on 10 Sept. 1547, and on the 24th of the same month Broughty Castle was surrendered to the English fleet (Cal. State Papers, Scott. Ser. i. 66). On 13 Nov. he wrote a letter to Somerset advising the capture of Perth and St. Andrews for the advancement of the king's cause (ib. p. 70). After the surrender of Dundee he took an oath of allegiance to the English (ib. p. 72), and displayed great activity in preparing for the defence of the town against Argyll, whom the English subsequently employed him to bribe (ib. p. 78). Ultimately the attitude of Gray both towards the Reformation and towards England underwent a complete change. After various ambiguous answers he refused to sign the contract with England in July 1560 (Cal. State Papers, For. Ser. 1560–1, entry 454). He was taken prisoner, but on giving sureties of 1,000l. was permitted to return to Scotland. On 21 April 1561 he was called to make his entry into ward in England (ib. 1561–2, entry 127). Mary Queen of Scots wrote to Elizabeth on his behalf, 29 May 1562 (ib. 1562, entry 110), and on 7 July he was permitted again to return home under sureties of 1,000l. (ib. entry 286). Gray did not take a prominent part in connection with the Darnley and Bothwell episodes of Queen Mary's reign. He attended the first parliament of the regent Moray after the queen's abdication, and in 1569 he voted for the queen's divorce from Bothwell (Reg. Privy Council, ii. 8), but afterwards joined the queen's lords, and in March 1570 signed the letter asking help from Elizabeth (Letter in Calderwood, ii. 547–50). When the estates met for the election of a regent after the death of Mar, Atholl and Gray sent a letter asking that the election should be delayed, but no attention was paid to their request. Gray gave in his submission to Morton after the pacification of Perth, but more than once came into conflict with the authorities in connection with the administration of his estates (Reg. Privy Council Scotl. ii. 189, 354). When Morton resigned the regency in 1577, Gray was one of the council extraordinary chosen to assist the king. He died in 1582. By his wife, Marion, daughter of James, lord Ogilvie of Airlie, he had six sons and six daughters. He was succeeded in the peerage by his son Patrick, father of Patrick, sixth lord, master of Gray [q. v.]
[Douglas's Scottish Peerage (Wood), i. 670–1; Diurnal of Occurrents (Bannatyne Club); Histories of Knox, Leslie, Calderwood, and Keith; Cal. State Papers, Scott. Ser.; ib. For. Ser. reign of Elizabeth; Sadler State Papers; Appendix to the Papers of Patrick, Master of Gray (Bannatyne Club); Reg. Privy Council of Scotland, vols. i. ii. iii.]
GRAY, PATRICK, sixth Lord Gray (d. 1612), commonly known as the ‘Master of Gray,’ was the eldest son of Patrick, fifth Lord Gray, by his wife Barbara, fourth daughter of William, lord Ruthven. He was educated at the university of St. Andrews, where he ‘professed the true [protestant] religion, and communicated with the faithful at the table of the Lord’ (‘Discourse of the Injuries and Wrongs used against the Noblemen distressed’ in Calderwood, History, iv. 253). Not long after leaving the university he married Elizabeth, second daughter of Lord Glamis, chancellor of Scotland, ‘whom he repudiated like as his father also cast away his mother’ (ib.) The separation took place within a year of his marriage, and the Master of Gray then went to France, where through Friar Gray, probably a relation of his own, he was introduced to James Beaton, the exiled archbishop of Glasgow, and was received into the inner circle of the friends of Mary Queen of Scots. For his supposed services to the French cause in Scotland he was highly rewarded by the Duke of Guise, of whose ambitious schemes he was probably one of the chief inspirers. The Spanish ambassador resident at Paris also presented him with ‘a cupboard of plate,’ to the ‘value of five or six thousand crowns’ (Davison to Walsingham, 23 Aug. 1584, in Gray Papers, p. 3). He returned to Scotland either in the train of Esme Stuart, afterwards Duke of Lennox, or shortly after the fall of Morton (1581). Being reputed a catholic he was dealt with by the ministers of the kirk and ‘promised to renounce papistrie and embrace the true Christian religion’ (Calderwood, iv. 253), but before the day appointed to subscribe the articles he had returned to France. There he remained for about a year, probably returning to Scotland after the escape of the king to the catholic lords at St. Andrews, on 27 June 1583. By the king he was sent to convey the son of the Duke of Lennox to Scotland, and landed at Leith with his charge on 13 Nov. (ib. iii. 749; Historie of James the Sext, p. 192).
James Stuart, earl of Arran, who had been recently reconciled to the king, was now the reigning favourite. Gray, who had a previous acquaintance with Arran, became his special confidant. He was, however, too able in diplomacy to be the tool of any man, and his ability in intrigue was only equalled by his utter blindness to honourable obligations. He was reputed the handsomest man of his time, though his beauty was of a rather feminine cast; he possessed a brilliant wit and fascinating manners, and by long
