that he may have been connected with Maccus, son of Anlaf, the expelled king of Northumbria, who slew with his own hand the usurping Eric, King Harold's son, together with his son and brother, on the wilds of Stanmore. Again, he may have been kinsman to Maccus of Mar and the Hebrides, who was one of the eight petty kings that formed Edgar's crew on the river Dee, and who unblushingly signs himself Archipirata' when witnessing a charter still in existence. At any rate, 'looking at the important position the second Maccus took at once in Scotland, and at the identity of the names,' Mr. Fraser thinks it possible that he may have been a descendant of the royal archpirate.' With the same amount of probability he may have been connected with Maxtoke in Warwickshire, one of the Saxon manors which the Norman invader so charitably bestowed on his favourites. Maxtoke is said to have been the property of Almundus, or Ailwynd, which with'out any straining may be regarded as identical with Undeweyn. This would lead to the inference that some of Undwyn's an'cestors had borne the name of Maccus from which the desig'nation of their property was taken.' (Vol. i. p. 2.)

6

However this may be, there is no doubt that Maccus was an important personage, if not in the time of Malcolm Caumore himself, yet certainly in that of his sons, Alexander I. and David I., holding probably, as his son and grandson did, the office of Sheriff of Roxburghshire or Teviotdale. From the last-mentioned sovereign he cbtained the manor of Maccuswell, or Maxwell, originally, no doubt, a part of the royal domains. Here he built his castle, of which however the very site is now unknown. It continued to be the property of the Maxwells till 1601, when the manor was sold in two portions, one of which is at present possessed by the Duke of Roxburgh, the other by Sir G. H. S. Douglas, Bart., who changed the name of Maxwell, or rather Bridgend, as it had come to be called, to Springwood Park. The castle was soon abandoned as a residence in favour of Carlaverock, which, as we have scen, was certainly in the possession of the family before 1300, and is said indeed to have been acquired by a grandson of the founder.

Authorities are by no means agreed as to the derivation of the name of Maxwell. Chalmers, Riddell, Innes, &c., pronounce for its being a shortened form of Maccusville, answering to Somerville, Umfraville, Frecheville, and other names of similar termination. None of the older charters, however, furnish an instance of this spelling, and Mr. Fraser ventures on a new etymology. Before acquiring the new

domain Maccus seems to have lived at Maccuston, or Maxton. On his change of residence the natural name for his new castle was already appropriated, and to make a distinction between it and the old castle some feature of the surrounding country would be sought.

'Near Maxwellheugh there is a salmon-cast, well known to anglers as Maxwheel (wele, well, or weil being the Saxon for an eddy), the well of Maccus. This eddy wheeled in Tweed before that river had a name, and the character of the rock which produces it must have made it a noted spot before Saxon set foot on Scottish ground. Maccus having fixed his residence on the heights above this eddy, what more natural than that it should be called the wele of Maccus; that his descendants should be spoken of as those who came from the neighbourhood of Maccuswele-de Maccus wele. If they were once so designated, the name would soon assume the form of Maxwell.' (Vol. i. pp. 16, 17.)

The earliest use of the name appears to be that in a charter, of 1159, by Herbert, the eldest son of Maccus, a generous friend of the Church, wherein he describes himself as Herbert de Macuswel. Remembering the unconstrained license in spelling which those who could write at all then indulged in, we are not surprised to find the two other forms Maccuswel and Maccuswell, which Mr. Fraser gives, or even the yet other nine varieties which appear in the 'Origines parochiales Scotia' (vol. i. pp. 297, 445).

The son of this Herbert was in no little favour with the kings in whose reigns he lived, and was often employed by them in matters of state. By Alexander II. he was twice sent with other ambassadors to England, once in 1215, on business not definitely specified, and again on a more important mission in 1220, when he was one of the persons entrusted to negotiate a marriage between his sovereign and the Princess Joanna of England, sister of Henry III. Soon after this Maxwell appears as a knight, a distinction probably conferred as a reward for the success of these negotiations; and he is found in constant attendance upon the king who, in 1230, appointed him Lord Chamberlain, an office which, for whatever reasons, he soon resigned.

In Sir John's brother and successor, Aymer, we find the first example of the modern spelling, Maxwell. During the minority of Alexander III. he joined himself to the Comyns, or 'national' party, with varying fortunes, until 1251, when during the festivities at York in honour of the marriage of the king-then ten years old-with Margaret, daughter of Henry III., Alan Durward, the Lord Justiciary of Scotland and leader of the opposite faction, was detected in an attempt to

secure, through the influence of the pope, the succession of the kingdom, if the king should die without issue, in favour of his own children by the king's natural sister whom he had married. Aymer was one of the new guardians appointed by the English king, who had designs of his own about Scotland, and continued to be so till 1255, when Durward, who had ingratiated himself with Henry, succeeded in getting the Earl of Gloucester and others sent from England, who were to take means to remove Maxwell and his associates from their office. Queen Margaret had found Scotland a far from comfortable home, and jealousy towards England was suggested as the cause of the treatment she was reported to be receiving. A meeting between the two opposing factions at Edinburgh seemed likely to bring about a satisfactory understanding, when the Durward party, on the advice of the English ambassadors, suddenly entered the castle and made the king and queen prisoners, carrying them off to Roxburgh Castle, where King Henry met them. An Act passed soon afterwards ordered the exclusion of the former guardians from their office, King Alexander declaring that it was specially granted at the instance of his dearest father Henry, who 'for our honour and advantage and for the honour and advantage of our kingdom, had by his favour personally come to the borders of the kingdoms of England and Scotland.'

But retribution soon came. The new Bishop of St. Andrews was outlawed by the new guardians and the revenues of his bishopric seized. The case was brought before the pope, who made short work of the bishop's enemies by excommunicating them with bell, book, and candle' in every church and chapel in the kingdom, and finally by name as contumacious offenders in the abbey church of Cambuskenneth.

The fear of a possible interdict put great power into the hands of Maxwell and his friends, which was increased by the influence of Mary de Couci, widow of Alexander II., who with John de Brienne, her second husband, passed at that time through England to Scotland. They ventured accordingly in 1257 to enter the king's room at Kinross by night, seized his person as he lay in bed, got possession of the great seal, a moveable of novel introduction, and went off with their prize to Stirling. Durward fled to England, and his party was broken up. Aymer Maxwell now became Lord Chamberlain, and afterwards Justiciar of Galloway and Sheriff of Dumfriesshire. He is said to have fallen at the battle of Largs in

*

*Burton's History of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 99. (1867.)

1263, but he was certainly alive in the following year, and 1266 is a more probable date for his decease.

Through his wife, Mary Makgaghan, he acquired the lands and barony of Mearns in Renfrewshire, which continued in possession of the family of Maxwell for 400 years. From one of his sons, John, is descended the Pollok branch of the family, now represented by Sir W. Stirling Maxwell, Bart., of Pollok.

The fifth Lord Maxwell's lot was cast in troublous times. King Alexander III. was killed by an accident in 1285, and his only descendant then living, the Maiden of Norway,' died on her way to Scotland in 1290, at the early age of eight. Twelve competitors appeared for the vacant throne; but they were soon reduced to two, Bruce and Baliol, both descended from a brother of William the Lion; the first a son of the younger, the other a grandson of the elder daughter. The King of England was asked to act as umpire, and he very cleverly seized the opportunity of being acknowledged as Lord Superior of the Kingdom of Scotland-a title that had been extorted at the time of the captivity of William the Lion, but generously renounced by Richard I. Maxwell supported Baliol's claims, which were also pronounced valid by the King of England.

But

Edward's pretensions to be Lord Paramount soon led to serious complications. Baliol's gratitude at first induced him to make concessions, which he afterwards regretted. when Edward, on making war against France, called on the Scots as his vassals to join him, Baliol, so far from complying, entered into a treaty offensive and defensive with France, and for a marriage between his own eldest son, the heir apparent, and a niece of the French king. Edward was not long in taking vengeance. The fatal field of Dunbar, in which Bruce fought on the side of the English, laid the country at his mercy, and Baliol had nothing to do but submit, and to be taken from one place of captivity to another till he arrived at the Tower of London. About the same time Sir Herbert de Makeswell, Knight,' amongst others, did homage to Edward

at Berwick-on-Tweed.

Soon afterwards a new champion of Scotland arose in the person of Wallace, of Ellerslie. Several strongholds in Nithsdale fell into his power, and a party of English were routed at Dalswinton Wood. One night the hero found entertainment and welcome at Carlaverock, and soon after this the famous siege of the castle took place (but strange to say whether Sir Herbert Maxwell, or his son John, or his grandson Eustace,

was then in possession, seems quite uncertain), to be followed by the brutal death of Wallace himself in 1305.

The following year saw Robert Bruce (grandson of the former claimant), who had repented of the active part he had hitherto taken against his country, crowned King of Scotland: but Sir Eustace Maxwell, the then head of the family, is found in 1312 on the side of Edward II., who, in order that his friend might more effectually keep Carlaverock, remitted him the yearly payment of 221. due to the Exchequer at Berwick. But Maxwell soon changed his mind and joined Bruce, which led to a second siege of the castle. This time however, though operations were carried on for several weeks, they were so feebly conducted that the attempt was abandoned. It does not appear that Sir Eustace, or any of the Maxwells, can boast of having been at Bannockburn.

We next find Sir Eustace taking part in the famous letter to Pope John XXII., who, under Edward's influence, had excommunicated Robert Bruce and all his party, and laid Scotland under an interdict. One hundred and thirteen kings, so ran the letter, had reigned over them, and no foreigner had interfered till Edward of England came, and by his tyranny caused grievous sufferings. Robert the Bruce had happily delivered them-to him they were bound to adhere. The pope ought to tell the King of England to mind his own business and not meddle with his neighbours. And it concluded thus: If your Holiness, too credulous of the misrepresentations of 'the English, do not give fair credence to what we have said, nor cease to favour them to our confusion, all the destruction of life, ruin of souls, and other calamities which they shall inflict on us and we on them, will, we believe, be laid to 'your charge by the Most High.' This outspoken epistle, of which one of the original copies was found in the Earl of Haddington's charter room at Tyninghame, and is now in the Register House, Edinburgh, has been photographed for that very valuable and interesting work The National Manuscripts of Scotland.' We have no hesitation about agreeing with the learned editor when he says that It is surely the noblest burst of patriotic feeling, the finest declaration of independence that real history has to show and that has been preserved in the language in which it was uttered. We can forgive the Scotch schoolmaster who used this letter as an exercise for his boys in Latin, holding that its patriotism 'covered any defects of Latinity.'*

* Pt. ii. p. viii. See Photog. No. xxv.