GRAY, Baron,
a title in the peerage of Scotland, possessed by a family of the same
name, descended from the Greys of Chillingham in Northumberland. The
surname is originally French, being first borne by Fulbert, great
chamberlain of Robert, duke of Normandy, from whom he got the castle
and lands of Croy or Gray in Picardy, and hence assumed the surname.
He is said to have had a son, John, and a daughter, Arlotta, the
mother of William the Conqueror. If so, this Fulbert must have been a
banner at Falaise before being elevated to the office of great
chamberlain. The first of the name who came to England with William
the Conqueror, and from that monarch obtained several lordships, is
stated to have been the Conqueror’s kinsman. He was progenitor of
several families, who spelled the name Grey, and were raised to high
rank in the peerage of England; some of them obtaining a prominent
place in history, such as the dukes of Suffolk and Kent, the earls of
Stamford and Tankerville, De Grey and Grey, the barons Grey of Codnor,
Ruthyn, Wilton, Rolleston, Wark and Chillingham. To the Suffolk family
belonged the amiable and accomplished Lady Jane Grey, who fell an
innocent victim to the ambition of her father, on February 12, 1554.
Lord Grey of
Chillingham is stated to have given the lands of Broxmouth in the
county of Roxborough to a younger son of his family, in the reign of
William the Lion. In the reign of Alexander the Third, John de Gray
(the Scottish way of spelling the name), steward to the earls of
March, is witness to many donations to the monastery of Coldstream.
Sir Hugh de Gray, a subsequent proprietor of Broxmouth, left three
sons; Sir Hugh de Gray, Henry de Gray, and John de Gray. The two elder
brothers were among those who swore fealty to Edward the First in
1296; and the eldest, Sir Hugh de Gray, died about 1300.
His son, Sir
Andrew Gray, faithfully adhered to Robert the Bruce; and in 1307 was
joined with Sir James Douglas and Sir Alexander Fraser in command of a
detachment sent against the lord of Lorn. In 1312 he was present at
the taking of the castle of Edinburgh, with Randolph, nephew of Robert
the Bruce, when Frank or Francis, the guide, was the first that scaled
the walls, Sir Andrew Gray followed him, and Randolph himself was the
third. For his services he obtained from King Robert a grant of
several lands; among the rest the barony of Longforgund, now
Longforgan, in Perthshire, which had belonged to Edmund de Hastings.
This was the first connection of the Grays with the county of Perth,
in which the family ever after had their residence. Sir Andrew Gray
married Ada Gifford, daughter of Thomas Lord Yester, and had two sons,
Sir David, and Thomas. The latter, in 1346, accompanied King David the
Second to the battle of Durham, where he was taken prisoner, and not
released till ten years afterwards.
The elder
son, Sir David de Gray, fourth baron of Broxmouth, and second of
Longforgan, died between 1354 and 1357. His son, Sir John Gray, was
one of the twenty young men of quality proposed to be sureties for
King David’s ransom in 1354, and after the king’s release in 1357, he
was appointed his clerk register, in which office he was continued by
Robert the Second. He died in 1376. He had two sons, John and Patrick.
John, the elder, was one of the noble Scottish heirs who were sent to
England for King David’s ransom in 1357. He died before his father,
without issue.
Sir Patrick,
the younger son, was in great favour with both King Robert the Second
and his successor. He added considerably to his possessions in
Perthshire, and from the former monarch he had a pension of £26 13s.
4d sterling. In 1413 he entered into a bond of manrent at Dundee, with
the earl of Crawford, that he, the said Sir Patrick, “is becumyn man
of special retinue till the said earl, for the term of his life, nane
ontaken but amitie and allegiance till our lord the king, for which he
shall have in his fee of the said earl, the town of Elithk” &c. He had
four sons and three daughters. Sir Andrew, the eldest son, was one of
the Scottish nobles who met King James the First at Durham in 1423, to
concert measures for his liberation. He was created a peer of
parliament, under the title of Lord Gray, before 9th
October 1437, when he was one of the lords of the articles in
parliament for the peers. He died before July 1445. He was twice
married; first, to Janet, a daughter of Sir Roger de Mortimer, with
whom he got the lands of Fowlis in Perthshire; and, secondly, to
Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Walter Buchanan. By his first wife he had,
with seven daughters, a son, Sir Andrew, first Lord Gray, and by his
second wife four sons and one daughter.
The eldest
son, Andrew, second Lord Gray of Fowlis, was one of the hostages for
King James the First, in his father’s lifetime, March 20, 1424; when
his annual revenue was estimated at six hundred merks. He obtained
liberty to return to Scotland in 1427, and was one of the train of
knights who accompanied the princess Margaret of Scotland to France in
1436, on her marriage to the dauphin. He was employed in most of the
public transactions of his time, and in 1449 was one of the
ambassadors to England who that year concluded a two years’ truce, for
which, and for a renewed truce for three years on its expiration in
1451, he was one of the guarantees on the part of Scotland. He
obtained the royal license, of date August 26, 1452, to build a castle
upon any part of his lands, and, in consequence, he erected in
Longforgan the beautiful edifice called Castle Huntly, long the
principal residence of the family. The tradition of the country is
that he named it after his lady, a daughter of the earl of Huntly, but
like most other traditions, it is wrong in its main incident, as his
lady’s name was Elizabeth Wemyss, eldest daughter of Sir John Wemyss
of Rires in Fife. A subsequent Lord Gray married the daughter of the
second earl of Huntly, and this may have given rise to the mistake. In
1615 Castle Huntly, with the estate attached to it, was sold to the
Strathmore family, then earls of Kinghorn; and becoming a favourite
residence of Earl Patrick, the name was changed to Castle Lyon, and
the estate, by charter of Charles the Second in 1672, was erected into
a lordship called the lordship of Lyon. This name it retained till
1777, when it was purchased by Mr. Paterson, the father of George
Paterson, Esq., who marrying Anne, daughter of the twelfth Lord Gray,
restored the name of Castle Huntly. In the beginning of 1455, the
second Lord Gray accompanied William, earl of Douglas, and James, Lord
Hamilton, on a pilgrimage to Canterbury, for which they got a safe
conduct from the English monarch. The same year, he was appointed
master of the household by King James the Second, and four years
afterwards one of the wardens of the marches. He got charters of a
great many lands, and died in 1469. With two daughters, he had two
sons, Patrick, master of Gray, and Andrew. The latter had several
sons, one of whom, a merchant in Aberdeen, made a considerable
fortune, and was ancestor of the Grays of Schives and Pittendrum.
Patrick,
master of Gray, was one of the gentlemen of the bedchamber to King
James the second; and when that monarch stabbed the eighth earl of
Douglas, he seconded the blow with a stroke from his battle-axe. He
had a son and three daughters. Predeceasing his father, his son,
Andrew, became third Lord Gray. This nobleman was one of the lords of
the privy council of King James the Third, and after that monarch’s
murder, the hereditary office of sheriff of the county of Forfar was
conferred on him, on the forced resignation of David, duke of Montrose
and earl of Crawford, 14th December, 1488. He had the
office of justice-general north of the Forth, on the forfeiture of
Lord Lyle in 1489, and in 1506 he was appointed lord-justice-general
of Scotland. He died in February 1513-14. He married, first, Janet,
only daughter of John, Lord Keith, and had a son, Patrick, and two
daughters; secondly, Lady Elizabeth Stewart, third daughter of John,
earl of Athol. Brother uterine of King James the Second, and by her
had four sons, namely, Robert, of Litfie, killed at Flodden, without
issue; Gilbert, of Buttergask, who carried on the line of the family;
Andrew, of Muirtoun; and Edward, an ecclesiastic; and five daughters.
Patrick,
fourth Lord Gray, died at Castle Huntly, in April 1541. It was this
nobleman who married Lady Janet Gordon, the second daughter of the
second earl of Huntly, chancellor of Scotland, and relict of
Alexander, master of Crawford. He had three daughters, and dying
without issue male, he was succeeded by his nephew, Patrick, eldest of
three sons of his brother of the half-blood, Gilbert.
Patrick Gray
of Buttergask, fifth Lord Gray, was one of the prisoners taken at the
rout of Solway in 1542, but soon released, on payment of a ransom of
five hundred pounds sterling. He was, we are told, feared by Cardinal
Bethune, “because at that time,” says Calderwood, “He used the company
of those that professed godliness, and carried small favour to the
cardinal.” The latter, therefore, strove to set his lordship and Lord
Ruthven, whom “he hated for knowledge of the word,” at variance, and
had the art to induce the regent Arran, when at Perth with him in
1544, to confer the office of provost of Perth, held by Lord Ruthven,
on John Charteris of Kinfauns, who was allied to Lord Gray. The
citizens, however, refused to acknowledge the cardinal’s nominee, and,
with Ruthven at their head, would not allow him to enter the town.
Having applied to his friend Lord Gray for assistance, the latter, at
the head of an armed force, attacked the town from the bridge, but the
tide did not answer the designs of Charteris, who with Norman Leslie,
and others of his friends, was bringing up great guns by water to
storm the open side of the town. Ruthven had purposely withdrawn his
guards from the bridge into the neighbouring houses, and Lord Gray,
ignorant of the snare thus laid for him, boldly marched up into the
town, when Ruthven suddenly sallied out, and briskly charging him,
routed his party, sixty of whom were slain. This skirmish took place
on 22d July 1544. In the following January Lord Gray was ordered to
attend the regent and the cardinal at Dundee, and by a stratagem they
got his lordship, the earl of Rothes, and Mr. Henry Balnaves, into
their power, and immediately sent them prisoners to Blackness castle,
where they remained for some time. Lord Gray was one of the first
promoters of the Reformation in Scotland, and in 1567 he joined the
association for the defence of King James the Sixth. He died in 1582.
He had six sons and as many daughters. The sons were, Patrick, master
of Gray; Andrew, ancestor of the Grays of Invergowrie; James, who had
a charter of Buttergask, and was one of the equeries of the queen’s
guards in 1564; Robert of Drummelzier; and another Patrick.
Patrick,
sixth Lord Gray, before succeeding to the title, was appointed an
extraordinary lord of session, 5th May 1578, in room of
Lord Boyd; but on the 25th October following, the latter
was restored, and the master of Gray lost his place. Boyd was again
superseded, on 10th December 1583, by the notorious James
Stewart, earl of Arran, on whose promotion, Lord Gray was reappointed
to a seat on the bench, on 12th November following. He held
his seat till 27th June 1587, when Lord Boyd again
dispossessed him of it. He died in 1609. He had four sons and five
daughters. The sons were, Patrick, master of Gray; James, gentleman of
the bedchamber to James the Sixth; Gilbert, of Ballumby in Fifeshire;
Robert, of Millhill; and Andrew, grandfather of Sir James Gray,
British envoy at the court of Naples.
Patrick, the
eldest son, was the celebrated master of Gray, the favourite of James
the Sixth, and rival of the earl of Arran. He is described as having
possessed a handsome countenance, most graceful manners, and an
insinuating address, united to a boundless ambition and a restless and
intriguing spirit. He was educated at the college of St Andrews, where
he professed the Protestant religion, but when very young he went to
France, and getting acquainted with one Friar Gray, he was through him
introduced to the popish bishop of Glasgow, the Scottish Jesuits and
Papists of the seminary of Paris, and spent some time at the court of
France. As he always professed the deepest attachment to the unhappy
Mary queen of Scots, then a captive in England, he was employed by the
house of Guise as a confidential envoy in their negociations with her.
On the 13th November 1583, he returned with the duke of
Lennox to Scotland, and immediately set himself to obtain the favour
of the young king, James the Sixth, by revealing all he knew of his
mother’s secrets, and was appointed one of the gentlemen of his
bedchamber, master of the wardrobe, one of the members of his privy
council, and in 1584 commendator of the monastery of Dunfermline. In
the latter year he was sent ambassador to Elizabeth, and by his smooth
and specious representations soon obtained her favour, as he had done
that of his own sovereign. To ingratiate himself the more with her, he
offered to do his utmost to prevail on James to recall the banished
lords, and to promote a league between England and Scotland for the
defence of the protestant religion. This line of policy Elizabeth
accordingly adopted, and on his return to Scotland he had the art to
defeat a project of an association which had been contemplated between
James and his mother. In his secret correspondence with Elizabeth the
master of Gray wrote to her under the title of Le Lievreau. In
1585, on the imprisonment of the earl of Arran at St. Andrews, on the
charge of being accessory to the death f Lord Russell, an English
nobleman slain by his kinsman Ker of Fernyhurst, on the borders, by a
bribe to the master of Gray, he was allowed to go to his own castle of
Kinniel, there to remain under ward. Afraid of his return to court,
the master, on 14th August of that year, addressed a letter
to Archibald Douglas, who had been present at the murder of Darnley,
and was then in exile in England, offering his aid for the return of
the protestant lords, but was counterplotted by Arran, who was fast
regaining his influence with the king; in consequence of which, it is
said that Gray even contemplated his assassination. In the following
October, on the banished lords reaching Berwick on their return, Arran,
breaking from his ward, hurried to the king, then at Stirling, and
rushing into James’ presence, declared that the lords were already in
Scotland. Accusing the master of Gray as the author of the whole
conspiracy, he urged James to send for him instantly, and put him to
death. Gray was at that time in Perthshire raising his friends, and at
once determined upon obeying the summons. Posting to court, he
defended himself to ably from the accusation, and was so graciously
received by the king, that Arran and his faction were obliged to
retire. On the approach of the banished lords, a siege of the castle
was commenced, when the king sent out the master of Gray, with a flag
of truce, to demand the cause of their coming. The negociation was
conducted by Gray, who was at the bottom of the whole plot, and the
result was, that the banished lords were admitted to an audience with
the king. In 1586, when Elizabeth had resolved upon the death of the
hapless Mary, James despatched the master of Gray and Sir Robert
Melville to intercede for her; and although on his arrival in the
English court, on 29th December, in his public conferences
with Elizabeth and her ministers, and in his open despatches to
Scotland, he exhibited great apparent activity and interest on her
behalf, he privately encouraged Elizabeth in her design of putting her
to death, and even whispered in her ear that “the dead don’t bite.”
His request, however, that Mary’s life might be spared for fifteen
days to give time to communicate with James, was peremptorily refused.
The following year his own fall occurred. On the accusation of Sir
William Stewart, then about to proceed on an embassy to France, he was
tried for high treason, condemned, and on the point of being executed,
but, on the intercession of the earl of Huntly and Lord Hamilton, his
life was spared, and the sentence changed to banishment. In his
“dittay” or indictment, (Pitcairn’s Criminal Trials, vol. I. P.
157), are contained various points of treason. “But his most flagrant
offence,” says Tytler (Hist. Of Scotland, vol ix. P. 13), “was
the base betrayal of his trust in his recent negotiation in England,
where he secretly recommended the death, instead of pleading for the
life of the Scottish queen. At first, with his wonted effrontery, he
attempted to brazen out the matter, and overawe his enemies; but in
the end he pleaded guilty, and as abject as he had been insolent,
threw himself on the king’s mercy. None lamented his disgrace.” He
retired first to France, and afterwards to Italy, but in 1589 was
permitted to return to Scotland, and was even received at court,
though he never recovered his former position. In 1592 we find him
named as one of the accusers of the celebrated preacher, Mr. Robert
Bruce, on the unfounded charge of harbouring the turbulent earl of
Bothwell. At this time Gray had promised that restless nobleman to get
him restored to the king’s favour; but Bothwell, apprehensive of his
treachery, did not keep an appointment which had been fixed between
them, and Gray, so far from bringing any accusation against Bruce,
became his champion, for on leaving the court he offered “to fight his
honest quarrel in that behalf” with any may but the king. He succeeded
his father as Lord Gray in 1609, and died three years afterwards. He
married, first, Elizabeth, second daughter of Lord Glammis, chancellor
of Scotland, without issue; secondly, Lady Mary Stewart, eldest
daughter of Robert, earl of Orkney, and had by her two sons, Andrew,
eighth Lord Gray, and William, and six daughters. It is stated in a
‘Discourse’ inserted in Calderwood’s History (vol. Iv. P. 253), that
when at St. Andrews in his youth “he was married to a young
gentlewoman of good parentage and fame, whom he repudiated, lyke as
his father also cast away his mother. So, about a yeere after his
marriage, he passeth to France,” &c. An adventure in which his brother
James was engaged in 1593 affords an apt illustration of the rude
manners of the times. He had carried off a gentlewoman, the daughter
and heiress of one John Carnegie, but by order of the council, she was
delivered up to her father. Notwithstanding this, he again carried her
off from a house in Edinburgh where she and her father were residing,
and we are told, (Calderwood’s Hist. Vol. V. p. 252), that she
“was hailled doun a closse to the North Loche, and convoyed over in a
boat, where there were about ten or twelve men on the other side to
receave her. They sett her upon a man’s sadle, and convoyed her away,
her haire hanging about her face. The Lord Hume keeped the High Street
with armed en till the fact was accomplished.”
Andrew,
eighth Lord Gray, was lieutenant of the gens d’armes in France,
under Lord Gordon, in 1624, and was much engaged in the wars in that
country. He resigned the hereditary office of sheriff of Forfarshire,
which had been held by his family for more than 150 years, to King
Charles the First, for 50,000 merks (about £3,000 sterling), for which
he got his majesty’s bond, but the civil wars breaking out shortly
thereafter, he was never paid. Being with the marquis of Montrose on 6th
October 1645, he was ordered to be banished the kingdom by the
Estates, never to return on pan of death; but after being delayed till
the following June, the sentence does not appear to have been carried
into effect. In 1649 he was excommunicated by the commission of the
General Assembly, n account of his being a Roman Catholic, and was
fined £1,500 by Cromwell, who excepted him out of his act of grace to
the Scotch in 1654. He was soon after prevailed upon by Charles the
Second and his brother the duke of York, then in exile in France, to
resign his lieutenancy of the gens d’armes in favour of Marshal
Schomberg. This office had long been held by a Scotsman, and could
never afterwards be recovered. Lord Gray died in 1663. He was twice
married: first, to Margaret Ogilvie, countess of Buchan, daughter of
Matthew, Lord Deskford, by whom he had a son, Patrick, master of Gray,
killed at the siege of a town in France, unmarried, and a daughter,
Anne, of whom afterwards; and, secondly, to Catherine Cadell, by whom
he had one daughter. Having no surviving male issue, Lord Gray, in
1639, made a resignation of his honours into the hands of King Charles
the First, and obtained a new patent, dated 8th January
that year, in favour, after himself, of his daughter and heiress,
Anne, who had married William Gray, younger of Pittendrum, and had the
honours conferred on his son-in-law, with the style, during his own
life, of master of Gray, which patent was ratified in parliament 7th
November, 1641. This William Gray was eldest son of Sir William Gray
of Pittendrum, who had been created a baronet by King Charles the
First. His father was Thomas Gray of Brighouse, nephew of Andrew Gray
of Schives, and he acquired great wealth as a merchant in Edinburgh.
For corresponding with the marquis of Montrose Sir William was fined
by the parliament at St. Andrews, 100,000 merks Scots, and at the
desire of General Leslie, he was imprisoned in the castle and tolbooth
of Edinburgh, but on the application of his friends to the committee
of Estates the fine was reduced to 35,000 merks, which was paid by his
son, the master of Gray. The sum of £10,000 sterling was also extorted
from him, by way of a loan, and never repaid. Sir William died in
1648. By his wife, Egidia, sister of Sir John Smith of Grothill and
King’s Cramond, provost of Edinburgh, he had six sons and twelve
daughters. Of the sons, William, the eldest, married Anne, mistress of
Gray, as already mentioned; Robert, the second son, was killed at
Inverkeithing, leaving a son, John Gray of Crichie, who became tenth
Lord Gray; David, the third son, was killed at Tangier with the earl
of Teviot; Alexander, the fourth son, died unmarried; and Andrew, the
youngest, was minister of Glasgow.
William,
master of Gray, the eldest son, had 232,000 merks given him by his
father on his marriage. Like the rest of his family he was a staunch
loyalist, and at the battle of Worcester, in 1651, he commanded a
regiment n the army of Charles the Second, which had been raised
mostly at his own expense. He was killed in a duel near London, by the
earl of Southesk, in the end of August, 1660, in the lifetime of his
father-in-law. By his first wife, Anne, mistress of Gray, he had three
sons: Patrick, ninth Lord Gray; William, who died unmarried; and
Charles, admitted advocate, 21st December 1675. By his
second wife, a daughter of Gibson of Durie, who had been twice a
widow, he had no issue.
The eldest
son, Patrick, succeeded as ninth Lord Gray, on the death of his
grandfather in 1633, and died in 1711, leaving a daughter, Marjory,
mistress of Gray, who married her father’s cousin-german, John Gray of
Crichie. The ninth Lord Gray, with consent of his only surviving
brother, Charles, on 20th February 1707, made a new
resignation of the honours into the hands of Queen Anne, and obtained
a new patent of the same, with the former precedency, to the said John
Gray of Crichie, and to his eldest son by the said Marjory, mistress
of Gray, and their heirs; in virtue of which patent John Gray of
Crichie became tenth Lord Gray, even during the life of the ninth
lord, and on 11th March following he took the oaths and his
seat in parliament. Marjory, his wife, died before her father. In
September 1686, her husband obtained from King James the Seventh an
order to the commissioners of the treasury in Scotland, for a sum of
£1,500 sterling, in consideration of his loyalty, and that of his
family, and the losses sustained by his grandfather during the civil
wars. He died in 1724. He had three sons and three daughters.
John, his
eldest son, eleventh Lord Gray, died 15th December 1738.
His son, John, twelfth lord, greatly embellished the family estates,
by planting and other improvements. At the election of peers of
Scotland 12th May 1739, he protested for precedency, and
against the calling of Lord Forbes or any other baron before him. He
married, 17th October 1741, Margaret Blair, heiress of
Kinfauns in Perthshire, by which marriage that fine property came into
possession of the family. He had four sons, three of whom, seceded to
the title, and seven daughters. The twelfth lord died at Kinfauns, 28th
August 1782, in his 67th year.
Alexander,
13th lord, an officer in the first regiment of dragoon
guards, quitted the army in 1783, and died at Edinburgh, Dec. 18,
1786, in his 35th year, unmarried. His brother, William
John, 14th lord, an officer in the Scots Grays, died Dec.
12, 1807, also unmarried, in his 54th year.
His brother,
Francis, 15th Lord Gray, born at Edinburgh, Sept. 1, 1765,
was major in the first battalion of Breadalbane fencibles in 1793, and
in August 1807 was appointed postmaster-general of Scotland. He
succeeded to the title the same year, and in 1810 resigned the office
of postmaster-general. He was for many years one of the Scottish
representative peers. In 1822 the superb edifice of Kinfauns castle,
about 3 miles from Perth, was built by him, from a design by Smirke.
Gray house, in Forfarshire, is another seat of the family. Broughty
castle (long in ruins), near Dundee, was built in the end of the 15th
century by the 3d Lord Gray, the first hereditary sheriff of
Forfarshire of this family, on whom the lands of Broughty had been
conferred by James IV. In 1547, aster the battle of Pinkie, Fort de
Gray, as Broughty was termed, was delivered by Patrick, Lord Gray, to
the English, and remained in their occupation till Feb. 20, 1550. In
1666 it was sold to Fothringham of Powrie and Fothringham. The 15th
Lord Gray married in 1794, Mary Anne, daughter of Lieutenant-colonel
James Johnston, issue 1 son, John his successor, and 3 daughters, 1st,
Madalina; 2d Margaret, married in 1820 John Grant, Esq., of Kilgraston,
and died in 1822, leaving a daughter Margaret, married Hon. Capt. D.
Murray, brother of 3d earl of Mansfield; 3d, Jane Anne, married in
1834 Col. Charles Philip Ainslie, 14th light dragoons,
which marriage was dissolved in 1843. His lordship died 20th
August, 1842.
The only
son, John, 16th Lord Gray, born May 12th 1796, a
representative peer, and deputy-lieutenant of Perthshire, married July
23d, 1833, Mary Anne, daughter of Colonel Charles Philip Ainslie, 4th
Dragoons, 2d son of Sir Philip Ainslie, of Pilton, without issue. As
the peerage, failing male heirs, descends in the female line, his
lordship’s sister, the Hon. Madelina Gray, born 11th
November 1799, is heiress presumptive to the title and estates (1861).
A branch of
the family of Gray has possessed the estate of Carntyne, in
Lanarkshire, since before 1595.
GRAY, GILBERT,
a learned principal of Marischal college, Aberdeen, was appointed to
that dignity in 1598, being the second after the foundation of that
university. He studied under Robert Rollock, the first principal of
the university of Edinburgh, whose worth and learning he has
commemorated in a curious Latin oration, which he delivered in 1611,
in praise of the illustrious writers of Scotland, and which will be
found prefixed to Mackenzie’s Lives. It is entitled ‘Oratio de
Illustribus Scotiae Scriptoribus,’ habita a magistro Gilberto Grayo,
Gymnasiarcha Academiae Novae Abredoniae, A.D. 1611. Many of the
authors named in it are fictitious, especially as regards the Scottish
kings, the worthy principal being a firm believer in the fabulous
stories of Fergus the First having written on the subject of law 300
years before the birth of Christ, Dornadilla, a century after,
composing rules for sportsmen, Reutha, the seventh king of Scotland,
being a great promoter of schools and education, and King Josina, a
century and a half before the Christian era, writing on botany, and
the practice of medicine! Principal Gray died in 1614.
GRAY, JAMES, the
Rev.,
the friend of Burns, and himself a poet of no mean pretensions, was
originally master of the High School of Dumfries, and associated a god
deal with Burns while residing in that town. He was afterwards
appointed to the High School of Edinburgh, where he taught with much
reputation for upwards of twenty years, but being disappointed in
obtaining the rectorship, he quitted that situation, and was made
rector of the academy at Belfast. He subsequently entered into holy
orders, and went out to India as a chaplain in the Hon. East India
Company’s service. He was stationed at Bhooj in Cutch, near the mouths
of the Indus; and the education of the young Rao of that province
having been entrusted to the British government, Mr. Gray was selected
as well qualified for the office of instructor to that prince, being
the first Christian who was ever honoured with such an appointment in
the East. He died there in September 1830, deeply regretted by all who
knew him, having been much esteemed for the primitive simplicity of
his heart and manners. He was the author of ‘Cuna of Cheyd,’ and the
‘Sabbath among the Mountains,’ besides innumerable miscellaneous
pieces. He left in manuscript a poem, entitled ‘India,’ and a
translation of the Gospels into the Cutch dialect of the Hindostanee.
Mr. Gray
married Mary Phillips, eldest sister of Mrs. Hogg, wife of the Ettrick
Shepherd, and his family mostly settled in India. “He was,” says Hogg,
“a man of genius, but his genius was that of a meteor, it wanted
steadying. A kinder and more disinterested heart than his never beat
in a human bosom.” Hogg introduced him into the ‘Queen’s Wake,’ as the
fifteenth bard who sung the ballad of ‘King Edward’s Dream.’ He is
thus described:
“The next was bred on southern shore,
Beneath the mists of Lammermore,
And long, by Nith and crystal Tweed,
Had taught the Border youth to read.
The strains of Greece, the bard of Troy,
Were all his theme and all his joy.
Well-toned his voice of wars to sing;
His hair was dark as raven’s wing;
His eye an intellectual lance;
No heart could bear its searching glance;
But every bard to him was dear;
His heart was kind, his soul sincere.
* * *
Alike to him the south or north,
So high he held the minstrel worth,
So high his ardent mind was wrought,
Once of himself he scarcely thought.
Dear to his heart the strains sublime,
The strain admired in ancient time;
And of his minstrel honours proud,
He strung his harp too high, too loud.”
GRAY, ALEXANDER,
founder of an hospital for the sick poor at Elgin, youngest child of
Deacon Alexander Gray, a wheelwright and watchmaker in that town, by
his wife, Janet Sutherland, sister of Dr. Sutherland, a physician who
at one time practised at Bath, was born in 1751. After receiving a
liberal education, he became the apprentice of Dr. Thomas Stephen, a
physician in his native town, and completed his medical studies at the
university of Edinburgh. Soon after he was appointed assistant-surgeon
on the Bengal establishment, in the service of the Hon. The East India
Company, and was a long time resident in Calcutta. In advanced life he
married a lady much younger than himself, from whom he separated some
time before his death, which occurred in 1808. He had no children, and
having, by economical habits, accumulated a considerable fortune, he
left £26,000 for the endowment of an hospital for the sick poor of the
town and county of Elgin. The building was erected in 1819, on a
slight but spacious eminence at the west end of the town. Its
situation is remarkably well chosen, and being a very handsome edifice
in the Grecian style, with a projecting portico of Doric columns on
its eastern front from a design of Gillespie, it forms a splendid
termination to the High Street of Elgin. He also bequeathed a handsome
annuity to his sister, the only surviving member of his family, with
other legacies, and the annual interest of £2,000 to “the reputed old
maids in the town of Elgin, daughters of respectable but decayed
families.” The interest of £7,000 was settled during life upon his
widow, £4,000 of the principal at her death to be appropriated to the
building of a new church at Elgin, and until such church is required,
the interest of that sum to be applied to the use of the hospital.
GRAY, CHARLES,
Captain R.M.,
a minor poet, was born in Anstruther, Fifeshire, in 1782. In early
life he obtained a commission in the royal marines, in which he rose
to the rank of captain, and after continuing in the service for a
period exceeding thirty-six years, he retired on full pay about 1839.
He belonged to the Woolwich division of his corps, to which a maternal
uncle, (the excellent and truly Christian, Major-general Burn,) and
several brothers, were also attached, some of whom fell in battle. In
1811 Captain Gray published a small volume of poems and songs; and in
1841 he collected all his best pieces into an elegant volume, entitled
‘Lays and Lyrics,’ which had for frontispiece a full-length portrait
of himself in uniform, and a vignette of Anstruther, his birthplace,
and was dedicated to his friend and schoolfellow, William Tenant,
author of ‘Anster Fair,’ &c. As a song-writer Charles Gray will be
remembered for not a few simple and genial lays, some of which were
published in Wood’s Book of Scottish Song, a work to which his
extensive knowledge of Scottish songs and song-writers enabled him to
contribute much useful and interesting information. His knowledge of
the writings of Ramsay, Fergusson, and Burns, and of our earlier
Scottish poets, was extensive and minute. For the works of Burns,
especially, he entertained an enthusiastic admiration.
About 1845
he contributed to the Glasgow citizen a series of vigorous and
tasteful papers on the songs of Burns; and a critical examination of
the various biographies of the poet occupied his attention during the
long illness which terminated in his death. He died at Edinburgh,
where he had spend the latter part of his life, on the 13th
April, 1851, in the 69th year of his age.
Lord Grey and the World
War
By Hermann Lutz, translated by E. W. Dickes (1928) (pdf)
Albert, Fourth Earl Grey
By Harold Begvie (1918) (pdf)
Lord Grey of
the Reform Bill
Being the Life of Charles, Second Earl Grey, b George MacAulay
Trevelyan (1920) (pdf)
Letters
and Papers relating to Patrick, Master of Gray
Afterwards Seventh Lord Gray (1835) (pdf)
