Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 39.djvu/410

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Murray
404
Murray

Edwards of Fairlawn House, Hammersmith, London. She died February 1890. A son, George Gilbert Aimé Murray, born at Sydney in 1866, became professor of Greek at the university of Glasgow in 1888.

[Times, 28 July 1873, 4 Sept.; Dod's Peerage, 1873, p. 483; Melbourne Argus, 24 June 1873; Heaton's Australian Dict.]

G. C. B.


MURRAY, THOMAS (1564–1623), provost of Eton, born in 1564, was the son of Murray of Woodend, and uncle of William Murray, first earl of Dysart [q. v.]. He was early attached to the court of James VI of Scotland, and soon after James's accession to the English throne was appointed tutor to Charles, then duke of York. On 26 June 1605 he was granted a pension of two hundred marks for life, and in July was presented, through the intervention of the Bishop of Durham, to the mastership of Christ's Hospital, Sherburn, near Durham. From that time he received numerous grants, and was in constant communication with the Earl of Salisbury, Sir Albertus Morton, Sir Dudley Carleton, and others, many of his letters being preserved among the state papers (cf. Cal. State Papers, Dom. Ser. 1603-23, passim). He was 'much courted, but his honesty' made 'him well esteemed.' Andrew Melville [q. v.], when he sought his liberty in November 1610, placed the management of his case in the hands of Murray, to whom he refers as his special friend. In 1615 George Gladstanes [q. v.], archbishop of St. Andrews, made an unsuccessful attempt to get Murray removed from the tutorship of Prince Charles as 'ill-affected to the estate of the kirk.' On 13 March 1617 Murray was appointed a collector of the reimposed duty on 'northern cloth,' and allowed one-third of the profits. In August of the same year the king promised him the provostship of Eton, but his appointment was opposed on suspicion of his puritanism, and he received the post of secretary to Prince Charles instead. In October 1621 he was confined to his house for opposing the Spanish marriage. In February 1621-2 he was elected provost of Eton, but fell seriously ill in February 1622-3, and died on 9 April, aged 59. He left behind him five sons and two daughters. His widow, Jane, and a son received a pension of 500l. for their lives.

Murray was author of some Latin poems, which have been printed in the 'Delitiae Poetarum Scotorum,' ed. 1637, ii. 180-200. He has been eulogised by John Leech [q. v.] in his 'Epigrammata,' ed. 1623, p. 19, and by Arthur Johnston [q. v.] in his 'Poemata,' ed. 1642, p. 381.

[Cal. State Papers, Dom. Ser. 1603-23, passim; McCrie's Life of Melville, ii. 269, 528; Harwood's Alumni Etonenses; Douglas's Peerage, ed. Wood, i. 486; Birch's Life of Henry, Prince of Wales, p. 295, note; Le Neve's Fasti, iii. 243.]

A. F. P.


MURRAY, Sir THOMAS (1630?–1684), of Glendoick, clerk-register, was descended from a junior branch of the Murrays of Tullibardine, now represented by the Duke of Atholl. Born about 1630, he was the younger son of Thomas Murray of Cassochie and Woodend, advocate, who was sheriff-depute of Perthshire in 1649, and died in 1666. Having adopted the law as his profession, he was admitted advocate on 14 Dec. 1661. A second cousin of Lady Elizabeth Murray, countess of Dysart [q. v.], her patronage speedily brought preferment. In 1662 he was appointed lord-clerk-register, and on 14 June 1674 he became a senator of the College of Justice, with the title of Lord Glendoick, a designation taken from the estate in the Carse of Gowrie, which he had purchased, and which was ratified to him by parliament in February 1672. On 2 July 1676 he was created a baronet of Nova Scotia. In 1679 a royal license was granted to him to 'reprint the whole acts, laws, constitutions, and ordinances of the parliament of the kingdom of Scotland, both old and new.' The license was granted for nineteen years, and Murray farmed it to David Lindsay, merchant, and John Cairnes, printer, both of Edinburgh. He does not seem to have taken much share in the preparation of the volumes that still are quoted under his name, and certainly did not avail himself of the special facilities for executing the work which his position as lord-clerk-register gave him. His edition of the statutes is copied directly from Skene's edition of 1597, with the subsequent laws printed from sessional publications to bring up the work to 1681. This is the more unpardonable,' writes Professor Cosmo Innes, 'since he professes to have extracted the work from the original records of parliament; whereas, in fact, even the more accurate and ample edition of 1566 does not appear to have been consulted.' Two editions were printed in 1681, one of them in duodecimo and the other in folio. The former, though most frequently quoted, is the less accurate, and reproduces even the typographical errors of Skene's edition. But Murray's edition of the statutes, with all its imperfections, was habitually quoted in the Scottish courts as an authority until the beginning of this century.

The marriage of Lady Dysart with the