Thomas Murray (provost of Eton)

Thomas Murray (1564 – 9 April 1623) was a Scottish courtier, at the end of his life Provost of Eton.

Life

He was the son of Murray of Woodend, and uncle of William Murray, 1st Earl of Dysart. 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 Prince 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 Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, Sir Albertus Morton, Sir Dudley Carleton, and others, many of his letters being preserved.

Andrew Melville, 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, Archbishop of St. Andrews, made an unsuccessful attempt to get Murray removed from the tutorship of Prince Charles as for his religious views. 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 match. In February 1622 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, one the writer Anne Halkett. His widow, Jean, and a son received a pension for their lives. Murray was author of some Latin poems, printed in Delitiae Poetarum Scotorum, ed. 1637. He was eulogised by John Leech in his Epigrammata, ed. 1623, and by Arthur Johnston in his Poemata, ed. 1642.

Family

Secretary Murray married Jean Drummond, a daughter of George Drummond of Blair and Grissel Cargill, who had joined her cousin Jean Drummond, Countess of Roxburghe at the court of Anne of Denmark. The Countess of Roxburghe was later the governess of the children of Charles I of England. Her cousins, another Jean Drummond, the eldest daughter of the Earl of Perth and later Countess of Wigtown, and her sister Lilias Drummond, later Countess of Tullibardine, assisted Roxburghe as royal nurse.[1]

Anne Murray, Lady Halkett wrote that her mother was "entrusted twice with the charge and honor of beeing Governese to the Duke of Glocester and the Princese Elizabeth; the first during the time that the Countese of Roxbery (who owned my mother for her cousin) went and continued in Holland with the Princese Royall; and then again when my Lady Roxbery died".[2]

The children of Secretary Murray and Jean Drummond were brought up at Berkhamsted Place and Charlton House, included:

• Henry Murray, groom of the bedchamber to Charles I, who bought Lindsay House from Sir David Cunningham, and married in November 1635 Anne Bayning, daughter of Paul Bayning, 1st Viscount Bayning.
• Elizabeth Murray, who married Sir Henry Newton, son of Adam Newton, who adopted the name Sir Henry Puckering
• Anne Murray, Lady Halkett (1622-1699), who married James Halkett at Charlton House in 1656.

References

1. William Drummond, The genealogy of the most noble and ancient House of Drummond (Glasgow, 1879), pp. 116, 196, 209-210, 212: Joseph Foster, London marriage licences, 1521-1869 (London, 1887), p. 954.
2. John Gough Nichols, The Autobiography of Anne Murray, Lady Halkett (London, 1875), p. 1.

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: "Murray, Thomas (1564-1623)". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.