Earl of Moray

“ The Earl of Moray did little better, for at London, without any advice, he ran and married Sir William Balfour’s second daughter.’ The Earl of Rothes was clapped up in Edinburgh Castle, by the Protector’s orders, in great infamy on account of a certain light-mannered Lady Howard, who had come to his lordship’s house on a visit, and whose husband was now in Scotland, bent on obtaining a bloody satisfaction for his dishonour. ”

“ He accompanied Lord James, created Earl of Moray, and the queen during their progress in the north in 1562, which was signalised by the rebellion, defeat, and death of George Gordon, fourth earl of Huntly [q. v.] ”

“ On Saturday, 15th May 1650, the Marquis of Argyle was attending the marriage festivities of his son, Lord Lorn, and the Earl of Moray’s daughter; and on that day the great Montrose was dragged on a hurdle through the streets of Edinburgh to the Tolbooth, amid all the insults that the cruelty of the Covenanting rabble could devise.
He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small,
Who dares not put it to the touch
To gain or lose it all. [44]
As the procession passed Moray House, the entire wedding party stepped out on to the balcony to exult over the fallen hero. ”

“ Four years afterwards, when Mary was seated on her father's throne, he had returned to Scotland; but engaging in a desperate conspiracy for the destruction of his mortal foe, the Earl of Moray, then in the zenith of his power and royal favour, he had been indefinitely banished the court and kingdom. ”

“ Whatever her feelings towards Moray, she lodged him and Argyll in the Castle during her labour: ‘Huntly and Bothwell would also have lodged there, but were refused.’ [62] Sir James Melville (writing in old age) declares that Huntly and Lesley, Bishop of Ross, ‘envied the favour that the Queen showed unto the Earl of Moray,’ and wished her to ‘put him in ward,’ as dangerous. Melville dissuaded Mary from this course, and she admitted Moray to the Castle, while rejecting Huntly and Bothwell. ”

“ He was welcomed by many of the discontented nobles, amongst others by Lord Erskine afterwards Earl of Mar, Lord Lorne and his father the Earl of Argyll, Maitland Lord of Lethington, the Earl of Glencairn, and Lord James Stuart prior of St. Andrew's, who as Earl of Moray was soon to betray his sister, Mary Queen of Scots.
Encouraged by the protection of such powerful patrons he preached freely and with great success in several districts of Scotland. The clansmen were so united to their lords that they were prepared to follow their example even in matters of religion. ”

“ He is the strongest thief between the Lammermuir and the Rere cross of Stanmore; he never rides abroad with less than four hundred lances in his train, all broken men, and masterful thieves."
"All daredevils!" said the Earl of Moray; "troopers with scarred visages, and hearts as tough and impenetrable as their armour. Ah! Park loves the bright moonlight well."
"So do I," added the Queen, artlessly; "how droll!" ”

“ From what you tell me of Earle Moray, I should imagine that he is a man of great talent. If so, there can be little difficulty."
"He has something more than talent," said Doris, proudly; "he has genius."
"My dear child, you will know, when you are as old as I am, that talent and industry are worth any amount of genius."
"I am sure that he has industry, papa," she said.
"Then, if he has industry and genius, his fortune is sure," said the earl. "As soon as we have a Countess of Linleigh to do the honors, we must ask Earle Moray to come and see us." ”

“ Lowry, ’tis right well for ye Southrons to cry yield to ane honest Scotchman. But troth, I’ll tell ye it’s easier to say so to ane o’ my country than to gar him do it, and mair, when ye speak to the henchman o’ the Yearl o’ Moray himsel’,” cried Rory Spears; for it was he, no longer clad, indeed, in his fishing coat and otterskin cap, but armed as became the Earl of Moray’s henchman, and wielding a long pole-axe instead of his gaud-clip.
“Take him alive,” cried an officer who was present; “let not his life be taken, as you value your own. ”

“ Kirkaldy seems to have selected Moray as his guide—not penetrating certainly, at the time, the selfish disposition of the man. But the instant he perceived that his own aggrandisement, and not the welfare of Scotland, was the object of the designing Earl, Grange drew off from his side, and valorously upheld the cause of his injured and exiled sovereign.
We now take leave of a work which, we are convinced, will prove of deep and thrilling interest to every Scotsman. It is seldom indeed that we find history so written—in a style at once vigorous, perspicuous, and picturesque. ”

“ Again, that Earle Moray, Esq., the poet, intended to contest the borough of Anderley. He found himself continually mentioned as one of the leading men of the day, one to whom the eyes of the country turned with hope. Earle could not imagine how it was, and in his perplexity he spoke of it to Lord Linleigh.
"If I did not know that it was impossible," he said, "I should imagine some one was always sending little paragraphs to the newspapers about me."
"It is the price of celebrity," said the earl. "A man who wishes to advance with the public must always keep himself before the public eye. ”

“ In the spring of 1326 he was again in France, when he concluded an offensive and defensive alliance between France and Scotland. The death of Bruce in 1329 made Moray regent of Scotland and guardian of the young king David II. in accordance with enactments made by the Scottish parliaments of 1315 and 1318. He died at Musselburgh on the 20th of July 1332, while preparing to resist an invasion by the English barons. ”

“ Edward in this crisis proved himself to be worthy of the trust, and meeting the Moraymen at the entrance of one of the passes into the Lowlands of Forfarshire, overthrew them with a loss of four thousand men at Stickathrow, not far from the northern Esk—Angus the Earl, or as the Irish annalists call him, the king of Moray, being left amongst the dead, though Malcolm the other brother, escaping from the field, prolonged the struggle amidst the recesses of the remoter Highlands, and the contest was not brought to a conclusion until four years later. ”

“ So much were Moray and Argyll in doubt regardin her intentions that when they came to Edinburgh to ‘keep the day of law’ against the Earl of Bothwell, then on trial for high treason, they deemed it prudent to bring with them seven thousand men, and at no time would be in court together, in order that one of them might be left on guard. ”

“ She then took out three bullets, found in Moray’s body while being prepared for embalming, one of which she gave to the King, another to one of his nobles, and the third she reserved to herself ‘to be bestowed on him [Pg 159] who should hinder justice’ (Annals, p. 232, vol. 1, Captain John Gordon, one of the King’s friends) . The Earl himself had fled to the north, where he was much more powerful than James, King of Scotland though he was. ”

“ The detection and flight of Bothwell, her Scottish imprisonment, her escape and her flight to England—all these were part of the crimson 69pageant from which she had emerged, shattered in body, soul-worn, to face the problem of her life. Her baby boy was far from her in the hands of her brother and worst enemy, Earl Moray, the traitor to whom the power of Elizabeth gave approval as regent. But Moray himself had executed a volte-face. For his own purposes he now assumed a highly moral and affectionate tone towards his kinswoman. ”

“ After the assassination of Moray, Mackgill, at a conference held at the instance of James Douglas, fourth earl of Morton, with the English ambassadors, acted as chief spokesman, and assured them that if Elizabeth would, as formerly, secure their religion, and assist them to resist the invasion of the country by foreigners, they would be as faithful to her as Moray had been (Hudson to Elizabeth, 30 Jan. 1669-70, quoted in Tytler's History of Scotland, ed. 1864, iii. 324) . He also proposed that she should agree to the selection of the Earl of Lennox as regent (ib.) ”

“ Moray, James Stuart, Earl of, illegitimate son of James V. of Scotland, and so half-brother of Mary, Queen of Scots; was from 1556 the leader of the Reformation party, and on Mary's arrival in her kingdom in 1561 became her chief adviser; on her marriage with Darnley he made an unsuccessful attempt to raise a Protestant rebellion, and had to escape to England 1565, and after a visit to Edinburgh, when he connived at Rizzio's murder, to France in 1567; he was almost immediately recalled by the nobles, who had imprisoned Mary in Lochleven, and appointed regent ”

“ This order being complied with, the Lord of the Isles marched through Moray without opposition. He committed great excesses in Strathbogie and in the district of Garioch, which belonged to the Earl of Mar. The inhabitants of Aberdeen were in dreadful alarm at the near approach of this marauder and his fierce hordes; but their fears were allayed by the speedy appearance of a well-equipped army, commanded by the Earl of Mar, who bore a high military character, assisted by many brave knights and gentlemen in Angus and the Mearns. ”

“ In November, 1569, the Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland raised a rebellion in her favour, which was easily suppressed. In January, 1570, Moray was assassinated at Linlithgow, and the Earl of Lennox, the father of Darnley, and the traitor of Mary's minority, succeeded to the regency, while Mary's Scottish supporters, who had continued to fight for her desperate cause, were strengthened by the accession of Maitland of Lethington, who, with Kirkaldy of Grange, also a recruit from the king's party, held Edinburgh Castle for the queen. ”

“ With a brother and another fellow-officer of the Scots regiment he was made a prisoner of war in Bavaria in 1645. In the same year James Campbell, earl of Irvine, colonel of the Scots regiment, died, and Moray was appointed in Irvine's place. He was also nominated by the Scots as a secret envoy to negotiate a treaty between France and Scotland by which it was proposed to attempt the restoration of Charles I. His release from Bavaria was therefore obtained, and, arriving in London, he was in constant communication with the French envoy, De Montereul. ”

“ The most formidable and avowed of Moray's enemies was Huntly; and it was of vital importance even for protestantism that his power in the north of Scotland should be crippled. A convenient and plausible method of doing so was by the transference of the earldom of Moray to Lord James; and Lord James, having obtained a private grant of it from the queen, persuaded her to make an expedition to the north in order that he might, by force if necessary, enter into possession. Apparently anxious to stand well both with her brother and Elizabeth, Mary made no objection. ”

“ The inference seems therefore almost inevitable that the king was influenced by private motives, and these probably were, as was rumoured and as is set forth in the traditionary ballad, that he was jealous of Moray's favour with the queen. Moray, in expectation of a summons to the court, had arrived at Donibristle, a house of his mother on the Fifeshire coast, when on 7 Feb. ”

“ The fact that Moray's death was approved of, if not instigated, by Mary, who liberally rewarded the assassin, had incalculably injured her cause in Scotland, and rendered Morton's hostility more implacable than ever. He was now strenuous in his efforts to induce Elizabeth to declare for the king, informing her at last that if she would not supply him with money and men to punish the Hamiltons, the instigators of the murder, ‘he would not run her course any longer’ (instructions to the commendator of Dunfermline, 1 May) . ”

“ In August 1335 Moray defeated a party of French mercenaries under the Count of Namur, at the Boroughmuir of Edinburgh; and, after they had retreated through the town to the castle rock, where they made a stand behind the bodies of their slain horses, compelled them to surrender. ”

“ Huntly and Argyll held possession of the whole north and west of Scotland, and not improbably, with the help of the Hamiltons and the borderers, they would have crushed Moray before he had assembled a parliament had they not on their march southward been met by an order from Mary commanding them to disperse their followers, on the ground that Elizabeth had sent a similar request to Moray. Moray had either not received such an order or else disobeyed it, and the time he gained by the disbanding of the queen's forces was fatal to the queen's cause. ”

“ Having failed to prevent the marriage, Moray's position became much more hazardous; for he found himself committed to a direct attempt to overthrow his sister's sovereignty; and as yet the bulk of those who sympathised with protestantism, even although they realised more and more that protestantism was in danger, were not disposed to support even such a trusted leader in so momentous an enterprise. ”

“ Moray was a traitor, and did what Lethington scorned to do. But Moray’s most remarkable quality was caution. He always had an alibi. He knew of Riccio’s murder—and came to Edinburgh next day. He left Edinburgh in the morning, some sixteen hours before the explosion of Kirk o’ Field. He left Edinburgh for England and France, twelve days before the nobles signed the document upholding Bothwell’s innocence, and urging him to marry the Queen. He allowed Elizabeth to lie, in his presence, and about her encouragement of his rebellion, to the French Ambassador. ”