# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Maxwell, William (1676-1744)

​MAXWELL, WILLIAM, fifth Earl of Nithsdale (1676–1744), Jacobite, eldest son of Robert, fourth earl, by Lady Lucy Douglas, was born in 1676. On 26 May 1696 he was returned heir to his father. He was in 1699 in Paris, where on 2 March he signed a marriage contract with Lady Winifred Herbert, fifth and youngest daughter of William, first marquis of Powis. Doubtless while in Paris he paid homage to the exiled sovereign at St. Germains. He also maintained the hereditary attachment of his family to the church of Rome; and in 1703 some of the presbyterian ministers assembled a number of countrymen and attacked his house of Terregles, on pretence of searching it for Jesuits and priests. The case came before the justiciary court on 1 Feb. 1704, and he was deprived of the office of hereditary steward of Kirkcudbright. He was mentioned in the Duke of Perth's 'Instructions' in 1704 as a Jacobite, and as having interest in Nithsdale and Galloway (Hooke, Correspondence, i. 229); and in a Jacobite 'Memoir' of 3 Jan. 1707 as puissant and a catholic (ib. ii. 201). He was also one of the nobles who in 1707 signed an agreement for a rising (ib. p. 238). On 20 Nov. 1712, in view of eventualities resulting from his support of the Stuart cause, he signed a contract disposing of his estates to his eldest son, and reserving to himself only a life-rent.
In October 1715 Nithsdale, along with Viscount Kenmure [see Grodon, William, sixth Viscount Kenmure], joined the English Jacobites under Derwentwater. He is the 'Willie' of the Jacobite song, 'Kenmure's up and awa, Willie,' Few or none of his own dependents joined him, and at the battle of Preston he was one of the commanders of the gentlemen volunteers. He was taken prisoner at the battle, and sent to the Tower of London. At his trial in January following he, like Kenmure, made a rather abject declaration of penitence, excusing his consent to join the rebels on the ground that, having been summoned by the government to Edinburgh, he was, on account of his feeble health, afraid to risk the possibility of imprisonment. His humiliating protestations were of no avail, and he was sentenced to be beheaded on 24 Feb. along with the other Jacobite nobles, Kenmure Derwentwater, Carnwath, Widdrington, and Nairn. The last three were reprieved. The Countess of Nithsdale, after a difficult journey to London, succeeded in gaining entrance to the palace of St. James, and threw herself at the king's feet beseeching mercy for her husband, but her importunities were fruitless. Determined, however, not to be baffled, she obtained access to her husband in the Tower accompanied by some ladies, on the night before the day fixed for the execution, and, disguising him in a hood and cloak, deceived the guards and enabled him to leave the prison with her. He was conveyed to Dover disguised in a livery coat by a servant of the Venetian ambassador, and there he hired a small boat, which conveyed him to Calais, The king on learning his escape merely said that it was 'the best thing a man in his condition could have done.' The House of Lords, on 21 Jan. 1723, decided that only the life-rent of his estates was forfeited, but his honours were attainted. Nithsdale joined the Chevalier in Rome, and died there 20 March 1744. His wife, who wrote a narrative of his escape, published in the 'Transactions of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland,' vol. i., set sail for Bruges on 19 July 1716, and joined her husband at Rome, where she died in May 1749. They had one son, William, commonly called Lord Maxwell, to whom his estates passed, and a daughter, Anne, married to Lord Bellew.
Kneller painted portraits of both the earl and countess: that of the former belongs to the Earl of Kintore, and that of the countess to the present Lord Herries. There are engravings of the earl and countess, from originals at Terregles, in Sir William Fraser's 'Book of Caerlaverock.'
[Histories of the Rebellion in 1715 by Patten, Rae, and Chambers; Hooke's Correspondence (Roxburghe Club); Narrative by Lady Winifred Maxwell in Transactions of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, vol. i.; Hepworth Dixon's Her Majesty's Tower, ii. 385-403 (a detailed account of the escape); Jesse's Pretenders and their Adherents, pp. 69-77; State Trials, xv. 762-806; Sir William Fraser's Book of Caerlaverock,' i. 414-53; Douglas's Scottish Peerage (Wood), i. 320-1.]
T. F. H.