Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Maitland, Richard (1496-1586)
MAITLAND, Sir RICHARD, Lord Lethington (1496–1586), poet, lawyer, and collector of early Scottish poetry, was descended from an Anglo-Norman family, the earliest recorded ancestor being Thomas de Matalant or Matalan, who settled in Berwickshire in the reign of William the Lion (1165–1214). The ancestral keep of Thirlestane was the ‘darksome house’ which, according to the old ballad, one Sir Richard Matalant defended with such resolution and vigour against the army of Edward I that after a fortnight's assault the English were compelled to leave him ‘hail and feir’ within his ‘strength of stane.’ The lands of Lethington were acquired by Sir Robert Maitland from Sir John Gifford of Yester, the charter being confirmed by David II in 1345. Sir Richard, the poet and lawyer, was the son of Sir William Maitland of Lethington, who was killed at Flodden; his mother was Martha, daughter of George, lord Seton. He was born in 1496, and after completing his education at the university of St. Andrews, studied law at Paris. He was served heir to his father in 1513. Subsequently he was employed in the service of James V, from whom on 24 July 1537 he had a confirmation of the lands of Blyth (Reg. Mag. Sig. 1513–1546, entry 1696).
Knox states that it was by bribes given to Maitland and his relative Lord Seton that Cardinal Beaton was allowed to escape from prison at Seton in 1543 (Works, i. 97). The original authority for this statement, so far as Seton is concerned, was probably the Regent Arran, who, however, was himself suspected of having connived at Beaton's escape (Sadleir, State Papers, 2 vol. edition, i. 107). In September 1549 Maitland's castle of Lethington was burned by the English (Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 48), and he was one of a committee appointed to advise in the furnishing of oxen and pioneers for the army appointed to assemble at Edinburgh in April 1550 for the siege of Lauder. He was frequently named a commissioner for settling disputes on the borders; and being on 28 Aug. 1559 named one of a commission to treat for the delivery of prisoners taken by the English (Cal. State Papers, For. Ser. 1558–9, entry 1266), he signed the treaty of Upsetlington on 22 Sept. (ib. entry 1359). Sadler describes him as the ‘wisest man’ among the Scottish commissioners (State Papers, i. 448). Although ‘ever civil’ to George Wishart, Maitland, according to Knox, was not at the time of Wishart's martyrdom ‘persuaded in religion’ (Works, i. 137); and that, unlike his son the secretary, he continued loyal to the queen-regent during her conflicts with the lords of the congregation is attested by a line in his poem ‘On Queen Mary's Arrival in Edinburgh:’ ‘Madam, I was trew servant to thy mother.’ In his poem on the ‘Assembly of the Congregation’ in 1559, he advises a reconciliation by concessions on both sides.
Before the return of Mary to Scotland Maitland had become quite blind, but was, notwithstanding his infirmity, admitted in November 1561 an ordinary lord of session, sworn a member of the privy council, and on 20 Dec. 1562 nominated keeper of the great seal. This latter office he held till 1567, when he resigned it in favour of his son John [q. v.], afterwards Lord Maitland of Thirlestane. In his preface to the ‘House of Seton,’ Maitland states that on account of his blindness he was unable ‘to occupy himself as in times past,’ and that to ‘avoid idleness of mind,’ and because he thought it ‘perilous to “mell” with matters of great importance,’ he devoted his leisure to literary pursuits. Notwithstanding, therefore, the prominent part played in politics by his son William [q. v.], he kept himself aloof from the political disputes and troubles of his time. Yet, although little of a partisan, his sympathies seem to have been with the protestants, for when Queen Mary asked his advice as to the prosecution of Archbishop Hamilton of St. Andrews for celebrating the mass, he answered that ‘she must see her laws kept, or else she would get no obedience’ (Knox, ii. 379).
After his son, William Maitland [q. v.], joined the queen's party in the castle of Edinburgh, the castle of Lethington was seized by the party of the regent. On the surrender of Edinburgh Castle in 1573 it was not restored, and Sir Richard on 24 Aug. complained to Elizabeth that for four years he had been debarred from his house and place of Lethington, the use of which his son, whose proceedings were entirely displeasing to him, had merely borrowed from him (Cal. State Papers, For. Ser. 1572–4, entry 1533). His attempt to secure Elizabeth's mediation in his behalf was, however, unsuccessful; and legal proceedings taken against Captain Hume, who held possession of the castle as representing the government, were met by Morton by an act assoilizeing Hume (Acta Parl. Scot. iii. 163). It was not till 10 Feb. 1583–4, two years after Morton's death, that an act of council was passed at the special instance of the king restoring to the Maitlands their forfeited lands (Reg. P. C. Scotl. iii. 633). The king expressed himself as greatly grieved at the wrong Sir Richard had sustained, ‘being of so great age, having faithfully served our noble progenitors, our grandsire, gudsire, guddame, mother, and ourself, being oftentimes employed by them, and yet in his great age continuing in a public charge, never having offended against us or our crown in any sort, neither having been forfaulted’ (ib.) On 1 July 1584 Maitland resigned his seat on the bench, but by special favour was permitted to name as his successor Sir Lewis Bellenden [q. v.], and to hold the fees and emoluments of his office for life. He died 20 March 1586, at the age of ninety. No portrait of him is known.
Maitland's chief claim to remembrance is his collection of early Scottish poems, second only in importance to the Bannatyne collection. It is included with other manuscripts in two volumes, which were presented by the Duke of Lauderdale to Samuel Pepys, and are preserved in the Pepysian Library at Magdalene College, Cambridge. Among the amanuenses he employed was his daughter, Margaret Maitland. The collection has never yet been published in altogether complete form; but a large selection from it, including Maitland's own poems, was published by John Pinkerton, in two vols. 1786, under the title ‘Ancient Scottish Poems never before in Print,’ &c. Maitland's own poems were reprinted in Sibbald's ‘Chronicle of Scottish Poetry,’ 1807, vol. iii., and by the Maitland Club in 1830, an appendix being added of selections from the poems of his sons, Sir John Maitland of Thirlestane and Thomas Maitland, from the Drummond MS. in the university of Edinburgh. The poems of Sir Richard Maitland are of special interest from their bearing on the events, customs, and peculiarities of his time. Although manifesting small poetic ardour, they are characterised by grace, force, and picturesqueness of expression, by shrewd knowledge of the world, and by a gentle cynicism. Among the best known is his ‘Satire on Town Ladies,’ in which the ‘newfangleness of geir’ is amusingly exposed. He was also the author of a ‘Cronicle and Historie of the House and Surname of Seaton unto the Moneth of November ane thousand five hundred and fifty aught yeares,’ which, with a continuation by Alexander Seton, viscount Kingston, was printed by the Maitland Club in 1829 from a manuscript in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh. The same work, under the title ‘Genealogy of the House and Surname of Setoun, by Sir Richard Maitland of Ledington, Knight, with the Chronicle of the House of Setoun, compiled in metre by John Kennington, alias Peter Manye,’ was published at Edinburgh in 1830 from a manuscript in the possession of Mr. Hay of Drummelzier, Peeblesshire. A manuscript volume of his ‘Decisions from 15 Dec. 1560 to the penult. July 1565’ is in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh. Maitland's literary services have been specially recognised by the foundation in 1828 in his honour of the Maitland Club, Glasgow, which has rendered invaluable service by its publication of manuscripts bearing on Scottish antiquities and history.
By his wife Mary, daughter of Sir Thomas Cranstoun of Crosbie, Maitland had three sons and four daughters. The sons were William of Lethington [q. v.]; John, lord Maitland of Thirlestane [q. v.]; and Thomas, who was a fellow-student with Andrew Melville at St. Andrews and Paris, was the prolocutor with George Buchanan in his ‘De Jure Regni apud Scotos,’ and was the author of several verses published in the appendix to the Maitland Club edition of his father's poems; of a treatise ‘On undertaking war against the Turks;’ of an oration in favour of setting Queen Mary at liberty and restoring her to her throne entitled ‘Ad Ser. Princip. Eliz. Anglor. Reg. Epistola,’ 1570 (copy in the University Library, Edinburgh); and of a clever squib, representing a conference of the lords with the regent, in which the peculiarities of the various speakers are wittily caricatured (published in Calderwood, ii. 315–25; Bannatyne Miscellany, vol. ii.; and Richard Bannatyne, Memorials, pp. 3–13). He was forfaulted along with his brothers 14 May 1571 (Calderwood, iii. 78), and died in Italy in 1572 at the age of twenty-two. The daughters were Helen, married to Sir John Cockburn of Clerkington; Margaret, to William Douglas of Whittinghame; Mary, to Alexander Lauder of Hatton; and Isabel, to James Heriot of Trabroun.
97-9; Preface to the Maitland Club edition of
his poems.]