Dance Maxwell's Rant 4239

The Maxwells were a most prolific family. A dozen or so cadet branches of the house of Maxwell are scattered about the Lowlands from the Borders to Renfrewshire and the Clyde. Their castles and keeps were many, the most important the now ruined but still awesome Caerlaverock.

Caerlaverock in Dumfries-shire was a Maxwell stronghold from the time of the13th century John de Maccuswell. The great triangular castle – the “Lark’s Nest” – was besieged, captured and recaptured many times when the English were battering the Border during the war of Scottish independence, and the castle was finally dismantled by the covenanting army in 1640 after a siege that lasted for three months.

The Maxwells grew to early power when they were made Wardens of the West March, but before that though they were political forces to be reckoned with. Maccus’ grandson, Sir John (d. 1241) was royal chamberlain and his brother, Sir Aymer, was Justiciar of Galloway. Sir Herbert of Maxwell recognised Margaret of Norway as Queen of Scotland after the death of Alexander III in 1286 and was a supporter of John Balliol after the child queen’s death. (See “The Auld Alliance”) Sir Eustace (d. 1342) swayed wildly in the strong political winds. He held Caerlaverock for Edward I of England in 1312, but dismantled the castle’s fortifications with the rise of Robert Bruce. A signator of the Declaration of Arbroath, that warning to Pope John XXII that the Scots would have no other king but Robert, Sir Eustace later favoured Edward Balliol for a time, but then swung back to full support of the Bruce line in David II. His brother, Sir John, fought with David II at the battle of Neville’s Cross where he was captured and sent to the Tower of London where he died. Sir Herbert Maxwell was knighted when James I returned from English captivity in 1424 and was a Lord of Parliament during the reign of James II. John, 4th Lord Maxwell, imprisoned by James for his lawless activities on the Borders, died ad Flodden in 1513. The fifth Lord Maxwell, Robert (d. 1546), a member of the Royal Council, Great Admiral of Scotland, escorted Mary of Lorraine to Scotland in 1538, was captured at Solway Moss in 1542 and released only after he promised to aid Henry VIII in his Scottish aspirations, a promise which he did not keep.

It was in the latter half of the 16th century, with the Wardenship of the West March the chief bone of contention, that the Maxwells became involved in a feud with the Johnstones, a feud which resulted in the death of the Laird of Johnstone in 1608 at the hands of John, 9th Lord Maxwell, who fled to France, returned to Scotland and was beheaded in 1613.

The wind was fair, and the ship was clare,
  And the good Lord went away;
The most part of his friends was there,
  Giving him a fair convoy.

They drank the wine, they did not spare,
  Presentting in that good Lord’s sight;
Now he is on the floods so gray;
  Lord Maxwell has te’n his last good-night.

The executed Lord Maxwell’s brother, Robert, succeeded and in 1620 was created Earl of Nithsdale by Charles I. William, 5th Earl of Nithsdale, was an ardent Jacobite. He was captured at the battle of Preston in 1715, tried and sentenced to a traitor’s death. The ingenious and brave Lady Nithsdale, however, rescued her husband from the Tower of London by dressing him in women’s clothing just before his execution and together they escaped to the court in Rome of the Old Pretender, James Edward Stuart, where Nithsdale, his title forfeit, died in 1744.