DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.65478#0029
virtue of his office as tutor to Edward VI., calls the reluctant whipping-
boy, and says to a servant:
,Go! Bear this youngster to the Chapel straight,
And bid the Master of the Children whip him well.
The Prince, Sir, will not learn,
And you shall smart for it.
Cranmer then excuses himself to Dr. Tye, the Prince’s music-master:
His Grace hath got more knowledge in a month
Than he attained in a year before :
For still the fearful boy, to save himself,
Doth hourly haunt him whereso’er he goes.
.The Prince perceives it,
And loath to see him punished for his fault,
Plies it [his task] of purpose to redeem the boy.
In William Murray’s case the whipping-boy was rewarded early by his
grateful Prince, and always held a high place in Charles I.’s estimation.
On the 3rd of August, 1643, Murray was created Earl of Dysart in the
county of Fife, and Baron Huntingtower of Huntingtower in Perthshire,
with remainder to his heirs male and female. He also received a grant
of the manors of Ham and Hatch, near Richmond in Surrey.
William Murray did not find favour in the eyes of Bishop Burnet,
the historian. Burnet, in the History of his Own Time, p. 164, says :
“Mr. Murray of the bedchamber had been page and whipping-boy
to Charles I., and had great credit with him, not only in procuring private
favours, but in all his counsels. He was well turned for a Court, very
insinuating but very false, and of so revengeful a temper that rather than
any of the counsels given by his enemies should succeed, he would have
revealed them, and betrayed both the King and them. It was generally
believed that he had discovered the most important of all his [the King’s]
secrets to his enemies. He [Murray] had one particular quality, that
when he was drunk, which was very often, he was upon a most exact
reserve, though he was pretty open at all other times. He got a warrant
to be an earl, which was signed at Newcastle. Yet he got the King to
ante-date it, as if it had been signed at Oxford, to get the precedence of
some whom he hated. But he did not pass it under the Great Seal during
that King’s life, but did it after his death, so his warrant, not being passed,
died with the King.” Bishop Burnet, however, was mistaken in this, as
the Dysart earldom dates from 1643.
Murray was useful to Queen Henrietta Maria as well as to the King,
3
boy, and says to a servant:
,Go! Bear this youngster to the Chapel straight,
And bid the Master of the Children whip him well.
The Prince, Sir, will not learn,
And you shall smart for it.
Cranmer then excuses himself to Dr. Tye, the Prince’s music-master:
His Grace hath got more knowledge in a month
Than he attained in a year before :
For still the fearful boy, to save himself,
Doth hourly haunt him whereso’er he goes.
.The Prince perceives it,
And loath to see him punished for his fault,
Plies it [his task] of purpose to redeem the boy.
In William Murray’s case the whipping-boy was rewarded early by his
grateful Prince, and always held a high place in Charles I.’s estimation.
On the 3rd of August, 1643, Murray was created Earl of Dysart in the
county of Fife, and Baron Huntingtower of Huntingtower in Perthshire,
with remainder to his heirs male and female. He also received a grant
of the manors of Ham and Hatch, near Richmond in Surrey.
William Murray did not find favour in the eyes of Bishop Burnet,
the historian. Burnet, in the History of his Own Time, p. 164, says :
“Mr. Murray of the bedchamber had been page and whipping-boy
to Charles I., and had great credit with him, not only in procuring private
favours, but in all his counsels. He was well turned for a Court, very
insinuating but very false, and of so revengeful a temper that rather than
any of the counsels given by his enemies should succeed, he would have
revealed them, and betrayed both the King and them. It was generally
believed that he had discovered the most important of all his [the King’s]
secrets to his enemies. He [Murray] had one particular quality, that
when he was drunk, which was very often, he was upon a most exact
reserve, though he was pretty open at all other times. He got a warrant
to be an earl, which was signed at Newcastle. Yet he got the King to
ante-date it, as if it had been signed at Oxford, to get the precedence of
some whom he hated. But he did not pass it under the Great Seal during
that King’s life, but did it after his death, so his warrant, not being passed,
died with the King.” Bishop Burnet, however, was mistaken in this, as
the Dysart earldom dates from 1643.
Murray was useful to Queen Henrietta Maria as well as to the King,
3