PANMURE, Earl of, a title (attainted) in the peerage of Scotland, conferred 3d August 1646, with the secondary title of Baron Maule of Brechin and Navar, on Patrick Maule of Panmure, (see MAULE). He was a faithful adherent of Charles I., and attended that unfortunate monarch in his imprisonment at Holdenby and Carisbrook till compelled to leave him by the orders of parliament. By Cromwell he was, in 1654, fined in the exorbitant sum of £10,000 sterling, and £2,500 on account of his younger son, Henry, who had the command of a regiment in the duke of Hamilton’s army, raised for the rescue of the king in 1648, and who, at the battle of Dunbar in 1650, also commanded a regiment. The earl’s fine was mitigated to £4,000, and that for his son, Henry, to £1,000. His lordship died 22d December, 1661.

His elder son, George, second earl, when Lord Maule, fought at the head of the Forfarshire regiment of horse, of which he was colonel, at the battle of Dunbar, 3d September 1650, and also at an engagement with the English at Inverkeithing, 20th July following, when he was wounded. After the defeat of the royalists at Worcester, many of them repaired to Lord Maule, but, finding that he could be of no further service to the king’s cause, he made his peace with General Monk in 1652. The second earl of Panmure died at Edinburgh 24th March 1671. By his countess, Lady Jean Campbell, eldest daughter of John, earl of Loudoun, high-chancellor of Scotland, he had nine children, of whom four sons and one daughter died young.

The eldest surviving son, George, third earl, was a privy councilor to Charles II. and James VII., and died 1st February 1686. He had a son, George, Lord Maule, who predeceased him. The third earl’s brother, the Hon. James Maule of Ballumby, succeeded him as fourth earl. In his youth, he served as a volunteer at the siege of Luxembourg. He was a privy councilor to James VII., but was removed for opposing the abrogation of the penal laws against popery. At the convention of estates in March 1689, he vigorously supported the interest of the abdicated monarch. When the crown was settled on King William and Queen Mary, the earl of Panmure, with his brother, the Hon. Harry Maule of Kelly, who was also a member of the convention, left the meeting, and never appeared again in the parliament of Scotland. When the rebellion of 1715 broke out, the earl and his brother joined the standard of the Pretender, and the former proclaimed James VIII. At Brechin. At the battle of Sheriffmuir, his lordship commanded a battalion of foot, and was taken prisoner, but rescued by his brother. He afterwards took refuge in France, and was attainted by act of parliament. The yearly rental of his estates was £3,456 sterling, the largest of the confiscated properties, and though the government twice offered to restore them, if he would return and take the oath of allegiance to the house of Hanover, he remained firm in his attachment to the Stuart family. In 1717, an act of parliament was passed, to enable King George to make such a provision to his countess, Lady Mary Hamilton, third daughter of William and Anne, duke and duchess of Hamilton, as she would have been entitled to had her husband been dead. His lordship died at Paris, 11th April 1723, in his 64th year, without issue.

His brother, Mr. Maule of Kelly, after the Revolution lived in a retired manner till the rebellion of 1715, and spent much of his time in the study of the laws, history, and antiquities of his native country. He died at Edinburgh in 1734. He was twice married. By his first wife, Lady Mary Fleming, only daughter of the first earl of Wigton, he had, with other issue, a son, William, earl of Panmure in the Irish peerage, of whom afterwards; and a daughter, Jean, married, first, to George, Lord Ramsay, eldest son of the sixth earl of Dalhousie. By his second wife, Anne, daughter of the Hon. Patrick Lindsay Crawford of Kilbirnie, he had, with other issue, John Maule of Inverkeillour, one of the barons of the court of exchequer in Scotland, who died, unmarried, in 1781.

William Maule, above mentioned, was, on 6th April 1743, created a peer of Ireland, by the titles of earl of Panmure of forth, and Viscount Maule of Whitechurch. This nobleman purchased in 1764 the forfeited Panmure estates from the York Buildings company, for £49,157 18s 4d. He had early entered the army, and served several campaigns in Flanders. He was at the battles of Dettingen and Fontenoy, and in 1770 attained the rank of general. He died at Edinburgh 1st January 1782, aged 82. As his titles were limited to the heirs male of his body, and those of his brother of the half-blood, John Maul of Inverkeillour, who predeceased him, without issue, they became extinct at his death.

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PANMURE, Baron, of Brechin and Navar, a title in the peerage of the United Kingdom, conferred, 9th September 1831, on the Hon. William Maule, formerly Ramsay, second son of the eighth earl of Dalhousie, (see DALHOUSIE) and grandson of George, Lord Ramsay and Jean Maule, daughter of the Hon. Harry Maule of Kelly. He was born 27th October 1771. His granduncle, William earl of Panmure, in the Irish peerage, had, in 1775, executed an entail of his estates, which form the largest landed property in Forfarshire, in favour of his nephew, George, earl of Dalhousie, in liferent, and his second and other sons in fee. This settlement was attempted to be set aside by Thomas Maule, lieutenant of invalids, heir male of the Panmure family, grandson of Henry Maule, bishop of Meath; but the court of session, on 1st March 1782, determined in favour of the earl of Dalhousie, except as to certain long leases of Panmure and Brechin Parks, which were found to belong to Lieutenant Maule. On the death of the earl of Dalhousie, 4th November 1787, the estates devolved on his second son, the Hon. William Ramsay, then 16 years of age, who thereupon assumed the name and arms of Maule. In 1789 he entered the army as a cornet in the 11th dragoons, and afterwards raised an independent company of foot, which was disbanded in 1791. At the general election in 1796, he was elected M.P. for Forfarshire. The politics of his family were Tory, but he came forward on the Whig interest, to which he firmly adhered during his long life. He was rechosen at all the subsequent elections, till 9th September 1831, when he was raised to the peerage. His lordship died at Brechin castle, April 13, 1832. He was twice married; 1st, in 1794, to Patricia Heron, daughter of Gilbert Gordon, Esq. of Halleaths; and, 2dly, in 1822 (his first wife having died in 1821), to Miss Elizabeth Barton. By the latter he had no issue, but by the former he had, with 5 daughters, 3 sons, viz. 1. Fox, 2d Baron Panmure, and 11th Earl of Dalhousie. 2. Hon. Lauderdale Maule, lieutenant-colonel 79th Highlanders, who died at Varna, Aug. 1, 1854; and 3. Hon. William Maule, born in 1809, died Feb. 17, 1859. He married in 1844, Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Binny, Esq. of Maulesden and Fearn; issue, 2 sons, who died in childhood, and 4 daughters.

In an obituary notice of the first Lord Panmure, it is stated that “he was emphatically a remarkable man. Endowed with much natural shrewdness, he neglected the cultivation of his talents; but of an energetic and fearless character, he drew attention to himself by his systematic defiance of conventional decorums. His public career was marked by consistent devotion to popular liberty, and mutual tolerance, and by benevolence rare both in its extent and its intensity. Alike unmeasured in his loves and hatreds, he was devotedly and tenderly attached to those who did not thwart him, implacable to those who did; liberal and humane to all who only came in contact with him in the abstractions of public life, he was a despot to those who stood in more intimate relations to him. Kind, liberal, tolerant, so long as nothing touched him personally, he was fierce and unrelenting as soon as his self-will was opposed.” With his eldest son and some other members of his family he was long at variance. His munificence and liberality were shown in bestowing a pension on the widow of Fox, whose principles he had adopted and maintained steadfastly to the last, and after whom he named his eldest son, and also in conferring an annuity of £50 on the widow of Robert Burns, which was continued till the poet’s family assured him that it was no longer needed. In 1838, he enlarged the building of the Public schools of Brechin, and erected a hall, with library, &c., for the Mechanics’ Institution, at his own expense, and in 1841, he gifted the whole in perpetuity to the town council of that town. In 1839 his tenantry erected a handsome column, 105 feet high, in honour of his lordship, as a lasting memorial of their respect for him as their landlord. It is called the Panmure of ‘Live and Let Live’ testimonial, and stands on the highest part of the Downie hills, Forfarshire, commanding a view of large portions of seven counties.

The eldest son, long known as the Hon. Fox Maule, became second Lord Panmure. Born 22d April 1801, he was educated at the charter-house, and when young entered the army as an ensign in the 79th Highlanders. He served for several years in Canada, on the staff of his uncle, the earl of Dalhousie, and retired from the army in 1831, with the rank of captain. He entered parliament in 1835 as member for Perthshire, and in April of that year was appointed under secretary of state for the home department, in Viscount Melbourne’s administration. Rejected in 1837 for Perthshire, in the following year he was chosen for the Elgin district of burghs, and in 1841 was returned for Perth. In June of the latter year he was appointed vice-president of the board of trade, and sworn a privy councilor, but only held the former office till the following September. In November 1842 he was elected lord-rector of the university of Glasgow, and in July 1846, on the restoration of the Whigs to power, he became a cabinet minister, and was constituted secretary at war. In 1849 he was appointed lord-lieutenant of Forfarshire. He continued secretary at war till 1852, when the expiration of the East India Company’s charter rendering it necessary to have a minister of influence to direct the affairs of India, he was promoted to the presidency of the board of control. Soon afterwards he succeeded his father as Lord Panmure. In May 1853, the office of keeper of the privy seal of Scotland, to which no salary is attached, vacant by the death of Lord Melville, was conferred upon him. Under the Aberdeen coalition ministry he held no office, but when Lord Palmerston became prime minister in 1854, he accepted the office of minister of war. In 1853 he was created a knight of the Thistle, and in 1855 was decorated with the order of the Bath. ON the death of his cousin, James Andrew Ramsay, 10th earl and 1st marquis of Dalhousie, without male issue, Dec. 19, 1860, he succeeded to the earldom of Dalhousie in the Scottish peerage; the marquisate, a creation of the United Kingdom, became extinct. In 1861 he resumed the family surname of Ramsay after that of Maule. He married in 1831, Montagu, eldest daughter of George, 2d Lord Abercromby. She died, without issue, Nov. 11, 1853.