Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Maitland, John (1545?-1595)
MAITLAND, Sir JOHN, Lord Maitland of Thirlestane (1545?–1595), lord chancellor of Scotland, second son of Sir Richard Maitland, lord Lethington [q. v.], and younger brother of William Maitland of Lethington [q. v.], was, according to the statement of his age on his tombstone, born about 1545. He completed his legal education in France, and on his return to Scotland obtained the abbacy of Kelso in commendam, which on 6 Feb. 1567 he exchanged with Lord John Stewart for the priory of Coldingham. On 20 April of the same year he succeeded his father as lord privy seal, and after the imprisonment of Queen Mary in Lochleven was confirmed in his office by the regent Moray on the 26th of the following August. On 2 June 1568 he was constituted a spiritual lord of session.
Maitland was one of a commission appointed by the regent's parliament, in December 1567, to report on the jurisdiction of the kirk (Calderwood, ii. 390). Nevertheless, he was a secret favourer of the queen (Labanoff, ii. 257–64), and at the Perth convention in July 1569 voted for the queen's divorce from Bothwell [see Hepburn, James] (Reg. P. C. Scotl. ii. 8). In September 1570 he attended a meeting of the queen's party in Atholl. Thereupon he was, along with his brother, summoned to take his trial at Edinburgh, and failing to appear was denounced a rebel. By the parliament of the regent's party held in the following May he and his brother were forfaulted. Subsequently he joined his brother in the castle of Edinburgh, and on its surrender, 29 May 1573, was sent a prisoner to Tantallon Castle (Calderwood,, iii. 284). In February 1573–4 he was permitted to reside at Lord Somerville's house of Cowthelly on finding sureties for 10,000l. to appear before the council when called on (Reg. P. C. Scotl. ii. 334). Ultimately the bounds of his confinement were enlarged to the counties of Ayr and Renfrew, but he did not obtain full liberty and pardon till 15 Sept. 1578 (ib. iii. 29), when Morton had resigned the regency.
Morton's rigorous treatment of him and the other defenders of the castle necessarily rendered Maitland one of the most irreconcilable of Morton's foes; and immediately after obtaining his liberty he set himself, along with Robert Melville, to contrive with the catholics the plot for his overthrow which was finally matured by Esme Stewart. After Morton's imprisonment he was, on 26 April 1581, restored to his seat on the bench. On 29 Aug. 1583 he was elected a privy councillor, and soon began to exercise a special personal influence with the king, which, on the fall of Arran, and after him of the master of Gray, continued till the close of his life. On 18 May 1584 he was made secretary of state, and on the 22nd the act of forfeiture against him was rescinded, and he was restored to his estates. In February 1584–5 certain ‘articles and injunctions penned by him’ (cf. Calderwood,, iv. 349–50) were imposed upon the ministers, whereupon a libel was set forth against him, in which Justice was brought in, ‘lamenting that one of Cameleon's clan or of the disciples of Matchiavell had so great a place in the commonwealth’ (ib. p. 349). Maitland connived at the plot against Arran, and reaped from it great personal advantage. But although pretending to favour the league with England (Cal. State Papers, Scott. Ser. pp. 501, 513, 518), he was suspected of indirectly manœuvring to prevent its conclusion (ib. pp. 525, 526, 527). The treaty was signed on 5 July 1586. Previous to this Maitland, on 21 May, had been appointed vice-chancellor.
The execution of Queen Mary greatly grieved Maitland, and the evident relief of the king when he learned that all was over, and that there was now no rival to his throne, made Maitland ‘so ashamed’ that he took means that ‘there might be few or no spectators’ of James's behaviour (Calderwood,, iv. 611). In May 1587 Sir William Stewart, brother of the Earl of Arran, sought to charge Maitland and the Master of Gray with complicity in the plot for Arran's overthrow, but they were formally declared by the king to be untouched by Stewart's statements and to be ‘his honest and true servants’ (Reg. P. C. Scotl. iv. 165). Subsequently, however, Gray was accused of various other crimes, including an attempt to assassinate Maitland. Gray left Scotland on 7 June, and Maitland acquired new influence. At the meeting of the parliament in the following August, the chancellorship formerly held by Arran was ratified to him.
In closing the parliament, Maitland made an impassioned speech against the conduct of Elizabeth in sanctioning the execution of the Queen of Scots. The impression produced by it encouraged in no small degree the plots of the catholic nobles for a Spanish invasion of England; but Maitland personally took no part in them; and on the news reaching Scotland of the sailing of the Spanish Armada, he opposed the proposal of Bothwell [see Hepburn, Francis Stewart] for an invasion of England, and advised that Scotland should adopt an attitude of neutrality, and act merely in self-defence. This advice and his increasing influence with the king so aroused the jealousy of Bothwell and the northern catholic lords, that they made a combined attempt to raise a rebellion. On being examined before the council, on 20 May 1589, Bothwell declared that his sole reason for appearing in arms was a private quarrel between him and Maitland (Calderwood, v. 57). On 22 Oct. 1589 Maitland set sail with the king on his voyage to Norway to bring home the royal bride, the Princess Anne of Denmark. In his declaration to the council previous to setting out, the king took occasion to deny that in the resolution he had taken he ‘was led by the nose’ by the chancellor (Reg. P. C. Scotl. iv. 427–9). During his stay at Copenhagen, which extended over the winter, Maitland made the acquaintance of Tycho Brahe, the Danish astronomer, to whom he subsequently addressed some Latin verses. Two of Maitland's letters to Robert Bruce [q. v.] the theologian, written from Denmark, are inserted in Calderwood's ‘History’ (v. 83–6, 92–3). On 15 Dec. James empowered him to give presents of plate out of the royal cupboard to two Danish noblemen, and in reward of his own services to retain the rest in the cupboard for himself (Reg. P. C. Scotl. iv. 444–5). He returned to Scotland with the king and queen, 1 May 1590; and on the occasion of the queen's coronation on the 17th, was raised to the peerage by the title of Lord Maitland of Thirlestane, to him and heirs male of his body.
The additional favours bestowed on Maitland gave new stimulus to the jealousy of Bothwell, who soon after the king's return renewed his plots. In January 1590–1 Maitland instigated a charge against him of having had recourse to witchcraft to raise storms during the king's voyage from Norway (Hist. of James the Sext, p. 242). The prosecution was, however, generally resented by the nobles, a number of whom conspired to assist Bothwell in an attempt to capture the chancellor in Holyrood Palace, on 27 Dec. 1591 (Moysie, Memoirs, p. 87). The excessive influence exercised by Maitland was also distasteful to the queen, who endeavoured through Colonel William Stewart, a partisan of Bothwell, to effect Maitland's disgrace, but without success—Stewart being sent into ward on 14 Dec. 1592. In these plots James Stewart, earl of Moray—the ‘Bonnie Earl of Moray’ of the ballad—was also involved, and his tragic death on 8 Feb. at the hands of Huntly was generally attributed to the chancellor, who, according to rumour ‘hounded forth’ Huntly (Calderwood, v. 145). The strong feeling of resentment against the murder compelled the king for the time to make a scapegoat of Maitland, and he was commanded on 30 March to leave the court. It is generally supposed to have been on Maitland's advice—tendered chiefly with a desire to strengthen his own position by removing the odium attaching to him through the murder of Moray (ib. viii. 43; James Melville Diary, p. 298)—that the king consented to the ‘Act for abolishing the Actis Contrair to the trew Religion,’ and establishing the kirk on a strictly presbyterian basis (Acta Parl. Scot. iii. 541–2). The act secured to Maitland the perpetual gratitude of the kirk. The faction against him at the court was still however too strong; and owing chiefly to the opposition of the queen (see Cal. State Papers, Scott. Ser. vol. ii. passim), he was unable to resume the discharge of the duties of his office till May 1593. His recall led to further attempts on the part of Bothwell to terrorise the king, and in August James, in view of a proposed reconciliation with Bothwell, agreed that both Maitland and Bothwell should retire from court till the meeting of parliament in November. Subsequently, however, the king declined to be bound by his agreement. Maitland returned, and Bothwell's ruin was determined on. Maitland now advocated a policy of conciliation towards the catholic lords, and at his instigation an act of abolition in their favour was passed on 26 Nov. (Acta Parl. Scot. iv. 46–8). When, however, they declined the conditions, he accompanied the king in his expedition against them in the following October 1594.
Influenced partly by jealousy of the Earl of Mar, and partly by a desire finally to conciliate the queen, Maitland supported her in her efforts to remove the young Prince Henry from the guardianship of Mar (cf. Cal. State Papers, Scott. Ser. vol. ii. passim). By doing so he however roused the jealousy of the king, who sharply reproved him for interfering in matters which were no concern of his. To a ‘high melancholie,’ produced by the grudge of the king against him, the author of the ‘History of James the Sext’ ascribes the illness of two months' duration, of which he died at Thirlestane on 3 Oct. 1595. Its serious character was disbelieved in by many of those at court, who quoted the Italian proverb, ‘Il pericolo passato, il santo gabato;’ and apparently the king shared their opinion, for he refused the repeated entreaties of Maitland to visit him, or send a message of reconciliation. On learning his death the king, while expressing his determination not again to bestow the chancellorship on any one too great to be ‘hangable,’ nevertheless commemorated his virtues in a laudatory sonnet. The special services rendered by Maitland to the kirk secured him the good will of the ministers; and they reported that he had expressed his penitence for not having been from the beginning more devoted to its interests. ‘He granted,’ writes Calderwood, ‘that he had greatly offended that man of God, John Knox; and wished often that he had builded an hospital when he built his castle at Lauder [the castle of Thirlestane begun by him was completed by his grandson, John, duke of Lauderdale], and cried often for mercy’ (History, v. 382). The king's sonnet on Maitland is inscribed on the tomb of black alabaster, which, with recumbent effigy in his chancellor's robes, was erected by his son John, earl of Lauderdale, in the parish church of Haddington. He is also eulogised in a sonnet by Alexander Montgomery (fl. 1591) [q. v.] An engraving of Chancellor Maitland from the original portrait in Thirlestane Castle is given in Warrender's ‘Illustrations of Scottish History,’ 1890. Another engraving is in Smith's ‘Iconographia Scotica.’
Although less brilliantly endowed than his brother William, Maitland showed many of his characteristics, including his indifference to the religious disputes of the time. If less daring and adventurous in his schemes than his brother, his statesmanship was much safer both for himself and the country. Cecil declared him to be ‘the wisest man of Scotland;’ and the sway he exercised over the king, as well as his ability to maintain so long his peculiar ascendency, notwithstanding the plots and schemes of influential rival factions, indicates both great force of character and a remarkable mastery of the methods of worldly success.
Like his other brothers, Maitland inherited the literary tastes of his father. A number of his poems are included in the ‘Deliciæ Poetarum Scotorum hujus Ævi illustrium,’ Amsterdam, 1637. These and four poems in Scots—‘Aganis Sklanderous Toungs,’ ‘Ane admonition to my lord Mar, Regent in Scotland,’ ‘Advyce to be Blythe in Bail,’ and ‘Inveccyde Aganis the Deliverance of the Erle of Northumberland’—were published in appendix to the poems of his father, Sir Richard Maitland, by the Maitland Club, 1830. With the exception of the third, the ‘Scots Poems’ have been reprinted in ‘Satirical Poems of the Time of the Reformation’ (Scottish Text Society). Their strain of reflection is commonplace.
By his wife Jean, only daughter and heiress of James, fourth lord Fleming [q. v.], lord high chamberlain of Scotland, Maitland had a son, John, second lord Maitland and first earl of Lauderdale, and a daughter, Annie, married to Robert, lord Seton, son of the first Earl of Winton.
[Histories of Calderwood and Spotiswood; History of James the Sext, Moysie's Memoirs, and James Melville's Diary (all Bannatyne Club); Reg. P. C. Scotl.; Cal. State Papers, Scott. Ser.; Crawfurd's Officers of State, pp. 142–52; Brunton and Haig's Senators of the College of Justice, pp. 140–6; Douglas's Scottish Peerage (Wood), ii. 6, 9.]