 While Jacobite agents continued in their attempts to recruit the disaffected, the most committed Jacobites were often linked by relatively small family networks, particularly in Scotland; Jacobite activities in areas like Perthshire and Aberdeenshire centred on a limited number of influential families heavily involved in 1715 and 1745.Some of the most powerful landowning families preserved their establishment loyalties, but maintained traditions of Stuart allegiance by 'permitting' younger sons to become involved in active Jacobitism; in 1745, Lewis Gordon was widely believed to be a proxy for his brother, the Duke of Gordon.Many Jacobite leaders were closely linked to each other and the exile community by marriage or blood.