James Grahme

On 1 February 1674 Grahme was promoted to the captaincy of twelve companies composing two battalions of the royal regiment of English infantry commanded by the Duke of Monmouth, but on 3 November that year, while in camp at Dettweiler, he obtained leave from Turenne to return to England.

After overcoming her mother's opposition, through the good offices of John Evelyn, was married to her at St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, London, by licence dated 22 November 1675.

[3] Under King James II, Grahme was made keeper of the privy purse and Master of the Buckhounds on 4 April 1685.

He secured on his return the royal plate in the "privy lodgings", and looked after James's shares in the East India and Guinea companies.

He visited Edinburgh to meet prominent Jacobites on 12 March 1692, and in the evening embarked from Leith for France in company with General Thomas Buchan and Brigadier Cannon.

He narrowly escaped being arrested at his home in Norfolk Street, London, on 26 April, while superintending the removal of money and plate to be sent to James.

[3] On 3 March 1696 Grahme was again arrested on the discovery of the assassination plot and sent to the Fleet Prison where he was visited on 6 April by Evelyn, but soon released.

On the advice of his brother Fergus, who had fled the country, he settled quietly at Levens, though still maintaining correspondence with Jacobite friends.

Monsieur Beaumont, the gardener of James II and the designer of the grounds at Hampton Court, was for many years in service at Levens.

His voting in 1710 in favour of Henry Sacheverell made him popular in Westmorland and Cumberland and he was returned again at the 1710 British general election.

for Westmoreland, William (d. 1716) rose to be a captain in the navy, and Richard died prematurely in 1697 as a commoner of University College, Oxford.

A series of letters from him and his tutor, Hugh Todd, describing his college life and last illness, was, with altered names of persons and places, published by Francis Edward Paget in 1875, with the title A Student Penitent of 1695.

Grahme's eldest daughter, Catherine (d. 1762), was married on 8 March 1709 to her first cousin, Henry Bowes Howard, 4th Earl of Berkshire, who succeeded, in right of his wife, to the Levens estate; the youngest daughter, Mary, married John Michell of Richmond, Surrey, from whom she was separated, and lived until her death about 1718 with her father.

James Grahme
Dorothy Grahme, portrait by Peter Lely
The garden at Levens Hall , c.1880