Contents

6……       Begin

6.1          The Origins of Maxwell

6.2          The Maxwells of Middlebie

6.3          The Middlebie Entail

6.4          The Maxwell of Speddoch Line

              Notes      

6         The Maxwells

6.1       The Origins of Maxwell

The Maxwells were a powerful and noble family with two principal branches, one with lands in and around Dumfries and its seat at Caerlaverock Castle, and the other based in the lower Clyde valley with its seat at Pollok on the south-western outskirts of Glasgow. The original form of the name is sometimes given as Maccuswell, which had the variations Maccusville and Maccusweil, both evident in Maxwheel, the present name of a pool on the river Tweed near Kelso Bridge, around which the village of Maxwellheugh developed. King David I, who reigned from 1124 to 1153, had granted land there to Maccus  (Douglas, 1899) and the pool Maccus’ Weil would have been his.[1]

As a result of growing Norman influence in southern Scotland, Herbert, a descendant of Maccus, was styled as Herbert de Maccusville. His son’s name, however, is generally given as John de Maccuswell. John flourished in the early thirteenth century and was the sheriff of Roxburgh. It was he who acquired the barony of Caerlaverock under Alexander II and in 1231 became Great Chamberlain of Scotland. He had obviously become a powerful man, and in time this place, rather than Kelso, became the main focus of the Maxwells (see Figure 2.1).

Sir John was succeeded by his son Eumerus, which name crops up in later generations as the variants Aymer and Homer. Through giving lands in Renfrewshire to John, his second son, Eumerus established the line of the Maxwells of Pollok. His eldest son Herbert de Maxeswell succeeded him at Caerlaverock, and by the end of the century it had gone to his son of the same name, but now given as Herbert Maxwell (Burke, 1834−38, vol. 1, pp. 325−326).  This then, is how the Maxwell name evolved over a period of less than 200 years.

The 1^st Lord Maxwell of Caerlaverock was created sometime between 1440 and 1445 (Paul, 1909, pp. 474−475). Lord Herbert Maxwell was a direct descendent of the Sir Herbert Maxwell mentioned above, and including him the succession of Maxwell Lords was:

Up to and including the first Earl of Nithsdale, there were therefore ten Lords Maxwell, spanning eight generations. Some writers do not credit John, Master of Maxwell, as being the 3^rd Lord, so there is the difficulty of having two different ways of numbering them. Our numbering here is both consistent with Paul (1909) and Andrew Wedderburn-Maxwell’s genealogical notes.[2]

Going now only so far back as the 8^th Lord, John Maxwell was born posthumously on 24 April 1553 when Scotland was ruled by James Hamilton the Earl of Arran, regent for Mary Queen of Scots who was then just ten years old. After her return from France in 1561, Mary reigned in her own right but was forced to abdicate in 1567 following the scandal of her husband Lord Darnley’s murder and her precipitate remarriage to the Earl of Bothwell. Following Mary’s subsequent imprisonment, regents had once again to be appointed for her son, James VI, who was only a year old. The last of four regents of that troubled era was James Douglas, Earl of Morton, who had been appointed in 1572, and although he was successful in quelling civil strife, he was eventually accused of complicity in Darnley’s murder. It is easily overlooked that Darnley was the young King James’ father, and if Morton had indeed been a party to the murder, he was heading for trouble when James became old enough to do something about it.  It is likely that James’ other advisers plotted against Morton and planted the seeds in James’ mind, and in June 1581 Morton was tried, convicted and duly executed, whereupon his titles and estates were escheat by the Crown.

Perhaps because he was still within the manipulation of his curators, in the following October James bestowed the forfeited Earldom of Morton to John, 8^th Lord Maxwell, who was not then thirty years old; having recently purchased the Barony of Carlyle, he was now styled John, Earl of Morton and Lord Carlyle and Eskdaill.

Unfortunately, in a few years’ time the pendulum swung back in the other direction, and King James revoked John Maxwell’s Earldom and restored it to Regent Morton’s nephew, Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus. Perhaps James had never believed in Morton’s complicity, or perhaps he was still being influenced by his advisors, but it was a remarkable thing that the Earldom should be first given and then taken away so soon. Lord Maxwell was nevertheless unabashed and continued to refer to himself, as his followers generally did, as the Earl of Morton.

And so it continued until 1593 when our ‘Earl of Morton’ was killed in a battle at the Dryfe Sands[3] near Lockerbie (see Figure 2.1). These were still very troubled times, especially  in the border regions (Fraser, 1971) and while it had long been the case, the source of the problem had generally been tit-for-tat raids and concomitant feuding between families of all ranks on opposing sides of the border, where the ordinary rule of law was unknown. As a measure intended to prevent these cross-border feuds escalating into a state of perpetual war, the entire region had been divided into Marches, three on either side, under the wardenship of one of the most powerful regional barons who then effectively ruled them in their own right. Hot pursuit and retribution for wrongdoing had to be done according to strict March Law enforced by the Wardens, often to their own advantage (Scott, 1838, pp. 23−24). Despite their ‘Jeddart justice’ being rough in the extreme, it brought no lasting peace, for the border reivers were no more than bandits out for their own gain. March Law was simply a means of keeping the lid on a situation that was beyond the control of the respective monarchies.

Towards the end of the sixteenth century, the 8^th Lord Maxwell, ‘Earl of Morton’, was warden of the Scottish Western March. Seeking to put an end to a long-running feud between the Maxwells and the Johnstones in his own favour, he obtained a commission from James VI to raise an army of about 2,000 men with the object of taking Sir James Johnstone of Dunskellie and his henchmen by force and bringing them to Edinburgh for trial as outlaws. The size of this army gives some indication of how difficult he thought the task might be, and so he also offered a bounty for Johnstone’s ‘hand or head’; he clearly had little intention of letting him get as far as Edinburgh, let alone stand trial.  Johnstone, however, got wind of the impending raid and quickly managed to get a few hundred men together for the purpose of making his own pre-emptive strike against Lord Maxwell. In this he entirely succeeded, with the Maxwell army being routed at Dryfe Sands on 6 or 7 December 1593. Sir James, having himself offered a bounty for Maxwell, paid it to William Johnstone of Wamphray who had succeeded in cutting off Lord Maxwell’s hand as he fled. Having parted company with his hand, Lord Maxwell did not escape very far and he was soon slain. Of his kinsmen who managed to survive, a great number were slashed on the head, leaving them with a permanent scar that became known as a ‘Lockerbie Lick’.[4]

If the Maxwell−Johnstone feud had been bad under the 8^th Lord Maxwell, things did not improve under his son John. While there was no further battle on the scale of Dryfe Sands, John was a hothead whose conduct seemed even more out of control than was usual amongst these fearsome people.[5] He sought to quarrel with the re-established Earl of Morton by trying to assert his own claims to that Earldom, for which he was imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle in 1607. But he escaped and was soon back in his old haunts around Dumfries, still showing complete disregard for King James’ authority. Perhaps he realised that he could not carry on living as an outlaw forever, for he then tried to negotiate reconciliation with his old family foe Johnstone, but the outcome of an arranged private meeting on 6 April 1608 was that Johnstone ended up dead, shot twice in the back. Whether the unstable Maxwell simply could not keep himself under control or he had actually been engaging in a ruse to avenge his father cannot be said for sure. Either way, in the Crown’s view he had ‘treasonably murdered’ Johnstone.

Lord Maxwell was tried[6] in 1609 but, as on previous occasions, he managed to escape, this time fleeing to France in order to lie low and let the heat die down. But, impetuous as ever, he returned too soon. Arrested in Caithness, he was brought back to Edinburgh and executed according to his original sentence at 4pm on 21 May 1613, his estates and titles being forfeit to the Crown. He seemingly went to his death more penitent than he had ever been while he lived.[7]

John, 9^th Lord Maxwell, went to his death without leaving a male heir and was therefore succeeded by his brother Robert. From 1616 on, his family’s former rights and titles were restored in stages, culminating in Robert being created 1^st Earl of Nithsdale in 1620, with all due precedence reinstated back to 1581, that is to say, when his father received his short-lived Earldom. This honour, and the fact that he lived till 1646, demonstrates that the 10^th Lord Maxwell was much more circumspect and peaceable than either his father or his older brother had been. He had, like all his forefathers, remained a staunch Roman Catholic[8] throughout the reformation years and the covenanting times. This eventually went against him during the Scottish Civil War of 1644–45 because it cast him on the Royalist side, just as his father had been in the days of Mary, Queen of Scots. Along with his son, he consequently joined Montrose’s campaign in defence of Charles I (McDowall, 1873, pp. 358−359)[9] but, being on the losing side, he had to flee to the Isle of Man and his estates and titles were forfeit. He died in Edinburgh in 1646.

6.2       The Maxwells of Middlebie

We draw a line here on Maxwell Lords because the next step in the Clerk Maxwell line came about through another John Maxwell, a bastard of the 8^th Lord Maxwell who died at Dryfe Sands. He was therefore a half-brother to the 9^th and 10^th Lords, John and Robert. In May 1624 Robert, then Earl of Nithsdale, granted his half-brother John the Twenty Merk Land of Middlebie to the east of Dumfries (Figure 2.1) making him the first John Maxwell of Middlebie. Much of the information about his line of succession is shown in Family Tree 3, our second excerpt from John Clerk Maxwell’s draft, but here we give a more detailed, and hopefully more legible, reconstruction. Each generation is numbered 1, 2, 3, etc., with appended roman numerals distinguishing siblings:

1. John Maxwell of Middlebie married Marion Maxwell, daughter of Homer Maxwell of Speddoch (see §6.4) in 1628 and had four sons, Robert, William, Homer and James. Homer and James, together with a sister Elspet, died within two months of each other in the April and June of 1636 (DGFHS, 2008), presumably as a result of some epidemic disease. John died in 1639, supposedly murdered by John and Thomas Blake[10] whereafter by September 1641 Marion had remarried to Andrew Stewart (Burke, 1894, p. 1365) who was a legal writer.[11] In 1637, she appeared before Dumfries Kirk session for failure to attend communion (Bryson & Veitch, 1825, p. 347), the implication being that she preferred to adhere to Roman Catholicism. Andrew Stewart died in 1662 and she survived him until 4 January 1674 (DGFHS, 2008).
2. Robert Maxwell of Middlebie succeeded his father in 1639 and, unless one of the following names is erroneous, he married twice. They are Miss Dacre[12] and Miss Maxwell of Kilbean.[13] One was named Mary, for in 1649 Lady Mary of Middlebie was upbraided in the Kirk of Dumfries for lack of attendance at communion, just as her mother-in law Marion had been in 1637 (Literary Gazette, 1825, p. 460). Robert died before 1679 and was succeeded by his son John 3(i).
3. (i) John Maxwell of Middlebie, referred to as the ‘Entailer’, married Dorothea Bellenden or Ballantine in 1680. It was he who executed the crucial entail of the lands of Middlebie in 1722. Contrary to what is given in earlier histories, in addition to the daughter Agnes who eventually became the heiress of Middlebie, he had two sons, John and Robert, and an elder daughter Anna.      
   (ii) Robert McLellan, who lived in Glasgow.[14] The different surname could imply either that he was a half-brother, or had changed his name as a condition for inheriting property (his nephew Robert Maxwell 4(ii) below, is a further example of this − see note 17 thereto).
4.  (i) John Maxwell of Middlebie the ‘Younger’ or ‘Last’,was confined in May 1715 in the Tollbooth of Dumfries for three days following a breach of the peace, threatening behaviour, abusing his parents and family, and burning their house over their heads – and it was not his first offence. Liberated by consent of his father, he was again jailed on 15 May 1722 for a further breach of the peace and ‘making a riot’ in Chappell’s legal chambers.  John had many debts, and it is likely that he had gone to these chambers as a result of his father drafting an entail, presumably aimed at preventing him from ever selling Middlebie. Indeed, the entail was executed just a few weeks later on 9 June. As to his debts, John the Younger had a string of them, for which he was imprisoned during 1724 on several occasions. He married Grace Smith[15] but died without issue sometime about January 1728.[16]
   (ii) Robert Maxwell, who changed his name to, and bore the arms of, McMillane.[17] We must assume that in doing so he was debarred from the succession of Middlebie, otherwise he must have died without issue before 1722 when the entail was drawn up.He is also mentioned along with his father concerning a debt,[18] but such things often went back years and so the year 1730 is no indication that he was then alive.
   (iii) Anna Maxwell, eldest daughterof John Maxwell of Middlebie 3(i) by his wife Dorothea Ballantine.[19]
   (iv) Agnes Maxwell, heiress of Middlebie was born on 9 February 1697.[20] She first married, in 1719 or early 1720, William Clerk, the Baron’s younger brother (see §5.3). However, contrary to what is often said, he did not take the surname of Maxwell; his own signature and all contemporary references to him are in the form of William Clerk. Furthermore, he predeceased Agnes in 1723, before she became heir to Middlebie, for both her father and her elder brother were still then alive. William and Agnes had a daughter, Dorothea, born on 28 August 1720.[21] Agnes secondly married, on 26 July 1725,[22] a naturalised Huguenot émigré, Major James Le Blanc, who predeceased her in 1727 (see §7.4) She died in March 1728, just one or two months after her elder brother, leaving Dorothea in the care of her brother-in-law, Baron Sir John Clerk 2^nd Baronet of Penicuik. Consequently, she did not survive long enough to succeed to Middlebie except in name only, and the estate was then held in trust during her daughter’s minority.
5. Dorothea Clerk, having been left an orphan at the age of seven became heiress to Middlebie and was the ward of her uncle, Baron Sir John Clerk. In 1735, she ‘privately’ married her cousin, George Clerk, the Baron’s second son. Although she was barely fifteen years old at the time, the legal age for marriage for females was then twelve. A portrait, believed to be of Dorothea, is shown in Plate 6.1.

What we know of the marriage of William Clerk and Agnes Maxwell (§5.3) has already been recounted in Chapter 5. As will soon be discovered, this fusion of the Clerk and Maxwell lines was subsequently to be reinforced by the marriage of their daughter Dorothea, heiress of Middlebie, to George Clerk, the Baron’s second surviving son, in 1735. The name Clerk Maxwell did not come about until some three years thereafter, and we will now go on to uncover the reason for this.

6.3       The Middlebie Entail

The name Clerk Maxwell owes its origin to a deed called the Middlebie entail. Some explanation of the idea behind an entail, and the specific conditions of the Middlebie entail, is therefore in order.

John Maxwell of Middlebie and Homer Maxwell of Speddoch are just two examples of the old custom whereby owners of significant heritable properties were known by the name of their property. Not only did they derive status from this, they also had a very personal attachment to their properties. It can therefore be seen that a landowner would do all that he possibly could to hold onto the land for himself and his successors in circumstances where two critical factors prevailed, uncertain finances and high rates of mortality. The first of these meant that if he had to borrow a significant amount of money then the property would be at risk if he became unable to repay the debt.  The second meant that the property might fall into the hands of female heirs, for which the rules were different, so that the estate could be split up. It could also mean that if he had no children at all to pass the property on to, it could end up with some distant relative. Having considered all this, the landowner could opt to entail either all or at least a significant part of their property, particularly the part that would continue to carry the name. By this apparently simple means, he could try to ensure that it would be neither exposed to debt nor split amongst portioners. If he so wished he could also divert the natural line of succession and impose mandatory conditions on heirs. 

The entail itself took the form of a legally binding deed drawn up for the purpose. One of the sundry conditions which was typical in entails is often mentioned as being  the root of the Clerk Maxwell name: ‘The next important clause … is an obligation to assume the name and to bear the arms of the Entailer…’ (Committee on Scotch Entails, 12th May 1828, p. 8).

Once the entail had been signed, registered and recorded it was fully binding and after the death of the entailer himself, no alteration could be made to its stipulations except by a petition to Parliament. A private act had to be passed in order to allow the entail to be broken. Failing such an Act, an heir could not break the conditions of the entail without putting themselves in jeopardy of having their succession declared null and void.

While an entail involved conditions to prevent the estate from being encumbered by debt, this could not prevent the person in possession of an entailed estate from falling into serious personal debt. Moreover, on a person’s death, their debts were included in their estate, the value of which could then be in effect negative! It is natural that a deceased person’s creditors would try to get their money back out of the estate before the heir walked away with it, and they could always go to court to do so. But what they could not do was get their hands on an entailed property for this purpose. Unfortunately, neither could the heir sell the property; they would either have to find some other means of paying off the debts or step aside and let the next heir in line take his or her chance at it. It is therefore clear that entails did as much to create problems for heirs as they did to safeguard their heritage.

The Middlebie entail[23] is a prime example of both the execution of the entail and the 1738 Act of Parliament (11º Georgii II, Private Acts, 16) procured by petition, which allowed part of the property to be sold off. The important part of the entail is summarised in the Act itself, and with the key parts emphasised for clarity, we find:

Whereas  John Maxwell of Middlebie being feized in Fee or poffeffed of the Twenty Merk-land of Middlebie … difpone and provide Premifes to himfelf for Life;
which failing to John Maxwell his eldeft lawful son, and to the Heirs Male lawfully to be procreate of his Body, and to the Heirs Male of their Bodies;
which failing to the Heirs Male lawfully to be procreated of his own body [i.e. any other sons], and to the Heirs Male of their Bodies;
which failing, to Agnes Maxwell his Daughter, Spoufe to Mr. William Clerk, Advocate, and to the Heirs Male lawfully to be procreate of her Body, in that or any other marriage;
which failing  to the Heirs Female lawfully to be procreated of the faid John Maxwell Younger his body;
which failing, to the faid Agnes Maxwell and to the Heirs Female which should be procreate of her Body, in that or any other Marriage;
which failing, to the Heirs Male of the Body of Robert Maxwell of Schalloch, his Brother-german, and the Heirs Male of their Bodies;
which failing, to the Heirs Male of the Body of Robert Maxwell Younger of Arkland;
which failing, to the Heirs Male of the Body of Homer Maxwell, his Brother-german, and the Heirs Male of their Bodies …

Following which, it would go to the heirs of Grizzel Grierson, who was a descendant of Homer Maxwell of Speddoch (see note 31 of Chapter 4). It then continued:

… and it should not be in the Power of the faid John Maxwell Younger, or any of the Heirs of Tailzie to alter or change the Order of Succeffion thereby eftablifhed, or to fell or mortgage any Part of the faid Lands and others aforefaid, nor to contract Debt, whereby any Part thereof might be charged or incumbered.

From this, therefore, it is quite clear the route by which Dorothea Clerk came to be heiress to the Middlebie estate on her mother Agnes’ death in March 1728; John Maxwell of Middlebie the Entailer and John Maxwell of Middlebie the Younger were both then dead.

As to the stipulation that the name Maxwell had to be used, the entail itself states:[24]

… [they] shall be obliged to assume bear and use the surname arms and designation of Maxwell of Midlbie [sic] as their proper arms surname and designation in all time hereafter.

But it also goes on to say:

… the said heirs female who shall succeed shall be obliged to marie gentlemen or adequate matches who shall use and weir the said name, arms and designation …

Furthermore, it stipulated that anyone who did not adhere to these conditions would forfeit their right to succeed.

Without the entail, Dorothea Clerk may not have become the sole successor to Middlebie. It specified that it would go to her notwithstanding that she was a female heir. It is not easy to say whether this would have been the outcome without the entail, but the entail certainly made certain of it. It also ensured that the property of Middlebie that she became heir to could not be sold off and split up. The creditors of John Maxwell of Middlebie and his son John Maxwell the Younger would have to wait for a further ten years after Agnes’ death to see any of their money. Finally, the provisions of this entail created the Clerk Maxwell name which had to be taken by Dorothea’s husband, George Clerk, at the time she eventually inherited her property in 1738.

6.4       The Maxwell of Speddoch Line

Before leaving the Maxwells, we now briefly return to the origins of Marion Maxwell, the wife of the first John Maxwell of Middlebie. The story is of more than passing interest because it reveals the relationship between the Maxwells, the Church they followed, and the Church they had to live with.

The first John Maxwell of Middlebie married Marion Maxwell, the youngest daughter of Homer Maxwell of Speddoch[25] and their marriage took place in 1628 (see Family Tree3). Being one of many lesser cadets of the Maxwells, it is hard to find anything more than mere fragments about them. Nevertheless, we do know that a previous Homer Maxwell was a burgess of Dumfries and, in 1543, a Baillie (Johnstone, 1889, p. 200).

By 1569, the Abbey of Hollywood near Dumfries had been secularised, and its rights and lands returned to the Crown (Barbour, 1884−85, pp. 64−65). Homer Maxwell, son of the earlier Baillie of Dumfries,[26] was one of the Maxwells who benefited from this for he was granted a sasine on part of the Abbey lands about seven miles to the north-west of Dumfries. This place was called Speddoch (see Figure 2.1), whence Homer gained the appendage to his name. It is rather likely that Homer had been a hereditary tacksman there before he received the grant of the land (Aitken, 1887−88, pp. 113−114), but at any rate McDowall (1873, pp. 208, 272, 774) informs us that by 1584 he was a Commissary of Dumfries and by 1593, its Provost. He was also a Baillie in 1585 and a Commissioner (representative) for the burgh at a Convention of the Scottish Parliament. As a henchman of the 8^th Lord Maxwell, he was present at the battle of Dryfe Sands in 1593:

The town Dumfries two hundred sent,
All picked and chosen every one;
With them their Provost, Maxwell, went,
A bold, intrepid, daring man.                                (McDowall, 1873, p. 272)

Homer died c.1611 and was succeeded by his son who, unsurprisingly, was another Homer Maxwell of Speddoch (Aitken, 1887−88, p. 120).

Now, we may guess that in profiting from the demise of the abbey, Commissary Homer Maxwell of Speddoch had converted to the Protestant Church. Furthermore, the Provost and Baillies had to attend the Kirk for the Sunday service.[27] But if so, any such apparent conversion was unlikely to be genuine because, even as late as 1588, the reformation was struggling to take hold in and around Dumfries. In that particular year a special General Assembly had to be convened to deal with the problem (McDowall, 1873, p. 235), and our  Commissary Homer Maxwell appears in a list of those found guilty of attending illegal masses conducted by an itinerant Jesuit priest:

… the Lord Hereis [kinsman of 8^th Lord Maxwell] … Mr. Homer Maxwell, commissar, John Mackgie, commissar clerk … My Ladie Hereis, elder and younger, my Ladie Morton [Lord Maxwell’s wife] … the Lady Tweddail, Papists, apostats, interteaners, and professed favourers of Jesuits.   (McDowall, 1873, p. 236) 

There are also numerous examples in Dumfries of people being called before the kirk session to be denounced for the sort of nonconformities that marked them out as Catholics.[28]

It is clear that the Maxwell Lords and their kinsmen served two masters: the Roman Catholic Church, on the one hand, and the Crown, which espoused the Protestant Church, on the other. While they could not serve both masters simultaneously, they would serve whichever master happened to be pressing on them most urgently at the time, that is to say, when they deigned to serve either of them. A typical example how people in general behaved is that of Maister Ninian Dalzell, who in 1579 was a licensed minister and head of the protestant grammar school in Dumfries – in spite of which his pupils were being taught the Roman catechism (Aitken, 1887−88, p. 120)! Maister Ninian, however, was eventually found out and duly sacked by the General Assembly. For most people it would have been simply a case of doing whatever was necessary to get by, and such dissimulation was simply a means to an end; only a person with totally inflexible principles would have thought to do otherwise.

The second and last of our Homer Maxwells of Speddoch married Nicolas, possibly also a Maxwell, who died in January 1641 (DGFHS, 2008); this is about as much as we know about her, but it does corroborate Family Tree 3. Homer and Nicolas had a daughter, Marion, and it was she who married back into Lord Maxwell’s family in 1628 by marrying John Maxwell of Middlebie, the first of the Maxwells of that line (see §6.2). After she joined that line, we hear no more of the Maxwells of Speddoch.

Summary of the Maxwell of Speddoch Line

1. Homer Maxwell, a Burgess of Dumfries who was also a Baillie in 1543. He, or his son, acquired the lands of Speddoch from Lord Maxwell. In 1547 he married Janet Gordon, and had a son, Homer.
2. Homer Maxwell of Speddoch, Baillie and Commissary of Dumfries, Provost 1593−94, who was at the Battle of Dryfe Sands with Lord Maxwell in 1593. He died in 1611, whereupon he was succeeded by his son, also Homer.
3. Homer Maxwell of Speddoch, who married Nicolas (probably also aMaxwell) and died in 1641 and whose youngest daughter was Marion.
4. Marion Maxwell, who firstly married John Maxwell, the first Maxwell of Middlebie (see §6.2) in 1628. After his murder in 1639, she married Andrew Stewart. She adhered to Roman Catholicism and died on 4 January 1674.

Notes

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[1]          Similarly to other named stretches on the River Tweed near Kelso such as Doctor’s Well, Sprouston Dub and Carham Weil.

[2]            DGA: GGD56/8, loose sheet.

[3]          On the OS map, the main site is shown as being between Lochmaben and Lockerbie, on the east bank of the Dryfe water, about a mile upstream of its confluence with the Annan. For an account of the Battle of Dryfe Sands see, for example, (Pitcairn, 1833, pp. 28‒53).

[4]          The sources of this account of the battle are Johnstone (1889, pp. 122‒4), Lawson (1849, pp. 79‒84) and McDowall (1873, pp. 270‒81)

[5]          It may be relevant that his grandmother Beatrix, wife of the 6^th Lord Maxwell, had a history of mental illness

[6]          Pitcairn (1833, pp. 28‒53) gives an account of the trial.

[7]          Johnstone (1889, pp. 153‒5), Lawson(1849, pp. 84‒7) and McDowall (1873, pp. 282‒93). The instrument of his death was the ‘Maiden’, an early form of guillotine. He and the Earl of Morton therefore suffered the same fate.

[8]          According to Paul (1909, p. 483) ‘As a Catholic he [the 8^th Lord Maxwell] played a somewhat disturbing part in public affairs.’, while according to Mackenzie (1841, p. 21) the 9^th Lord died on the scaffold in ‘… in the profession of the Roman Catholic faith.’ The 10^th Lord, the Earl of Nithsdale, was described as being ‘a papist’ in 1678 (ibid, p. 209). For refusing to take the oath under the 1681 Act Anent Religion and the Test, he forfeited the Stewardship of Kirkcudbright (ibid, p. 243).
By 1715 the Earls of Nithsdale, and in general their people, were still staunchly Roman Catholic:

…many Roman Catholic families… religion to which they were sincerely attached… Amongst the[ir] number was [William] the [5^th and last]  Earl of Nithsdale, combining in his person the representation of the noble families of Herries and Maxwell.          (ibid., p. 364)                                           

and, of the same Earl of Nithsdale:

His mother…educated him in sentiments of devotion to the Catholic faith and of loyalty to the House of Stuart, for which his family was famous.            (Scott, 1913)

In February 1716 he escaped execution for his part in the rebellion by famously being spirited out of the Tower of London disguised as his wife’s maidservant. They lived in exile and penury in Rome, adherents of the Roman Catholic faith to the end of their days. See also Mackenzie (1841b, pp. 209‒10, 243, 364).

[9]          Curiously, so did James Johnstone 1^st Earl of Hartfell, whose father, Sir James Johnstone of Dunskellie, had been murdered by Nithsdale’s brother, John, 9^th Lord Maxwell!

[10]          John and Thomas Blake, or Black, were imprisoned at Dumfries for the murder of John Maxwell of Middlebie in 1639. They were held at the order of Middlebie’s half-brother, Lord Robert Maxwell, 1^st Earl of Nithsdale, and kept in irons for over two years without any sort of trial. It would seem that the Earl had no more than a suspicion that the Blakes had a hand in his half-brother’s death, and his actions speak volumes about the degree of impunity with which the March Lords acted. NB: In (Burke, 1894, pp. 1365‒6, Vol. 2), Thomas Blake is referred to as Robert Blake.

[11]          See entry 25 in DGA: GGD56/13.22, Inventory of Writs for Middlebie, 1738).

[12]          Burke (1894, pp. 1365‒6) says that she was from a Northumberland family, but the principle seat of the Dacres was in Cumberland, around Naworth and Kirklinton, just east of Carlisle. The Dacres of Naworth were already connected with the Maxwells; Hugh, 4^th Lord Dacre, married Elizabeth, daughter of John, 3^rd Lord Maxwell c.1350.

[13]          DGA: RGD56/13; GGD56/8, loose sheet.

[14]          NRS: G1/1432/1.2, 25/5/1714

[15]          DGA: GGD56/21, Discharge Mrs Maxwell to Mrs Leblanc 1728, 1/2/1728)

[16]          SWT: John Maxwell of Middlebie, CC5/6/9, 22/1/1729 & Eik of 11/2/1729. The testament, written a year later, leaves the date blank, whereas the ‘eik’ written about three weeks later indicates only February 1728. Since the discharge by Mrs Maxwell (Grace Smith) is dated 1/2/1728, January seems to be far more likely.

[17]          NRS: GD18/2575, 1702 &1715. The names McLellan and McMillan are so similar there could be some confusion here, with the potential that both this Robert and his uncle Robert 3(ii) are both linked to the same family.

[18]          NRS: GD18/2593, ?/6/1730.

[19]          DGA: GGD56/31/13, 7/4/1707 refers to a bond of provision that John Maxwell 3(i) made for ‘his eldest daughter, Anna, by Dorothea Ballantine his spouse’.

[20]          FamilySearch.org, reference 2:1615B50 (accessible through NLS digital collections, registration required).

[21]          FamilySearch.org, ref. 2:17NJNG4.

[22]          FamilySearch.org, ref. pal:/MM9.1.1/XYWV-BHW.

[23]          DGA: GGD56/36, ?/6/1722.

[24]          DGA: GGD56/36, Copy of the Middlebie Entail, pp. 29−30, 9/6/1722.

[25]          SCAN: Person Code NA24209, Maxwell, of Middlebie Dumfriesshire, 17^th−19^th C. See the record narrative under ‘activity’. See also Burke (1894, pp. 1365−1366). The place Speddoch is about 7 miles northwest of Dumfries (see Figure 2.1).

[26]          McDowall  1873, p. 208 and Family Tree 3.

[27]          As implied in Aitken (1887−88, p. 122).

[28]          Bryson & Veitch (1825) and as reviewed in Literary Gazette (1825, p. 419).