# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Murray, Andrew (d.1338)

​MURRAY or MORAY, Sir ANDREW (d. 1338), of Bothwell, warden of Scotland, was the son of Sir Andrew Moray of Bothwell, the companion of Wallace, who fell at Stirling on 11 Sept, 1297 (Wyntoun, ii. 344). He is first mentioned as the leader of a serious rising (non modicus) in Moray in the late summer of 1297 (Doc. Illust. of 'Hist. of Scotland, ed. Stevenson, ii. 210). On 28 Aug. he received letters of safe-conduct to visit his father, then a prisoner in the Tower of London (ib. p. 228). In the same year he was, though still a young man, joined in command with Wallace in the Scottish advance into Northumberland (Hemingford, i. 131), and in the succeeding raids into Cumberland and Annandale. On 8 Nov. he and Wallace appear as the grantors of a charter of protection to the monastery of Hexham, which had suffered at the hands of their wild soldiery (ib. i. 135). In 1326 he married Christian, sister of Robert I, widow of (1) Gratney, earl of Mar, and (2) Sir Christopher Seton. He appears to have been in receipt of an annuity in 13291330 (Exchequer Rolls, i. 218, 287, 341). Shortly after Edward Baliol was crowned, in 1332, Moray was elected warden or regent by the Scots who adhered to the young king, David II, but he had no opportunity of attempting anything till the following year, when he attacked Baliol at Roxburgh. While endeavouring to rescue Ralph Golding he was taken, and, refusing to be the prisoner of any one but the king of England, was carried to Durham, April 1333 (Wyntoun, ii. 396; iii. 292). No sooner was he set at liberty, in 1334, than he raised armed opposition to the English. With Alexander de Mowbray he marched into Buchan, and besieged Henry de Beaumont in his castle of Dundarg, on the Moray Firth (August-November). By cutting the waterpipes he compelled his foe to surrender, but he permitted him to return to England. Moray was present at the futile parliament convened at Dairsie in April 1335 by the steward of Scotland and the returned Earl of Moray, the regents. In the subsequent surrender to Edward, and in the making of the treaty of Perth (18 Aug. 1335), Moray had no part, but chose to go into hiding with the Earl of March and William Douglas of Liddesdale. When the Earl of Athole laid siege to the castle of Kildrummie, in which Moray's wife and children had been placed, the three fugitives came from their fastnesses, and marched against Kildrummie with eleven hundred men. They surprised and slew Athole in the forest of Kilblain or Culbleen. Thereupon Moray assembled a parliament at Dunfermline, and was again made warden. Edward marched into Scotland, and vainly endeavoured to bring him to action (see the anecdote of Moray's delays in the wood of Stronkaltere, as told to Wyntoun by men who were present ii. 429-30). During the winter, 1335-6, Moray kept an army in the field, and laid siege to the castles of Cupar-Fife and Lochindorb in Cromdale, in the latter of which was Catherine, Athole's widow. He retired from Lochindorb on the approach of Edward, who had been summoned by the disconsolate lady. No sooner had Edward returned to England than he assumed the offensive, captured the castles of Dunnottar, Lauriston, and Kinclevin, and laid waste the lands of Kincardine and Angus. Early in 1337, having received the support of the Earls of March and Fife and William Douglas, he marched through Fife, destroyed the tower of Falkland, took the castle of Leuchars, and, after three weeks' siege, captured and sacked the castle of St. Andrews (28 Feb.) Cupar still held out, under the ecclesiastic, William Bullock (Wyntoun, ii. 436). In March the castle of Bothwell was reduced, and the way to England cleared. Moray led his troops as far as Carlisle, then wheeled about on Edinburgh, which he proceeded to invest. The English Marchers rushed to its relief, and met the Scots at Crichton. In the combat Douglas was wounded, and Sir Andrew, though claiming the victory, saw fit to raise the siege. From this time till his death, in 1338, we have but scanty record of him. Fordun states, on the authority of 'sum cornykill,' that he appeared before Stirling in October 1336, and was forced to retire on the approach of Edward, but the chronology seems to be faulty (see Fordun, ii. 437; Hailes, ii. 234; and Tytler, ii. 49). In 1337 he is referred to as having been keeper of Berwick Castle (Exchequer Rolls, i. 450). From the same source we have details of some moneys paid to him as warden in 1337 (pp. 428, 435, 451, 461, 468), of sums received at Kildrummy (p. 445), and of his expenses at Rothes (p. 445). He retired in 1338 to his castle of Avoch in Ross, and there died. He was buried in the chapel of Rosemarkie (Rosmarkyne), but his remains were afterwards removed to Dunfermline Abbey. Wyntoun gives an interesting character-sketch of the Scottish Fabius (ii. 439), for the most part panegyrical, but with a criticism of his destruction of castles and his wasting of his native land. Andrew de Moray had, however, ​ to meet Edward with his own strategies, and the smallness of his force compelled him, as in the case of St. Andrews, to cast down what could be of use only to foes.
[Chronicles of Wyntoun, Fordun, and Hemingford; Exchequer Rolls, vol. i.; Hailes's Annals, vols i. ii.; Historical Documents illustrative of the History of Scotland, ed. Stevenson, 1870, vol. ii.; Tytler, vols. i. ii.]
G. G. S.