A passage in Knox’s history
has attached some suspicion to the good name of Sir Richard, at this period
of his life. He is alleged to have been instrumental in procuring, for
bribes, the liberation of cardinal Beaton from the custody of his kinsman,
Lord Seaton. Of his share in the guilt of this transaction, such as it is,
no proof exists; while there is something very like direct evidence that he
was attached to the English and protestant party, and consequently, in
favouring Beaton, would have been acting against sentiments which the most
of men hold sacred. That evidence consists in an entry in the Criminal
Record, to the following effect:—"Richard Maitland, of Lethingtoune, found
George, lord Seytoune, as his surety, that he would enter within the castle
of Edinburgh, or elsewhere, when and where it might please the lord
governor, on forty-eight hours’ warning: and that the said Richard shall
remain a good and faithful subject, and remain within the kingdom, and have
no intelligence with our ancient enemies the English, under the pain of
£10,000. [Pitcairn’s Criminal Trials, i. 338.]
We soon after find Sir
Richard engaged in diplomatic transactions for the settlement of the
borders. In 1552, he was appointed, along with others, to make a division of
what was called the debatable land, which division was ratified in the
following November; [Keith’s History, p. 58.] and in 1559, he was nominated
in a commission of a similar nature. The result of the last was, the
conclusion of the treaty of Upsetlington.
In 1563, he was appointed one
of the commissioners to decide on the application of the act of oblivion;
and in the month of December of the same year, to frame regulations for the
commissaries then about to be established for the decision of consistorial
causes.
While he was thus employed,
he was also rising rapidly in the profession which he had more peculiarly
adopted. He is mentioned on the 14th of March, 1551, as an extraordinary
lord of session; and about the same period, or soon afterwards, he received
the honour of knighthood. Ten years afterwards (12th November, 1561) he was
admitted an ordinary lord, in the room of Sir William Hamilton of Sanquhar;
and on the same day his son, William Maitland, was received as an
extraordinary lord, in place of Mr Alexander Livingston of Dunipace. Sir
Richard was soon afterwards made a member of the privy council; and upon the
20th of December, 1562, appointed lord privy seal, which office he resigned
in 1567 in favour of his second son, John, then prior of Coldinghame, and
better known by his subsequent title of lord Thirlstane. When we consider
that these appointments were bestowed on Sir Richard, in circumstances that
seemed to oppose an almost insurmountable barrier to the performance of
their duties, they will be considered as the most decided proof of the
estimation in which he was held as a good man, and an able lawyer. It does
not exactly appear whether his health had been impaired by the performance
of the duties of his various and important offices,—it is only certain that
about this period he had become blind. This calamity must have overtaken him
before October, 1560, and most probably after his last appointment as a
commissioner for the settlement of border disputes, in 1559. The allusion to
it in his poem on "The Quenis Arryvale in Scotland," (which must have been
written in the latter part of 1561,) is clear and unquestionable.
And thoch that I to serve be nocht sa
abill
As I was wont, becaus I may not see;
Yet in my hairt I sall be firme and stabill
To thy Hienes with all fidelitie,
Ay prayan God for thy prosperitie, &c.
The state of the
administration of the laws at this period was sufficiently deplorable. The
nobles and barons, while they assembled in parliament for the purpose of
making statutes, felt no scruple in breaking them, on the most trifling
occasions, and then appearing, when called to the bar of justice, surrounded
by armed followers. So common, indeed, did this practice become, and so
little regulated by the goodness or badness of the cause, that when some of
the reformers were cited before Mary of Lorraine, the queen dowager and
regent of Scotland, a large body of their friends assembled to accompany
them to Stirling, where the queen then was; and it was not till a promise of
pardon (which was in the most unprincipled manner immediately violated) had
been given, that they could be prevailed on to disperse. In like manner,
when the borderers or Highlanders extended their depredations beyond their
usual limits, it was necessary that an army should be assembled for their
suppression; and if the king did not accompany it in person, the command was
given to some nobleman of high rank. In most cases, the nobles were by far
too powerful to fear the most energetic measures of a government which,
receiving as yet no support from the people, depended upon themselves for
its very existence. Feeling their inability to punish the real criminals,
the king and his ministers frequently wreaked their vengeance on some
unfortunate individual, who, though far less guilty than his feudal lord,
was too feeble to oppose the ministers of the law. In such cases, the
wretched criminal was prevailed upon by intimidation, perhaps in many cases
where the necessary proof of guilt could not be adduced, to "come in the
king’s will,"—a phrase meaning to submit without condition to the royal
mercy,—or the jury were terrified into a verdict, the nature of which no one
can doubt, by the threats of the king’s advocate to prosecute them for
wilful error, if they did not comply. No one who has looked into the
publication of the "Criminal Trials, and other Proceedings before the High
Court of Justiciary," by Mr Robert Pitcairn, will accuse us of
over-colouring the picture which we have now drawn. "In truth," (to quote
the words of an admirable review of that work, supposed to be one of the
last critiques from the pen of Sir Walter Scott,) "no reader of these
volumes—whatever his previous acquaintance with Scottish history may have
been, will contemplate without absolute wonder the view of society which
they unveil; or find it easy to comprehend how a system, subject to such
severe concussions in every part, contrived, nevertheless, to hold itself
together. The whole nation would seem to have spent their time, as one
malefactor expressed it, ‘in drinking deep and taking deadly revenge for
slight offences.’" [See Quarterly Review, No. 88, p. 470.] That the judges
themselves, if not exposed to the fury of the more lawless part of their
countrymen from the unpopular nature of their office, were not at least
exempted from it by its sacred character, the subsequent part of this sketch
will sufficiently show.
Setting out of the question
the calamitous nature of Sir Richard Maitland’s malady, and his country’s
loss from being deprived of his more active services, his blindness may be
supposed to have contributed much to his peace of mind. The transactions of
this unhappy period,—the murder of Darnley,—the queen’s marriage with
Bothwell, and all the subsequent events of the different regencies, are too
well known to require notice here. But although the venerable knight did not
engage in these transactions, he was not spared the pain of having his lands
ravaged, and his property forcibly kept from him. His lands of Blythe were
overrun by the border robbers, [This was not the first time that his
property had been destroyed or carried off. Diurnal of Occurrents in
Scotland, printed by the Bannatyne and Maitland Clubs, p., 48.]
as we know by his poem, entitled "The Blind Baronis Comfort," in which he
consoles himself for his wrongs, and puns upon the name:—
Blynd man, be blyth, althocht
that thow be wrangit;
Thocbt Blythe be herreit, tak no melancholie.
Happy indeed must have been
the man who, dismissing from his mind the misfortunes of his lot, could
devote it to the pursuits of literature; and who, estimating the good things
of this world at their real value, could at the same time cultivate the
temper here exhibited.
It seems to have been about
the same time that the king’s party took possession of the castle of
Lethington, which had been the temporary abode of the secretary Maitland,
and a ready justification of this violent measure was found in the conduct
of that statesman. After the death of the son, the enmity of the regent
Morton was transferred to the aged and unoffending father, and his house and
lands were still violently withheld from him. Although Sir Richard appears
to have requested the intercession of the English court, and for that
purpose to have transmitted a representation to lord Burleigh, the queen,
with her usual crafty and cautious policy in regard to Scottish affairs, did
not interfere: the document is thus marked—"This must be well considered
before any thing is done." It was not, therefore, till the fall of Morton,
that the worthy knight obtained restoration of his lands. He did not,
however, droop into despondency during the long period of eleven years that
he was thus "wrangit." In that period his poem of "Solace in Aige" is
believed to have been written. It concludes thus:—
Thocht I be sweir to ryd or gang,
Thair is sumthing I’ve wantit lang,
Fain have I wald
Thaim punysit that did me wrang,
Thoucht I be auld.
Some attempt seems to have
been made by Sir Richard to obtain compensation at least for his losses.
There is extant a list of "the guidis tane frae ye ald laird of Lethingtoun
of his awin proper geir forthe of Blythe and ye Twllowss;" but it is to be
feared that his endeavours were unsuccessful. At a later period of his life,
he renewed his application for compensation; and, although he obtained an
act of parliament, recognizing his claims, and rescinding an act made in
favour of captain David Hume of Fishwick, who had possessed Lethington, and
intromitted with the rents of that estate, the benignity of his temper
warrants our supposing, in the absence of historical evidence, that he did
not pursue his rights with any violent or revengeful feelings.
The age and infirmities of
Sir Richard now appear to have incapacitated him in a great measure for the
performance of his duties as a judge. Throughout his career the conduct of
his brother judges towards him was marked by the utmost kindness and
sympathy for his distressing malady. As early as January, 1561, they had
ordered the macers "to suffer one of the old laird of Lethintone’s sones to
come in within all the barres as oy’r prors doe, and to issue as they
doe, for awaiting on his father for the notoriety of his father’s
infirmity," and he now (3d of December 1583,) obtained leave to attend court
only when he pleased, with the assurance that he "should lose no part of the
contribution in consequence of absence." In May 1584, he was further
exempted from the examination of witnesses, "provyding he cause his sone (Thirlstane),
or his good-son the laird of Whittingham, use the utter tolebooth for him in
calling of matters, and reporting the interloquitors as use is." When he was
at last under the necessity of retiring altogether from the bench, it was
under circumstances which no less strongly show the public estimation of his
character. He was allowed the privilege of nominating his successor,—a
privilege of the extension of which lord Pitmedden considers this as the
first instance. Accordingly on the 1st of July, 1584, he resigned in favour
of Sir Lewis Bellenden of Auchnoull, being now, as his majesty’s letter to
the court expresses, "sa debilitat that he is not able to mak sic continual
residens as he wald give, and being movit in conscience that, be his
absence, for laik of number justice may be retardit and parteis frustrat."
At length, after a life, certainly not without its troubles, but supported
throughout by the answer of a good conscience and by much natural hilarity,
he closed his days on the 20th of March, 1586, at the venerable age of
ninety. Living in an age, marked, perhaps more strongly than any other in
our history, by treachery and every vice which can debase mankind, he lived
uncontaminated by the moral atmosphere by which he was surrounded, and has
had the happiness,—certainly not the lot of every good man,—of being
uniformly noticed, whether by friends or enemies, by his contemporaries or
by posterity, with the highest respect. There is but one exception to this
general tribute to his virtues,—the accusation in John Knox’s History, of
his having been bribed to allow cardinal Beatoun to escape from
imprisonment. The foundation of this charge is, however, doubtful; for,
although the candour and accuracy of Knox’s History cannot be impeached, it
may still be admitted, from the peculiar position of the parties, that the
historian’s mind was liable to receive an erroneous impression of Maitland’s
conduct.
The works of Sir Richard
Maitland exhibit him in the characters of a lawyer, a poet, and an
historian. Of the work belonging to the first of these classes it is only
necessary to say, that it consists of "Decisions from the 15th December
1550, to the penult July 1565;" being a continuation of the body of
decisions known by the title of Sinclair’s Practicks, and that a copy of it,
with the additions of the viscount Kingston, is preserved in MS. in the
library of the Faculty of Advocates. His poetical collections consist of two
kinds,— those works which were merely collected by him, and specimens of
which have long been before the public,—and his own poems, the greater
portion of which have not been printed till a very late date.
If it be true, as has been
often asserted, that the habits and feelings of a people are best known by
their poetry, surely the collectors in that department of a nation’s
literature are entitled to no inconsiderable portion of its gratitude. The
labours of Asloan, Maitland, and Bannatyne have especial claims on our
attention, as in them are to be found nearly all that remains of the
Scottish poetry composed before their times. Of the first, John Asloan,—whose
collections are preserved in the Auchinleck library, but unfortunately in a
mutilated state,—little or nothing can be ascertained; and of George
Bannatyne a notice has already been given in this work. Our attention must
therefore be directed to the collections of the subject of this memoir.
Sir Richard Maitland appears
to have been engaged in forming his collections of poetry before he became
blind,—probably about the year 1555,-—and although one of the volumes is
dated 1585, it is conjectured that it was the arrangement of them only that
could have been the work of his later years. The collections consist of two
volumes,—a folio, comprehending 176 articles, and a quarto of 96 pieces; the
latter in the handwriting of Mary Maitland, Sir Richard’s daughter. They are
now preserved in the Pepysian library, Magdalene college, Cambridge; but,
from the regulations prescribed by the founder of that institution, they
cannot be consulted except within its walls, and although its officers
afford every facility which their duty permits, it must be a subject of
regret to every lover of Scottish poetry that they are not in a more
accessible situation. It is true, indeed, that in 1784 or 1785, the late Mr
Pinkerton was furnished by Dr Peckhard with all the means of consulting them
with advantage, and that he published selections from them in his Ancient
Scottish Poems; but the charges of interpolation which have been brought
against him, must make his work a subject of doubt and suspicion.
Sir Richard Maitland did not
produce any of his own poems at the period when ardour of mind or ambition
for distinction may be supposed to prompt men to enter that walk of
literature. They were all written after his sixtieth year. They are the
tranquil productions of age, and of a mind regulated by the purest
principles. The subjects, too, correspond with the age at which they were
written, most of them being of a moral or historical description. By far the
most frequent subjects of his poems are lamentations for the distracted
state of his native country,—the feuds of the nobles,—the discontents of the
common people,--complaints "Aganis the lang proces in the courts of
justice,"--"The evillis of new found lawis," and the depredations "Of the
border robbers." Not the least interesting of his productions—are those
which he entitles Satyres: one of these, on "The Town Ladyes," in particular
presents us with a most curious picture of the habits and dispositions of
the fair sex in his day, and amply demonstrates that the desire of aping the
appearance and manners of the higher ranks is by no means the peculiar
offspring of our degenerate age. Sir Richard’s poetical writings were for
the first time printed in an entire and distinct form, in 1830, (in one 4to
volume) by the Maitland Club, a society of literary antiquaries, taking its
name from this distinguished collector of early Scottish poetry.
It may probably be unknown to
most of our readers, that a poet from whose mortal sight the book of
knowledge was no less shut out than from the eye of the poet of Paradise
Lost, has also written a poem on the subject of—
—Man’s first disobedience, and the
fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world and all our woe.
Except in the subject,
however, there is no resemblance between the Paradise Lost of Milton and Sir
Richard Maitland’s "Ballat of the Creatioun of the World, Man his Fall and
Redemptioun." From the latter poem, the following passages are selected:--
God be his Word his wark began,
To forme the erth and hevin for man,
The sie and watter deip;
The sone, the mune, the starris bricht,
The day divydit frome the nicht,
Thair coursis for to keip;
The beistis that on the grund do mufe,
And fische in to the sie,
Fowlis in the air to fle abufe,
Off ilk kind creat hee;
Sum creeping, sum fleiting
Sum fleing in the air,
So heichtly, so lichtly,
In moving heir and thair.
The workis of grit magnificence,
Perfytet be his providence,
According to his will;
Nixt maid he man; to gif him gloir.
Did with his ymage him decoir,
Gaif paradice him till;
Into that garding hevinly wrocht,
With plesouris mony one;
The beistis of every kynd war brocht,
Thair names he sowld expone;
Thame nemming and kennyng,
As he list for to call;
For pleising and eising
Of man, subdewit thame all.
In hevinly joy man so possest,
To be alone God thoct not best,
Maid Eve to be his maik;
Bad thame incress and multiplie;
And eit of every fruit and trie,
Thair plesour thay sowld taik,
Except the trie of gud and ill,
That in the middis dois stand;
Forbad that thay sowld cum it till,
Or twiche it with thair hand;
Leist plucking or lucking,
Baith thay and als thair seid,
Seveirly, awsteirly,
Sowld dye without remeid.
The poem thus concludes :—
Behald the stait that man was in,
And als how it he tynt throw sin,
And loist the same for ay;
Yit God his promeiss dois performe,
Send his Sone of the Virgeny borne,
Ours ransome for to pay
To that grit God let us gif gloir,
To us has bene so gude,
Quha be his death did us restoir,
Quhairof we war denude;
Nocht karing nor sparing
His body to be rent,
Redemyng, relieving,
Ws quhen we war all schent.
The historical writings of
Sir Richard Maitland were the productions of an earlier period than his
poems. The principal historical work of Sir Richard that has come down to
us, is "The Historie and Cronicle of the Hous and Surename of Seytoun, to
the moneth of November, in the yeir of God, Jm. Vc. lix. yeiris; collectit,
gaderit, and set furth be Schir Richart Maitland of Lethingtoun, Knycht,
Dochteris Sonn of the said Hous." This work was printed in 1829 for the
Maitland Club. Another of his works bears the following title: "Heir
followis ane Brief and Compendious Tabill or Catholog of the Names of the
Kingis of Scotland, France, and Ingland, with the dait of thair Reignis;
togidder with the Successioun of King Malcolme Cainmoir, and of all Kingis
of Scotland sensyn, to the dait heirof; quham thay Mareit; quhat Successioun
they had; with quham they war Allyat. Collectit, gatherit, and set furth be
Sr. Richart Maitland of Lethingtoun, Knyt. The yeir of God, Jm. Vc. and
three scoir yeiris, the xiiij day of the moinethe of October."
By his wife, Mary, daughter of Thomas
Cranston of Corsby, Sir Richard Maitland had a numerous family. It is said
that he had seven sons, three of whom, William, John, and Thomas, rose to
eminence—and four daughters— Helen, married to John Cockburn of Clerkington;
Margaret, to William Douglas of Whittingham; Mary, to Alexander Lauder of
Hatton; and Isabel, to James Heriot of Trabroun.