ABSTRACT
Eustace Clare Grenville Murray, who was the illegitimate son of the Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, was born in 1824. As a young man, he led the typically profligate life of an aristocrat. After running up debts, he may well have enlisted in the army as a private in 1842 or 43, rather than asking for money from his father (he likely did so under an assumed name). After inheriting some money, he bought his release from the army and attended Oxford. He became, first, a diplomat, mentored by Lord Palmerston. Grenville Murray contravened diplomatic conventions, however, by becoming a correspondent for an English newspaper. After many quarrels during various postings, he was dismissed from the diplomatic service in 1869, after which he became a fulltime journalist. His style was irreverent and witty, and he contributed to a number of leading journals. He also wrote novels, of which Six Months in the Ranks was one. Close affinities between events in the hero’s life and those of Grenville Murray’s make it seem highly probable that it was a lightly fictionalised account of his own experiences. Grenville Murray died in Paris in December 1881.
