Annabell Murray, Countess of Mar
Annabell Murray, Countess of Mar (1536–1603), was a Scottish landowner, courtier and royal servant, the keeper of the infant James VI and his son Prince Henry at Stirling Castle.
They commissioned the Edinburgh goldsmith James Cockie to make silver mounts for a rock crystal jug, engraved with their conjoined coat of arms, now known as the "Erskine ewer.
"[4] A month after giving birth to Prince James on 19 June 1566 Mary, Queen of Scots visited the Earl and Countess of Mar at Alloa Tower.
Her half-brother James became Regent and gave Annabell £500 Scots to give to the "rockers", women who rocked the king's cradle.
In 1568 James Cunningham of Drumquhassle was the Master of Household, Alexander Durham was the "provisor" (in charge of buying food and supplies),[10] Helen Littil was the chief nurse, five ladies including Christian Stewart, granddaughter of James V, took turns to rock the royal cradle, while the four Hudson brothers played their viols, there were cooks and brewers, Margaret Balcomie washed the king's linen and she had washed the linen of Mary, Queen of Scots at Linlithgow Palace.
[12] In her letters Murray described the king's well-being in formulaic terms, writing at least three times to Grey Colin Campbell, laird of Glenorchy, that "the Kingis Majestie is rycht blyth (praise to God)", a phrase which was reassuring during the years of the Marian Civil War.
Morton also had 60 new gold and silver buttons made for James VI, bought him a football, and had the king's chamber at Stirling panelled in oak, and paid the outstanding wages of James's nurse Helen Litill, his cradle-rocker Jane Oliphant, and Grissel Gray, who made the king's shirts.
[20] Annabell Murray received a variety of jewels over the subsequent years until 1579 when the King was declared an adult and moved to Edinburgh.
[21] These included a fossil shark tooth or "serpent's tongue" mounted in gold as an amulet intended to neutralise any poisons in the king's food.
[22] In August 1573 Regent Morton told the English ambassador Henry Killigrew that he intended the Master of Mar should have more responsibility for the king.
However a year later, nothing seems to have been done as Killigrew heard from the king's tutors George Buchanan and Peter Young that they were still "desirous to have him from the handling of women by whome he is yet guyded and kept, saving when he goeth to his booke.
[24] When Killigrew visited Stirling Castle in June 1574 he met Annabell Murray on the road and passed on Queen Elizabeth's messages of good will.
[25] An old story tells how Annabell Murray once tried to rescue the king from physical punishment by his tutor George Buchanan, who gave her a scurrilous answer.
[30] Surviving documents from the household include a long bill for shoes for James, which she signed with William Murray, a valet in the king's chamber.
Her brother, Sir William of Tullibardine (d. 1583) had a role in Morton's resignation of the regency and may also have been involved in the mini-coup at Stirling in April 1578 that expelled the Master of Mar.
At Henry's baptism on 30 August 1594, her formal role included lifting the prince out of his bed and passing him to the Duke of Lennox, who then handed him to the English ambassador, and she held him again in the chapel until the service began.
[48] When Anne of Denmark planned to visit her son in April 1595, "Old Lady Mar" was asked to leave Stirling Castle.
[50] In 1600 James VI in Parliament granted her a property in Stirling called the "heuch and brae of Parkhill" or the Haining, and a formal discharge for service in keeping Prince Henry in the same terms.
"[52] On 7 May 1603, her daughter-in-law Marie Stewart, Countess of Mar frustrated the attempt of Anne of Denmark to take Prince Henry from the castle.
The National Museum of Scotland has a chair, a caquetoire, carved with her initials and three stars from the Murray heraldry, and a cradle said to have been for the infant king or prince.
[55] In her will made on 16 November 1602 she left her jewellery to her family, including a gold locket depicting the story of Abraham and Isaac, and another with an allegory of an unyielding adamant (a hard stone) beaten by two hammers which she explained to her son "like as the pressing hammers cannot break the adamant no man [should] suffer his obliged affection and duty to his god, his prince & parent to be battered or overcome".
She had made physic with a servant Jonet Patersoune, and bequeathed her both medicine and distilling equipment; "the whole drugs extant in my possession the time of decease together with my whole stillatours, glasses, leam pots, and other furniture pertaining thereto".
