MAITLAND, SIR RICHARD

MAITLAND, SIR RICHARD, a cultivator and preserver of Scottish poetry, was the son of William Maitland of Lethington, and of a daughter of George Lord Seaton. He was born in 1496, and after passing through a regular course of study at the university of St Andrews, he repaired to France, in accordance with the custom of that age, to finish his education. There he devoted himself chiefly to the study of law. On his return to Scotland, Maitland successively held office under James V., the Regent Arran, and Mary of Guise. In the government of the last, according to Sir John Scot, he was lord privy seal. He was appointed an extraordinary lord of session in 1551, and was knighted soon afterwards. In 1561 he celebrated the landing of Queen Mary by his ode on The Queenis Arryvale in Scotland, and from this poem we learn that its author had already lost his sight. Yet this deprivation, interfering to no great extent with his professional activity, did not retard his promotion. In this same year he was nominated an ordinary lord of session; and in 1562 a member of the privy council and lord privy seal. This last office he resigned in 1567 in favour of his second son, afterwards Lord Thirlstane. The blindness, as well as the peaceful disposition of Sir Richard Maitland, prevented him from mingling in the civil broils that followed the death of Darnley and the marriage of the queen with Bothwell. Yet, on account of the conduct of his eldest son, the famous secretary of Mary, his estate was seized by the king's party, and not till after the fall of the Regent Morton was it restored. In 1583 he received from the lords of session an exemption

from regular attendance on his judicial duties, and he retired of his own accord in 1584. He died in 1586, at the age of ninety. Sir Richard Maitland's claim to notice rests on his valuable collection of Scottish poetry, still preserved in manuscript in the Pepysian Library, Magdalene College, Cambridge. It consists of two volumes, the one a folio, containing 176 pieces, and the other a quarto, containing 96. An edition of Maitland's own poems was published in 1830 by the Maitland Club, a society of literary antiquaries who have assumed his name.