Series 2 > Origins of the 'Forty-five

INTRODUCTION
xxviii
and he saw it tottering and vacillating. He mistook
general political dissatisfaction for revolutionary discon¬
tent, and he came to the conclusion that the country
longed for a restoration of the old royal line. Constitut¬
ing himself an envoy from the English Jacobites,1 he
hurried off to Rome and reported to the Chevalier that the
party was stronger than was generally believed, and that
affairs in England were most favourable for action.
It is necessary here to relate how Glenbucket’s mission
to Rome affected the Scottish Jacobites, and to introduce
into the narrative the name of one who for five years
was a mainstay of the Cause, though in the end he turned
traitor.
Murray of John Murray of Broughton, a younger son of Sir David
Broughton. ]yjurray 0f Stanhope (a Peeblesshire baronet of ancient
family who in his day had been an ardent Jacobite),
entered the University of Leyden in 1735, being then
twenty years of age. In 1737 he had completed his
studies and went on a visit to Rome, where he mixed
in the Jacobite society of the place. Although he never
had an interview with James himself, he frequently met
the young princes, and he acquired the friendship of James
Edgar, the Chevalier’s faithful secretary. Murray’s father
had once been proposed as an official Jacobite agent in
Scotland, and it seems highly probable that Edgar per¬
suaded the son to look forward to assuming such a
position. Murray left Rome to return to Scotland shortly
before Glenbucket’s arrival in January 1738.
Glenbucket’s message had convinced James of the
devotion of the Highlanders and the Jacobites of north¬
eastern Scotland, but he wished to know more of the
spirit of the Scottish Lowlands. At the same time
that he wrote to the English Jacobites, he despatched
1 See infra, p. 21.