Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 37.djvu/140

 while on the king's service in the west march (ib. p. 109); but the king remained distrustful of him, and on 14 April 1587 he undertook to go abroad and not to return without the king's license (ib. p. 159). In June he was superseded as warden by Lord Herries (ib. p. 188), and on 29 July the earldom of Morton was ratified by parliament to the Earl of Angus.

Maxwell was closely connected with the intrigues of Lord Claud Hamilton [q. v.] for a Spanish invasion (cf., Relations Politiques, v. 453; , v. 14, 24, 27). In April 1588 he returned to Scotland without license, and began to assemble his followers to be in readiness to assist the Spaniards either in Scotland or England (ib. iv. 678). On 25 April an act was passed against resetting or harbouring him, and in May the king took the field against him in person (Reg. P. C. Scotl. iv. 286–92). Maxwell had fortified and garrisoned the castle of Lochmaben, but on the king's arrival at Dumfries he left it in charge of a lieutenant and went on board his ship. So hotly, however, was he pursued by Sir William Stewart that he was forced to take to his boat and go on shore, where on the 5th he was captured in a hut (, iv. 678). After being conveyed to Dumfries, he was brought by the king—who committed the government of the district to Angus, the new earl of Morton—to Edinburgh, where he was warded in a private house under the custody of Sir William Stewart (ib. p. 679). To attend the arrival of the queen (ib. v. 59) he was in September released from imprisonment on giving caution in 100,000l. Scots to do nothing ‘tending to the trouble or alteration of the state of religion presently professed and by law established’ (Reg. P. C. Scotl. iv. 412). On 11 July 1592 he was appointed warden of the west march under the title of Earl of Morton (ib. p. 767); but on the 12th an act was passed declaring that the designation of Earl of Morton applied to him in the last acts shall not prejudice William, earl of Morton, lord Dalkeith (ib. p. 768; cf., sixth or seventh ).

On 26 Jan. 1592–3 Morton subscribed the confession of faith before the presbytery of Edinburgh (, v. 222); but his small respect for presbyterian devotions was evidenced on 2 Feb. by his personal encounter with the rival Earl of Morton in reference to the possession of a pew in the kirk of Edinburgh. They were, however, ‘parted, without sword drawn, by the provost, and convoyed to their lodgings’ (ib.) Notwithstanding his act of conformity an advertisement against him and other ‘Spanish factioners’ was, on 17 Feb., affixed to the Tolbooth. He was slain on 7 Dec. following at Dryfe Sands, in an encounter with the forces of the laird of Johnstone. Having a commission of lieutenancy for Johnstone's apprehension, he was proceeding at the head of two thousand men to lay siege to Johnstone's house of Lochwood, when he was caught in an ambush and put to flight. He is said to have been struck from his horse by Johnstone himself, and killed as he lay helpless on the ground (, p. 110;, v. 290). The body lay unburied till February 1597–8, when on the 14th an order of council was made for the burial of him and the Earl of Moray (the ‘Bonnie Earl,’ slain by Huntly) ‘in the accustomed places of their predecessors within twenty days’ (Reg. P. C. Scotl. v. 445). Spotiswood describes Maxwell as ‘a nobleman of great spirit, humane, courteous, and more learned than noblemen commonly are, but aspiring and ambitious of rule.’ By his wife, Lady Elizabeth Douglas, daughter of the seventh earl of Angus, he had three sons and four daughters. The sons were: John, eighth or ninth baron [q. v.]; Robert, ninth or tenth baron, and afterwards earl of Nithsdale; and James of Kirkconnel and Springkell, master of Maxwell. The daughters were: Elizabeth, married to John Maxwell, baron Herries; Margaret, to John Wallace of Craigie; Jean, unmarried; and Agnes to William Douglas of Penzerie. 

MAXWELL, JOHN, eighth or ninth (1586?–1612), eldest son of John, seventh or eighth baron Maxwell [q. v.], by his wife Lady Elizabeth Douglas, was born about 1586 and was served heir to his father 10 March 1596–7. His guardian was William Maxwell, fifth baron Herries [q. v.] A combination of circumstances tended to foster in him a peculiar lawlessness; he had the death of his father at the hand of Johnstone to revenge; he was at feud with the Douglases, earls of Morton, regarding that earldom; and his hereditary faith was catholic. He was thus in perpetual conflict with the government, and special acts had constantly to be passed by the council to hold him in restraint. On 27 June 1598 he attended a