William Bruce was a diplomat in Poland, and wrote letters with news to Robert Cecil. He became involved in a plan to send a portrait of a Polish prince (Władysław IV Vasa) to Anna of Denmark in 1608. Bruce’s draft letters explain the picture was really for Princess Elizabeth, who might someday marry the Polish prince.

“I write to your Majesty latterly, a letter to recreate your M[ajes]tie in your melancholy and saturnial humour, in remembrance of my true devotion to her Mteis service I write by this bearer letting your Mtie to wit that I have procured this young prince his portrait for your Mtie, which your Mtie shall receive with the latest London ships godwilling, they mean here the estate of his father being settled that he shall be indeed one suitable to our Lady Elizabeth your Mties daughter”

Bruce took the opportunity of this correspondence to ask Anna of Denmark to send him money, as living in Gdansk and travelling to the Polish court was costly. He wrote about this in comic terms which suggest some level of familiarity, and he may have visited Anna in Dunfermline in the 1590s. Bruce mentions a royal servant, the poet John Murray,¹ and Thomas Dalyell, a servant of Edward Bruce, Lord Kinross, who could help deliver the queen’s gold angels.

Bruce invokes Pierce Penniless twice, as the Thomas Nashe character, and the presumption she recognises these references may be interesting.

“Madame I am scarce of moneye as ever pierce penniless wes when he made his complainte to the devill upon Salisburie plaine or upon the highte of Paules steple I wiette nocht whether your Mties trewe auld servant & eloquent poet Mr Johne Murraye can tell your Mtie iffe your Mtie hathe maide him ane Bischop that he maye take tyme to reide aulde histories nowe in his aulde dayes”

And, in another passage ‘dining with Duke Humphrey’:

“iffe your Mties angels knowethe nocht the waye hethar Thomas Dalyeale sarviteur to my Lord of Kinlosse can addresse them whom I sall accept as thankfully as evare pierce pennilesse walde hawe donne iffe he wer leivinge my purse beinge as towme [empty] often tymes as ever his were and [my] credite is banished this land so that I muste lakinge moneye besiege some towne as doethe the Cavallrais of Londonne and sume tyme imitate thame banquettinge wyth duc omphrey and drinke wyth the deukes so that I thinke me heire placed in purgatorie for my sinnes”

William Bruce’s journal or diary including these draft letters and accounts is held in Gdansk.² Many thanks to a colleague for sending pictures. Text from the journal regarding miniature portraits encased in amber which Bruce sent to Anna of Denmark and her lady-in-waiting Jane Drummond (later Countess of Roxburghe) has been transcribed by Felix Manczak, who translated the excerpt into German for display in the current Berlin DHM exhibition, “Objects. History. Stories Reviewing the Collections” (08.05.2026 – 31.10.2027). Bruce sent an amber portrait of King James to Anna of Denmark, and promised to send similar miniatures to Henry, Charles, and Elizabeth. He would commission an amber jewel depicting Anna, if he had a suitable picture. A jewel depicting Anna’s mother, Sophie of Mecklenburg, and her brother Christian IV was not as good, “not so curiously made as the other”, so Bruce sent this double portrait to Jane Drummond.³

Bruce recorded the arrival of the beardless Robert Shirley speaking in Italian to the Polish Parliament:

“Mairover heire is received ane ambassador frome Persia called Robert Shirley youngest son to Sr Thomas Shirl, 8 Martij, who is to entreate al Christian princeis to make weare against the Turke he is a younge man without ane bairde but a man of ane excellent airte he had his narration before this kinge in Italiane in Parliament, whiche was holden so weille spoken that this kinge dide ordaine him to be at his charges als longe as he sall remaine into Poleland”

According to the letter book, the portrait of the Polish prince was received in London, and Bruce wrote to one of Anna’s ladies (presumably Jane Drummond), “I am very glad the picture is come to her Majesties hands, I had meikle ado or I could have it, and at the last it were sent down to the country to me from the court to be send to her Majestie, but I being on the way to the court, so it were delivered to another who send it with one of his friend’s piece in my name as he said to me.”

Bruce reported the major stumbling block for an Anglo-Polish royal marriage was religion, the Polish nobles noted Elizabeth was a Protestant, and a Scottish agent, Robert Cunningham, was coming to London to make enquiries if “she would continue a Puritan”. Bruce thought it would be a good match, if Sigismund III Vasa’s invasion of Russia was a success.

There is a biography of William Bruce in the University of St Andrews SSNE database

A poet and pages in the household: Who was Mr John Murray the poet?

Mr John Murray (died April 1615)⁴ was a cousin of David Murray of Gorthy, the poet and keeper of Prince Henry’s purse.⁵ This poet was possibly mentioned by Alexander Montgomerie as “Murray myne”.⁶ There is much confusion over his identity. The issues seem unresolved: here are some details and references.

Anna’s servant Mr John Murray, presumably Bruce’s poet, while a member of her Scottish household, may have signed receipts from the treasurer in 1601 (as “Mr”, her servitour). A John Murray, who was a page of honour to James VI, also signed treasury receipts in 1597. A page of honour “to their majesties” called John Murray served at the baptism of Prince Henry in 1594.⁷

A “Mr John Murray” who was active in the intrigues of Francis, Earl of Bothwell, in November 1592, has also been connected with Montgomerie’s Murray. This John Murray kidnapped Lord Lindsay’s tailor and son. He may have been the John Murray mentioned by Robert Bowes, as the brother of a James Murray, a follower of Bothwell captured in April 1594.⁸

In 1599, another John Murray was valet to Prince Henry at Stirling Castle and keeper of his coffer keys under Sir Patrick Murray, and was subsequently valet to Charles at Dunfermline Palace. He wasn’t a very close relation to the cousins, but was the grandson of James V’s barber.⁹

A John Murray was rewarded for bringing James VI the first news of the birth of Prince Charles at Dumfermline.¹⁰ This could have been Mr John Murray, servant of queen, rather than the valet, who might have still been at Stirling with Henry in 1600.

Some of these household roles are given by biographers to John Murray (died 1640), later Earl of Annandale. Annandale was perhaps the “page of the chamber” in Anna of Denmark’s listed in her 1597 household roll, while in the same year a John Murray, page of honour to the king signed a receipt. Pages and other servants could change their roles and join other households.¹¹

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1. “Mr John Murray” signed a receipt as the queen’s servitor in November 1601, (NRS E23/11/5), as a poet (and the confusion regarding his exact identity), see Helen M. Shire, Song, Dance and Poetry of the Court Under King James VI (Cambridge, 1969), pp. 182-186. ↩︎
2. J. K. Fedorowicz, England’s Baltic Trade in the Early Seventeenth Century Trade: A Study in Anglo-Polish Commercial Diplomacy (Cambridge, 1980), p. 17: Archiwum Państwowego w Gdańsku, sign. APG 300 R/Rb. ↩︎
3. SG-0759, “Journal” (excerpt) of the envoy William Bruce, Warsaw, 1607: Reproduction, Transcription and German translation: Felix Manczak, Berlin. Danzig, Archiwum Państwowego w Gdańsku (Gdańsk State Archive): APG 300 R/Rb, S. 36 recto DHM Berlin, Objects. History. Stories. Reviewing the Collection, Pei Building, Ground floor. ↩︎
4. Allison L. Steenson, The Hawthornden Manuscripts of William Fowler and the Jacobean Court (Routledge, 2011), p. 68, (& p. 171 apparently Annandale): Priscilla Bawcutt, “James VI’s Castalian Band: A Modern Myth”, Scottish Historical Review, 80:210, Part 2 (October 2001), p. 256: Works of William Drummond: Familiar Epistles (Edinburgh, 1711), pp. 150-151: John Murray who graced the Muses’s band died in April 1615, and does not feature in a March 1616 list of Anna’s household, TNA SP 14/86 f.180. ↩︎
5. Helen M. Shire, Song, Dance and Poetry of the Court Under King James VI (Cambridge, 1969), pp. 184-186. ↩︎
6. Sebastiaan Verweij, The Literary Culture of Early Modern Scotland (Oxford, 2016), p. 212: Roderick J. Lyall, Alexander Montgomerie: Poetry, Politics, and Cultural Change in Jacobean Scotland (Arizona, 2005), pp. 222, 226: David J. Parkinson, Alexander Montgomerie, Poems, 2 (STS, 2000), p. 69. ↩︎
7. John Murray, page of honour in 1594, attended the baptism of Prince Henry in Stirling, “Fyrst for Jhone Morraye Harye Levingston James Douglas and Archibald Morraye pages of honour to thair majesties ~
   Item 20 ellis blew vellvot and 20 ellis grene vellvot to be thame cloikis doublets and hois at 14 li the ell __ vc iijxx li. …”, NRS E35/13 (section 7). ↩︎
8. David J. Parkinson, Alexander Montgomerie, Poems, 2 (STS, 2000), p. 69: Calendar State Papers Scotland, 10 (Edinburgh, 1936), p. 801 no. 769: Calendar State Papers Scotland, 11 (Edinburgh, 1936), p. 325 no. 257. ↩︎
9. NRS PS1/71 f9r  2 July 1599: NRS PS1/70 f363r. ↩︎
10. Extracts from the treasurer’s accounts, in Letters to King James the Sixth from the Queen, Prince Henry, Prince Charles, the Princess Elizabeth and her husband Frederick King of Bohemia, and from their son Prince Frederick Henry (Edinburgh: Bannatyne Club, 1836), p. lxxviii. ↩︎
11. National Records of Scotland, GD16/31/6 (1), household rolls of Anna of Denmark, as a page of her chamber. ↩︎