John Murray, of Broughton, in Peeblesshire, was born in 1715, being descended from a cadet of the house of Murray of Philiphaugh. His father, Sir David Murray, was out in the Fifteen, but afterwards lived peacefully, developed the lead mines of Strontian, and died before the Forty-five. His son, educated at Edinburgh and Leyden Universities, visited Rome in 1737-8, carried thither his ancestral politics, and inflamed them at the light of Prince Charles’s eyes, ‘the finest I ever saw.’[34] He found Charles ‘the most surprizingly handsome person of the age,’ a description not borne out by the miniature in enamel which he gave to his admirer in a diamond snuff-box.[35] Here we see ‘the complection that has in it somewhat of an uncommon delicacy;’ we see large brown eyes, an oval face, and the bright hair hanging down below the perruque, that hair which is treasured in a hundred rings, sleeve-links, and lockets. But genuine portraits of the Prince do not account for his epithet of ‘bonnie,’ and for his almost involuntary successes with women. He had ‘an air,’ and was, indeed, a good-looking boy enough; but he was no Adonis, the lower part of his face tending early to overfulness. However, he won Murray’s heart, and he never lost it. Returning, in 1738, to Broughton, on the Tweed, Murray found himself a near neighbour of Lord Traquair, then residing in his ancient château, which lent its bears to Tully Veolan. The house has a legend of an avenue gate never to be opened till the King comes again; but Lord Traquair, a Jacobite from vanity, did nothing to promote a Restoration. He feebly caballed, and at Traquair Murray may have drunk loyal healths enough to float a ship. Inclined for more active measures, he succeeded old Colonel Urquhart as Scottish correspondent of Edgar, the King’s secretary in Rome. The appointment was approved of by the Duke of Hamilton, who, dying in 1743, left the Garter, the gift of King George, and the Thistle, the gift of King James! The new Duke was Jacobite enough to subscribe 1,500_l._ to the Cause and to accept James’s commission just before the Prince landed, but he held aloof from the Rising.