WILLIAM MURRAY, MARQUIS OF TULLIBARDINE.
Among the nobility who hastened to the hunting-field of Braemar, was William Marquis of Tullibardine and eldest son of the first Duke of Athole.
The origin of the powerful family of Murray commences with Sir William De Moraira, who was Sheriff in Perth in 1222, in the beginning of the reign of King Alexander the Second. The lands of Tullibardine were obtained by the Knight in 1282, by his marriage with Adda, the daughter of Malise, Seneschal of Stratherio. After the death of William De Moraira, the name of this famous house merged into that of Murray, and its chieftains were for several centuries known by the appellation of Murray of Tullibardine. It was not until the seventeenth century that the family of Murray was ennobled, when James the Sixth created Sir John Murray Earl of Tullibardine.
The unfortunate subject of this memoir was the son of one of the most zealous promoters of the Revolution of 1688. His father, nearly connected in blood with William the Third, was appointed to the command of a regiment by that Monarch, and entrusted with several posts of great importance, which he retained in the time of Queen Anne, until a plot was formed to ruin him by Lord Lovat, who endeavoured to implicate the Duke in the affair commonly known by the name of the Queensbury plot. The Duke of Athole courted inquiry upon that occasion; but the business having been dropped without investigation, he resigned the office of Privy Seal, which he then held, and became a warm opponent of the Act of Union which was introduced into Parliament in 1705.
After this event the Duke of Athole retired to Perthshire, and there lived in great magnificence until, upon the Tories coming into power, he was chosen one of the representatives of the Scottish peerage in 1710, and afterwards a second time constituted Lord Privy Seal.
It is singular that, beholding his father thus cherished by Government, the Marquis of Tullibardine should have adopted the cause of the Chevalier: and not, as it appears, from a momentary caprice, but, if we take into consideration the conduct of his whole life, from a fixed and unalienable conviction. At the time of the first Rebellion, the Marquis was twenty-seven years of age; he may therefore be presumed to have been mature in judgment, and to have passed over the age of wild enthusiasm. The impulses of fanaticism had no influence in promoting the adoption of a party to which an Episcopalian as well as a Roman Catholic might probably be peculiarly disposed. Lord Tullibardine had been brought up a Presbyterian; his father was so firm and zealous in that faith, as to excite the doubts of the Tory party, to whom he latterly attached himself, of his sincerity in their cause. According to Lord Lovat, the arch-enemy of the Athole family, the Duke had not any considerable portion of that quality in his character, which Lord Lovat represents as one compound of meanness, treachery, and revenge, and attributes the hatred with which Athole persecuted the brave and unfortunate Duke of Argyle, to the circumstance of his having received a blow from that nobleman before the whole Court at Edinburgh, without having the spirit to return the insult.[44]
It appears, from the same authority, that the loyalty which the Duke of Athole professed towards King William was of a very questionable description. It becomes, indeed, very difficult to ascertain what were really the Duke of Athole's political tenets. Under these conflicting and unsettled opinions the young Marquis of Tullibardine was reared.
There seems little reason to doubt that his father, the Duke of Athole, continued to act a double part in the troublous days which followed the accession of George the First. It was, of course, of infinite importance to Government to secure the allegiance of so powerful a family as that of Murray, the head of whom was able to bring a body of six thousand men into the field. It nevertheless soon appeared that the young heir of the house of Athole had imbibed very different sentiments to those with which it was naturally supposed a nobleman, actually in office at that time, would suffer in his eldest son. The first act of the Marquis was to join the Earl of Mar with two thousand men, clansmen from the Highlands, and with fourteen hundred of the Duke of Athole's tenants;[45] his next, to proclaim the Chevalier King. Almost simultaneously, and whilst his tenantry were following their young leader to the field, the Duke of Athole was proclaiming King George at Perth.[46] The Duke was ordered, meantime, by the authorities, to remain at his Castle of Blair to secure the peace of the county, of which he was Lord-Lieutenant.
The Marquis of Tullibardine's name appears henceforth in most of the events of the Rebellion. There exists little to shew how he acquitted himself in the engagement of Sherriff Muir, where he led several battalions to the field; but he shewed his firmness and valour by remaining for some time at the head of his vassals, after the unhappy contest of 1715 was closed by the ignominious flight of the Chevalier. All hope of reviving the Jacobite party being then extinct for a time, the Marquis escaped to France, where he remained in tranquillity for a few years; but his persevering endeavours to aid the Stuart cause were only laid aside, and not abandoned.