# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Maxwell, John (1553-1593)

​MAXWELL, JOHN, seventh or eighth Lord Maxwell and also Earl of Morton (1553–1593), second son of Robert, sixth lord Maxwell, by his wife Lady Beatrix Douglas, second daughter of James, third earl of Morton, was born 24 April 1553, about six months after the death of his father. His elder brother, Robert, died young. He was brought up under the guardianship of Sir John Maxwell of Terregles, afterwards fourth Lord Herries [q. v.], through whose influence he became a supporter of Queen Mary. At the Perth convention, 30 July 1569, he voted for the queen's divorce from Bothwell (Reg. P. C. Scotl. ii. 4). He was suspected of having given support and shelter to the English rebel Leonard Dacres. Consequently his territories were in the spring of 1570 invaded by the English under Lord Scrope, who in April had two successful skirmishes with him, taking on each occasion about a hundred prisoners (Cal. State Papers, For. Ser. 1569–71, entry 835). Morton also on the 25th advised that Scrope should make an inroad on Maxwell's country and that of Lord Herries to prevent them coming to Edinburgh (ib. entry 849). This led to a remonstrance from Kirkcaldy, who in a letter to Randolph asserted that Maxwell had not left the king's obedience or had to do with the English rebels (27 April, ib. entry 854). To this Randolph replied that he had not only maintained the queen of England's rebels, but had spoiled her subjects (1 May, ib. entry ​875). Although Scrope, at Morton's request, at first spared the lands of Maxwell (9 May, ib. entry 907), it was discovered that he was subsequently in communication with Dacres, and his castles as well as those of Lord Herries were accordingly demolished on 22 Aug. (ib. entry 1213). It was rumoured in the spring of 1571 that Maxwell and Herries were marching to the relief of Paisley, then held by the Hamiltons and besieged by the regent (ib. entry 1561), but they did not arrive in time to prevent its capture (Scrope, 22 Feb. ib. entry 1567). On 10 May Maxwell, with a large force, entered Edinburgh in company with Herries (ib. entry 1710), but they both returned home on the 23rd (ib. entry 1721). Shortly afterwards they, however, again entered Edinburgh to attend the parliament of Queen Mary's party on 12 June (Calderwood, iii. 78, 91).
Maxwell, having come to terms with Morton before the fall of the castle in 1573, was in August 1573 made warden of the west marches, the castle of Lochmaben being also delivered to him on 26 Oct. His claims to the earldom of Morton aroused, however, the jealousy of the regent. Probably this was at least the indirect cause why, after he had, in May 1577, demitted the office of warden (Reg. P. C. Scotl. ii. 613), he was on 13 July committed to ward in the prison of Edinburgh and subsequently sent to Blackness. On the fall of Morton he was on 13 March 1577–8 discharged of his ward (ib. p. 677), and on the 25th he was reappointed warden (ib. pp. 677–678). He was also chosen a member of the new privy council. In January 1578–9 he was succeeded as warden by his kinsman Lord Herries (ib. iii. 76). Subsequently his connection with the Armstrongs and other border raiders brought him under the displeasure of the government. On 13 July 1579 he gave caution to enter into ward in Dundee (ib. p. 195), and on 27 Oct. that he would remain in Blackness (ib. p. 232); but on 11 Dec. was permitted to return home (ib. p. 245). After the imprisonment of Morton in 1581 he was on 29 April reappointed warden (ib. p. 376). On Morton's execution on 5 June he obtained, as representative of his mother, daughter of the third earl, a charter of the earldom of Morton, erected anew in his favour, a grant being also made to him of certain of Morton's forfeited estates, the charter and grant being ratified by parliament on 19 Nov. (Acta Parl. Scot. iii. 262). After the raid of Ruthven and the overthrow of Lennox, he was, on 12 Nov. 1582, denounced rebel and put to the horn for not appearing to give advice in regard to the quieting of the borders (Reg. P. C. Scotl. iii. 528), and on the 19th he was succeeded in the wardenship by Johnstone of Johnstone (ib. p. 531). He arrived in Edinburgh on the 30th to assist Lennox in a project for capturing the city and Holyrood Palace, but the strict watch kept by Colonel Stewart and others foiled their purpose (Calderwood, iii. 691).
Maxwell soon incurred the displeasure of the king's favourite, the Earl of Arran, on account of a refusal to exchange with him the lands of Pollok and Maxwellhaugh. In January 1585 the attainder of the earldom of Morton was rescinded in favour of Archibald, earl of Angus. His title was thus indirectly menaced. For certain comparatively minor offences he was on 26 Feb. denounced a rebel (Reg. P. C. Scotl. iii. 725), and on 10 April the gift and infeftment to him of the earldom of Morton and its adjuncts was revoked, and declared to have been null from the beginning (ib. p. 734). To revenge himself on Arran, Maxwell therefore entered into communication with the banished lords, and, accompanying them from the borders with a large force, enabled them on 1 Nov. to obtain possession of Stirling Castle and drive Arran from power. After the nobles had entered the town, the border followers of Maxwell took advantage of the opportunity to seize their horses, ‘not respecting friend or foe’ (Calderwood, iv. 390). This outrage was, however, probably covered by the act passed on 10 Dec. granting entire indemnity to Lord Maxwell and his servants for all their doings within the realm from April 1569. Maxwell was also at the same time chosen a member of the privy council.
Hardly had the act of indemnity been passed when Maxwell again exposed himself to the penalties of the law by causing mass to be celebrated on 24, 25, and 26 Dec. in the college of Lincluden, near Dumfries. On being summoned to answer for his conduct by the privy council, he offered himself for trial, but was committed to the castle of Edinburgh (ib. p. 489). On 22 March he was freed on giving caution in a hundred thousand merks to repair to the burgh of Edinburgh, and keep ward there until freed by the king (Reg. P. C. Scotl. iv. 55), and shortly afterwards, at the command of the king, he left the country (Calderwood, iv. 489). In April he returned from Spain without the king's license (ib. p. 547), but on the 13th gave caution in 1,000l. to appear before the assembly in May to ‘answer anent religion’ (Reg. P. C. Scotl. iv. 62). On 14 May he again gave caution to remain within the burgh of Edinburgh and four miles round (ib. p. 77). On 4 Oct. he was released from the horn ​while on the king's service in the west march (ib. p. 109); but the king remained distrustful of him, and on 14 April 1587 he undertook to go abroad and not to return without the king's license (ib. p. 159). In June he was superseded as warden by Lord Herries (ib. p. 188), and on 29 July the earldom of Morton was ratified by parliament to the Earl of Angus.
Maxwell was closely connected with the intrigues of Lord Claud Hamilton [q. v.] for a Spanish invasion (cf. Teulet, Relations Politiques, v. 453; Calderwood, v. 14, 24, 27). In April 1588 he returned to Scotland without license, and began to assemble his followers to be in readiness to assist the Spaniards either in Scotland or England (ib. iv. 678). On 25 April an act was passed against resetting or harbouring him, and in May the king took the field against him in person (Reg. P. C. Scotl. iv. 286–92). Maxwell had fortified and garrisoned the castle of Lochmaben, but on the king's arrival at Dumfries he left it in charge of a lieutenant and went on board his ship. So hotly, however, was he pursued by Sir William Stewart that he was forced to take to his boat and go on shore, where on the 5th he was captured in a hut (Calderwood, iv. 678). After being conveyed to Dumfries, he was brought by the king—who committed the government of the district to Angus, the new earl of Morton—to Edinburgh, where he was warded in a private house under the custody of Sir William Stewart (ib. p. 679). To attend the arrival of the queen (ib. v. 59) he was in September released from imprisonment on giving caution in 100,000l. Scots to do nothing ‘tending to the trouble or alteration of the state of religion presently professed and by law established’ (Reg. P. C. Scotl. iv. 412). On 11 July 1592 he was appointed warden of the west march under the title of Earl of Morton (ib. p. 767); but on the 12th an act was passed declaring that the designation of Earl of Morton applied to him in the last acts shall not prejudice William, earl of Morton, lord Dalkeith (ib. p. 768; cf. Douglas, William, sixth or seventh Earl of Morton).
On 26 Jan. 1592–3 Morton subscribed the confession of faith before the presbytery of Edinburgh (Calderwood, v. 222); but his small respect for presbyterian devotions was evidenced on 2 Feb. by his personal encounter with the rival Earl of Morton in reference to the possession of a pew in the kirk of Edinburgh. They were, however, ‘parted, without sword drawn, by the provost, and convoyed to their lodgings’ (ib.) Notwithstanding his act of conformity an advertisement against him and other ‘Spanish factioners’ was, on 17 Feb., affixed to the Tolbooth. He was slain on 7 Dec. following at Dryfe Sands, in an encounter with the forces of the laird of Johnstone. Having a commission of lieutenancy for Johnstone's apprehension, he was proceeding at the head of two thousand men to lay siege to Johnstone's house of Lochwood, when he was caught in an ambush and put to flight. He is said to have been struck from his horse by Johnstone himself, and killed as he lay helpless on the ground (Moysie, p. 110; Calderwood, v. 290). The body lay unburied till February 1597–8, when on the 14th an order of council was made for the burial of him and the Earl of Moray (the ‘Bonnie Earl,’ slain by Huntly) ‘in the accustomed places of their predecessors within twenty days’ (Reg. P. C. Scotl. v. 445). Spotiswood describes Maxwell as ‘a nobleman of great spirit, humane, courteous, and more learned than noblemen commonly are, but aspiring and ambitious of rule.’ By his wife, Lady Elizabeth Douglas, daughter of the seventh earl of Angus, he had three sons and four daughters. The sons were: John, eighth or ninth baron [q. v.]; Robert, ninth or tenth baron, and afterwards earl of Nithsdale; and James of Kirkconnel and Springkell, master of Maxwell. The daughters were: Elizabeth, married to John Maxwell, baron Herries; Margaret, to John Wallace of Craigie; Jean, unmarried; and Agnes to William Douglas of Penzerie.
[Histories of Calderwood and Spotiswood; Herries's Memoirs (Abbotsford Club); History of James the Sext, Diurnal of Occurrents, and Moysie's Memoirs (all Bannatyne Club); Cal. State Papers, For. Ser. Reign of Elizabeth, and Scott. Ser.; Reg. P. C. Scotl. vols. ii–v.; Sir William Fraser's Book of Caerlaverock, i. 223–99; Douglas's Scottish Peerage (Wood), ii. 317–18.]
T. F. H.