend and supply —a grave strategic error as it could have been used to keep the Barbary pirates bottled up in the Mediterranean and, together with Gibraltar (seized from Spain 20 years after Tangier was given up to the Moors), it would have given England complete control of the Straits.

The Hunthill branch of the family also included Major Andrew Rutherford, who fought with Claverhouse at Killiecrankie and later emigrated to France like many adherents of James VII and II (and the King himself). With the Scottish company he commanded, he served with distinction in the French army, notably at the capture of Rosas on the Costa Brava and in the defence of Alsace (conquered a few years earlier by Louis XIV and Turenne) against a German counter-attack. Major Rutherford and his men, wading breast-deep through the icy Rhine in December, recaptured a small island to which the Germans had already built a pontoon bridge, then held it against heavy odds until reinforcements arrived. Major Rutherford is not recorded as having been killed in the battle but probably died from wounds suffered there, as nothing more is heard of him.

An earlier Rutherford of Hunthill was the "Cock of Hunthill", also an ancestor of William Gladstone, who played a prominent part in the action at Redeswire, the last "official" battle between Scots and English, though there were several later affrays and raids. Nine of his sons also fought there, among them Richard, the "bauld Rutherford" who led the Jedburgh men as their Provost and who had a few years earlier presided over the "debagging" incident mentioned on p. 23.

Several Rutherfords of the Hundalee branch (descended from yet another son of Sir Richard) were provosts of Aberdeen. One of them, Alexander, held this office for nearly 20 years and was a noted Anglophobe. He made a speach against the Union of Crowns, first in Scots, which the English nobles could not understand, then in French, then in Latin, but avoiding speaking any English, except a few words whenever he ran out of Latin. This made a great impression on the scholarly King James, who disagreed with him but gave him a ring from his own finger as a token of appreciation. Provost Alexander Rutherford also had to put down a "sit-in" by the boys of Aberdeen Grammar School, who were armed with "hagbuttis, pistollis, swordis and lang wapynnis", organised as a protest against the suppression of Christmas celebrations by the Kirk.

An interesting document from the family history of the Rutherfords is their "peace treaty" with the Kerrs at Ancrum Spittal in 1560. Written in medieval Scots and difficult to read, it provides compensation of £500 to be paid by the Kerrs to George Rutherford of Longnewton, whose father had been killed not long before, and for Robert Kerr of Newhall to "offer his sword" to George Rutherford (and presumably get it back) "according to the practice and fashion of the country". Additionally several Kerr-Rutherford marriages were to be arranged, in some cases between unspecified young couples, when the girls were 12 and the boys reached an unspecified age of majority (probably 14 or 15). In one case the parties were named; Andrew Kerr (Robert’s son) and a daughter of Philip Rutherford of Edgerston. If Andrew died, his next available brother was to take his place; if the girl died, "another gentlewoman of that surname and blood". Some of the signatories were illiterate, so the notary "led their pens".

Not all the Rutherfords were soldiers, landowners or provosts: one of them was a naval captain at Trafalgar and several were professors of theology, medicine or science, among them Samuel Rutherford, D.D., one of the leading Covenanters’, Dr. John Rutherford, and his son Daniel. Sir Walter Scott’s uncle, who discovered nitrogen gas. As a young man in Paris, Dr. Daniel Rutherford refused to attend a party where Prince Charles Edward, by then an alcoholic and an overweight shadow of his former self, was expected to be present; though not a Jacobite, he had too much respect for the House of Stewart to witness the degradation into which they had sunk. He died suddenly, while stroking a cat, after attending his sister, Sir Walter Scott’s mother, who had gone down with "paralysis"; another sister died two days later and Mrs. Scott not long after.