tatus de Ecclesia Christ!' (Dublin, 3 vols. 1860-6). Dr. Healy, a distinguished scholar, now bishop of Clonfert, who wrote the obituary notice of Dr. Murray for the 'Freeman's Journal' (17 Nov. 1882), declares that this 'great treatise is now universally recognised as the most complete and exhaustive work in that wide branch of theological science. It is admitted to be the highest authority even in the French and Roman schools.' A compendium of it, in one volume, was published for Maynooth students. Murray was for many years one of the leading contributors to the 'Dublin Review,' and was a poet of ability.
His other works are:
- 'The Irish Annual Miscellany,' 1850, &c.
- 'Essays, chiefly Theological,' 1851.
- 'Sponsa Mater et Christi,' a poem, with notes and illustrations, 8vo, Dublin, 1858.
- 'Prose and Verse,' 8vo, Dublin and London, 1867.
- 'Tractatus de Gratia,' 8vo, Dublin, 1877.
[Irish Monthly, xix. 337-46; Freeman's Journ. 17 Nov. 1882; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
MURRAY or MORAY, Sir ROBERT (d. 1673), one of the founders of the Royal Society, was a grandson of Robert Moray of Abercairney, and son of Sir Mungo Moray of Craigie in Perthshire, by his wife, a daughter of George Halket of Pitfirran, Perthshire. His brother, Sir William Moray of Dreghorn, was master of the works to Charles II. Robert was born about the beginning of the seventeenth century, was educated at the university of St. Andrews and in France, and took military service under Louis XIII. Richelieu favoured him highly, and he attained the rank of lieutenant-colonel, probably of the Scots guard. He returned, however, to Britain soon after the civil troubles began, and was knighted by Charles I at Oxford on 10 Jan. 1643. He left England immediately afterwards to take up his command in France, came to be on good terms with Mazarin, and fought with his regiment in Germany. With a brother and another fellow-officer of the Scots regiment he was made a prisoner of war in Bavaria in 1645. In the same year James Campbell, earl of Irvine, colonel of the Scots regiment, died, and Moray was appointed in Irvine's place. He was also nominated by the Scots as a secret envoy to negotiate a treaty between France and Scotland by which it was proposed to attempt the restoration of Charles I. His release from Bavaria was therefore obtained, and, arriving in London, he was in constant communication with the French envoy, De Montereul. He revisited Paris in 1646 in order to bring the negotiation to a conclusion. Subsequently he recommended the king's surrender to the Scots, and was with Charles both at Newark and Newcastle. In December 1646 he concerted with William Murray, later Earl of Dysart [q. v.], at Newcastle, a plan for the king's escape from Scottish custody, which was barely frustrated by the royal captive's timidity (cf. Gardiner, Great Civil War, and Hamilton Papers, Camden Soc., i. 106-46, where, in addition to numerous references to Moray, are a number of his letters). Moray left Newcastle just before the king was delivered by the Scots to the army. De Montereul complained that Moray deceived him as to the Scots' intentions through this critical period. Clarendon mentions him as 'a cunning and a dexterous man,' employed by the Scots in 1645 in a futile negotiation for the establishment of presbyterian government in England (Hist. of the Rebellion, iv. 163, Macray's edit.)
Moray resumed his career in France after the downfall of monarchy in England, and the Scottish parliament sent cargoes of prisoners to recruit his corps. He continued at the same time in the confidence of Charles II, and seems to have been with him in Scotland in 1651, when he received the nominal appointments of justice-clerk and lord of session, and was nominated privy councillor. In 1653 he took arms in the highlands under William Cunningham, ninth earl of Glencairn [q. v.], but the collapse of the rising, and perhaps the disclosure of a plot to destroy his credit with the army, induced him, in May 1654, to join the king in Paris, with his brother-in-law, Alexander Lindsay, earl of Balcarres [q. v.], and Lady Balcarres (Lady Anna Mackenzie), whom he called his 'gossip' and 'cummer.' They were subsequently joined by Alexander Bruce, afterwards second Earl of Kincardine [q. v.], Moray's correspondence with whom is of singular interest. Between 1657 and 1660 Murray was at Maestricht, Bruce at Bremen. His life, he tells Bruce, was that of a recluse, most of his time being devoted to chemical pursuits. The cultivation of music, although 'three fiddles' were 'hanging by his side on the wall' as he wrote, was relegated to better times. The letters show literary cultivation, wide knowledge, strong common sense, as well as nobility of mind and tenderness of heart.
Moray repaired to London shortly after the Restoration, having first successfully conducted a negotiation with the presbyterians regarding the introduction of episcopacy into Scotland, a measure which he, however, desired to postpone. He was reappointed lord of session and justice-clerk in
