- James Murray (Jacobite)
James Murray, Earl of Dunbar (c.1690–1770) was a Jacobite.
Family
He was the second child of
David Murray, 5th Viscount of Stormont and Majory Scott. His brothers includedDavid Murray, 6th Viscount of Stormont and the First Earl of Mansfield.Life
His father's family was Protestant but Jacobite in its politics, and James was no exception. From 1711 to 1713 he was
Member of Parliament for Dumfriesshire but, apparently mixed up in some of the plots of the timeFact|date=December 2007, he later went to join the court of the exiled Stuarts. He was reportedly both ambitious and a holder of grudges. [ [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0080-4401%281937%294%3A20%3C61%3ATDOMIE%3E2.0.CO%3B2-B Maurice Bruce, 'The Duke of Mar in Exile, 1716-32', from "Transactions of the Royal Historical Society", 4th Ser., Vol. 20 (1937), pages 63-4, 76-7 and 80] ]In 1719 James Murray turned the Jacobite court in Rome into (in Maurice Bruce's words) "a hotbed of intrigue" and, during the subsequent imprisonment of his enemy the Earl of Mar in
Geneva from May 1719 to June 1720, he served asSecretary of State toJames Francis Edward Stuart , the "Old Pretender", but gained enemies in the Jacobite court (including Mar) and was sent away fromRome in 1720. Nevertheless, he never wholly lost favour with the Pretender, who created himEarl of Dunbar in 1721 and Governor and tutor to the Prince of Wales sometime in 1726, confirming it onJune 4 1727 . [ [http://books.google.com/books?id=zgjlWc42iooC&pg=PA224&lpg=PA224&dq=%22james+murray+earl+of+dunbar%22&source=web&ots=2MiWCjfPqT&sig=YC7sdvxR05YUvQ5skVtTYsyt3KI The Jacobite Peerage, Baronetage, Knightage, and Grants of Honour] ] [ [http://www.jacobite.ca/documents/17260917.htm Letter from King James III and VIII to Queen Clementina, September 17, 1726] ] At the same timeJohn Hay of Cromlix was made secretary of state, and his wife Marjorie (James Murray's sister) made Charles' governess (though the Hays resigned their posts in 1727).Murray and Bishop Atterbury co-operated in Mar's final fall from Jacobite favour in 1724 and, though he and Atterbury came into conflict between 1725 and 1728, the quarrel was soon patched up. In 1747 James Murray retired to
Avignon , where there was a significant community of Jacobites, living there until his death. [Melville de Massue de Ruvigny, The Jacobite Peerage, Baronetage, Knightage & Grants of Honour (Edinburgh: T.C. & E.C. Jack, 1904), 44, quoted in [http://www.jacobite.ca/gazetteer/France/Avignon.htm A Jacobite Gazeteer] ]Murray's daughter Mary Murray married Colonel Ligonier or Ligunier, and their daughter Frances married a Colonel Thomas Balfour. [ [http://www.ancientancestors.net/F70/F70834.htm Ancient Ancestors] ]
References
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