James Murray (Jacobite Earl of Dunbar)

James Murray Earl of Dunbar
James Murray, Earl of Dunbar
Jacobite Secretary of State
In office 1727–1747
Monarch	James III & VIII
Preceded by	John Hay, Duke of Inverness
Succeeded by	Daniel O'Brien, Earl of Lismore
Personal details
Born	1690
Died	1770 Avignon, France
Parents	David Murray, 5th Viscount of Stormont (father) Marjory Scott (mother)
Profession	Politician and courtier

James Murray, Earl of Dunbar (c. 1690–1770) was a Scottish Tory politician who became a Jacobite agent and courtier. He served as the Jacobite Secretary of State in exile in Rome from 1727 to 1747.

Earl life and family

Murray was the second child of David Murray, 5th Viscount of Stormont and Marjory Scott. His brothers included David Murray, 6th Viscount of Stormont and the First Earl of Mansfield. Despite being Protestants, Murray's family were Jacobites and his father had been declared a rebel by the Privy Council of Scotland in 1689 after he failed to respond to a summons by the Committee of Estates and was later imprisoned on several occasions.

Political career

In 1710, Murray was admitted as an advocate at the Faculty of Advocates, but he apparently never practised. In the 1710 British general election, he was put forward as the candidate for Dumfriesshire by Lord Annandale as a Tory. He was defeated by another Tory, William Grierson, but Murray's popularity among Scottish Tories ensured he was confirmed as a Member of Parliament by petition on 22 February 1711.

Once in parliament, Murray gave his support to the ministry of Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer. He associated himself with a group of MPs concerned with Scottish affairs and which aimed to promote episcopalianism in Scotland. He rapidly acquired a reputation in the Commons as being both ambitious and a holder of grudges. In 1712 he was a leading advocate for the Toleration Act which granted the right to worship for Scottish Episcopalians who prayed for the monarch and used the English Book of Common Prayer. In 1713, he was briefly affiliated with a parliamentary motion to dissolve the union of England and Scotland, but swiftly reverted to supporting the government after the proposal was defeated in the House of Lords.

In November 1713, Murray was appointed as a commissioner to carry out further negotiations for a commercial treaty with France. This brought him into contact with Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke, to whom he transferred his political allegiance. The same year he was chosen to represent Elgin Burghs, winning the seat without a contest. In January 1715, Murray failed to persuade the Faculty of Advocates to include in a loyal address sent to George I a clause for the repeal of the Acts of Union 1707. He failed to win a seat in the 1715 British general election, losing the Kinross-shire seat on petition.

Jacobite agent and courtier

After failing to win a seat in the Commons, Murray travelled to the exiled Jacobite court in France where he joined Viscount Bolingbroke and became his private secretary. In September 1715 during the Jacobite rising of 1715, he was despatched to Scotland with credentials as the Old Pretender's Scottish secretary of state. He returned to France in November with news of the Battle of Sheriffmuir. Subsequently travelling to Scotland a second time he was captured in Flanders and thereafter imprisoned by the British authorities in Newgate Prison from 16 April to 16 July 1716. After his release he spent the following two years as a Jacobite agent in London and Scotland. In 1718 he returned to the continent and the Jacobite court in Rome.

In 1719 James Murray turned the Jacobite court in Rome into (in Maurice Bruce's words) "a hotbed of intrigue". He helped negotiate the marriage of Maria Clementina Sobieska to the Old Pretender in 1719. During the subsequent imprisonment of his enemy, the Earl of Mar in Geneva from May 1719 to June 1720, he served as Secretary of State to the Old Pretender, but gained enemies in the Jacobite court and was sent away from Rome in 1720. Nevertheless, he never wholly lost favour with the Pretender, who created him Earl of Dunbar, Viscount of Drumcairn and Lord Hadykes in the Jacobite peerage on 2 February 1721. In 1725 Murray was made a Knight of the Order of Thistle and at some point in 1726, he was made Governor and tutor to the Prince of Wales, confirmed in the role on 4 June 1727. At the same time John 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. From 1724, Murray served as the Old Pretender's principal Secretary of State, but without ever being formally invested with the office. In 1747 James Murray left the Jacobite court after Prince Charles held him responsible for the decision of the Duke of York to receive holy orders. He retired to Avignon, where there was a significant community of Jacobites, living there until his death. In 1751 he was received into the Roman Catholic Church and took holy orders. Dying in August 1770, he left the bulk of his property to Henry Benedict Stuart, and requested that 10,000 masses be said for the happy repose of his own soul.