GRAY, JOHN DE (d. 1214), bishop of Norwich, entered Prince John’s service, and at his accession (1199) was rapidly promoted in the church till he became bishop of Norwich in September 1200. King John’s attempt to force him into the primacy in 1205 started the king’s long and fatal quarrel with Pope Innocent III. De Gray was a hard-working royal official, in finance, in justice, in action, using his position to enrich himself and his family. In 1209 he went to Ireland to govern it as justiciar. He adopted a forward policy, attempting to extend the English frontier northward and westward, and fought a number of campaigns on the Shannon and in Fermanagh. But in 1212 he suffered a great defeat. He assimilated the coinage of Ireland to that of England, and tried to effect a similar reform in Irish law. De Gray was a good financier, and could always raise money: this probably explains the favour he enjoyed from King John. In 1213 he is found with 500 knights at the great muster at Barham Downs, when Philip Augustus was threatening to invade England. After John’s reconciliation with Innocent he was one of those exempted from the general pardon, and was forced to go in person to Rome to obtain it. At Rome he so completely gained over Innocent that the pope sent him back with papal letters recommending his election to the bishopric of Durham (1213); but he died at St Jean d’Audely in Poitou on his homeward journey (October 1214).
GRAY, JOHN EDWARD (1800-1875), English naturalist, born at Walsall, Staffordshire, in 1800, was the eldest of the three sons of S. F. Gray, of that town, druggist and writer on botany, and author of the Supplement to the Pharmacopoeia, &c., his grandfather being S. F. Gray, who translated the Philosophia Botanica of Linnaeus for the Introduction to Botany of James Lee (1715-1795). Gray studied at St Bartholomew’s and other hospitals for the medical profession, but at an early age was attracted to the pursuit of botany. He assisted his father by collecting notes on botany and comparative anatomy and zoology in Sir Joseph Banks’s library at the British Museum, aided by Dr W. E. Leach, assistant keeper, and the systematic synopsis of the Natural Arrangement of British Plants, 2 vols., 1821, was prepared by him, his father writing the preface and introduction only. In consequence of his application for membership of the Linnaean Society being rejected in 1822, he turned to the study of zoology, writing on zoophytes, shells, Mollusca and Papilionidae, still aided by Dr Leach at the British Museum. In December 1824 he obtained the post of assistant in that institution; and from that date to December 1839, when J. G. Children retired from the keepership, he had so zealously applied himself to the study, classification and improvement of the national collection of zoology that he was selected as the fittest person to be entrusted with its charge. Immediately on his appointment as keeper, he took in hand the revision of the systematic arrangement of the collections; scientific catalogues followed in rapid succession; the department was raised in importance; its poverty as well as its wealth became known, and whilst increased grants, donations and exchanges made good many deficiencies, great numbers of students, foreign as well as English, availed themselves of its resources to enlarge the knowledge of zoology in all its branches. In spite of numerous obstacles, he worked up the department, within a few years of his appointment as keeper, to such a state of excellence as to make it the rival of the cabinets of Leiden, Paris and Berlin; and later on it was raised under his management to the dignity of the largest and most complete zoological collection in the world. Although seized with paralysis in 1870, he continued to discharge the functions of keeper of zoology, and to contribute papers to the Annals of Natural History, his favourite journal, and to the transactions of a few of the learned societies; but at Christmas 1874, having completed half a century of official work, he resigned office, and died in London on the 7th of March 1875.
Gray was an exceedingly voluminous writer, and his interests were not confined to natural history only, for he took an active part in questions of public importance of his day, such as slave emancipation, prison discipline, abolition of imprisonment for debt, sanitary and municipal organizations, the decimal system, public education, extension of the opening of museums, &c. He began to publish in 1820, and continued till the year of his death.
The titles of the books, memoirs and miscellaneous papers written by him, accompanied by a few notes, fill a privately printed list of 56 octavo pages with 1162 entries.
GRAY, PATRICK GRAY, 6th Baron (d. 1612), was descended from Sir Andrew Gray (c. 1390-1469) of Broxmouth and Foulis, who was created a Scottish peer as Lord Gray, probably in 1445. Andrew was a leading figure in Scottish politics during the reigns of James I. and his two successors, and visited England as a hostage, a diplomatist and a pilgrim. The 2nd Lord Gray was his grandson Andrew (d. 1514), and the 4th lord was the latter’s grandson Patrick (d. 1582), a participant in Scottish politics during the stormy time of Mary, queen of Scots. Patrick’s son, Patrick, the 5th lord (d. 1609), married Barbara, daughter of William, 2nd Lord Ruthven, and their son Patrick, known as the “Master of Gray,” is the subject of this article. Educated at Glasgow University and brought up as a Protestant, young Patrick was married early in life to Elizabeth Lyon, daughter of Lord Glamis, whom he repudiated almost directly; and afterwards went to France, where he joined the friends of Mary, queen of Scots, became a Roman Catholic, and assisted the French policy of the Guises in Scotland. He returned and took up his residence again in Scotland in 1583, and immediately began a career of treachery and intrigue, gaining James’s favour by disclosing to him his mother’s secrets, and acting in agreement with James Stewart, earl of Arran, in order to keep Mary a prisoner in England. In 1584 he was sent as ambassador to England, to effect a treaty between James and Elizabeth and to exclude Mary. His ambition incited him at the same time to promote a plot to secure the downfall of Arran. This was supported by Elizabeth, and was finally accomplished by letting loose the lords banished from Scotland for their participation in the rebellion called the Raid of Ruthven, who, joining Gray, took possession of the king’s person at Stirling in 1585, the league with England being ratified by the parliament in December. Gray now became the intermediary between the English government and James on the great question of Mary’s execution, and in 1587 he was despatched on an embassy to Elizabeth, ostensibly to save Mary’s life. Gray had, however, previously advised her secret assassination and had endeavoured to overcome all James’s scruples; and though he does not appear to have carried treachery so far as to advise her death on this occasion, no representations made by him could have had any force or weight. The execution of Mary caused his own downfall and loss of political power in Scotland; and after his return he was imprisoned on charges of plots against Protestantism, of endeavouring to prevent the king’s marriage, and of having been bribed to consent to Mary’s death. He pleaded guilty of sedition and of having obstructed the king’s marriage, and was declared a traitor; but his life was spared by James and he was banished from the country, but permitted to return in 1589, when he was restored to his office of master of the wardrobe to which he had been appointed in 1585. His further career was marked by lawlessness and misconduct. In 1592, together with the 5th Lord Bothwell, he made an unsuccessful attempt to seize the king at Falkland, and the same year earned considerable discredit by bringing groundless accusations against the Presbyterian minister, Robert Bruce; while after the king’s accession to the English throne he was frequently summoned before the authorities on account of his conduct. Notwithstanding, he never lost James’s favour. In 1609 he succeeded his father as 6th Baron Gray, and died in 1612.
Gray was an intimate friend of Sir Philip Sidney, but, if one of the ablest, handsomest and most fascinating, he was beyond doubt one of the most unscrupulous men of his day. He married as his second wife in 1585 Mary Stewart, daughter of Robert, earl of Orkney, and had by her, besides six daughters, a son, Andrew (d. 1663), who succeeded him as 7th Baron Gray. Andrew, who served for a long time in the French army, was a supporter, although not a very prominent one, of Charles I. and afterwards of Charles II. He was succeeded as 8th Lord Gray by Patrick (d. 1711), a son of his daughter Anne, and Patrick’s successor was his kinsman and son-in-law John (d. 1724). On the extinction of John’s direct line in 1878 the title of Lord Gray, passed to George Stuart, earl of Moray. In 1606 Gray had been ranked sixth among the Scottish baronies.
Bibliography.—Article in Dict. of Nat. Biog., and authorities there quoted; Gray’s relation concerning the surprise at Stirling (Bannatyne Club Publns. i. 131, 1827); Andrew Lang, History of Scotland, vol. ii. (1902); Peter Gray, The Descent and Kinship of Patrick, Master of Gray (1903); Gray Papers (Bannatyne Club, 1835); Hist. MSS. Comm., Marq. of Salisbury’s MSS.