John Murray of Broughton - Traitor?

Traitor?

Charles attempted to secure Murray a commission in the Army of France. This would have ensured that he would have been treated as a prisoner of war, rather than a rebel. However, on July 7, before this could be arranged, Murray was dispatched to the Tower of London. Here, charged with high treason, Murray turned King's evidence and informed on his Jacobite colleagues. His testimony was critical in the 1747 trial and execution of Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat, chief of the Clan Fraser.

Murray was given a full pardon by the British Crown in June 1748 and, perhaps unsurprisingly given his notoriety in Scotland, chose to remain in England. He was held in disdain by his Jacobite compatriots, referred to scathingly as "Mr. Evidence Murray". In 1753 the town of Paisley raised an action against him for £500, a sum they had paid under duress to the Jacobites in 1745. However, he successfully resisted this in terms of his pardon and the Act of Indemnity 1747. Curiously, years later in 1763, Prince Charles paid a covert visit to Murray who, despite his betrayal, remained a convinced Jacobite.

However, Murray's infamy can perhaps be illustrated by the story of his business dealing with his solicitor (who happened to be Sir Walter Scott's father). According to Walter Scott, Murray would enter the house of an evening and be quickly hurried into the study, his identity concealed from the rest of the household. After a number of these meeting, Mrs Scott's curiosity got the better of her, and so she took tea to her husband and the mysterious guest. Murray accepted the offer, but her husband declined. When Murray left, Scott threw the cup out of the window, exclaiming

"I can forgive your little curiosity, madam, but you must pay the penalty. I may admit into my house, on a piece of business, persons wholly unworthy to be treated as guests by my wife. Neither lip of me nor of mine comes after Mr. Murray of Broughton's."

In 1764, Murray's Broughton estates were sold (as were those other Jacobite sympathisers) by order of the Court of Session. In 1775 Broughton House burned to the ground. (Today Broughton Place, with the Broughton gallery, stands in its place.) Sir John Murray died at Cheshunt, Hertfordshire on 6 December 1777 and is buried at the St Marylebone Cemetery in East Finchley, north west London.