for the southern department, but went out of office with Lord North in July 1782. In the debate of 17 Feb. 1783 he severely censured the preliminary articles of peace, and on 2 April following accepted the office of president of the council in the Duke of Portland's coalition ministry. On its dismissal, after the rejection by the House of Lords of Fox's East India bill, 19 Dec. the same year, he attached himself for a time to the whigs, and made himself formidable to the government by his trenchant criticism of Pitt's East India bill, motion for reform, and the Irish commercial propositions (1784-1785). He also took an active part in the debates on the Regency bill (1788). His long and varied diplomatic experience lent weight to his censure of the policy of intervention in the war between Russia and the Porte (1791-2), and to the support which he at once gave to ministers when, in answer to the French declaration of war on 1 Feb. 1793, they declared war against France on 11 Feb. In 1794 he returned to office as president of the council in succession to Lord FitzWilliam. He died at Brighton on 1 Sept. 1796. Stormont had succeeded, 20 March 1793, to the earldom of Mansfield of Caen Wood, Middlesex, on the death of his uncle, William Murray, first earl of Mansfield [q. v.], by whose side he was buried in the North Cross, Westminster Abbey, on 9 Sept, 1796.
Mansfield was an eminently able and honourable diplomatist and statesman, and, though no orator, a ready and powerful speaker. He retained his scholarly tastes to the end. On 3 July 1793 the university of Oxford conferred upon him the degree of D.C.L., and the same year he was made chancellor of Marischal College, Aberdeen. After the death of his first wife, by whom he had issue two daughters only, he married, 5 May 1776, the Hon. Louisa Cathcart, third daughter of Charles, ninth lord Cathcart, by whom he had issue three sons and a daughter. On the death of the first Earl of Mansfield, Lady Stormont became Countess of Mansfield in the county of Nottingham in her own right by reason of the peculiar form of the original patent creating the earldom of Mansfield. She survived Mansfield, and married, secondly, 19 Oct. 1797, her cousin-german, Robert Fulke Greville, third son of Francis, first earl of Warwick; she died on 11 July 1843.
[Alumni Westmonast. ; Foster's Alumni Oxon . ; Douglas's Peerage of Scotland, Stormont ; Gent. Mag. 1761 p. 504, 1796 p. 795; Horace Walpole's Letters, ed. Cunningham ; Polit. Corresp. Friedrichs des Grossen, Bande xi-xir. and xviii-xix. ; Lord Chesterfield's Letters, ed. Lord Mahon, ii. 81 ; Wraxall's Hist, and Posth. Mem., ed. Wheatley; Parl. Hist. 1778-95; Mrs. Delany's Autobiogr., ed. Lord Llanover, iii. 553 ; Grenville Papers, iii. 373; Add. MSS. 24159, 24162-5; Nicolas's British Knighthood, vol. iii. Chron. List. p. xxx ; Haydn's Book of Dignities, ed. Ockerby ; Chester's Westminster Abbey Registers ; Carlyle's Frederick the Great, passim.]
MURRAY, ELIZABETH, Countess of Dysart, and afterwards Duchess of Lauderdale (d. 1697), was the elder daughter of William Murray, first earl of Dysart [q. v.], by his wife, Catharine Bruce of Clackmannan. As the earldom was conferred with remainder to heirs male and female, and the earl had no son, the succession to the title fell to Elizabeth, who became Countess of Dysart in 1650. On 5 Dec. 1670 she obtained from Charles II a charter confirming her title, and allowing her to name any of her issue as heir to the honours.
In 1647 Elizabeth married her first husband, Sir Lionel Tollemache, third baronet, the descendant of an ancient Suffolk family, and by him she had three sons and two daughters. Sir Lionel died in 1668. Scandal had already made very free with Elizabeth's reputation. The improbable rumour was long current that she was the mistress of Oliver Cromwell when he was in Scotland, and that she secured immunity to her relatives from the Protector's exactions through her personal influence. Sir John Reresby, nearly thirty years later, after Cromwell's death, writing of an interview with her, described her as having 'been a beautiful woman, the supposed mistress of Oliver Cromwell, and at that time a lady of great parts' (Memoirs, p. 49). It is more certain that in her first husband's lifetime she had formed a liaison with John Maitland, duke of Lauderdale [q. v.], which scandalised even the court of Charles II. After the death of his first wife Lauderdale married Lady Elizabeth in February 1671-2. As both mistress and wife of the duke a vast amount of patronage 1ay within her power, and, sharing her husband's unpopularity, she was the subject of many lampoons. But she had her parasites. Bishop Burnet, in 1677, had hopes of securing some advantage for himself at her hands, and addressed her in poetical strains of the most fulsome flattery. After describing the 'deep extasie' into which her appearance had thrown him, he wrote—
Cherub I doubt's too low a name for thee,
For thou alone a -whole rank seems to be :
The onelie individual of thy kynd,
No mate can fitlie suit so great a mind.
