Earls of Middleton, Lords of Clermont and of Fettercairn

266 The Earls of Middleton.
been guilty. As it was too late to retract altogether,
he persuaded her to appoint at least some trustworthy-
person to accompany Lovat, who would keep an eye
upon his proceedings. As Torcy made the same
demand in his master's name, Captain John Murray,
brother of Mr. Murray of Abercarnie, was appointed
to this office. Captain James Murray, likewise
brother of Sir David Murray of Stanhope, who had
been asked to go to Scotland by Lord Arran, under
the protection of Queen Anne's indemnity, " in order
to send him back again with information concerning
the state of the country, and what they intended to
do when the Parliament should rise," kept a watch
upon him.
Lovat and John Murray arrived in the north of
England early in the summer of 1703. The first act
of the former was to discover privately the whole
affair to the Duke of Queensberry, 1 whom Lockhart,
indeed, declares to have been the prime instigator of
the plot, which he had got up merely to ruin the
Cavaliers and country party in revenge for their oppo-
sition to him during the last session of Parliament.
Lovat, he says, was merely Queensberry's instrument.
However this may be, Lovat undertook to acquaint
Queensberry with the whole correspondence between
the Pretender and the Jacobites. To gratify his own
1 James, second Duke of Queensberry.