Alexander MURRAY (1712-1778)

1. Alexander MURRAY, son of Alexander MURRAY 4th Lord Elibank (1677-1735) and Elizabeth STIRLING (bef1683-1756), was born on 9 December 1712 in Ballencrieff. He was christened on 9 December 1712 in Aberlady. He was a Politician. He had the title 'Jacobite Earl of Westminster'. He died on 27 February 1778 in Taplow, Bucks.

 

Alexander Murray developed into a well-known and vehement Jacobite, and refused to kneel to the House of Commons.

"Mr Alexander Murray was so enthusiastic a Jacobite as to propose leading an insurrection even after the close of all the just hopes of the house of Stuart in 1746. He was confined for more than a year subsequent to May 1750, by order of the house of commons, for violent interference with a Westminster election; and, as he refused to express contrition on his knees, according to the order of the house, he might have been confined for a much longer period, if the prorogation of parliament had not brought about his enlargement".

The Elibank Plot and Alexander Murray:

... Charles Edward [the Young Pretender] did not give up. He tried to persuade Louis XV to go to war again. Lochiel urged for another invasion in 1747 a year before his death in Flanders. There were other Jacobite plots later but none succeeded. The last Jacobite to be executed was Dr Archibald Cameron, Lochiel's brother, after Alexander Murray's Elibank Plot to abduct or assassinate the whole royal family was exposed by young MacDonell of Glengarry (the spy code named 'Pickle') in 1753. When George III succeeded his grandfather as King in 1760 he was accepted in a way his predecessors had not been. Unlike them - and unlike Charles Edward - he had even been born in Britain. The Old Pretender, James Francis, died in 1766. Charles Edward started calling himself Charles III but this meant little. He died in 1788 a disappointed drunkard. His younger brother Henry became a Cardinal. As Henry IX he died in 1807, recognising George III and his descendants as the lawful kings.

 

Alexander was an ensign in the 26th Foot (Cameronians) until taking up politics.

After refusal to kneel in the House of Commons was committed to Newgate Prison and was released by order of the Sherrifs of London when Parliament was prorogues.

He eventually went into exile in France and there was involved in the "Elibank Plot" to restore the Stewarts to the Throne. In 1759 was created Earl of Westminster by the Pretender (Chevalier de St. George, James Eighth and Third). He was recalled from exile under the King's Privy Seal in 1771 and died, unmarried, at Taplow in 1778.