Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 39.djvu/363

 Soured by the disappointment of his hopes, he afterwards became one of her most inveterate enemies.

Even in advanced years she held a prominent place among the ladies of the court of Charles II, and was usually mentioned along with Lady Cleveland, Lady Portsmouth, and the numerous beauties of doubtful character who were then the leaders of fashion. But a 'love of litigation and insatiable greed characterised her as much as her passion for gallantry. Before the death of her husband, the duke of Lauderdale, she prevailed upon him to settle all his estate upon her ; and when his brother succeeded, on the duke's death, to the earldom of Lauderdale, in 1682, she at once began a series of law-pleas against the earl which brought him to the verge of ruin. She directed that the duke should have a most extravagant funeral, and that the whole of the expense should be borne by the Lauderdale estates. The duke had purchased Duddingston, near Edinburgh, and presented it to her, but for the purpose raised 7,000l. with her consent on her estate of Ham. Though she retained possession of Duddingston after the duke's death, she compelled the Earl of Lauderdale to repay the money borrowed for its purchase. In this case, through lack of documentary evidence, the earl incautiously referred the matter to her oath, and Fountainhall distinctly charges her with perjury. That Fountainhall was not alone in this opinion is shown by a letter to Lord Preston on 16 Oct. 1684, now in the collection of Sir Frederick Graham, bart., of Netherby. At that time the duchess was suspected of having furnished funds to the Earl of Argyll (whose son was married to her daughter), to assist in Monmouth's rebellion. The writer says : 'It will be hard to prove that she sent money to my Lord Argyll ; for no doubt she did it cunningly enough, and can for a shift turn it over on [her daughter] my Lady Lorne, who can hardly be troubled for it. Thus they will be necessitated to refer all to the duchess's oath, in which case, one would think, she is in no great danger. Shall an estate acquired without conscience be lost by it ? But she is as mean-spirited in adversity as she was insolent in prosperity.' It is supposed that when Wycherley wrote his comedy of the 'Plain Dealer,' the character of the Widow Blackacre was intended as a portrait of the duchess, whom the dramatist must have met at court. In a late pasquil the ghosts of her two husbands, Sir Lionel Tollemache and the Duke of Lauderdale, discuss her character and conduct in painfully free language. The duchess died on 24 Aug. 1697, and was succeeded in the earldom of Dysart by her eldest son, Sir Lionel Tollemache, from whom the present Earl of Dysart is descended. She had no children by the Duke of Lauderdale.

The portrait of the duchess, painted by Sir Peter Lely, is preserved at Ham House.  MURRAY, GASTON (1826–1889), actor. [See under .]

MURRAY, GEORGE (1700?–1760), Jacobite general, was the fifth son of John, second marquis and first duke of Atholl [q. v.], by Lady Catherine Hamilton, eldest daughter of Anne, duchess of Hamilton in her own right, and William Douglas, third duke of Hamilton. He is usually stated to have been born in 1705, but as in 1709 he had begun to study Horace at the school at Perth (Letter to his father in Hist. MSS. Comm. 12th Rep. App. pt. viii. p. 64), it is unlikely that he was born later than 1700. On 16 March 1710 he sent to his father a complaint against his schoolmaster for not allowing him, in accordance with a privilege conferred at Candlemas, to protect a boy who was whipped, and strongly urged that on account of the 'affront' he might be permitted to leave school (ib.) In 1712-13 he was on the continent, in somewhat delicate health (Letter from Dunkirk, 6 Jan. 1713, ib. p. 65).

During the rebellion of 1715 Murray served with the Jacobites under his brother, the Marquis of Tullibardine [see ], and at Sheriffmuir held command of a battalion (, Hist. of the Rebellion, pt. ii. p. 59). Along with Tullibardine he, after Sheriffmuir, in reply to a representation from the Duke of Atholl, intimated his willingness to forsake Mar provided he had full assurance of an indemnity (Hist. MSS. Comm. 6th Rep. pp. 702-3), but the negotiation came to nothing, and after the collapse of the rebellion he escaped to the continent. In June 1716 he was at Avignon with the Earl of Mar, who states that he had not 'been well almost ever since he came' (Letter 16 June,, Stuart Dynasty, 2nd ed. p. 276). In 1719 he accompanied the expedition under Marischal and Tullibardine to the north-western highlands, and was wounded at the battle of Glenshiels on 10 June, but made his escape. After his return to the continent he was for some years an officer in the army of the king of Sardinia, where he acquired a high 