He was the son of David Murray, 4th Viscount Stormont (died 1668), and Lady Jean Carnegie, daughter of
James Carnegie, 2nd Earl of Southesk and Lady Mary Kerr, daughter of
Robert Ker, 1st Earl of Roxburghe In 1689, Stormont was summoned to attend the
Committee of Estates in Edinburgh in the wake of the
Glorious Revolution. He failed to attend and was declared a rebel by the
Privy Council of Scotland. Four years later he was fined for failing to attend the
Parliament of Scotland. Between 1705 and 1707 he was in regular correspondence and contact with Jacobite agents in Scotland and France. In advance of the
planned French invasion of Britain in 1708, Stormont received instructions from
James Francis Edward Stuart, but he was taken into custody for three months, on suspicion, by the government in Edinburgh. He was arrested again on suspicion during the
Jacobite rising of 1715, having hosted the Pretender at
Scone Palace for three weeks during the rising. He was described by
Nathaniel Hooke as being "rich, powerful and strongly determined" in the Jacobite interest. ==Marriage and issue==