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Marie Maitland

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Marie Maitland
Bornc. 1550
Died1596
Other names
  • Mary Maitland
  • Lady Haltoun

Marie Maitland (c. 1550[1] – 1596) was a Scottish writer and poet, a member of the Maitland family of Lethington and Thirlestane Castle, and later Lady Haltoun. Her first name is sometimes written as "Mary".

Early life

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Marie Maitland was a daughter of Sir Richard Maitland of Lethington and Thirlestane (1496–1586)[2] and Mariotta (or Margaret) Cranstoun (died 1586), the daughter of Sir Thomas Cranstoun of Corsbie, Berwickshire, Scotland.[3]

Marie had three brothers and three sisters. Her eldest brother, William Maitland of Lethington (died 1573), was Secretary to Mary, Queen of Scots.[4] Her second eldest brother was John Maitland, 1st Lord Maitland of Thirlestane (1543-1595), Lord Chancellor of Scotland.[4]

Maitland manuscripts and poetry

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Portion of the Maitland Quarto Manuscript
Two pages of the Maitland Quarto Manuscript transcribed by Marie.[5] The original is in the Pepys Library in Cambridge.

Marie recorded and preserved her father's extensive writings as his sight became increasingly poor, eventually resulting in his blindness. The Maitland folio and quarto manuscripts are anthologies of poems compiled and authored by the Maitland family and are important sources for Scots literature of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.[1][3]

The manuscripts are written in Italic and Secretary hands. John Pinkerton, who published many of the poems in 1786, was the first to suggest that Marie Maitland was the scribe. Her name appears twice on the titlepage of the quarto manuscript, written around 1586. Pinkerton suggested that one poem alludes to her work writing the manuscript, in which the author asks for Diana's favours.[6][7] The text of poem 69 in the Quarto includes her name.[8][9][10]

Pinkerton's views were challenged by William Craigie in 1920, who considered that Marie was not the scribe of the Quarto manuscript.[11][12][13][14] Recent scholars accept that Marie wrote most of the text and may have authored some of the verse. Some poems within the Maitland Quarto were composed by Marie Maitland while others name her or are dedicated to her. Sveral poems seem written in a female voice,[15] or employ imagery and metaphor which indicate female authorship.[16] These lines, in the Scots language, come from the end of Poem 49, which was almost certainly written by Marie.[17]

And thoucht adversitie ws vex
Yit be our freindschip salbe sein
Thair is mair constancie in our sex
Than evir amang men hes bein

And though adversity us vex
Yet by our freindship shall be seen
There is more constancy in our sex
Than ever among men has been.[18][19]

The Maitland Quarto contains explicitly lesbian poetry penned by Marie, which is among the earliest Sapphic poetry in any language in Europe since the time of Sappho herself. The Maitland Quarto is a significant primary source of Scottish and world LGBT history.[20] In February 2021, in a long-form blog for the National Library of Scotland published for LGBT+ history month, Scottish historian Ashley Douglas wrote about poem 49 as a lesbian love poem in Marie's own hand, and first described her as a "sixteenth-century Scottish Sappho".[21] Since then, Douglas has worked with a range of organisations and used many platforms to continue to share the significance of Marie Maitland and her poetry as widely as possible. Douglas has worked with educational charity Time for Inclusive Education to develop secondary school lesson plans about the poetry of Marie Maitland and the Scotland in which she lived and wrote, which formed part of the world-first launch of LGBT inclusive education in Scotland. They also commissioned an imagined modern portrait of Marie Maitland, which is currently on display at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery.[22]

A forthcoming book by Ashley Douglas, With My Own Hand: The secret life of Marie Maitland, Scotland's sixteenth-century Sappho, draws on a range of primary sources to tell the story of Marie Maitland and her manuscript and its lesbian love poetry. The book is being published by Headline Press (an imprint of Hachette) on 16 July 2026.[23]

Lennoxlove and Lethington

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Amongst the verse in the Maitland manuscripts, Joanna Martin identifies Lethington (No. 68) as one of the earliest examples of the 'country house' genre.[24] The poem describes the old tower at Lethington (Lennoxlove) and its gardens from the viewpoint of an exile.[25]

Lethington Castle, the family home, was confiscated in 1571 during the Marian Civil War following her brother William Maitland's arraignment for treason.[26][27] Pamela M. King has suggested that, as one of Sir Richard Maitlands's younger children, Marie Maitland could still have been living at Lethington in 1571, and attributes the poem Lethington, to Marie, as her response to that experience.[28]

Family and literary relationships

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Marie was a property owner before her marriage, as the principal "tackswoman" of the teind sheaves of Bolton parish. A tack was a kind of lease, and Marie was entitled to an income from the harvest of farms in the parish. On 30 July 1582, she made over rights to the harvest at Marwyngstoun (now Marvingston) to Richard Cranstoun, who would pay her 10 merks annually for the next 19 years.[29] She also received an income from the estates of Dundas of Dundas Castle as interest for a loan or "annualrent". Marie Maitland wrote and signed receipts for George Dundas, known as "acquittances". She signed some of these receipts at Lethington.[30]

Marie Maitland married Alexander Lauder of Haltoun in June 1586.[31][32][33] Alexander Lauder was Sheriff Principal of Edinburgh, and was buried in Holyrood Abbey 14 November 1627.[34] Marie would not have been known as "Marie Lauder" after her marriage, because women in early modern Scotland did not usually adopt their husband's surnames.[35][36]

Hatton or Haltoun is an estate near Kirkliston in Ratho parish.[11] Alexander Lauder was a son of William Lauder (died 1596) and Jean Cockburn (died 1600). William Lauder was one of several lairds involved in the murder of David Rizzio,[37][38] and he hosted the Earl of Bothwell at Hatton on 23 April 1567, the day before he abducted Mary, Queen of Scots.[39][40] The poet Alexander Scott, who wrote Ane New Yeir Gift to Quene Mary was a connection by marriage of the Lauders.[41]

Jean Cockburn's aunt or great aunt (who was Marie Maitland's niece), Elizabeth Douglas, Lady Temple Hall, seems also to have been a poet, working in the same circle of East Lothian poets,[42] but it has also been suggested that this poetic identity was Elizabeth Douglas, Countess of Erroll.[43]

Alexander Lauder with his younger brother got into trouble in 1596. They threatened Alexander McGill, the Provost of Corstorphine "under colour of friendship" because they wanted him to sign a contract.[44]

Marie Maitland, Lady Haltoun's children included:

  • Alexander Lauder younger of Hatton (died 1623),[45] who married Susannah Cunningham, a daughter of the Earl of Glencairn, and sister of the writer Margaret Cunningham.
  • Richard Lauder of Hatton (1589-1675), his younger daughter Elizabeth married Charles Maitland, later Earl of Lauderdale.[46]
  • Jane Lauder, who married (1) Alexander Hay of Smithfield, (2) Bryce Sempill of Boghauche and Cathcart.[47]
  • Helen Lauder (died 1620), who married Thomas Young of Leny, a lawyer.[48]

Marie Maitland died in June 1596. Soon after Marie's death, Alexander Lauder married Annabella Bellenden, a sister of the lawyer, Lewis or Ludovick Bellenden of Auchnoule, and sister-in-law of the courtier Margaret Livingstone, Countess of Orkney. Annabella would be a stepmother for their young children.[49]

George Lauder, a son of Alexander Lauder and Annabella Bellenden, was a soldier.[50][1] He was a friend of William Drummond of Hawthornden and gained a considerable reputation as a poet.[51]

References

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  1. 1 2 3 Crockett, William Shillinglaw (1893). Minstrelsy of the Merse: The Poets and Poetry of Berwickshire : a Country Anthology. J. and R. Parlane. p. 35.
  2. ↑ Henderson, Thomas Finlayson. "Maitland, Richard (1496-1586)" . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 35. pp. 368–370.
  3. 1 2 "Maitland, Mary (d. 1596), writer". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/68146. (Subscription, Wikipedia Library access or UK public library membership required.)
  4. 1 2 Loughlin, Mark (2008). "Maitland, William, of Lethington". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/17838.
  5. ↑ Lethington, Richard Maitland of (2012-02-12), English: Two pages from the Maitland Quarto Manuscript of Scots literature. Sixteenth Century. Held by the Pepys Library in Cambridge., retrieved 2019-09-23
  6. ↑ John Pinkerton, Ancient Scotish Poems, Never Before in Print, But Now Published from the MS Collections of Sir Richard Maitland, of Lethington, 2 (London, 1786), p. 467.
  7. ↑ Ashley Douglas, With My Own Hand (Headline Press, 2026), p. 164.
  8. ↑ Evelyn S. Newlyn, "A Methodology for Reading Against the Culture: Anonymous, Women Poets, and the Maitland Quarto Manuscript", Sarah Dunnigan, Woman and the Feminine in Medieval and Early Modern Scottish Writing (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), p. 92.
  9. ↑ W. A. Craigie, The Maitland Quarto Manuscript (Edinburgh: STS, 1920), p. 224
  10. ↑ Ashley Douglas, With My Own Hand (Headline Press, 2026), pp. 149–150.
  11. 1 2 Joanna M. Martin, The Maitland Quarto (Scottish Text Society, 2015), pp. 28-32.
  12. ↑ Andrea Thomas, Glory and Honour: The Renaissance in Scotland (Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2013), pp. 154, 173.
  13. ↑ W. A. Craigie, The Maitland Quarto Manuscript (Edinburgh: STS, 1920), p. v
  14. ↑ Evelyn S. Newlyn, "A Methodology for Reading Against the Culture: Anonymous, Women Poets, and the Maitland Quarto Manuscript", Sarah Dunnigan, Woman and the Feminine in Medieval and Early Modern Scottish Writing (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), p. 93.
  15. ↑ Sajed Chowdhury "'Thair Is Mair Constancie in o[u]r Sex / Then Euer Ama[n]g Men Hes Bein': The Metaphysics of Authorship in the Maitland Quarto Manuscript (ca. 1586).", Textual Cultures, 7:1 (2012), pp. 50–76. doi:10.2979/textcult.7.1.50
  16. ↑ Evelyn S. Newlyn, "A Methodology for Reading Against the Culture: Anonymous, Women Poets, and the Maitland Quarto Manuscript", Sarah Dunnigan, Woman and the Feminine in Medieval and Early Modern Scottish Writing (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), pp. 89–103.
  17. ↑ Jane Farnsworth, "Voicing Female Desire in Poem XLIX", Studies in English Literature, 1500–1900, 36: 1 (1996), pp. 57–72. doi:10.2307/450927
  18. ↑ Jane Stevenson & Peter Davidson, Early Modern Women Poets (1520-1700), An Anthology (Oxford, 2001), p. 98: Bob Harris & Alan R. MacDonald, Scotland: Making and Unmaking of the Nation (Dundee, 2006), p. 289.
  19. ↑ W. A. Craigie, The Maitland Quarto Manuscript (Edinburgh: STS, 1920), p. 162
  20. ↑ National Library of Scotland: Wee Windaes Poem 49
  21. ↑ "Ashley Douglas". Ashley Douglas. Retrieved 2026-01-26.
  22. ↑ Marie Maitland: Scotland's 16th century Sappho, SNPG
  23. ↑ "With My Own Hand: The secret life of Marie Maitland, Scotland's sixteenth-century Sappho". geni.us. Retrieved 2026-01-26.
  24. ↑ Martin, Joanna, "The Presentation of the Family in Maitland Writings", in Hadley-Williams, Janet & McClure, J. Derrick (eds.), Fresche Fontanis: Studies in the Culture of Medieval and Early Modern Scotland, Cambridge Scholars, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, pp. 318 - 330, ISBN 978-1-4438-4481-9
  25. ↑ Ashley Douglas, With My Own Hand (Headline Press, 2026), pp. 83–87.
  26. ↑ Lorna Hutson, England's Insular Imagining: The Elizabethan Erasure of Scotland (Cambridge, 2023), pp. 144–146, 152.
  27. ↑ Tricia A. McElroy, "The Uses of Genre and Gender in the 'The Dialogue of the Twa Wyfeis'", Joanna Martin and Emily Wingfield, Premodern Scotland: Literature and Governance (Oxford, 2017), pp. 200–201, 208.
  28. ↑ King, Pamela M., "Lethington, Marie Maitland, and the 'Maitland Quarto': Memorialisation and Performance in Times of 'Troubill' for Scotland", in Brown, Ian & Godard Desmarest, Clarisse (eds.) (2023), Writing Scottishness: Writing and the Shaping of National Identities, Association for Scottish Literature Occasional Papers Number 26, Glasgow, pp. 20-43, ISBN 978-1-908980-39-7
  29. ↑ Charles Harvey & John MacLeod, Calendar of Yester Writs (Edinburgh: Scottish Record Society, 1930), p. 229 no. 837.
  30. ↑ Ashley Douglas, With My Own Hand (Headline Press, 2026), pp. 126–127, 130, 137–141, 169–170.
  31. ↑ William S. McKechnie, "Thomas Maitland", The Scottish Historical Review, 4:15 (April 1907), p. 275.
  32. ↑ Emily Wingfield, "The Familial, Professional, and Literary Contexts of Edinburgh, National Archives of Scotland, Manuscript RH 13/35", Textual Cultures, 7:1 (Spring 2012), p. 79.
  33. ↑ Jane Stewart Smith, The Grange of St Giles, The Bass: and the other homes of Dick-Lauder family (Edinburgh: Constable, 1898), p. 239: A document held by the National Records of Scotland, GD89/1/446 (8 July 1586), mentions their marriage contract.
  34. ↑ Lorna Hutson, England's Insular Imagining: The Elizabethan Erasure of Scotland (Cambridge, 2023), p. 143.
  35. ↑ Jenny Wormald, Court, Kirk, and Community (London, 1981), p. 30.
  36. ↑ History Workshop, What's in a Surname? Rebecca Mason
  37. ↑ John Hill Burton, Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, vol. 1 (Edinburgh, 1877), p. 437.
  38. ↑ Henry Ellis, Original Letters, series 1 vol. 2 (London, 1824), p. 221.
  39. ↑ Robert Chambers, 'Locality of the Abduction of Queen Mary', PSAS, 2 (1859), p. 335
  40. ↑ James Anderson, Collections relating to the History of Mary Queen of Scots, 2, p. 275.
  41. ↑ Jane Stewart Smith, The Grange of St. Giles (Edinburgh, 1898), pp. 239-40: Register of the Privy Council', 1578-1585 (Edinburgh, 1880), pp. 237, 635, 637.
  42. ↑ Sebastiaan Verweij, The Literary Culture of Early Modern Scotland (Oxford, 2017), pp. 81, 84-87.
  43. ↑ Sarah Dunnigan, 'Douglas, Elizabeth, Countess of Erroll', New Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women (Edinburgh, 2018), p. 118.
  44. ↑ Winifred Coutts, The Business of the College of Justice in 1600 (Edinburgh: Stair Society, 2003), pp. 561-2, NRS CS7/187/346v.
  45. ↑ Jane Stewart Smith, The Grange of St Giles, The Bass: and the other homes of Dick-Lauder family (Edinburgh: Constable, 1898), p. 242.
  46. ↑ Jane Stewart Smith, The Grange of St. Giles (Edinburgh, 1898), pp. 245.
  47. ↑ Adrian Cox, 'Decorative Plaster', Brian Kerr, 'Cathcart Castle, Glasgow: Excavations 1980–81', Scottish Archaeological Journal, 38 (2016), pp. 61-66.
  48. ↑ Helen Lauder's will details her costume and jewellery, National Records of Scotland CC8/8/51 pp. 151-2.
  49. ↑ Jane Stewart Smith, The Grange of St. Giles (Edinburgh, 1898), p. 241.
  50. ↑ Bayne, T.W. "Lauder, George" . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 32. p. 195.
  51. ↑ Lorna Hutson, England's Insular Imagining: The Elizabethan Erasure of Scotland (Cambridge, 2023), p. 66: Jane Stewart Smith, The Grange of St. Giles (Edinburgh, 1898), pp. 243-5.
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