In 1785 Sir James Graham married Lady Catherine Stuart, the eldest daughter of John, seventh Earl of Galloway. Remarkable for her personal attractions, Lady Catherine was gifted at the same time with an excellent understanding and a very genial nature. A little rigid she seems to have been in her religious opinions; a great friend, for example, of Dean Milner, the author of a Church History of which it has been justly observed, that in seeking to achieve an impossible object it effected nothing. Her Calvinistic tendencies, however, never interfered with the exercise of a large and widely-extended benevolence. Neither were her prejudices so rooted as to stand in the way of more worldly friendships. Archdeacon Paley, certainly not religious over-much, found a ready and frequent welcome at Netherby. So did Dr Vernon, the Bishop of Carlisle, whose great idea of Episcopal dignity was to maintain as strict a discipline among his clergy as the temper of the times would admit, and to dispense a generous hospitality at Rose Castle. Thus, the geniality of the laird and the high religious temperament of the lady worked well together, and Netherby Hall became, under their united influence, the centre of everything that was kind and good in the social intercourse of the neighbourhood. Sir James Graham the first married early. He was barely twenty-two, and Lady Catherine twenty, when they came together, and a large family followed. Daughters arrived first, and by-and-by, on the 1st of June 1792, their eldest son was born. Great rejoicings took place on that occasion, and the child was named at his baptism James Robert George—James, after his father; Robert, after his paternal grandfather; and George, in memory of the man among his ancestors who had least claim to the distinction, his only merit having been this, that in difficult times he exercised great prudence, and managed, in consequence, to keep himself from getting into trouble. Young James’s early education seems to have been conducted at home, though how, we are not told. But in 1802 he was sent with his brother William to a private school at Dalston, a village of which the Rev. Walter Fletcher, Chancellor of the Diocese, was the incumbent.