Badge—Broom (butcher’s).
The acknowledged chieftainship of the great family of Murray, or Moray (originally Murreff) is vested in Moray-Stirling of Abercairney and Ardoch, both in Perthshire. The Murrays are generally supposed to have descended from Freskine, a Fleming, who settled in Scotland in the reign of David I. (1122–1153), and acquired from that monarch the lands of Strathbroch in Linlithgowshire, and of Duffus in Moray.
The Athole Murrays are descended from Sir William de Moravia, who acquired the lands of Tullibardine, an estate in the lower part of Perthshire, with his wife Adda, daughter of Malise, seneschal of Strathern, as appears by charters dated in 1282 and 1284.
His descendant, Sir William Murray of Tullibardine, succeeded to the estates of his family in 1446. He was sheriff of Perthshire, and in 1458, one of the lords named for the administration of justice, who were of the king’s daily council. He married Margaret, daughter of Sir John Colquhoun of Luss, great chamberlain of Scotland, by whom he had a numerous issue. According to tradition they had seventeen sons, from whom a great many families of the name of Murray are descended. In a curious document entitled “The Declaration of George Halley, in Ochterarder, concerning the Laird of Tullibardine’s seventeen sons—1710,” it is stated that they “lived all to be men, and that they waited all one day upon their father at Stirling, to attend the king, with each of them one servant and their father two. This happening shortly after an act was made by King James Fifth, discharging any person to travel with great numbers of attendants besides their own family, and having challenged the laird of Tullibardine for breaking the said act, he answered he brought only his own sons, with their necessary attendants: with which the king was so well pleased that he gave them small lands in heritage.”
The eldest of Tullibardine’s seventeen sons, Sir William Murray of Tullibardine, had, with other issue, William, his successor, and Sir Andrew Murray, ancestor of the Viscounts Stormont. His great-grandson, Sir William Murray of Tullibardine, was a zealous promoter of the Reformation in Scotland. George Halley, in the curious document already quoted says that “Sir William Murray of Tullibardine having broke Argyll’s face with the hilt of his sword, in King James the Sixth’s presence, was obliged to leave the kingdom. Afterwards, the king’s mails and slaughter cows were not paid, neither could any subject to the realm be able to compel those who were bound to pay them; upon which the king cried out—‘O, if I had Will. Murray again, he would soon get my mails and slaughter cows;’ to which one standing by replied—‘That if his majesty would not take Sir William Murray’s life, he might return shortly.’ The king answered, ‘He would be loath to take his life, for he had not another subject like him!’ Upon which promise Sir William Murray returned and got a commission from the king to go to the north, and lift up the mails and the cows, which he speedily did, to the great satisfaction of the king, so that immediately after he was made lord comptroller.” This office he obtained in 1565.
His eldest son, Sir John Murray, the twelfth feudal baron of Tullibardine, was brought up with King James, who, in 1592, constituted him his master of the household. On 10th July 1606 he was created Earl of Tullibardine. His lordship married Catherine, fourth daughter of David, second Lord Drummond, and died in 1609.
His eldest son, William, second Earl of Tullibardine, married Lady Dorothea Stewart, daughter of the fifth Earl of Athole of the Stewart family, who died in 1595, and on the death in 1625 of James, second Earl of Athole, son of John, sixth Lord Innermeath, created Earl of Athole by James VI., he petitioned King Charles the First for the earldom of Athole, as his countess was the eldest daughter and heir of line of Earl John, of the family of Innermeath, which had become extinct in the male line. The king received the petition graciously, and gave his royal word that it should be done. The earl accordingly surrendered the title of Earl of Tullibardine into the king’s hands, 1st April 1626, to be conferred on his brother Sir Patrick Murray, as a separate dignity, but before the patents could be issued, his lordship died the same year. His son John, however, obtained in February 1629 the title of Earl of Athole, and thus became the first earl of the Murray branch, and the earldom of Tullibardine was at the same time granted to Sir Patrick. This Earl of Athole was a zealous royalist, and joined the association formed by the Earl of Montrose for the king at Cumbernauld, in January 1641. He died in June 1642. His eldest son John, second Earl of Athole of the Murray family, also faithfully adhered to Charles the First, and was excepted by Cromwell out of his act of grace and indemnity, 12th April 1654, when he was only about nineteen years of age. At the restoration, he was sworn a privy councillor, obtained a charter of the hereditary office of sheriff of Fife, and in 1663 was appointed justice-general of Scotland. In 1670 he was constituted captain of the king’s guards, in 1672 keeper of the privy seal, and 14th January 1673, an extraordinary lord of session. In 1670 he succeeded to the earldom of Tullibardine on the death of James, fourth earl of the new creation, and was created Marquis of Athole in 1676. He increased the power of his family by his marriage with Lady Amelia Sophia Stanley, third daughter of the seventh Earl of Derby, beheaded for his loyalty 15th October 1651. Through her mother, Charlotte de la Tremouille, daughter of Claude de la Tremouille, Duke of Thouars and Prince of Palmont, she was related in blood to the Emperor of Germany, the kings of France and Spain, the Prince of Orange, the Duke of Savoy, and most of the principal families of Europe; and by her the family of Athole acquired the seignory of the Isle of Man, and also large property in that island.
John, the second Marquis, and first Duke, of Athole, designated Lord John Murray, was one of the commissioners for inquiring into the massacre of Glencoe in 1693. He was created a peer in his father’s lifetime, by the title of Earl of Tullibardine, Viscount of Glenalmond, and Lord Murray, for life, by patent dated 27th July 1696, and in April 1703 he was appointed lord privy seal. On the 30th July of that year, immediately after his father’s death, he was created Duke of Athole, by Queen Anne, and invested with the order of the Thistle. His grace died 14th November 1724. He was twice married; first to Catherine, daughter of the Duke of Hamilton, by whom he had six sons and a daughter, and secondly to Mary, daughter of William Lord Ross, by whom he had three sons and a daughter. His eldest son John, Marquis of Tullibardine, died in 1709. His second son William, who succeeded his brother, was the Marquis of Tullibardine who acted the prominent part in both the Scottish rebellions of last century, which is recorded in the former part of this work. In 1745 he accompanied Prince Charles Edward to Scotland, and landed with him at Borodale 25th July. He was styled Duke of Athole by the Jacobites. After the battle of Culloden he fled to the westward, intending to embark for the isle of Mull, but being unable, from the bad state of his health, to bear the fatigue of travelling under concealment, he surrendered, on the 27th April 1746, to Mr Buchanan of Drummakill, a Stirlingshire gentleman. Being conveyed to London he was committed to the Tower, where he died on the 9th July following.
James, the second Duke of Athole, was the third son of the first duke. He succeeded to the dukedom on the death of his father in November 1724, in the lifetime of his elder brother William, attainted by parliament. Being maternal great-grandson of James, seventh Earl of Derby, upon the death of the tenth earl of that line, he claimed and was allowed the English barony of Strange, which had been conferred on Lord Derby by writ of summons, in 1628. His grace was married, first to Jean, sister of Sir John Frederick, Bart., by whom he had a son and two daughters; secondly to Jane, daughter of John Drummond of Megginch, who had no issue. The latter was the heroine of Dr Austen’s song of ‘For lack of gold she’s left me, O!’ She was betrothed to that gentleman, a physician in Edinburgh, when the Duke of Athole saw her, and falling in love with her, made proposals of marriage, which were accepted; and, as Burns says, she jilted the doctor. Having survived her first husband, she married a second time, Lord Adam Gordon.