See P. Vinogradoff’s article on Maitland in the English Historical Review (1907); Sir F. Pollock’s in the Quarterly Review (1907); G. T. Lapsley’s in The Green Bag (Boston, Mass., 1907); A. L. Smith, F. W. Maitland (1908); H. A. L. Fisher, F. W. Maitland (1910).
MAITLAND, SIR RICHARD (Lord Lethington) (1496-1586), Scottish lawyer, poet, and collector of Scottish verse, was born in 1496. His father, Sir William Maitland of Lethington and Thirlestane, fell at Flodden; his mother was a daughter of George, Lord Seton. He studied law at the university of St Andrews, and afterwards in Paris. His castle at Lethington was burnt by the English in 1549. He was in 1552 one of the commissioners to settle matters with the English about the debateable lands. About 1561 he seems to have lost his sight, but this did not render him incapable of attending to public business, as he was the same year admitted an ordinary lord of session with the title of Lord Lethington, and a member of the privy council; and in 1562 he was appointed keeper of the Great Seal. He resigned this last office in 1567, in favour of John, prior of Coldingham, his second son, but he sat on the bench till he attained his eighty-eighth year. He died on the 20th of March 1586. His eldest son, by his wife Mary Cranstoun of Crosbie, was William Maitland (q.v.): his second son, John (c. 1545-1595), was a lord of session, and was made a lord of parliament in 1590, with the title of Lord Maitland of Thirlestane, in which he was succeeded by his son John, also for some time a lord of session, who was created earl of Lauderdale in 1624. One of Sir Richard’s daughters, Margaret, assisted her father in preparing his collection of old Scots verse.
The poems of Sir Richard Maitland, none of them lengthy, are for the most part satirical, and are principally directed against the social and political abuses of his time. He is chiefly remembered as the industrial collector and preserver of many pieces of Scots poetry. These were copied into two large volumes, one in folio and another in quarto, the former written by himself, and the latter by his daughter. After being in the possession of his descendant the duke of Lauderdale, these volumes were purchased at the sale of the duke’s library by Samuel Pepys, and have since been preserved in the Pepysian Library, Magdalene College, Cambridge. They lay there unnoticed for many years till Bishop Percy published one of the poems in his Reliques of English Poetry. Several of the prices were then transcribed by John Pinkerton, who afterwards published them under the title of Ancient Scottish Poems (2 vols., 1786.)
For an account of the Maitland Folio MS. see Gregory Smith’s Specimens of Middle Scots, 1902 (p. lxxiii.). The Scottish Text Society has undertaken an edition of the entire manuscript. Maitland’s own poems were reprinted by Sibbald in his Chronicle of Scottish Poetry (1802), and in 1830 by the Maitland Club, named after him, and founded for the purpose of continuing his efforts to preserve the remains of early Scots literature. Sir Richard left in manuscript a history of the family of Seton, and a volume of legal decisions collected by him between the years 1550 and 1565. Both are preserved in the Advocates’ Library, Edinburgh; the former was published by the Maitland Club, in 1829.
MAITLAND (Maitland of Lethington), WILLIAM (c. 1528-1573), Scottish statesman, eldest son of the preceding, was educated at St Andrews. At an early age he entered public life and began in various ways to serve the regent, Mary of Lorraine, becoming her secretary of state in 1558. In 1559, however, he deserted her and threw in his lot with the lords of the congregation, to whom his knowledge of foreign, and especially of English, politics and his general ability were assets of the highest value. The lords sent him to England to ask for assistance from Elizabeth, and his constant aim throughout his political career was to bring about a union between the two crowns. He appears to have feared the return of Mary Queen of Scots to Scotland, but after her arrival in 1561 he was appointed secretary of state, and for about six years he directed the policy of Scotland and enjoyed the confidence of the queen. His principal antagonist was John Knox; there were several tussles between them, the most famous, perhaps, being the one in the general assembly of 1564, and on the whole Maitland held his own against the preachers. He was doubtless concerned in the conspiracy against David Rizzio, and after the favourite’s murder he was obliged to leave the court and was himself in danger of assassination. In 1567, however, he was again at Mary’s side. He was a consenting party to the murder of Darnley, although he had favoured his marriage with Mary, but the enmity between Bothwell and himself was one of the reasons which drove him into the arms of the queen’s enemies, among whom he figured at Langside. He was one of the Scots who met Elizabeth’s representatives at York in 1568; here he showed a desire to exculpate Mary and to marry her to the duke of Norfolk, a course of action probably dictated by a desire to avoid all revelations about the Darnley murder. But this did not prevent him from being arrested in September 1569 on account of his share in the crime. He was, however, delivered from his captors by a ruse on the part of his friend, Sir William Kirkcaldy of Grange, and was brought into Edinburgh Castle, while his trial was put off because the city was thronged with his adherents. Maitland now became the leader of the remnant which stood by the cause of the imprisoned queen. Already a physical wreck, he was borne into Edinburgh Castle in April 1571 and with Kirkcaldy he held this fortress against the regent Morton and his English auxiliaries. The castle surrendered in May 1573 and on the 7th or the 9th of June following Maitland died at Leith, there being very little evidence for the theory that he poisoned himself. “Secretary Maitland” was a man of great learning with a ready wit and a caustic tongue. He was reputed to be the most versatile and accomplished statesman of his age, and almost alone among his Scottish contemporaries he placed his country above the claims of either the Roman Catholic or the Protestant religions. Among the testimonies to his great abilities are those of Queen Elizabeth, of William Cecil and of Knox. By his second wife, Mary Fleming, one of Queen Mary’s ladies, whom he married in 1567, he had a son and daughter. His son James died without issue about 1620.
See John Skelton, Maitland of Lethington (1894); A. Lang, History of Scotland, vol. ii. (1902).
MAITLAND, EAST and WEST, adjoining municipalities in Northumberland county, New South Wales, Australia, 120 m. by rail N. of Sydney. Pop. (1901), West Maitland, 6798; East Maitland, 3287. These towns are situated in a valley on the Hunter River, which is liable to sudden floods, to guard against which the river is protected by stone embankments at West Maitland, while there are flood-gates at East Maitland. Maitland is the centre of the rich agricultural district of the Hunter Valley, which produces maize, wheat and other cereals, lucerne, tobacco, fruit and wine; excellent coal also is worked in the vicinity. East Maitland is the see of a Roman Catholic bishop, whose cathedral (St John’s), however, is situated in the larger town. Besides this, West Maitland contains several handsome public and commercial buildings.