THE MURRAYS OF ATHOLE.—(CONTINUED.)
JOHN MURRAY, first Marquis of Athole, .was for many years one of the most devoted friends of the Duke of Lauderdale. He supported him in all his measures, and with his relative, Sir Robert Murray, of Cockpool, were among those most in confidence with the Duke, until the influence of another Murray led ultimately to the complete estrangement of Lauderdale from all his former friends. Burnet accuses Athole of having in 1672 extorted in one week 1,9001. in fines from Nonconformists, when Lauderdale, in resentment at their not applying to him under the new Indulgence, had commenced a fresh campaign against his former co-religionists. Wirt' there was an attempt made to reconcile Argyll and Lauderdale, it was the influence of Athole (whose hatred of the Campbells and their chief was intense) that broke off the negotiation. Ho was sent by Lauderdale in 1672 to endeavour to persuade the Duke of Hamilton to remit his opposition to the Government, and Burnet, who was present at the interview, gives us a report of it which reflects little credit on Athole's patriotism. He assured Hamilton that there was a settled design to have no more Parliaments in England. The King would be master, and would be no longer curbed by a House of Commons. He also set forth the great advantages that Scotland, more particularly the great nobility, might find by striking in heartily with the King's designs, and in making him absolute in England. Although Hamilton expressed great repugnance to these ideas, yet with his usual irresolution he allowed himself ultimately to be persuaded into withdrawing for that session his opposition to the Government. Athole indeed seems to have been a not unskilful negotiator, and to have been a man of more ability than Lord Macaulay is willing to admit. Still his talent was for intrigue rather than decisive and prompt action, and he failed accordingly when the latter line of conduct became the most important. Burnet has some curious illustrative anecdotes of his conduct during this period. Thus when Car- stairs, the persecutor and informer against the Covenanters, who had quarrelled with Lauderdale, was endeavouring to curry favour with Hamilton, Kincardine, and Athole by proffering evidence against his former employer, it was Athole's adroitness which led to the final discrediting of that infamous man. He had pre- sented a paper to Athole, embodying his information against Lauderdale, but owing to Burnet's representation of the character of Carstairs himself his offer was slighted by the confederate Lords, and Burnet having informed the King of Carstairs' treachery, Lauderdale taxed him with it. Carstairs thereupon denied it all, but said that Hamilton and Kincardine had pressed him to make such an accusation. Athole on this sent for Car- stairs, charged him with all this double-dealing, and drew him near a closet where he had put two witnesses. Carstairs said that somebody had discoverd the matter to the Duke of Lauderdale, that he was now upon the point of making his fortune, and that if the Duke of Lauderdale grew to be his enemy he was undone. After the Marquis of Athole had thus drawn everything from him he went to the King with his two witnesses, and the paper that Car- stairs had formerly put into his hand. Carstairs was then with the King, and was with many imprecations justifying his charge against the two lords, but he was confounded when he saw Lord Athole. The last public act of Lauderdale's, in which Athole co-operated, was the quartering of a Highland army oa the western counties in 1678, when, as Burnet says, " the Marquis of Athole, to show his greatness, sent 2,400 men." Immedi- ately afterwards, however, he appeared at Court, in conjunction with Hamilton and the greater part of the Scottish nobility, complaining of Lauderdale's mad and oppressive measures. The influence which had interposed between Athole and Lauder- dale and broken off their friendship was, Burnet tells us, that of Elizabeth Murray, Countess of Dysart, and widow of Sir Lionel Tollemache, whom Lauderdale had married after the death of his first wife. This extraordinary woman was the daughter of Mr. William Murray, the confidential attend- ant of Charles I , who played an important but ambiguous part during the Civil War, and had been designated by the King to the earldom of Dysart. William Murray claimed a descent from Patrick Murray, the ancestor of the cadet house of Ochter- tyre. His eldest daughter and heiress, Elizabeth, who was recogr /used in the title of Countess of Dysart, was a woman of extra.; ordinary learning and power of wit, as well as of great beauty. "She had studied," says Burnet, " not only divinity and history, but mathematics and philosophy. She was violent in everything she set about—a violent friend, but a much more violent enemy, She had a restless ambition, lived at a vast expense, and was ravenously covetous, and would have stuck at nothing by which she might compass her ends. She had blemishes of another kind which she seemed to despise, and to take little care of the decencies of her sex. She had been early in a correspondence with Lord. Lauderdale that had given occasion to censure. When he was prisoner after Worcester fight she made him believe he was in great danger of his life, and that she saved it by her in- trigues with Cromwell, which was not a little taken notice of. Cromwell," continues the Bishop, " was certainly fond of her, and she took - care to entertain him in it, till he finding what was said upon it, broke it off." It is to be observed that Burnet's words do not support the charge of improper rela- tions between Cromwell and Lady Dysart, for he afterwards says that upon his hesitating to visit the latter, under the impression of her being in a wrong position with Lauderdale, he was satisfied by Sir Robert Murray assuring him " that there was nothing in that converse between them besides a vast fondness." No doubt Cram- well was much struck by her power of mind r ecommended•by such a personal appearance, and there was a half-intellectuak half-eenti7 mental flirtation between them, which was put an end to probably by the lady endeavouring to make capital out of it for herself by giving herself out as much more intimate. This woman, who had obtained complete ascendency over Lauderdale, at last broke off his friendship with Athole, and the Duke prevailing in the contest, Athole was deprived of the Justice-Generalship, though he retained his otheroffices, andoffieiated as President of the Parliamentof 1681. On Argyll's invasion in 1681 Athole, as his most determined enemy, and the nearest great proprietor, was invested with the command against him, and occupied Inverary Castle. On the defeat of the Earl Athole is accused of indulging his family resent- ment against the Campbells in a very disgraceful manner, executing them without trial and devastating the country. In the reign of James VII. (II. of England) he had the Order of the Thistle bestowed on him, in 1687, and was one of the secret committee in whom the administration was lodged. But on the success of the Revolution of '89 Athole changed his course, and being probably alarmed at the consequences if Argyll regained his power, paid his court to William of Orange at London. William, however, received him coldly, and Athole then turned again to the Jacobite party, who wanting a leader of social position on the desertion of the Duke of Hamilton, put Athole forward as their candidate for the presidency of the Convention of Estates at Edinburgh. He was defeated by a majority of forty votes, and he then entered into the plans of Dundee and the other Jacobites, according to which their section of the Convention was to secede to Stirling, and Athole offered to convoy them and protect them there with a large force of his Highlanders. But when the moment for action came, the old intriguer faltered, and at last asked for and obtained twenty-four hours' delay. Dundee would not acquiesce in this, but took horse, and so precipitated the crisis, and gave it quite another aspect. Athole remained inactive and irresolute, while the gallant Graham was raising the clans for King James, but at last he was called on to make his decision by the war gathering around his own estates. " The district," says Macaulay, " from which he took his title, and of which he might almost be called the sovereign, was in extent larger than an ordinary county, and was more fertile, more diligently cultivated, and more thickly peopled than the greater part of the Highlands. The men who followed his banner were supposed to be not less numerous than all the Macdonalds and Macleans united, and were in strength and courage inferior to no tribe in the mountains. But the clan had been made insignificant by the insignificance of the chief. The Marquis was the falsest, the most fickle, the most pusillanimous of mankind. Already in the short space of six months he had been several times a Jacobite and several times a Williamite. Both Jacobites and Williamites regarded him with contempt and distrust, which respect for his immense power pre- vented them from fully expressing. After repeatedly vowing fidelity to both parties and repeatedly betraying both, he began to think that he should best provide for his safety by abdicating the functions both of a peer and of a chieftain by absenting him- self both from the Parliament House at Edinburgh and from his castle in the mountains, and by quitting the country to which he was bound by every tie of duty and honour at the very crisis of her fate. While all Scotland was waiting with impatience and anxiety is which army his numerous retainers would be arrayed he stole away to England, settled himself at Bath, and pretended to drink the waters." Dundee vouchsafed no further notice of this proceeding than the following:—" Athole is gone to England— who did not know what to do." " His principality, left without a head, was divided against itself. The general leaning of the Athole men was towards King James," for they " were not likely to be pleased by the prospect of MacCallum More's restoration." One word from the Marquis would have sent 2,000 claymores to the Jacobite side. But that word he would not speak, and the con- sequence was that the conduct of his followers was as irresolute and inconsistent as his own. While they were waiting for some indi- cation of his wishes they were called to arms at once by two leaders, either of whom might with some show of reason claim to be con- sidered as the representative of the absent chief,—Lord Murray,* the Marquis's eldest son, who was married to a daughter of the Duke of Hamilton, anddeclared for King William :—Stewart of Ballenach or Ballochin, the Marquis's confidential agent, and a member of the old Stewart family, which possessed the Athole properties and dignities before they came by female descant to the Murray family, who declared for King James. The people knew not which summons to obey. The most important military post in Athole was BLAIR CASTLE. The house which now bears that name is not distin- guished by any striking peculiarity from other country seats of the aristocracy. The old building was a lofty tower of rude architecture, which commanded a vale watered by the Garry. The walls would have offered very little resistance to a battering- ram, but were quite strong enough to keep the herdsmen of the Grampians in awe. About five miles south of this stronghold the valley of the Garry contracts itself into the celebrated glen of Mr. Hill Burton says, Lord Jame; Murray, a younger son of the Marquis, bat this seems a mistake. Killiekrankie." " Ballenach, at the head of a body of vassals, who considered his as the representative of the Marquis, occupied Blair Castle " under a commission from Dundee. Murray, with 1,200 followers, appeare 1 before the walls, and demanded to be admitted into the mansion of his family. The garrison refused to open the gates. Messages were sent off by the besiegers to Edinburgh and by the besieged to Lochaber, and both Mackay and Dundee hastened to take measures for securing this important position. Dundee's forces were the first to reach the spot, and on their approach Lord Murray broke up the siege and retreated within the pass of Killiekrankie, where he was join31 S0311 after by Mackay and the Williamite forces, and the battle which ensued decided the fate of Scot- land. Dundee conquered, but Dundee also fell, and with him the cause of King James. Thus the irresolute character of Athole may be said to have been the proximate cause of the pacification of Scotland under the Revolution Government. The Marquis himself resided in `retirement (though not abstaining from intrigues with the exiled Court) till his death, May 6, 1703. He married Lady Amelia Sophia Stanley, third daughter of James, seventh Earl of Derby, who was beheaded at Bolton. Through this match the barony of Strange and the lordship of Marr afterwards came into the Athole family. His second son, Lord Charles Murray, was Lieutenant-Colonel of Gene- ral Dalzell's regiment of Dragoons, now the Scots Greys, in 1679, and Colonel in 1685, and Master of the Horse succes- sively to the Princess Anne and Mary o f Modena. On the 15th of August, 1686, he was created Earl of Dunmore, Vis- count Fincastle, and Lord Murray of Blair, Moulin, and 'fille- mot, and to the heirs male of his body. He was deprived of his offices at the Revolution, and in 1692 committed to prison with Middleton for plotting against William's Government. He was restored to Royal favour and his seat in Anne's reign, and was one of the Committee for examining the public accounts in 1701. He supported the Union, and died in 1710. His second son, William, who became ultimately third Earl of Dunmore, engaged in the Rebellion of '45, pleaded guilty to a charge of treason, and was pardoned by King George. His son, George, the fourth Earl of Dunmore, was Governor of New York and of Virginia, from which latter colony he was compelled to retire on board a ship of war in James River, and finally to quit the coast in August, 1776. He was afterwards Captain-General of the Bahamas. The seventh and present Earl, Charles Adolphus Murray, is a Lieu- tenant in the Scots Fusiliers ; sits in the House of Lords as Baron Dunmore, and is in politics a Conservative.
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