Thomas Murray

Thomas Murray (1564 – 9 April 1623) was a Scottish courtier, at the end of his life Provost of Eton. Life He was a son of Murray of Woodend, and uncle of William Murray, 1st Earl of Dysart. He was early attached to the court of James VI of Scotland. In 1587 he presented a Latin poem to the King, which describes him as ruler of a northern British kingdom, both North Star and Morning Star; Scote Britannaeae sidus Boreale coronae Pene sub Arctoo qui regis arva polo O Scot, O North Star of the Britannic Crown, you who rule the lands that lie almost under the Arctic sky. Soon after James's accession to the English throne at the Union of the Crowns in 1603 he was appointed tutor to Prince Charles, then duke of York. On 26 June 1605 he was granted a pension of two hundred marks for life, and in July was presented, through the intervention of the Bishop of Durham, to the mastership of Christ's Hospital, Sherburn, near Durham. From that time he received numerous grants, and was in constant communication with Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, Sir Albertus Morton, Sir Dudley Carleton, and others, many of his letters being preserved.