# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Murray, John (1635-1703)

​MURRAY, JOHN, second Earl and first Marquis of Atholl (1635?–1703), eldest son of John, first earl of Atholl of the Murray line, by Jean, youngest daughter of Sir Duncan Campbell of Glenurchy, was born about 1635. The first earl was royalist in his sympathies, and in 1640 his territories were invaded by Argyll, who brought him a prisoner to Stirling Castle. He was released on payment of 10,000l. and an engagement to take south to the covenanting army a regiment of five hundred men under his own command (Balfour, Annals, ii. 380). Subsequently, along with Montrose, he signed the band of Cumbernauld in defence of the ​king. He died in June 1642. The son was also a strong loyalist, and in 1650 took up arms with his clan to rescue Charles II from the tyranny of the covenanters. The attempt proved, however, abortive, the king deeming it advisable to return to Perth, and shortly afterwards a letter was written to Atholl in the name of the king and the estates asking him to give in his submission, on pain of high treason (ib. iv. 117). On 16 Oct. he presented a supplication that the word ' rebellion ' be deleted out of his pardon, and a more favourable term inserted, that pardon should be granted to one of his followers for the slaughter of a lieutenant, and that he should have the keeping of his own house of Blair on promise of fidelity. Only the first of his requests was granted (ib. p. 126). On 20 Dec. he was, however, appointed one of the colonels of foot for Perth (ib. p. 211), and on the 23rd the castle of Blair was restored to him upon sufficient security that he would be forthcoming for the king and parliament's service (ib. p. 215). Atholl was the main support of the highland rising under Middleton and Glencairn in 1653, having joined the standard of the royalists with two thousand men and remained in arms till Glencairn finally came to terms with General Monck. Chiefly on this account he was excepted from Cromwell's Act of Grace, 12 April 1654.
At the Restoration, in 1660, Atholl was sworn a member of the privy council, and on 28 Aug. he was nominated sheriff of Fifeshire. In 1663 he was appointed justice-general of Scotland, in 1670 captain of the king's guards, in 1672 keeper of the privy seal, and on 14 Jan. 1673 an extraordinary lord of session. He succeeded to the earldom of Tullibardine on the death without issue of James, fourth earl of Tullibardine, in 1670, and on 17 Feb. 1676 he was created Marquis of Atholl, Earl of Tullibardine, Viscount of Balquhidder, Lord Murray, Balvany, and Gask.
Atholl was at first a strong supporter of the policy of Lauderdale, and endeavoured to win over Hamilton into 'an entire confidence with him' (Burnet, Own Time, 1838 ed. p. 224), promising him the chief direction under Lauderdale of 'all affairs in Scotland.' He also represented to him the 'great advantages that Scotland, more particularly the great nobility, might find 'by making the king absolute in England (ib. p. 225). In the prosecution of conventicles he was likewise for some time extremely active, raising in one week no less than 1,900l. sterling by arbitrary fines (ib. p. 226). In 1678, at the head of 2,400 men, he accompanied the 'highland host' in their raid on the western shires, but on account of the excesses then committed he severed himself from Lauderdale, and joined the deputation which shortly afterwards went to the king to plead for a mitigation of the severities against the covenanters (ib. p. 278 ; Wodrow, ii. 449). On this account he was denounced by the Bishop of Galloway as a sympathiser with conventicles (ib.}, and ultimately, owing to his opposition to Lauderdale, he was deprived of the office of justice-general. In 1681, on account of the death of the chancellor, John Leslie, seventh earl and first duke of Rothes [q. v.], Atholl acted as president of the parliament, but he was disappointed in his hopes of succeeding to the chancellorship, which, after considerable delay, was conferred on George Gordon, first earl of Aberdeen [q. v.] On 5 March a commission was given Atholl to execute the laws against conventicles (ib. lii. 372), and on 5 May he was appointed one of a committee to inquire into the charges against Lord Halton in regard to the coinage and the mint (Lauder of Fountainhall, Hist. Notices, p. 355). The fall of the Maitlands led to his restoration to favour. On 5 Aug. 1684 he was appointed lord-lieutenant of Argyll, Tarbat, and the adjacent islands. This, according to Lauder of Fountainhall, was 'to please him, seeing he lost the chancellor's place, and to perfect Argyll's ruin' (ib. p. 547). Argyll had fled to Holland, and Atholl having entered Argyllshire with about a thousand men, apprehended Lord Neill Campbell, Campbell of Ardkinglass, and others, disarmed the inhabitants, and brought their arms to Inverness, and prohibited the 'indulged' ministers from officiating from that time forth (see especially Hist. MSS. Comm. 12th Rep. App. pt. viii. pp. 12-13). On learning of the landing of Argyll in Kintyre in May 1685 [see Campbell, Archibald, ninth Earl of Argyll], Atholl left Edinburgh on the 18th, and on the 30th reached Inverary, where he was joined by the Marquis of Breadalbane. The energetic measures undertaken by him against Argyll, and the closeness with which he dogged his movements, caused the gradual dispersion of his followers, and on 18 June Argyll was captured at Inchinnan (for various particulars see ib. pp. 17-24). After Argyll's capture Atholl displayed great severity in harassing and plundering his territories (Wodrow, iii. 310). In July he captured Argyll's second son, Charles, who had sent round the fiery cross to raise the clan, and had also garrisoned a house in Argyll. Notwithstanding that when taken he was ill of a fever, Atholl purposed, in virtue of his justiciary power, to have ​hanged him at his father's gate at Inverary, had the privy council not interfered to prevent it (Lauder of Fountainhall, Hist. Notices, p. 655). On 29 May 1687 Atholl was made a knight of the Thistle, on the revival of that order by James II.
At the revolution the part played by Atholl was very equivocal, and the weakness and irresolution that characterised his conduct lost him the confidence of both parties. He was one of the secret committee of King James which met in September 1688 to plan measures in opposition to the threatened expedition of the Prince of Orange (Balcarres, Memoirs, p. 6), but on the arrival of the prince went to wait on him in London. His readiness to acknowledge the prince is supposed to have been due partly to the influence of his wife, a daughter of the seventh Earl of Derby, who was related to the house of Orange by her mother, a descendant of the family of Tremouille in France. In any case his conduct seems to have been chiefly regulated by personal interests, for being disappointed at his reception by the prince he again attached himself after a fashion to the party of King James. At the convention of the Scottish estates on 14 March 1689 he was proposed by the Jacobites in opposition to the Duke of Hamilton, who, however, had a majority of fifteen. After James II by his imprudent message had fatally ruined his prospects with the convention, Atholl consented to the proposal of Dundee and Balcarres to hold a convention of Jacobites in the name of James at Stirling (ib, p. 16), but his fatal irresolution at the last moment, and his stipulation for a day's delay, caused the frustration of the scheme (ib. pp. 27, 30). Subsequently he proposed that the Duke of Gordon, who held the castle of Edinburgh, should fire on the city, to intimidate the convention (ib. p. 31). He remained in Edinburgh after the withdrawal of Dundee. When the vote was taken in the convention as to the dethroning of James II, he and Queensberry withdrew from the meeting, but after the resolution was carried they returned, and explained that since the estates had declared the throne vacant they were convinced that none were so well fitted to fill it as the Prince and Princess of Orange (ib. p. 36). On 13 April Atholl wrote a letter to King William, professing sincere loyalty, but hoping that the king would not assent to the abolition of episcopacy in Scotland (Leven and Melville Papers, p. 12). To avoid entangling himself in the contest inaugurated by Dundee he withdrew from Atholl to the south of England, explaining to King William's government that he had 'to go to the baths for his health, being troubled with violent pains' (ib. p. 22), and that he had left his eldest son to manage his interests for the king's service. It is quite clear that personally he had no desire to further the interests of the Prince of Orange, or to do more than was necessary to save himself from prosecution. Macaulay, with an excess of emphasis, calls him 'the falsest, the most fickle, the most pusillanimous of mankind,' but, he adds with truth, a word from him 'would have sent two thousand claymores to the Jacobite side;' but while 'all Scotland was waiting with impatience and anxiety to see in which army his numerous retainers would be arrayed he stole away to Bath and pretended to drink the waters' (History, 1885, i ii. 53). When the majority of his clan afterwards declared for Dundee, he asserted that he had been betrayed by his servants, but he adopted no adequate precautions to prevent this. On news reaching the government of the disaster at Killiecrankie, due in great part to the attitude of his followers, Atholl was brought up from Bath to London in custody of a messenger (Luttrell, Short Relation, i. 567), but he does not appear to have been detained after his examination. In 1690 he was concerned in intrigues against the Prince of Orange, and he was in the secret of the Montgomery plot (Balcarres, Memoirs, p. 61; see Montgomery, Sir James, fl. 1690). In a Jacobite memorial of October 1691 it is stated that Arran answers 'body for body for Argyll and Atholl' (Ferguson, Ferguson the Plotter, p. 290), and it was proposed that he should act as one of the lieutenant-generals in an intended Jacobite rising (ib.) Afterwards, with the Marquis of Breadalbane, he was appointed by the government to conduct negotiations for the pacification of the highlands (Leven and Melville Papers, p. 625).
Atholl died 6 May 1703, and was buried on the 17th in the cathedral church of Dunkeld. By his wife Lady Amelia Sophia Stanley, third daughter of James, seventh earl of Derby, he had five sons and one daughter: John, second marquis and first duke [q. v.]; Lord Charles, first earl of Dunmore [q. v.]; Lord James of Rowally, who with a large number of men joined Dundee in 1689, but on making submission received a free pardon; Lord William, who became Lord Nairn; Lord Edward, for some time captain in the royal Scots; and Lady Amelia, married to Hugh, tenth lord Lovat, and after her husband's death carried off by Simon Fraser, twelfth lord Lovat [q. v.]
T. F. H.