05:27 Nov 01 2008
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The cites didn't transmit in the copy process but there are 220 in this text. Ask me if you want a MS Word copy...just to believe it!
Be aware that much of this is taken from primary research at Blair Castle archives. I do spend a great deal of time at the castle - and I love it!
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Born to Power, Skilled in Compromise
The Life of Lord John Murray, 1st Duke of Atholl
1660 –1724
Cheryl L. Garrett
A Thesis submitted for the Degree of PhD,
University of Aberdeen
May 2010
Chapter 1
A Lifetime of Translation
The Lineage of a Magnate
Perthshire’s position in the centre of Scotland has ensured that a variety of influences have shaped its culture and identity. North and West lay the highlands, while the Lowlands are to the South and East. Perthshire itself incorporates both Highland and Lowland terrains and is the gateway from the much-romanticized Highland clans to the Southern Lowlands, where the ground is domesticated into fields and all roads led to Edinburgh or London. The first recordings of a local ruler in northern Perthshire were in the twelfth century of a mormaer overseeing these lands, a title designating a regional or provincial ruler in the medieval Kingdom of the Scots. J.D. Mackie tells us in A History of Scotland, mormaers were first recorded ‘in Gaelic (c. 1150) additions to the Book of Deer (Latin, ninth century)’ where mention was made of a mormaer or Great Steward giving gifts to a monastery. Professor Mackie suggests that a mormaer ‘may represent the old provincial sub-king’. This area at the heart of Scotland held strategic significance as whoever controlled the castle at Blair Atholl held access to the Grampians and the pass that overlooks the major route from Scottish Highlands to the Lowlands and Borders. The ancient Earldom of Atholl in Perthshire was part of the Crown lands of Scotland and the mormaer, afterwards the earl of Atholl, was an early Stewart descendant from the subsequent line of Scottish kings as ‘in 1457 King James II conferred the Earldom of Atholl on his half-brother, Sir John Stewart of Balvenie’.
The pedigree of the Atholl line is complex and can be confusing. For present purposes, it is sufficient to know the direct line from which the marquis of Atholl and his son, Lord John Murray, later styled earl of Tullibardine and then 1st duke of Atholl, descend. Their paternal grandfather, William Murray, 2nd earl of Tullibardine, married Lady Dorothea Stewart, heiress of John, 5th earl of Atholl. The Earldom of Atholl devolved to her oldest son, John, upon her father’s death. John, 1st (Murray) earl of Atholl, matrilineally inherited the Stewart influence over the clans which ‘in Perthshire spread northwards into the central region.’ The earl was a firm Royalist during the years of the Scottish Covenanting and English Revolution raising 800 men and taking the field in defence of Charles I at the outset of the Civil War in 1639-1640, an action that earned him the enmity of the earl of Argyll and the Committee of Estates. He corresponded with his cousin the marquis of Montrose, unfortunately dying in 1642 before Montrose moved into open war against the Covenanters in 1643-44. His heir, also named John, was eleven years of age at his father’s death and during his youth his Highland army of Athollmen served under Montrose until the forces disbanded in 1646.
That the earldom of Atholl passed to the Murrays by marriage is decisive as this made the previous lowland Lords of Tullibardine, who had been raised to the peerage within the fifty years prior to the Atholl marriage, the leaders of a vast Highland clan to which they had only indirect ancient blood ties. As Allan Macinnes observes in Clanship, Commerce and the House of Stuart, 1603 –1788, ‘Although traditional virtue and authentic title were of complementary importance in confirming the status of the clan elite, the authority of the chief as of the fine was primarily personal, not institutional’.
Sir John Murray, 1st earl of Tullibardine John Stewart, 5th earl of Atholl
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William Murray, 2nd earl of Tullibardine = Dorothea Stewart (m. 1604)
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John Murray, 1st (Murray) earl of Atholl (d. 1642)
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John Murray, 1st marquis of Atholl (1631-1703)
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John Murray, 1st duke of Atholl (1660-1724)
17th c. Murrays of Atholl Family Tree
The Murrays of Atholl are unique in that they held on to enormous institutional power over their clansmen without possessing the traditional authority given to noble Highland Chiefs over their direct kinsmen and clans. Descendants from the Stewarts, Robertsons and their affiliated clan septs comprised the Athollmen, one of the largest military units in the region providing more foot and horse than any other Scottish district. These peoples were the ancient landholders in the Earldom of Atholl, and the Murrays controlled their lands and armed levies merely as the consequence of William Murray’s marriage and to these people ‘feudal loyalty and kinship meant so much’. The Murrays did not possess authentic ‘ancient’ title through the male line and in an era when old partisan loyalties were shifting, and former hostilities and noble ties were not as contentious between England and Scotland as they had been before the Union of the Crowns in 1603, the Murrays’ status as overlords of Atholl was less personal than the Stewart Atholls had been. Their name was different, not to mention their historical clan ties. Hence, since the Murrays had only acquired the ancient, nobler Atholl Highland titles through marriage, they held little in the way of personal claim from or to the loyalties of the Athollmen and Atholl tenants; this claim was earned through their actions – primarily the 1st Murray earl of Atholl and his son the 1st marquis leading the Athollmen during the years of the Covenanting Wars. Although gentry in their own right, prior to the Atholl marriage they were considered ‘lesser nobility’ but through adroit and well-timed action, they had continually added to their lands and power, and were finally rewarded with an earldom in 1606 when James VI granted the title of Tullibardine to his childhood friend, Sir James Murray. The geographical distribution of the noble house’s territory ‘lying as it did in the best part of the realme, midway, united to the character of its inhabitants, formidable alike by reason of their numbers and their war-like character, rendered his [Atholl] alliance an object of consummate importance to the parties contending for majesty in Scotland.’ Within 100 years of their ascent to the peerage, the Murray family combined both the earldoms of Atholl and Tullibardine, rose to the highest martial and political offices, married into the leading noble Scottish lowland family, and ultimately attained a dukedom. These successive feats of family advancement were either luck, or well-conceived strategies to empower the family resulting in their domination of lands comprising the middle of Scotland and most major routes from the Highlands to the Lowlands.
It is not that the Murrays lacked significant ties in the power structure of the Highlands or in Edinburgh of Scotland prior to the 1604 Atholl marriage. In the sixteenth century, Sir William Murray of Tullibardine had been a friend and defender of Lord Darnley and, after the death of his brother-in-law the earl of Mar, one of the governors of young King James VI. One of their most notable acquisitions took place on August 5, 1600. According to the 7th duke’s history of the family, The Chronicles of the Atholl and Tullibardine Families, Volume I, two young sons of the 1st earl of Tullibardine were instrumental in bringing to justice the earl of Gowrie and his cousin in their attempt on the life of James VI in 1605. For this they were rewarded with the Barony of Ruthven and its castle which they renamed Huntingtower. These men were adroit at being in the right place at the right time to add to their status and nobility and were not at all diffident in doing what needed to be done to ingratiate themselves with their sovereign to achieve those goals. In this they were little different from most Scottish landed gentry or nobility. Marrying into the Stewart line certainly helped acquire the pedigree from which future heirs would benefit. It appears that the Murrays actively sought means to further ennoble their name and fortunes during the reign of Queen Mary and her son, James VI.
The Murrays’ management over the peoples of Atholl was to some extent institutional, with a feudal style estate organizational scheme with tenants paying rental in kind. Using proprietary and legal privileges they actively worked to contain political power in their region and control the Atholl fine of their inherited clans. To a close observer of their surviving archival record one of the peculiar revelations is how they managed to maintain this control over all their tenants in the turbulent eras of Jacobitism and Union. Highland Scotland, as it became absorbed by dominating Anglo-British interests would find itself a people apart, yet akin to their brethren in the South while still being either economically ignored, manipulated, or thwarted by England and the London-based monarch’s prerogative power over trade after 1663. Somehow, this family, led by Lord John Murray, managed to preserve a degree of control over its tenants against the backdrop of the late Restoration period with its continuous religious dissent, the ousting of the Stuarts in favour of Mary and William of Orange and the most intimidating of the Jacobite rebellions in 1715. Lord Murray’s politics and policies were adroit enough to earn him the highest level of peerage. To omit the Murrays of Atholl from the major body of academic historic work is to ignore key players in the political, social, ecclesiastical and, militaristic history of Scotland.
When the lands of Tullibardine devolved to the marquis on the death of his cousin James, 4th earl of Tullibardine in 1670, family finances from the Highland black cattle trade were supplemented with Lowland income from milling and linen cultivation. The Atholl estate’s economy encompassed the two great ‘staples’ of the Lowland and Highland economies ensuring them income from sources not always available to other peers. Still, estate management on Atholl was acquisitive in design, a trait common to most noble families. Active entrepreneurship was characteristic of the great families of early modern Scotland ‘…the nobility led the way, as it did in the expansion of the cattle trade with England, the most dynamic sector of the late seventeenth century economy.’ Furthermore, ‘low grain prices in the latter half of the century persuaded noblemen to take the lead in exploiting estate resources like salt and coal’. The Murrays of Atholl were no exception in maximizing the resources available to them in both regions. Although the management of the Atholl estates did not generate a vast income until the time of Lord Murray’s son, James, 2nd duke of Atholl, under his father’s tutelage Lord John Murray strategically managed his estates to provide himself with the trappings of a Scottish Peer. Scotland’s general economic depression - resulting from international trade policies, financial involvement in continental wars and the successive religious, economic and political upheavals of Scotland - never thwarted the family’s abilities to travel or educate themselves. Eager to put his lands to use for economic prosperity, as early as 1693 Lord Murray contracted to have coal mined on his inherited Tullibardine lands and in 1698 rented land with stipulations to “Archibald Paterson for 800 merks per year excepting for the coal and mines”. The Atholl family retained direct income rights from portions of the property by a crown charter in 1699. Although the first archival mention of the linen trade occurs in a set of anonymous proposals dated 1708, it is certain that the tenants on the Tullibardine lands under Atholl control cultivated linen to help sustain the estate and pay their rents. On Atholl lands along with the black cattle trade, the deer forest was used to generate income as witnessed in many surviving correspondences on the topic.
At the time when Lord Murray was coming to maturity in the 1670s, Scottish Covenanters or others seen as radical religious extremists were dealt with harshly causing serious divisions over church matters. Fortunately for the Episcopacy friendly Atholl tenants, their Murray landlords were committed Royalists and shared their religious persuasion. Upon the death of the first (Murray) earl of Atholl in 1642, the curators appointed for the eleven year old heir, his uncle the earl of Tullibardine and the earl of Kinghorn, if anything, reinforced in him his father’s convictions, as these were primarily the same as their own at that time. The second earl’s religious and political positions are clearly in evidence in the archival records from as early as the age of nineteen, when he took part in the unsuccessful campaigns in 1649 under Lord Ogilvie and General John Middleton, first earl of Middleton, later a most trusted advisor to Charles II, to oust the Covenanters. In spite of the failure of their enterprise, his continued zeal for the royal cause won him a good friend in Charles II and from an early age the young earl sought further extensions to his power through service to the Stuart monarchs. These efforts were rewarded when King Charles II made him marquis of Atholl in 1676. These were lessons, if not strategies, which were passed down from his acquisitive Murray forbearers and in due course he would teach his own young son and heir the same lessons. The latter with his sensitive, insightful nature, succeeded beyond his father’s expectations. In 1703, the year that the marquis and marchioness both died, their son, heir and protégé, Lord John Murray became the first duke of Atholl; the highest rank of peerage.
Acquiring the title Duke of Atholl was not an easy accomplishment. Lord Murray overcame all the disadvantages brought to the Scottish nobles, beginning in the 1640’s over what was to be a century of internal battle within the British Isles and Ireland. He not only witnessed but also overcame the repercussions of the Stuart monarchs’ inept administration, mishandling of ecclesiastical matters that resulted in sweeping political changes and the ensuing succession issues that divided the country for a further generation. Furthermore, he was one of the last of the old style Highland Scottish Magnates as within a generation after his death the clan system of the Highlands was finally and irrevocably broken after the Jacobite defeat at Culloden in 1746. He did his best to defend the Atholl interest and, as incorporating Union with England encroached in 1706-7, the concept of a sovereign Scottish nation. However, he was born into an era in which ‘defending the rights of his people’ was a concept which bore agonizingly diverse interpretations, and the smaller goal of protecting the Atholl family and clan interests might also produce extremely divergent political decisions affecting the nation. The defence of ‘Scotland’ as an independent realm with differing political, religious and economic interests and contentions with England was deeply problematic for him. He realised that Scotland’s future was intertwined with that of England and that the nation was dependent on Westminster’s good will backed up by the threat of hostile trade acts at best or English military intervention at worst. Lord Murray’s responses to these crucial subjects have much to tell us about, his character and his ability to manage not only his and his tenants internal squabbling and private affairs but also those of Scotland. As a young man and then throughout his life, he is a much more compelling character and leader than has been historically realized and recorded.
Due to Lord Murray’s conciliatory politics, military actions and social manners, he has either been pigeonholed as irrelevant or difficult to characterize and therefore has been undeservedly overlooked. Despite his magnate status, his considerable personal military power, and his prominent position amongst the Scottish peerage, most historians have seen him as ineffectual, inadequate, or unimportant. P.W. J. Riley in King William and the Scottish Politicians quotes Argyll who viewed Murray as ‘a silly piece of statesman…who can never purge the Gillicrankie blood, taken in either sense.’ Further, Paul Hopkins discussing the siege of Blair Castle in his book, Glencoe and the End of the Highland War describes Lord Murray as having ‘a strong, moralistic, somewhat priggish religious belief [which was] partly checked by his inherited magnate pride and violent temper.’ Lockhart of Canwarth describes Murray as ‘proud, imperious, haughty’ and with a ‘passionate temper’. Other arguments suggest that Lord Murray was incompetent and weak. In contrast to the established historical views of Lord Murray, this thesis proposes that his significance was vastly important both locally and nationally, with primary concerns throughout his adult life to balance responsibilities to his family status and estates and to Scotland. As a man literally in the middle of the nation, the politics of the time, and with moderate views on religious life many of the established concepts firmly entrenched in Scottish history of the periods covering his life will be challenged. He was a nobleman and magnate who help shape his country and managed to further his family position in turbulent political, economic and social times. Viewed in this light while considering the isolated upbringing of his youth, his limited awareness of personal and political manipulation, and the chaotic times, which he not only endured but also succeeded in navigating, Murray’s achievements are very far from negligible; in fact he was ahead of his time with abilities to compromise in ecclesiastical and political matters. Furthermore, his public career is useful for what it reveals about the checks and balances that existed in every facet of the life of an early modern Scottish magnate.
Childhood
The son and heir of John Murray, 2nd earl and 1st marquis of Atholl, was born February 26, 1660 and christened John, in the family tradition, after his father. His mother was the English noblewoman, Lady Amelia Sophia Stanley, fourth daughter of the 7th earl of Derby and Countess Stanley who herself was a first cousin to French kings and a granddaughter to William I (called William the Silent) of the House of Orange.
Henry Stanley, 4th earl of Derby William I of Denmark (d. 1584)
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William Stanley, 6th earl of Derby (d. 1642) Countess Charlotte Brabantina of Nassau | |
James Stanley, 7th earl of Derby (d. 1651) - (m. 1626) - Lady Charlotte de la Tremoille (d. 1664)
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Lady Amelia Sophia Stanley (1632-1703) (m. John, 1st marquis of Atholl, 1659)
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Lord John Murray, 1st duke of Atholl (1660-1724)
16th -17th c. Stanley Family Tree
The marquis was directly descended from the previously mentioned Murray, Tullibardine, and Stewart families with their noble Highland titles. Thus their son was born into the ruling elite class structure of Scottish nobility, though he took his first breath not in the paternal castle of Blair Atholl or any other of the Murray homes in Scotland, but in Knowsley, Lancashire, the family home of the earls of Derby where his mother and father were residing at the time of his birth. Since he was born into privilege as the successor to his father’s titles and lands and a lineage from his mother’s side, which included French and Dutch royalty and sovereignty over the Isle of Man, John was raised in a confining net of expectations, from his parents in particular, and from society more generally. While his father divided most of his time between assemblies in Edinburgh, overseeing the Atholl estates and currying favour at the court in London, young John remained with his mother and his grandmother, the Dowager Countess of Derby, in Knowsley and not until 1664 would the family take up residence in Scotland. These two noble Englishwomen played an important role in young John’s upbringing and this English influence gave the future Scottish peer an insight few of his contemporaries would share. In total the marquis and marchioness had 12 children spanning thirteen years with the first five being born while the family resided in England. While living at Knowsley with his mother, grandmother and aunt Catherine, the countess wrote frequently to her husband about the progress of their young heir, his younger brothers Charles, James and William and his sister Charlotte. The children were close to their Stanley relatives and they had devoted relations with their mother’s sisters, Lady Strafford and Lady Dorchester influencing the children with letters and visits, although there is no mention of any influence their uncle, the 8th earl of Derby may have wielded. After the family relocated to Scotland their father’s brother, Sir Mungo and their uncle James, 4th earl of Tullibardine provided any masculine presence that may have been lacking in early childhood. The following interesting account of Lord Murray at the age of 22 months demonstrates personal characteristics he would note in himself later. The ‘eldest’ referred to is, of course, Lord Murray and ‘her ladie’ references her mother.
Knowsley, Dec. 3 1661
“…you will be much pleased wth yr two boyes, the eldest is now about his eye teeth wch makes him more froward yn [than] the way he is usually yet when hee is in a good humour he will cry after my lady & me already & tho I say it to you I will say it to noe bodie else that he is God be thanked a very fine manly boy & has even already witt enough for his age, My ladie is every day mor & mor fond of him & you may judge wt [what] I am, yet he is soe stuborne sometimes that I beleeve one of us will find in our hearts to whip him er long, but yt which makes us soe unwilling to it is his being not very well wth his teeth & it has sweld his eyes & mouth soe he is not soe well as he will be er long when it pleases God that this is past, that wch makes me love him most is that he resembles my owne deare & he has something too like my brother Murray, Pray God make him as good a man as either – he has yr colour haire”.
Postscript: “My humble service to my brother Murray, his watch keepes me good company in the night when I cannot sleep for thinking on you – Jack is fond of it too but I do not let him touch it”.
The letter demonstrates a curious, sensitive child who obviously gave his mother and grandmother some difficulty but was a likeable baby warranting love and adoration from his caregivers. Affection was never lacking in the Murray home; the earl and his wife called each other ‘Johnnie’ and ‘Amie’ and their nickname for Lord Murray was ‘Jack’; the young man’s nickname was additionally used to designate him from his father to avoid confusion between the two Johns. In a rare surviving letter from this time period the earl mentions his son at an early age when he says, ‘I am sorrie for pour Jacks could.’ Concerns about the heir were prevalent during this time; many children didn’t live through serious illness. According to a Scientific American article by U.M. Cowgill, in York in the 17th c., only 15% made it to the threshold of reproduction (15 yrs.)’. Developed in 1662, a ‘Table of Causalities’ by the English mathematician John Gaunt demonstrates that in the year 1660 in London alone over 4400 people, including children, died of consumption, cough and pox – the most mortal of illnesses at that time. Furthermore, in the table the rate of mortality for children is the highest of all age groups. It is certain that parent’s had to keep some emotional detachment from children due to mortality issues. In Keith Brown’s Noble Society in Scotland he discusses the 'three classic stages’ of childhood recognized by all in the 17th century with the first before birth, from birth to the seventh year being the second stage...'that being the 'precarious' survival stage. After attaining the age of seven it was expected that children had a much greater chance of surviving through their reproductive years. Living as they did for the first four years of Lord Murray’s life in the English countryside and then after 1664 on the marquis’ Scottish estate of Falkland, the children were more apt to receive clean water and, being noble with matrilineal Dutch heritage, a country where good hygiene was extremely important, the family most certainly practiced cleanliness. Undoubtedly the marquis rare mention of his first son, or any of his other children during their early years, indicates detachment but as his time was mainly spent in London, Edinburgh or tending to Atholl affairs in Perthshire, this detachment may also be attributed to physical distance and possibly lack of surviving correspondence. Still, fathers in the 17th century felt anxiety for their children’s future and derived a great deal of pleasure from their offspring.
As most mentions of Lord Murray at a young age refer to his well being it may be assumed that his health was of concern. Several letters refer to illnesses he suffered such as the following:
October 28, 1663
“…the truth is my greatest concern is for Jack ys [this] good while he is very ill & I could not perceive any amendmt in him till to day, My lady gave him som of her cordiall last night wch by gods mercy has don him I think of most good of anything he has taken – I doubt it is a could which he got wth nott keeping warme enough upon his head after it was shaved wch indeed altered him much both in his lookes & humour wch you may imaine [ima[g]ine] put me into trouble enough…”
At age 7, he contracted smallpox and successfully overcame the illness without being blinded or badly disfigured. According to historical medical works on the subject, during the latter half of the seventeenth century smallpox had ‘become more virulent’ and ‘unlike most fevers smallpox disregarded class lines and attacked the upper class and royalty with the same ruthlessness as it did the poor’. Lord Murray fortunately escaped blinding and scarring, and grew into a fit, energetic and handsome man.
The Atholl heir had a great deal to live up to. Youthful lessons would shape his sensitivities, morality and, perhaps most importantly his sense of duty and honour. Later military and early political experience would further underline the lessons learned in youth and define his actions across the many themes and controversies that dominated his life. These included his role as local sheriff, his obligations to estate management and his tenants; the personal religious convictions of his Episcopalian upbringing contrary to the tenets of Presbyterianism embraced to facilitate his marriage; and his balancing act between the paternal Stuart loyalties and the matrilineal allegiance to the House of Orange. His pedigree is indicative of the polarities abundant in his life that were first challenged by the events of the Glorious Revolution - indisputably the watershed moment when he irrevocably had to choose sides. He may not have been the only Scottish noble closely tied by direct lineage to both factions for the throne but he certainly was the only one of his stature so completely torn by the themes causing conflict. Later, these same tensions contrasted not only with his political aspirations and actions in public office but with his divided loyalties to the House of Orange and its subsequent monarch Anne. Life experiences juxtaposing his own intuitive sense of the future placed him in the middle of encroaching English ministerial interests and heightened his loyalty to Scotland and her declining national sovereignty. Chris Whatley comments in his booklet, Bought and Sold for English Gold? Explaining the Union of 1707, ‘it has been argued that far from converging, the two countries had been drifting farther apart between 1688 and 1707, as Scottish aversion to English domination grew’. Although Murray’s upbringing encouraged him to spend his energies on pandering to the goodwill of a very Anglo-centric monarch ruling Scotland, his loyalty to his country as Union approached cannot be denied; he was against incorporating the two nations.
During Murray’s childhood, Atholl was struggling with stewardship over a vast area of Perthshire.* Scotland during the reign of Charles II was under considerable strain due to the king’s willingness to hand all matters dealing with the northern kingdom to his Scottish ministers; most notably John Maitland, 1st duke of Lauderdale who ruled Scotland in the king’s place for twenty years. The early Restoration Parliament of Scotland with its varied membership eagerly seeking either positions of power or wishing to be overlooked fearing ‘retribution from the fledgling royal administration’ echoed sentiments in the southern kingdom as they struggled to accept Charles ministrations and taxes. Those, like the marquis, who were rewarded with important posts in the administration, were expected to travel to London if they were to maintain power in their own homeland. As the King had not been in his Scottish sovereignty since 1650, this led to further ‘Anglicisation’ of the Scottish peers, which is evident in Lord John Murray having a noble English mother from a Royalist house. These more refined, better-spoken young Scottish men and women were worthy of marriage into English peer families helping to create cross-border political power blocks along with generating wealth and status. The increasing relevance of English society to the Scottish aristocracy owes much to James VI and his desire to unify the aristocracy of his two countries. In 1609 he enacted the ‘Statutes of Iona’, a series of measures aimed at de-Gaelicising the Highlands and his greatest wish was to unify his two kingdoms under one flag. This points a clear direction: following on from the Union of the Crowns, James VI was making a strong effort to ensure that the élite of the Highlands became, at the very least, bilingual and bicultural, able to interact with the aristocracy of lowland Scotland, and England. The Statutes are an initiative, which provide insight into the rearing of young Atholl heir, poised between Highland Scotland, Lowland and English cultures, two generations later.
Education
The return of nobility as the primary political force in Scotland and homecoming of Episcopalianism as the established faith at the Restoration of Charles II in 1660 meant that educational demands on a family heir began from an early age as they began their ‘noble apprenticeship’ in the family environment. Young Lord Murray was schooled from the time he was ‘in dresses’, through the teachings of his mother, grandmother, his devoted Aunts Jane (Lady Dundonald) and Susan (Lady Strafford) and later a male tutor, to take his place among the last of the great Highland Scottish Magnates. The goal of this training was to subjugate his own interests to those of God, the king and his family. Although only one year older than his brother Charles, Lord Murray had his own private minder, Mr. John Hardie, who would stay with him from his early years of education through his matriculation at St. Andrews and a personal tutor, Mr. Charles Mackarry. Murray’s precise age is unknown when Mackarry began his duties but archival letters indicate that he was Murray’s tutor by 1672 evidenced by a letter to the marchioness. Along with a classical education - reading and speaking Latin, and studying the lives and works of historical statesmen and philosophers - he had to learn how to hunt, ride, shoot, dance, and use a sword to create an honourable nobleman. As Ian Atherton observed in Ambition and Failure in Stuart England: The Career of John, first Viscount Scudamore “The early modern English gentry were born, lived and died in an honour community … a gentleman’s honour was his manhood. Moreover, a man’s honour did not belong to him alone but was held in trust for the benefit of descendants and commonwealth”. Attending St. Johnstown [Perth] Academy in 1673 and St. Andrews in 1676 was the culmination of formal learning that began for Lord Murray around age 5. His acculturation, his language, his religion, especially given that he embraced Presbyterianism after his marriage into the noble House of Hamilton, and his personal style eased his transition into the Kirk upon his marriage. However, in spite of Murray’s classical education, lowland dress, manner, and the Presbyterianism he acquired after his marriage, he was raised an Episcopalian and loyal to the House of Stuart and as an elderly man his private reflections demonstrate his lifelong inner conflict on the matter.
In order to be of best use to God, the king and his family, noblemen at the time were expected to be proficient in both books and swords. As his own father had begged off attending university in 1645 to lead the Athollmen during that decade’s continued hostilities, it is no surprise that Lord Murray was also taught martial skills. It was considered important for noblemen of the 17th century to understand the theory and practicalities of combat as it formed such a major part of their everyday world; not only dealing with internal conflicts between clans, holding official regional offices such as Sheriff, but in the wider world of long established European wars. Such training was designed to make him confident and fit to command the Atholl army whose presence in battle could decide between defeat and victory. For instance, the only significant battle lost by Montrose during the Civil war was the Battle of Philipaugh, 13 September 1645; the only combat in which the Atholl Men did not participate. This army was apparently able to turn the tide of battle by the sheer presence of their numbers. Thus, the education of the young Murray heir was designed to provide the tenant army of Athollmen and moreover the Parliament in Edinburgh with a magnate who ‘thereafter became involved in most of the important historical events of the seventeenth century’, most of which were political and militaristic in nature. Over the course of Lord Murray’s life, he not only witnessed, but also played a part in, the political manoeuvring of the later Restoration, the Glorious Revolution and the succeeding Williamite reign, the Incorporating Union of 1707 followed by the Protestant Hanoverian succession and the Jacobite Rebellion of 1715.
In 1673 when Lord John Murray was thirteen, he was sent to school reasonably nearby, to the St. Johnstown School now known as the Perth Academy, one of the oldest grammar schools in Scotland, where he spent three years. As a child on the Atholl Estates near Dunkeld, Lord Murray would, like other noble counterparts have private tutors and if aiming ‘for state service would require some university education.’ The first archival appearance of his tutor, Mr. Charles Mackarry, is as the author of a letter sent to the Countess regarding Lord Murray’s progress shortly after his arrival at St. Johnstown.
August 2, 1673
Mistress:
My Lord Murray is in very good health blessed be god and keeps very good hours all times, and very much moderation in all his exerceeses and his Lordship proficiants so much at his book that he exceeds all his condiciples in learning of which I am sure Mr. Hardie will aquant my Lady wch I believe will please her Ladyship very much in knowing what pains my Lord doath take to accomplish himself wch is admeerable in one of his Lordships years... My Lord bid me to you give you many thanks for your cair of his books & shoos.
Your very humble servant
Ch Mackarry
Although little is known of Mr. Mackarry or his personal views, it is reasonable to suppose that Lord Murray’s parents began his spiritual and moral education in the nursery, and that it remained very much a matter of concern for them during the first years of the Restoration, when Episcopacy was back in regal favour but not necessarily in all of Scotland’s favour. Starting with Knox and reformation policies in 1560, it was considered important across all facets of Scottish society to provide ecclesiastical education along with reading instruction to all children. It therefore naturally follows that they would choose tutors and schools to educate their heir which would not seek to undo everything they believed as just and moral and would furthermore reinforce the proper thinking of a magnate born to rule. Lord Murray himself wrote a surviving schoolboy letter to his mother demonstrating his knowledge of local current affairs at the age of thirteen. He mentions his father’s attendance at a funeral for one of his bailies and how he had heard that ‘…he carried Sir Gilbert’s head al the way to the Church wich every body is full of my fathers praises for it’ (meaning he carried the head of the man’s coffin, which would have been taken as a great courtesy on his part) and later in the same letter he makes an excuse for not getting a letter to her sooner discussing why the men who would carry it could not be bothered. He was already learning about the ways of estate justice, noblisse oblige, how honourable to those who served him was his future inheritance, and also how to make polite excuses for not being more attentive. An interesting educational observation made from comparing Lord Murray’s letters to those of his tutor is the young heir was being taught to write in English while his tutor uses old Scots words such as ‘cair’. As the future leader of a noble Scottish family, his father wanted his educational experience and social networks to develop near those whom he would engage as an adult.
Other letters from his time at St. Johnstown demonstrate his knowledge of his place in society and his ambition to succeed at school. His father writes from London in September of 1673 that, ‘…I deliuered Jackes leater to the Duches (Lauderdale), she was excidenlie pleased with it.’ Early the following year his mother writes to his father about some of his school activities:
Jan. 26, 1675
My dearest soules letter has just now come & has brought me this enclosed letter from Mr John Hardie which I send you that you may see how well Jack employes his time God be thanked they say he has his health exceeding well at St Johnston & is very desirous to have the title of King att Canlemas for it seemes it will give him some great priviledge in the schoole …”
In 1676, he was sent to St. Andrews University to complete his formal education. In 1573, an ancestor, Captain William Murray of Pitcairly, son of Sir William Murray of Tullibardine and Lady Agnes Graham, the daughter of the 2nd earl of Montrose, was Provost of St. Andrews and since that time, the Tullibardine Murrays had tended to choose this university for the education of their sons. Atholl received a letter from a young Lord Huntly attending St. Andrews in 1666 thanking the marquis for soliciting on his behalf and signs as ‘your cosin, servant and pupil’ indicating that Atholl had some interest in the earl’s education and knowledge of the university’s reputation concerning young nobles and its overseer, Archbishop James Sharp. Furthermore, St. Andrews was the option of most of the great Scottish families for the education of their sons during the 17th century as a good choice to assist in establishing the training and socio-political network required for the new political statesmen. The choice also denotes that while intelligent, scholarship was not the primary reason Lord Murray attended St. Andrews - at this time its actual productive scholarship in no way rivalled that at Aberdeen’s King’s College and under the guidance of Sharp, the university provided an Episcopalian friendly environment. Shortly after his arrival the archbishop sent a flattering letter to the marquis reporting on Lord Murray’s appearance and expounding on his positive scholarly attributes. Flattering Lord Murray was perhaps one way of ingratiating himself with the Atholl interest as Sharp, ambitious and a signer of the National Covenant in 1638 as a Resolutioner had turned against his former Presbyterian associates and supported the return of Episcopacy with the restoration of the monarch. At the time of Lord Murray’s arrival the archbishop needed as many political allies in Scotland as he could find; his support of the Lauderdale regime had demonstrated his ‘fast-crumbling integrity.’ Having publicly fallen from grace in the prior decade and as an outspoken Member of Parliament and the Privy Council, he continued to openly clash with Lauderdale, one of Atholl’s cohorts at the time, while supporting policies designed to enhance his own power and status. Despite Sharp’s flattery there is no doubt that Lord Murray performed his duties as a student and young nobleman at university. An indication that the marquis saw his son, as he left for St Andrew’s, as a young man on the verge of adult responsibility was in 1676 creating his son Captain of the Troop of the Perthshire Horse Militia: a title conveying real responsibility. The office had previously belonged to his father’s cousin James, 4th earl of Tullibardine who, as mentioned previously, died in January 1670 when the estates were combined. Atholl’s promotion to marquis in 1676 seems to have provided an occasion to make it clear to John that he was a young man heavily enmeshed in obligations:
Tullibardine, 3 April 1676
Dear Jacke, - Remember what I told you at parting. Consider you have but little tyme to stay at the Colledg, therefore make good use of it. You are growing towards a man and it will bee a shame for you not to take paines; and let not others that has not soe good a spirit have the better of you by minding there bookes. Be busie now and ye will play enough hereafter. Dear Jack, remember you cannot bring back tyme: besides you cannot pleas me in nothing soe much as in this, and it will enable you to serve your king and countrie.
While at St. Andrews, Lord Murray engaged in several different subjects, which were conducted in Latin at all Scottish universities at this time. In the 1660’s those ‘caught speaking in other than Latin were fined.’ In a clear hand with good spelling he writes to his mother reporting on his progress demonstrating that he was indeed receiving classical university training:
St. Andrews, May 12, 1676
Today I learne with Mr Sanders Arithmetick & another day Geography at 10 a clock I begin & reades till 11 M. Sanders lessons & he examines me till 12 beginning att 11 and all that time my condiciples are writing logicks in the Schooles I having one to write for me.
Further, evidenced by a letter written by a French friend in his native language, he was probably also proficient in French. As a noble student he had his own apartments and was given more time to enjoy pleasantries such as golf and St. Andrews for young noblemen like Lord Murray was ‘far from being the severely disciplined place that it appears in the pages of official visitations.’ As with other young nobles his education at the time appears to have centered on acquiring a broad range of knowledge and with his noted losses on the links and at the bull yards he was starting to develop social skills through interaction with his aristocratic peers. One mention of a school friend is his mention of the illness of ‘William Tollimashe’ son of the duchess of Lauderdale in a school letter to his mother. Lord Murray also had time for socializing and romance describing in a letter his social visits and a Valentine gift sent to an unnamed young lady – possibly the sister of his schoolmate and to whom his father had betrothed him, Lady Catherine Tollemache.
During his time at St. Johnstown and later at St. Andrews, Lord Murray had a private suite of rooms and, as was the fashion for young men of privilege, his governor and tutor travelled with him to the school. One notable account of the informal relationship that had developed between them was the incident described in a postscript intended to amuse his mother:
On Wednesday Mr. John (Hardie) was reproving Johny Murray for something & he was laughing or grumbling as he used sometimes to doe Mr. John hitt him on the cheek who then very stubornly said he would rather be gone than be struck so by him & then Mr John bid him goe hang himself & go were he pleasd at wch he went away – I know not where but none in the town has seen him since that day – I belive he is gone to Falkland if he be not at Tullibardine before this.
Lord Murray by his own admission in this humorous anecdote describes himself as stubborn, a trait he displayed at age 2 and retained throughout his life. The further familiarity with which he speaks of his governor relates administration of discipline, an easiness of attitude towards his servants and an ability to laugh at his own foibles – a rare gift in one of that age in any era.
Upon matriculation, most young men of equivalent wealth and status might have looked to go abroad, whether as scholar or soldier and Murray’s formal education was not yet over when he left St. Andrews University. In early 1678 he spent five weeks time with his father and brother Charles overseeing the Athollmen in the Highland Host expedition. In 1679 he travelled to St. Germain, a suburb of Paris with Charles under the governorship of a Mr. Elphinstone and Mr. George Murray to ‘enter the Academy.’ The purpose for the trip is still unknown but as most young Scottish nobles of some means travelled to the continent to expand their education this was assuredly further training to polish the young heir and the ‘Scots favoured France above all other destinations’ for this final refinement ‘to learn the languages and fashions abroad.’ The two brothers and their entourage lived at the home of a Monsieur Heusdens on the rue de Brueline au Faubourg in St. Germain. The trip was cut short after a little over a year in France as Mr. Elphinstone became ill and died at which time their father directed them to immediately travel home through Flanders and Holland and enclosed a ‘bill’ for £150for the journey. On his return journey from Holland Lord Murray travelled in the suite of the James, duke of York and his wife, Mary Modena whose daughter Mary was wife to the Prince of Orange, William. The marquis had special instructions for his son as to what to observe on his journey home advising him whom to see on his arrival in London in order to have an audience with Charles and also as a postscript in this missive the marquis asks his son to bring him back an “Indian Gonn” (possibly a gun or a gown) and some fashionable lace from Flanders. Overall, Lord Murray’s schooling differed little from others of his class and his education groomed him into a nobleman ready to take his place among his peers in Scotland and the court in London.
Religious Influences and Upbringing
In 1661, the following Lord Murray’s birth, the Scottish Convention of Estates were required to take an oath of allegiance to the restored monarch; an oath that hinted ‘at interference in the church’ organization. This oath and subsequent resurgence of Episcopacy foreshadowed trouble highlighting a less than ecumenical situation in Scottish Protestant religions; the divisions were sharp and polarized. These splintered interests divided factions on religious forms of practice and toleration issues. Scottish Episcopalianism as the equivalent of English Anglicanism is the easiest form of religious expression for the monarch to delimit as head of its governing body. Naturally then, in spite of Charles’ signature to the Covenant, in Scotland Episcopacy was revived ‘not for theological reasons but because it was intrinsically more compatible with monarchical authority.’ It was also seen as a way to quell unrest and bring some much needed stability to the realm with even those religiously ‘wary were willing to acquiesce.’ Needless to say, the resurgence of Episcopacy did not ease the spiritual inclinations of Presbyterian factions. In spite of Charles promotion of Episcopacy and the oath of allegiance, Presbyterian conventicles continued to meet regularly and secretly and were considered a threat to internal security during the Restoration era. The Murrays of Atholl were an Episcopalian family and raised their children in that faith. They were loyal to the sanctioned state church over which the monarch gained absolute dominance after the Act of Supremacy in 1669 and it was tenets of this faith and its policies that shaped Lord Murray’s spiritual thinking. Atholl was an evident Episcopalian who had never wavered from the faith during the years of the covenanting wars and the interregnum and Murray’s mother, too, came from a firmly Anglican background. At Charles II coronation at Scone in 1651, Atholl, still in his minority at age 20, was granted a position as a colonel in the King’s regiment of foot. He zealously led his Athollmen in service to Charles’ cause before his submission in 1654 after participation and defeat in Glencairn’s rising. Having befriended Charles when the King took up residence in Perth, the young earl’s loyalty to his sovereign and their continued friendship was genuine. Learning lessons of how to manoeuvre the monarchical political structure, ‘he … applied himself assiduously to his political duties.’ Although Atholl never languished in prison as did political contemporaries such as Lauderdale, he was nevertheless a fine military leader and was rewarded by Charles with many martial titles throughout his reign ‘for securing peace in the Highlands’, ultimately leading the ‘Highland Host’ against his unruly, conventicling neighbours to the west in 1667. Commenting on an aging Atholl at the time of the Revolution in 1689 the marchioness hoped he would be able to live ‘peaceably at home and enjoy his religion [Episcopacy]’.
From the years 1663 to 1685 military actions in Scotland were undertaken on the advice of the Privy Council to suppress conventicles. In the wake of considered and actual unauthorized military actions against these rouge ministers in early 1663, Lauderdale, with royal backing, proposed an act to create a standing militia designed to quell the unrest of small sects of those outside the established church in an attempt to avoid open conflict. The goal was to either bring them back into the fold of official state worship or make an example of them to others through execution –– risking in the process the creation of martyrs. However, at this point the reactions of some Resolutioner Presbyterians along with the suppressed Episcopal clergy showed that ‘loyalty had its limits’ and an opposition to Lauderdale led primarily by the duke of Hamilton challenged this and other such costly and radical practices. Twice Indulgences to those outside the religious fold were granted but to no avail and eventually Lauderdale’s policies resulted in the Highland Host expedition - a political debacle and the final straw in his friendship with Atholl. Not only was the Host designed to terrorize dissenters, but also and perhaps more importantly it was designed to devastate Lauderdale’s main ‘opposition’, the duke of Hamilton.
The marquis’ own desire to maintain his place in the King’s inner circle required him to take on the mantle of religious adhesion to Episcopacy while publicly engaged in attempts to pacify radical covenanters. His military actions viewed next to surviving religious advice may indicate ambiguity in shaping the youthful Murray’s religious tolerations. At this time as a general principle of seventeenth-century political life, ‘A man’s religious allegiance…tended to be decided by his relationship to those who comprised the central administration.’ However, more recent works place a moderate tone on religious matters in later 17th century Scotland and political involvement of nobles caused their private religious beliefs to be less clear. In the letter that the marquis wrote to Murray upon his entrance to St. Andrews in 1676, the father offered this spiritual advice to his son:
Of all things forgett not your devotions; let that bee the first and last thing ye doe, for you know to fear God is the beginning of wisdome, Remember your Creatour in the dayes of your youth, and it will be easie to you when you grow old, This will make you hapie here, and in the world to come. God bless you dear Jack, and grant you mind these things, and I assure you of a kind father.
ATHOLL.”
He is evidently anxious that his son should have an active moral and spiritual life, but he says nothing at all about how to give his faith formal expression. This demonstrates that marquis undoubtedly cared for his son’s soul, but later actions in the political realm reveal he was not above allowing his son to switch religious allegiances to further his political and pecuniary fortunes. He obviously taught him how to be correct in his spiritual devotions, yet moderate in his political approach on the subject.
The first public display of his religious persuasion occurred at age 18 when Murray and his brother Charles joined their father in the ‘Highland Host’ expedition ostensibly to roust the religious dissenters in the West. Whatever the true motivations for the instigation of the ‘Host’ – suppression of militant conventicling, Lauderdale’s personal revenge on Hamilton or bishops seeking unrest to denounce conventicles - those who participated appeared to support the monarch’s policy of maintaining the peace in Scotland although they engaged in excessive plundering and only succeeded in further angering the conventiclers. The Highland Host once again demonstrated Charles standard policy of moving loyal troops to disloyal areas to stifle insurrections. As for where young Lord Murray’s religious and temporal loyalties lay - what greater show of support could he give than to participate in the Host as a Captain of Athollmen? Lord John wrote to his mother from Ayr that, ‘my father & brother and I came out of Aire hither to see the Highland men altogether’ and two days later reported that, ‘Every body thinkes it will be about a fortnight…tell we shall return.’ He was referring to the Highland Host spending a total of five weeks quartered in the west before returning home. That was sufficient time for the marquis to determine that his two eldest sons required further military training as it is a certainty that after the experience the marquis felt it necessary to send them to St. Germain to study warfare tactics along with other gentlemanly polishing. Evidencing this is that the marquis fought alongside the duke of Monmouth at Bothwell Brig on June 22, 1679 in the suppression of the conventiclers angered by the Highland Host catastrophe while both elder sons were by that time in France. Unfortunately, owing to the illness of their guardian, their military training and gentlemanly polishing came to an abrupt end. Even in the letter of August 1680 when marquis writes to finalise their travel details, he advises his son to grasp further experience and information out of the trip: ‘and on your way to London stay some tyme with the french armie that you may observe there deseepline & such other things as are worth the offereing’ Perhaps this still-unexplored time in France changed Lord Murray’s spiritual thoughts in some meaningful way, for, five years after his captainship in the ‘Highland Host’, he married the daughter of the same Hamiltons whom the Host had subjugated. Even though Presbyterianism appeared to triumph upon the establishment of William III, church matters provided the main ostensible party division within Scotland for half of William’s reign. This division would never entirely be healed and eventually reappeared with talk of Union as the church settlement in Scotland created anticipation, if not fear, for both Episcopalians and Presbyterians.
Lord Murray’s Marriage
Scotland’s political culture near the end of the 17th c. witnessed the rise of several political polarities and the Murray/Hamilton marriage amalgamated two powerful families into not only a personal union but a factional one which began with the marquis’s split from Lauderdale in 1678 to join with the commissioner’s well known adversary, William Douglas, 3rd duke of Hamilton. This familial alliance was powerful in Scotland even for a time gaining ascendancy over the Argyll, Tweeddale and Queensbury blocs, and remained important through the years leading up to the incorporation of the nation into Union with England. When Atholl inherited his title at age of 11, he understood his importance in the world from an early age and during the time of Lord Murray’s youth the Atholl family was treated almost regally. After becoming a marquis in 1676, ‘in accord with the size of his estates – one of the wealthiest in the country – Atholl was often addressed as ‘Most High Prince’. His estates had been well managed during the years of his minority, he was given enough education to enable him eventually to aspire to success in political life, and most importantly, he was a well-trusted friend of the restored monarch and his principal Scottish minister, the duke of Lauderdale. In order to secure and further his prestige and his holdings, the marquis was not above using his children and their marriages to align the family with other powerful names so as to gain more control over certain areas. This was common enough practice amongst the ruling magnates, a principal mechanism for forming strong political, neighbourly and clan ties, but although men such as the marquis could see the value of creating local power blocs, when they considered the options for marrying off their offspring, they were also strongly aware of a wider world. By the conventions of honour, of course, he expected to manipulate his own children’s choice of partners in order to gain further political power. Having himself made a strong influential match by marrying into the House of Stanley, he sought a similarly advantageous alliance for his son and heir early in the boy’s life, which demonstrates his own political tendencies through the ties he attempted to create.
For noble Scottish families the rite of marriage was not only a personal union between two people but had political and economic implications affecting the entire family. The search for a suitable match for Lord John started as soon as decently possible. When the boy was still quite young, apparently around the age of 13, his father‘s initial intention was to betroth him to the Duchess of Lauderdale’s daughter by her first marriage, Lady Catherine Tollemache. Prior to the open rupture with the duke of Lauderdale after the failed Highland Host expedition, this marriage contract was voided in October of 1677 signalling an already cooling relationship between the former allies. Furthermore, the marquis had begun to have his own private doubts about an alliance with the Lauderdale faction and he never viewed the match with much favour; the break of the potential match relieved him. Following this change of political allegiance, he and his cousin, the earl of Perth, who had written to the marquis in November 1678 that he had been treated harshly by Lauderdale and congratulating him for ‘taking so well the treatment you have receved,’ formed an alliance with the duke of Hamilton to counterbalance Lauderdale’s machinations in the Privy Council. Subsequently, the movement against Lauderdale was also gaining momentum in the English Parliament, and within two years following Atholl’s break from Lauderdale, the duke, after almost twenty years in power and in failing health, was finally ousted as Lord High Commissioner.
Even though Atholl sided with Hamilton during the latter portion of Charles’ reign and gave his son over through marriage to the Hamilton political machine, within a decade the two would again become political rivals. Hamilton was a moderate Presbyterian, whom Atholl had witnessed throughout the Lauderdale regime ‘who endeavoured to reconcile the interests of the covenant and the crown, and who desired to reinstate the Parliament and the King in their respective freedom and authority.’ The marquis was perhaps delighted when a more timely, politically lucrative and noble match was generated out of this aberrant alliance, especially as it entwined his own progeny with the ancient and highly influential House of Hamilton, but alliance or not, he was Episcopalian and loyal to the memory of the Stuart kings.
In early 1682, a correspondence sprung up between Lord Murray and Lady Katherine Hamilton, the eldest daughter of the duke and his wife, Anne, duchess of Hamilton in her own right and the source of William Douglas’ title as 3rd duke. The match was attractive to the Murrays as the power of the lowland Hamilton family contrasted with that of another powerful Scottish family, the Highland Campbells of Argyll, who had long been political and martial enemies of both the Atholls and Hamiltons. Katherine was her father’s particular favourite, adored by her mother and siblings, and the Hamiltons could see the current and future merits of the match, so they willingly gave their consent with the duke stating in a letter to Atholl that he and his wife ‘have gone all the lengths we could to have such an alliance’ and the duchess corresponding to the marchioness that she ‘approved of the match and its terms of settlement.’ Lady Katherine was the granddaughter of James, 1st duke of Hamilton, a direct cousin of Charles I, and due to lineage very close to the succession of the Scottish throne; a pedigree giving them political and social power as great if not greater than any other venerable house in Scotland. The duke and duchess had always wished for all their children to marry only partners whom they loved and this was becoming much more tolerated in early modern noble society. In this match though, Lord John was not merely the passive instrument of his elders: whether or not at that stage he cherished strong feelings about Lady Katherine, he was certainly an enthusiastic participant with his ardent wooing of such a major catch as early letters between the two demonstrate that his wooing was much more ardent than her brief and formal responses. It took time to garner an invitation to Hamilton Palace to meet Katherine and as the marquis states in a letter to the enthusiastic Lord Murray: “I receued yours deare Jacke at the hunting. I am uerie well pleased that D.H. [duke of Hamilton] is content of a mitting.”
After exchanging letters, which over time became more personal and affectionate - prior to their engagement they had already developed pet names for one another; she was his ‘ill black lass’ and he was her ‘ill black lad’ - the Hamilton family as a body was aware of this growing devotion in Katherine. Lord Murray was subsequently rewarded with a visit to Hamilton Palace in the summer of 1682 in order to meet the family and further cement the budding fondness growing between the two young lovers. Writing from Windsor Palace on June 20, 1682, her brother James, the earl of Arran, wishes her well and hopes that the visit of the ‘strangers’ will go well. It is undeniable that Lord John and Lady Katherine were smitten with one another and the rendezvous resulted in a formal engagement resulting in the marriage becoming a lifetime love match. It took a great deal of time to negotiate the marriage contract, but it was finally settled in early 1683. The marriage took place at Hamilton Palace on April 24, 1683 under the Presbyterian Rite and was attended by Murray’s parents with a celebration lasting for a week of festivities following the ceremony. Although Presbyterian and in spite of church disapproval of such displays, the Hamiltons spared no expense to impress upon the Murray family their stature in the Scottish nobility; provisions for the wedding banquet included ‘all manner of extra goods … brought in ranging from wine glasses to chamber pots…wild fowl were brought, sugar plums sent for and no fewer than thirty cows were killed’. Along with catering preparations for the marriage beginning over a month in advance, Katherine was also outfitted with a new trousseau and Lord Murray sent his father a letter thanking him for the £100 provided to him for new marriage clothes. After spending over a month on a honeymoon at Hamilton Palace they made their early home at Falkland in Fife and ‘they were delighted with each other and their happiness endured for the rest of their married life’.
In spite of the couples obvious affection the marriage was entered upon with other, more practical considerations firmly in view, and it was through the direct influence and political tutelage of the Hamilton family on the Atholl interest that Murray was able to successfully navigate the treacherous and subtle waters of Early Modern Scottish politics as practiced in Holyrood, and, later on, in London - much more so than his own father, whom most were firmly convinced was a selfish political opportunist. During the Glorious Revolution, Murray, along with corresponding with his father, writes to Hamilton for advice and supplies as head of the Convention, but according to some scholars there was suspicion that Murray was a Jacobite supporter who allowed Dundee and his army to travel through Atholl lands unimpeded. Supporting this idea is strong evidence that many Scots were loyal to the Stuarts causing varying degrees of reluctance to William III’s invasion and Murray’s own correspondence at the time demonstrates his vacillation; however propaganda served its purpose to sway those seeking power thwarted by the Stuarts to accept William. Lord Murray communications with his father who was away for his health in Bath, indicate the family was playing a dangerous double game in order to hold onto their lands, with Murray caught squarely in the middle. In spite of any possible cooling in the affections between father and son during this period perhaps owing to the marquis brief imprisonment in the Tower and his son’s inability to stifle the arrest, without a doubt the marquis could see Murray’s future position secured. His alliance with the House of Hamilton provided Lord Murray close interactions with heads of state and as the pre-eminent Scottish noble family was about to emerge as the prominent political force in the nation under William III, Murray’s political fortunes were rising. The marquis was intelligent and acquisitive enough to put aside his personal proclivities and old loyalties to allow his Highland family to intertwine with an influential Lowland noble house creating a power structure that would prove vastly important for the rest of Lord Murray’s political life. When he reached the English capital, he spent several years, under the guidance of his father-in-law, working against his opposition: the Queensbury and Argyll factions who had joined together in opposition to the Hamilton-Murray alliance. Furthermore, beyond the marriage providing him with a woman he truly loved, he also acquired political links with his brothers-in-law. These included the earl of Arran, (later James, 4th duke of Hamilton) and the earls of Selkirk, Orkney, and Ruglen. In addition, Katherine’s sister Susan married first the earl of Dundonald, then after his death, James, the marquis of Tweeddale while her other sister Margaret married the earl of Panmure. Some of these new relatives would become close political allies and friends to Lord Murray. The earl of Arran, initially a family embarrassment due to his rampant Jacobitism and financial irresponsibility, eventually wielded political power upon attaining title and he became a powerful ally to Murray and at times a potential threat.
The marriage became the bedrock of John Murray’s life, both private and public although it challenged the cultural Highland identity and inherent Episcopalian thinking imbued in him as a child. The woman whom he married not only brought to him familial connections, Presbyterianism, Lowland values and bore him twelve children; she was a constant comfort and companion in letters when absent from his family on state business, and provided him with an enduring, devotional and faithful love until her untimely and early death in January 1707. Losing her was a blow to him (and his children as will be discussed later) at a stage in his life where he needed her strength and support more than ever – she died during his attempts to suppress incorporating union, the idea of which they both loathed. Further research may uncover that his anguish at this high-stress personal event may have disabled his ability to fight as strongly and effectively against Union in the upcoming Parliament. He was far less of a force for opposition than he had initially promised to be as the last round of union negotiations began. Thus, his marriage not only provided him with a beloved companion and children and sound political guidance from both his father and mother-in-law, it also groomed him to become one of the leading Scottish nobles in the era of Jacobitism and Union.
Murray’s Relevance and Importance
Why has Lord John Murray, 1st duke of Atholl attracted so little attention, given the importance of his pedigree, connections, and his position as the overseer of many Scots in both the Highlands and Lowlands in an era encompassing vast economic, social, political and religious upheaval? How did he manage to maintain control over these vastly divergent traditions in light of all his historical and inaccurate negative press? On one hand, he had to manage an estate with numerous tenants with their differing cultures, religions and languages, and on the other, he had a undeniably powerful presence in the Williamite and Anne Courts manoeuvring adroitly among his political advocates and foes, displaying what scholars have described as military incompetence and ‘timidity’, ‘denigration of rivals’ and ‘anecdotal obtuseness.’ Yet in spite of these dismissals, throughout his political life he was a presence in the Courts of Sessions and Parliaments held at Edinburgh and post-Union, in London. After voting against Union, he manoeuvred to become one of the sixteen Westminster representative peers from Scotland ostensibly to ensure Scottish interests were always contemplated in the wider scheme. Considering the abhorrence with which he viewed the Union this is rather remarkable, and may be due in part to the continued counsel of his former mother-in-law, Anne, duchess of Hamilton, in spite of the deaths of her husband (1694) and her daughter (1707), and his re-marriage in 1710 to Hon. Mary Ross, daughter of William, 11th Lord Ross. Anne corresponded with Murray until her death in 1716.
It is possible that Murray has been overlooked primarily because he does not fit into a convenient mould for ‘straightforward study’ and is therefore not easily categorized as a Whig or Jacobite, an Episcopalian or Presbyterian, or a Highlander or Lowlander. His motivations and lack of political manipulation have made him appear ineffectual and therefore misunderstood and perhaps disregarded as unworthy for study. This is a man whose entire life was lived literally ‘in the middle’ of all the possible political, ecclesiastical and social extremes he encountered. His loyalties in almost every observable instance were predominantly divided between all the major themes of the polemic era in which he lived and exerted power. Raised by firmly Royalist, Episcopalian parents he nevertheless married a woman whom he deeply loved and outwardly converted to Presbyterianism, in order to facilitate the match. In spite of any Episcopal sentiments he may have harboured privately, his public face always remained firmly with the Kirk. Ensuing from the notion that all those involved with episcopacy were ‘crypto-Jacobites’, several previous historical works have depicted both the marquis and Lord Murray as ardent Jacobites; a rumour that plagued Murray all his life. Discussing the implications of a ‘Jacobite report’, which had been intercepted in the summer of 1692, in his book Glencoe and the End of the Highland War, Paul Hopkins states, ‘The Jacobite report also claimed that Atholl and Murray would do their utmost for James, but admitted that they professed otherwise.’ Allan Macinnes states in his recent book ‘Union and Empire’ that part of the Country party opposition to Queensbury in 1706 that the party included ‘the Jacobites grouped around John Murray, 1st Duke of Atholl’. However, private correspondence with his wife, brothers and sons indicate a different man – and that man was not a Jacobite.
As a magnate over tenants holding lands in the Highlands of Perthshire and the Lowlands in Fife, he was responsible for both vast and wealthy estates and their management. Lord Murray lived in remarkable times – possibly the most dramatically shifting times seen in Scottish history. Born in the year of the monarchical Restoration to the British throne along with the return of Episcopacy he witnessed the demise of the Stuart Kings through their own folly and mishandling of economics, spiritual doctrine and politics throughout the British Isles and Ireland. Moreover, Scotland ceased to be an independent nation in 1707 when the incorporating union amalgamated the two nation’s governing political institutions and, perhaps most anguishing to the duke, he suffered internal divisions within his own family being at times, after his marriage in to the House of Hamilton, alienated from his own father over petty estate issues and, later, with three of his sons through their lifelong and destructive dedication to the hopeless cause of Jacobitism. Above all, Lord John Murray strikes the fastidious observer as thoughtful and deeply concerned over personal, estate and national matters. In his surviving archival letters his prose is never cursory and his commitment to his convictions never waver in spite of the personal and political accusations of which he was constantly accused. Murray was deeply dedicated to the Scottish nation as a whole and he believed in its sovereign independence. He undoubtedly held many conflicting inner personal beliefs and in his later years wrote in a private journal of his ‘misdeeds’, but when taken under serious study by reading through all his adult correspondence to both his political contacts and his close and extended family members, he is neither petty nor overtly righteous but attempts to strike an experienced balance between thoughtful counsel and reasoned persuasion.
Further reasoning for the absence of a thorough work on Murray is simply due to a critical lack of academic work on Restoration Scotland overall. Although this is gradually being remedied, one cannot expect every notable Scottish magnate of the era to have a well-researched biography in place on bookshelves for the historical academic community. Some of the long-term politically powerful and well-known Scottish nobility have been covered to some extent, but as noted by Clare Jackson in Restoration Scotland, 1660 –1690: Royalist Politics, Religion and Ideas, ‘resurgent interest in the Restoration process in England, late-seventeenth century Scotland and Ireland have hitherto remained relatively uncharted historiographical territory.’ More recently, Gillian MacIntosh remarks that in spite of the past decade seeing a renewed interest in the Restoration era, ‘the period has not been well served by current published historiography’ a sentiment also shared by historian Ronald Lee. To assist in alleviating in some small manner a void in current academic knowledge of the period is one goal of the research of Lord Murray. He was, after all, from one of the leading noble families and played a large part in shaping the nation during his lifetime. The hopeful outcome of this work is to demonstrate Murray as an adaptable character capable of patiently learning lessons from those whom he served while seeking personal and familial success. His anti-Union stance was firm in spite of Macinnes adjective of ‘lukewarm.’ ‘In 1707 he took to the field with 7000 men…to oppose the union with England’ demonstrating his commitment to Scotland and its interests in spite of aspiring later for recognition in Westminster. At times seemingly petulant, jealous and petty, overall his tolerance, disciplined political manoeuvres and sound decision making skills kept him at the forefront of Scottish political and social life until he died. A study of his life will shed further knowledge on not only the overlooked Restoration era in Scotland, but also provide an insightful bridge between the end of the Stuart monarchy and the early Hanoverian regime that ultimately consolidated the final amalgamation of Scotland into a hitherto unwanted and unwelcome Union with her powerful sister nation to the south.
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J.D. Mackie, A History of Scotland (Penguin Books Ltd, London, 1964) p. 24
Blair Castle. Prod. Atholl Estate Office. Perf. Narrated by Alaistar Hutton. DVD. 2000
John, 7th Duke of Atholl, K.T., Chronicles of the Atholl and Tullibardine Families, 7 Volumes (Edinburgh: Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh, 1908) I, pp. 25-27
Alsion Cathcart, Kinship and Clientage: Highland Clanship 1451-1609 (Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands 2006), p. 11
Atholl, Chronicles I, p. 101
Atholl, Chronicles I, p. 109
Atholl, Chronicles I, p. 135
Allan Macinnes, Clanship, Commerce and the House of Stuart, 1603-1788 (East Linton: Tuckwell Press Ltd, 1996), p. 6
Unknown Author, A Study on John, 1st Marquess of Atholl, (unpublished, handwritten in two volumes, dated by references: written after 1905 but before acquisition in 1910 by the 8th duke), Blair Castle Archives, 29 III, Vol. 1, pg. 4
T.C. Smout, A History of the Scottish People 1560-1830, (Collins/Fontana, London, 1972), pg. 195
John Cannon, ‘The British Nobility, 1660-1800’, in The European Nobilities in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, Volume I: Western and Southern Europe, ed. H.M. Scott (Longman, 1995) p. 63
James Balfour Paul, The Scots Peerage, (Edinburgh, 9V, 1904-1914), pg. 410
Unknown Author, A Study on John, 1st Marquess of Atholl, pg. 2
Atholl, Chronicles I, p. 16
Atholl, Chronicles I, p. 21
Atholl, Chronicles I, p. 16
Julian Goodare, ‘Murray, Sir William, of Tullibardine (d. 1583)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (Oxford University Press, 2004)
Jane Anderson, The Atholl Estates: A Brief History, (Perth and Kinross Heritage Trust, 2007), pg. 7
ibid, pg. 17
Keith Brown, ‘A Blessed Union? Anglo-Scottish Relations before the Covenant’, in Anglo Scottish Relations from 1603 to 1900, ed. T.C. Smout, (Oxford University Press, 2005), pg. 50
Daniel Szechi and David Hayton, ‘John Bull’s Other Kingdoms: The English Government of Scotland and Ireland’, in ‘Britain in the First Age of the Party 1680-1750’, ed. Clyve Jones (The Hambeldon Press, London, 1987), pg. 245
Gillian MacIntosh, The Scottish Parliament under Charles II, 1660-1685, (Edinburgh University Press Ltd., 2007), pp. 51-52
Atholl MSS, Blair Castle, 71 II (A) 19
Keith Brown, Kingdom or Province? Scotland and the Regal Union, 1603 – 1715 (London: The Macmillan Press, Ltd, 1992), p. 39.
Rosalind Mitchison, Lordship to Patronage: Scotland 1603-1745, (Edward Arnold Publishers Ltd, London, 1983), pg. 103
Roderick Floud and Donald McCloskey, The Economic History of Britain Since 1700, Volume I: 1700 – 1860, (Cambridge University Press, 1994), pg. 206
Macinnes, Clanship, Commerce and the House of Stuart, pp. 148-149
Atholl MSS, Blair Castle, 4 III (2)
Atholl MSS, Blair Castle, 2 V (8)
Atholl MSS, Blair Castle, 5 IV (6,7)
Leah Leneman, Living in Atholl, 1685-1785 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1986), p. 206.
Anderson, pg. 7
Atholl, Chronicles I, p. 171
Ronald Lee, Government and Politics in Scotland, 1661-1681, (University of Glasgow, Unpublished Thesis, 1995), pg. 17
Atholl, Chronicles I, p. 136
Unknown Author, A Study on John, 1st Marquess of Atholl, pg. 6
Atholl, Chronicles I, p. 154
Atholl, Chronicles I, p. 169
Bruce Lenman, The Jacobite Risings in Britain: 1689-1746, (Methuen London Ltd., London, 1980), pg. 261
Macinnes, Clanship, Commerce and the House of Stuart, pg. 204
Christopher A. Whatley, Bought and Sold for English Gold? Explaining the Union of 1707, (The
Economic and Social History Society of Scotland, 1994) p. 32
P.W. J. Riley, King William and the Scottish Politicians, (John Donald Publishers Ltd. Edinburgh,
1979), p.110
Paul Hopkins, Glencoe and the End of the Highland War, (John Donald Publishers Ltd.
Edinburgh, 1986) p. 147
Scotland's ruine: Lockhart of Carnwath's memoirs of the Union, ed. Dan Szechi (Association for Scottish Literary Studies, Aberdeen, 1995) pg. 42
Andrew Scott Murray, Bonnie Dundee: John Grahame of Claverhouse, (John Donald Publishers Ltd. Edinburgh, 1989) pg. 165-66
Atholl MSS, Blair Castle, 29 I (3) 1
ibid and various other letters in Atholl MSS; throughout his life his mother and father refer to him
as ‘Jack’ or ‘Jacke’ in various letters in the collection.
Atholl MSS, Blair Castle, 29 I (3) 3
U.M. Cowgill. 1970, "The people of York, 1538-1812", (Scientific American v.223), pp.104-110.
Andrea A. Rusnock, Vital Accounts, (Cambridge University Press, New York, 2002), pg. 27
Keith Brown, Noble Society in Scotland: Wealth, Family and Culture, from Reformation to Revolution, (Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 2000) p. 160
ibid
Simon Schama, The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age, (Fontana Press, London, 1987), pg. 378
Linda A. Pollock, Forgotten Children: Parent Child relations from 1500 to 1900, (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1983), pg. 103
Atholl MSS, Blair Castle, 29 I (3) 7
Allan Everett Marble, Surgeons, Smallpox and the Poor, (Montreal, McGill-Queen's Press, 1997) p. 6-7
Whatley, Bought and Sold for English Gold?, p. 11
ibid, pg. 20
Macinnes, Clanship, Commerce and the House of Stuart, pg. 198
Anderson, pg. 4
* During his years as Marquis until his death in 1703 and henceforward, the Marquis will be referred to as ‘Atholl’ to distinguish his from his son, Lord Murray who later became Earl of Tullibardine.
Gillian MacIntosh, ‘Arise King John: Commissioner Lauderdale and Parliament in the Restoration Era’, in The History of the Scottish Parliament, Vol. 2, Parliament and Politics in Scotland 1567-1707, ed. Keith Brown and Alistair Mann, (Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 2005), pg. 165
MacIntosh, The Scottish Parliament, pg. 11
Atholl MSS, Blair Castle, 29 I (3) 22
Brown, Noble Society in Scotland, p. 182
ibid
Atholl MSS, Blair Castle, 29 I (3) 32
ibid
Ian Atherton, Ambition and Failure in Stuart England: The Career of John, first Viscount Scudamore, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999), p. 11
Smout, pg. 83
Atholl MSS, Blair Castle, 29 IV (1) Diary of John Murray
Brown, Noble Society in Scotland, p. 181
Atholl MSS, Blair Castle, 29 I (1) 78
Scott, Bonnie Dundee, pg. 28 *While Scott doesn’t implicitly state that Claverhouse used his military education in his role as Sheriff Depute of Forfarshire; the recent training he had received on the continent in service to the House of Orange played a great role in his success.
MacIntosh, The Scottish Parliament, pg. 221
Brown, Noble Society in Scotland, p. 194
Lee, pg. 92
Atholl, Chronicles I, p.135
Leneman, Living in Atholl, p. 1
Atholl, Chronicles I, p.164
Brown, Noble Society in Scotland, p. 188
Atholl MSS, Blair Castle, 29 I (3) 32
Anthony Slaven, ‘The Origins and Economic and Social Roles of Scottish Business Leaders, 1860-1960’, in Scottish Elites, ed. T.M. Devine, (John Donald Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh, 1994), pg. 158
Atholl MSS, Blair Castle, 29 I (3) 28
Atholl MSS, Blair Castle, 29 I (3) 32
Atholl MSS, Blair Castle, 29 I (3) 34
Atholl MSS, Blair Castle, 29 I (3) 42
Atholl, Chronicles I, p.169
Atholl, Chronicles I, p.16
Atholl MSS, Blair Castle, 29 I (3) 15
Ronald G. Cant, The University of St. Andrews: A Short History, (St. Andrews University Library, St. Andrews, 1992), pg. 74
Brown, Noble Society in Scotland, p. 188
Cant, The University of St. Andrews, pp. 73-74
Atholl MSS, Blair Castle, 29 I (3) 51
Julia Buckroyd, The Life of James Sharp, Archbishop of St. Andrews 1618-1679: A Political Biography, (John Donald Publishers, Ltd., Edinburgh, 1987), pg. 103
MacIntosh, The Scottish Parliament, pgs. 67, 91
David George Mullan, ‘Sharp, James (1618–1679)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004
Atholl, Chronicles I, p.171
Atholl, Chronicles I, p.170
Cram, David. "Philosophical Language Schemes and the Tradition of the Trivium and Quadrivium." Cultural History Seminar Series. University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen. 14 Oct. 2008
Scott, Bonnie Dundee, pg. 9
Atholl MSS, Blair Castle, 29 I (3) 55
Atholl MSS, Blair Castle, 29 I (3) 68
Atholl, Chronicles I, p.170 – a list of Murray’s entertainment costs, ‘losses at the goff’ and repairs of clubs are listed among other expenses incurred
Cant, The University of St. Andrews, pp. 74-75
Brown, Noble Society in Scotland, p. 189
Atholl MSS, Blair Castle, 29 I (3) 55
Atholl MSS, Blair Castle, 29 I (3a) 11
Atholl, Chronicles I, p.170
Atholl MSS, Blair Castle, 29 I (3) 55
Atholl, Chronicles I, p.175
Atholl, Chronicles I, p.179
Brown, Noble Society in Scotland, p. 191
Atholl MSS, Blair Castle, 29 I (3) 68
Atholl MSS, Blair Castle, 29 I (3) 69
ibid
Atholl MSS, Blair Castle, 29 I (3) 69
Lee, pg. 14
MacIntosh, The Scottish Parliament, pg. 229
Lee, pg. 12
Clare Jackson, Restoration Scotland, 1660 – 1690: Royalist Politics, Religion and Ideas, (The Boydell Press, Woodbridge, 2003), pg. 61
ibid, pg. 116
Atholl, Chronicles I, p.142
Atholl, Chronicles I, pp. 147-153
Unknown Author, Blair Castle Archives, 29 III, Vol. 1, pg. 32
Atholl, Chronicles I, p.156.
Atholl MSS, Blair Castle, 29 I (5) 96
Julia Buckroyd, Church and State in Scotland: 1660-1681, (Bell & Bain Ltd, Glasgow, 1980),
pg. 52
Atholl, Chronicles I, p.169
Buckroyd, Church and State in Scotland, pg. 53
Lee, pg. 37
Lee, pg. 41
MacIntosh, The Scottish Parliament, pg. 64
Jackson, pg. 75
Hopkins, pg. 63
Atholl, Chronicles I, p.177
Mark Goldie, ‘Divergence and Union: Scotland and England, 1660-1707’, in The British Problem c. 1534-1707; State Formation in the Atlantic Archipelago, ed. B. Bradshaw & J. Morrill, (Macmillan Press Ltd, London, 1996), pg. 229
Buckroyd, Church and State in Scotland, pg. 125
Riley, King William and the Scottish Politicians, p. 6
Brown, Noble Society in Scotland, p. 229
Atholl MSS, Blair Castle, 29 I (3) 52
Buckroyd, Church and State in Scotland, pg. 128
MacIntosh, The Scottish Parliament, pg. 152
Buckroyd, The Life of James Sharp, pg. 104
Hopkins, pp. 62-63
Lenman, pg. 32
Atholl MSS, Blair Castle, 29 I (3) 64
Atholl MSS, Blair Castle, 29 I (3) 65
Atholl, Chronicles I, p.175, *2
Atholl, Chronicles I, p.179
Atholl MSS, Blair Castle, 29 I (3) 69
Hopkins, p. 208
Stephen, Jeffrey, Scottish Presbyterians and the Act of Union 170, (Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 2007), pg. 20
MacIntosh, The Scottish Parliament, pg. 152
P.W.J. Riley, The Union of England and Scotland, (Manchester University Press, 1978), pg. 46
ibid, pg. 171
Scott, pg. 142
MacIntosh, The Scottish Parliament, pg. 143
Hopkins, pg. 60
Brown, Noble Society in Scotland, p. 113
Atholl, Chronicles I, p.174
Lee, pg. 88
ibid, pp. 174-175
Unknown Author, Atholl MSS, 29 III, Vol. 1, pg. 36
Atholl MSS, Blair Castle, 29 I (3) 67
Hopkins, pg. 63
MacIntosh, The Scottish Parliament, pg. 234
MacIntosh, The Scottish Parliament, pg. 152
Hopkins, pg. 127
Unknown Author, Atholl MSS, 29 III, Vol. 1, pg. 3
Hopkins, pg. 208
Atholl MSS, Blair Castle, 29 I (3) 85
Atholl MSS, Blair Castle, 29 I (3) 89
Atholl MSS, Blair Castle, 29 I (3) 91
Mitchison, pg. 124
Rosalind K. Marshall, The Days of Duchess Anne: Life in the Household of the Duchess of Hamilton, 1656 – 1716, (Tuckwell Press, East Lothian, 1973), pg. 13
ibid, pg. 147
Brown, Noble Society in Scotland, p. 122
Atholl MSS, Blair Castle, 29 I (3a) 13-16
Atholl MSS, Blair Castle, 29 I (3) 94
Atholl MSS, Blair Castle, 29 I (3) 102
Atholl MSS, Blair Castle, 29 I (3) 88
Atholl MSS, Blair Castle, 29 I (3) 88
Atholl MSS, Blair Castle, 32 (5) – Original contract of marriage between Lord John Murray and Lady Katherine Hamilton.
Marshall, pg. 122
ibid
Brown, Noble Society in Scotland, pp. 134-135
Marshall, pg. 122
Atholl MSS, Blair Castle, 29 I (5) 114
Atholl MSS, Blair Castle, 29 I (5) 126
Marshall, pg. 147
Mitchison, pg. 124
Scott, p. 125
Atholl MSS, Blair Castle, 29 I (5) 138-150
Murray Pittock, The Invention of Scotland: The Stuart Myth and the Scottish Identity, 1638 to the Present, (Routledge, Chapman and Hall, New York, 1991), pg. 21
ibid, p. 142
Atholl MSS, Blair Castle, 29 I (5) 170 & 174
Riley, King William and the Scottish Politicians, pg. 27
Hopkins, pg. 436
Riley, King William and the Scottish Politicians, pg. 119
Atholl MSS, Blair Castle, 29 I (5) 106
Christopher Whatley, The Scots and the Union, (Edinburgh University Press, 2006), pg. 86
Neil Davidson, Discovering the Scottish Revolution: 1692-1746, (Pluto Press, London, 2003), pg. 128
Riley, King William and the Scottish Politicians, pg. 146
Hopkins, pg. 436
ibid, pg. 462
Atholl MSS, Blair Castle, 29 II (4) 4
Stephen, pg. 93
Scott, pg. 85
Riley, King William and the Scottish Politicians, pg. 121
Hopkins, p. 369
Atholl, Chronicles II, p. 6
Hopkins, pp. 147-148
Macinnes, Allan I., Union and Empire: The Making of the United Kingdom in 1707, (Cambridge University Press, 2007) pg. 14, 256
Atholl MSS, Blair Castle, 29 I (6) 1
Atholl, Chronicles II, pp.54, 188* These are but two of multiple examples of insightful and wise advice written by his Grace
Jackson, pg. 5
MacIntosh, The Scottish Parliament, pg. x
Lee, pg. 4
Macinnes, Union and Empire, pg. 290
Atholl, Chronicles II, p.70
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