William Murray, 2nd Lord Nairne

William Murray, 2nd Lord Nairne (c. 1665 – 3 February 1726) was a Scottish peer and Jacobite who fought in the Rising of 1715, after which he was attainted and condemned to death for treason, but in 1717 he was indemnified and released.

In 1721, he was created Earl of Nairne in the Jacobite peerage.

Life Born about 1665, the fourth son of John Murray, 1st Marquess of Atholl, by his marriage to Lady Amelia Sophia, a daughter of James Stanley, 7th Earl of Derby, Murray was the younger brother of John Murray, 1st Duke of Atholl. His grandmother, Charlotte Stanley, Countess of Derby (1599–1664), a daughter of Claude de La Trémoille, Duke of Thouars (1566–1604) was famous in her own right for her defence of Lathom House against Parliamentary forces during the First English Civil War in 1644.

In February 1680 William Murray married ten-year-old Margaret Nairne (born on 16 December 1669), the only daughter and heiress of Robert Nairne. In 1681 Nairne, an octogenarian who had no sons, was created by King Charles II Lord Nairne, in the peerage of Scotland, with a special remainder to his son-in-law. Thus, when Nairne died on 30 May 1683, Murray succeeded him in the peerage. He also inherited the Nairne estate in Perthshire and the family seat, the House of Nairne, which he rebuilt and greatly expanded from 1706 to the designs of Sir William Bruce following a fire in 1705.

He took his seat in the Parliament of Scotland on 22 October 1690, but he never took the oath of allegiance to the new monarchs, William III and Mary II, who in the Glorious Revolution of 1688 had unseated the last Stuart king, James II. In 1902 his heir succeeded a distant kinsman as Earl of Perth. Hon. Catherine who married William Murray, 3rd Earl of Dunmore, son of Charles Murray, 1st Earl of Dunmore. They had three sons, and two daughters. Hon. Robert (d. 16 Apr 1746). He married Jean Mercer of Aldie, daughter of Sir Laurence Mercer of Aldie and Helen Mercer (maternal granddaughter of Sir Thomas Stewart, 12th Laird of Grandtully. They had a son, and a daughter. He was killed at the Battle of Culloden. Their granddaughter Jane married George Elphinstone, 1st Viscount Keith and was the mother of Margaret Mercer Elphinstone, who became heiress of the Lordship of Nairne in 1837. Hon. Henrieta Murray (born 1714). Died unmarried. Hon. Charlotte, who married John Robertson, 11th Laird of Lude. They had two sons, and a daughter. Hon. May Marjorie, who married Duncan Robertson, 14th Chief of Clan Donnachaidh. They had at least two sons, and a daughter.