David Murray, 2nd Earl of Mansfield
David Murray, 2nd Earl of Mansfield, 7th Viscount of Stormont, KT, PC (9 October 1727 – 1 September 1796) known as the (7th) Viscount of Stormont from 1748 to 1793, was a British diplomat and politician. He succeeded to both the Mansfield and Stormont lines of the Murray family, inheriting two titles and two fortunes.
The Earl of Mansfield
George III
George III
Office Abolished
William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne as Home Secretary
Charles James Fox as Foreign Secretary
9 October 1727
1 September 1796
(aged 68)
Westminster Abbey (body)
Comlongon Castle (heart)
- Lady Elizabeth Finch-Hatton
- Hon. Henrietta Anne Murray
- David William Murray, 3rd Earl of Mansfield
- Hon. George Murray
- Hon. Charles Murray
- Hon. Sir Henry Murray
- Lady Caroline Murray
- David Murray, 6th Viscount of Stormont
- Anne Stewart
William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield (paternal uncle)
Politician
Background[edit]
Mansfield was the son of David Murray, 6th Viscount of Stormont, and his wife, Anne Stewart. The Lord Chief Justice, William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield, was his paternal uncle and mentor. Stormont inherited the family's estate and title of Viscount Stormont at 21 when his father died in 1748. The ancestral seat of the Viscounts Stormont is Scone Palace.
Lord Stormont, as he was known at the time, married his wife on 16 August 1759, whilst he was British ambassador to Saxony. She was Countess Henrietta Frederica von Bünau daughter of Count Heinrich von Bünau. They had two daughters:
Henrietta died on 10 March 1766 in Vienna. A decade later, on 5 May 1776, Stormont married secondly The Hon. Louisa Cathcart, daughter of Charles Cathcart, 9th Lord Cathcart and Jane Hamilton. Louisa was his junior by 30 years, she was also the niece of Sir William Hamilton, and they had five children:
His second wife once said that she had never seen a good portrait of her husband, "the drawing of me, which had many faults, you shall have a resemblance of me in some shape or the other, but as for Lord Stormont I shall not consent, for I never saw a good likeness of him".[10]