STEWART, Alexander (1634-1700), 5th earl of Moray [S], of Darnaway Castle, Morayshire.

The Stewarts of Moray were descended from the royal line through James, bastard son of King James V, who was created earl of Moray by his half-sister, Mary Queen of Scots, in 1563, and served as her regent until his assassination in 1570. Later earls continued this close connection with their royal cousins, and their fortunes, like those of the Stuarts, were variable. Alexander Stewart succeeded his father as 5th earl of Moray in March 1653, at the age of 19, but his inheritance was far from secure. The 4th earl had been a royalist during the 1640s, and as a result his estates had been plundered and his credit overstretched, forcing him to alienate much of his patrimony. As one local gentleman commented, the old man had died only ‘when he had sold and bargained for a great part of his estate’.8Brodie Diary, 25. An account of the 4th earl’s debts, drawn up on his death, put the total bill at £190,000 Scots (or nearly £16,000 Sterling).9NRAS 217, box 20, nos. 1 and 8. Worse was to come. Despite the 5th earl’s protests that he was ‘a child at school’ during the 1640s, he was fined £3,500 for his father’s delinquency by the English government in 1654, and spent much of the rest of the decade trying to prove his innocence.10CSP Dom. 1656-7, p. 130; A. and O. Added to this, the 5th earl was unable to take control of the remaining part of the estate, as a large portion had been granted to his mother, and would only come back to him on her death in 1683.11NRAS 217, box 5, no. 328. As his father-in-law put it in 1659, the earl’s precarious financial situation was caused ‘by your mother’s too great rigidity and neglect of you in time of need, on the one part, and the iniquity of the times, on the other part’.12NRAS 217, box 6, no. 140.

Moray’s financial plight was one common to Scottish nobles during the 1650s; but his open support for the Cromwellian regime was not. One reason for this departure from his father’s political line may have been the influence of two men: Archibald Campbell*, marquess of Argyll, and Alexander Brodie* of Brodie. Both had been leading Covenanters in the 1640s, and now worked with the Cromwellian authorities (although Argyll put his own interests, and Brodie the interests of the covenanting cause, before any sense of duty towards the Cromwellian state). Argyll was already a powerful man in Morayshire, as he controlled the estates of his disgraced brother-in-law, the marquess of Huntly.13Ane Account of the Familie of Innes ed. C. Innes (Aberdeen, 1864), 174-82. His direct influence over Moray dated from 1650, when his son and heir, Lord Lorne, had married Moray’s sister, and the connection continued later in the decade, not least because the marriage portion promised by the 4th earl remained unpaid.14Scots Peerage, vi. 321; NRAS 217, box 5, no. 65, 92; box 20, nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8 and 9; box 6, no. 140. The connection with the royalist Lorne caused some embarrassment for Moray. In 1655, Moray was forced to give a bond for the good behaviour of Lorne when he submitted to the government after the failure of the rebellion led by the earl of Glencairn.15Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke MS XLVII, unfol.: 21 June 1655. Alexander Brodie’s influence complemented that of Argyll, as he was known for his willingness to ‘do anything at my Lord Argyll’s desire’.16NAS, GD 150/3447/3. Brodie’s personal connection with Moray was also strong. He may have been a legal cautioner of Moray’s estates; he was certainly treated as a wise counsellor, and one of Moray’s ‘friends’ when it came to sorting out the earl’s debts.17NRAS 217, box 6, no. 883. Brodie’s diary entries from the mid-1650s reveal a close, if at times tense, relationship between the two men. In the autumn of 1653 Brodie was involved in choosing a new chaplain for Moray; in 1655 he was distressed by the ‘confusion and distress of the Stewarts’, but added that he ‘got not the papers which I was seeking’; later in the year he was provoked to ‘expostulate sharply with the earl for not giving me notice of the Lord Lorne’s business’, but also agreed to write to the protector on Moray’s behalf.18Brodie Diary, 88, 104, 135, 143-4, 157, 161, 168. With the backing of Argyll and Brodie, Moray was able to build bridges with the authorities in Edinburgh, and in the summer of 1653 he was allowed ‘20 or 30 arms for the defence of his house at Darnaway against the highlanders’.19Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke MS XLV, unfol.: 2 Aug. 1653. He also found favour in London. In March 1655 his fine was reduced from £3,500 to £1,166, and this prompted him to travel to London in November of that year, with the encouragement of George Monck* and Lord Broghill (Roger Boyle*).20CSP Dom. 1655, p. 72; 1656-7, p. 130; Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke MS XLVII, unfol.: 7 Nov. 1655; TSP iv. 163-4. Moray submitted a formal petition to the protectoral council in January 1656.21CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 152.

It was probably the need to reduce the fine further that prompted Moray to seek election for Elgin and Nairn shires in the second protectorate Parliament. Brodie was a crucial influence over this election, as acknowledged by Major-general Thomas Morgan, who visited Brodie on 22 July ‘and spoke to me for choosing the earl of Moray to the Parliament ensuing’.22Brodie Diary, 184. But Brodie was less enthusiastic about Moray’s election than Morgan expected. He decried ‘the way of choosing’ practised by the Scottish government, and was also critical of Moray himself, attacking his ‘lusts’, and adding ‘I am sorry that I had to do with him, or anything concerns him’.23Brodie Diary, 184-5. Despite Brodie’s lack of support, Moray stood for the constituency on his own interest. No return for the shires survives, but Monck’s list of MPs, drawn up on 20 August, includes Moray as MP for the seat.24Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke MS XXVIII, f. 65. Moray was already in London by that date, and it seems likely that he had taken his seat by 14 October, when he petitioned the protector, claiming that his fine was unjust, and that he was unable to pay it. The petition was referred to the Scottish committee of the protectoral council, where it received a favourable hearing, and on the report of Nathaniel Fiennes I*, John Lambert* and Walter Strickland*, a few months later the fine was reduced to £500.25CSP Dom. 1656-7, pp. 130, 248-9. The favour of Lambert and other leading politicians could not guarantee Moray’s continuance in Parliament, however, as Moray had by this time seems to have lost the local support not only of Brodie but also of Argyll. On 23 October 1656 the Commons had received a letter from Robert Lilburne* claiming that the writ for Elgin and Nairn ‘came too late into those remote countries’, and, with the order issuing a new writ, Moray’s election was effectively overturned.26CJ vii. 444a. This reverse came only nine days after Moray’s petition to the protector, and may be linked to it; although suggestions that this was Lambert and his friends trying to block a Scottish noble from sitting are unconvincing, as Lambert supported Moray in later months.27P.J. Pinckney, ‘The Scottish Representation in the Cromwellian Parliament of 1656’, SHR xlvi. 101. A more convincing agent behind Moray’s unseating was Argyll, who may have encouraged Lilburne’s intervention, and certainly moved to ensure the election of Moray’s successor. As Argyll told his local agent, the new candidate, Richard Beke*, was Lilburne’s brother-in-law, and he considered Lilburne ‘a real friend to all honest Scotsmen’.28Family of Innes, ed. Innes, 182.

In the later 1650s Moray returned to Scotland, where he made further efforts to sort out his financial crisis. During this period his alienation from Brodie and Argyll became complete. Brodie’s diary includes few further references to Moray, and all are critical, with the laird repeatedly referring to ‘the earl of Moray his miscarrying’, either in financial or political matters.29Brodie Diary, 184. Relations with Argyll – who was now an object of suspicion in England as well as Scotland – also seem to have collapsed entirely from 1657 onwards. The principal reason was Moray’s marriage to the daughter of the old Caroline courtier (and in the 1640s, parliamentarian general), Sir William Balfour of Pitcullo, which, bearing in mind the birth of their first child in March 1657, must have taken place before the summer of 1656.30St Andrews University Library, Countess of Moray’s Bible. The match took place ‘at London, without any advice’, according to one contemporary; and from 1657, Balfour became Moray’s chief adviser.31Baillie Lttrs. and Jnls. iii. 366. While other agents fought off Moray’s creditors north of the border, Balfour moved to London with his family (including Moray’s eldest daughter, Margaret), and used his contacts in the army and the council to try to lift the earl’s remaining fine.32NRAS 217, box 6, nos. 614-22, 799-802, 883. On 31 July 1658 Balfour wrote that he had been to Hampton Court three times to wait on Cromwell, but the illness of Lady Elizabeth Claypoole had prevented him lobbying the protector in person. Instead ‘I have adventured half a dozen lines to … General Monck’ to gain his support in relieving Moray of his remaining fine. He had also attended Charles Fleetwood* and Nathaniel Fiennes in Moray’s business, and these were probably his ‘friends of the council mentioned in a later letter.33NRAS 217, box 6, nos. 143, 146. The sitting of Parliament in January 1659 had brought Moray’s business to a halt, but Balfour remained confident.34NRAS 217, box 6, no. 143. He also took the opportunity to sneer about Argyll’s appearance in the Commons ‘which gives occasion to diverse to ask the question how it comes to pass, and for what reason is it, that the marquess of Argyll sits in the House of Commons, and the Lord [Sir Archibald Johnston* of] Wariston … sits in … the House of Lords’.35NRAS 217, box 6, no. 140. In a private interview with Argyll, Balfour had put off discussion of Moray’s debts, but added ‘when he shall twitch that string, his lordship I hope shall find I am not ignorant of the business’.36NRAS 217, box 6, no. 140. Throughout his correspondence with Moray, Balfour’s dislike of Argyll is palpable.

With the fall of the protectorate in the spring of 1659, Balfour directed his lobbying to his contacts within the restored commonwealth, listing Sir Henry Vane II*, Charles Fleetwood and Edmund Ludlowe II* as ‘my chief friends’, and admitting that ‘my old friend the Lord Fiennes being now out of play’ he was looking elsewhere for patronage to ensure that Moray’s fine would not be enforced.37NRAS 217, box 6, no. 147. The accomplished Balfour, who died in 1660, may have survived long enough to finesse Moray’s path through the Restoration, using his royalist contacts from the court of the 1630s. Moray was certainly quick to follow his father-in-law’s example by reclaiming his own family connections with the Stuarts, and when a son was born on 18 June 1660, he was naturally christened Charles.38St Andrews University Library, Countess of Moray’s Bible. Although he was created sheriff of Inverness in 1660, and a privy councillor in 1661, Moray’s new political career was slow to develop, but from the mid-1670s he attained high office, serving as lord justice-general, lord of the treasury, and (on the fall of the duke of Lauderdale) as lord of session and secretary of state from 1680. Under James VII Moray was high commissioner of the Scottish Parliament; he was among the first men admitted to the newly re-established order of the thistle in May 1687; and he was even rumoured to have converted to Catholicism. The accession of William and Mary brought the loss of all Moray’s offices in 1689, followed by charges of treason in 1690.39CP.

As loyalty to the Stuarts became the keynote of Moray’s career after 1660, newer allies were rapidly discarded. Argyll had been executed in 1661, and relations between Lord Lorne (now 9th earl of Argyll) and Moray were strained. The strongly Presbyterian Brodie was marginalised by the government after the Restoration, and his only contacts with Moray were as an adversary. In the 1670s, for example, Brodie sided with the dowager countess against the earl, and in a meeting with her ‘did express my indignation at her son’s folly’. More seriously, Brodie was by now convinced that Moray had ‘informed against’ him to the government, and from 1676, as the earl assisted the drive against non-conformity, their relationship collapsed altogether.40Brodie Diary, 332, 357, 367. Moray, who never became reconciled to the new regime, died at Donibristle in Fife in November 1700. He was succeeded by his second son, Charles, who became 6th earl, and continued his father’s attachment to the Stuarts, becoming embroiled in the rising of 1715.41CP.