Marie Maitland Explained

Marie Maitland
Birth Date: 1550
Death Date:1596
Nationality:Scottish

Marie Maitland (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".

Poetry overview

She was the transcriber of the Maitland Quarto manuscript (1586) as well as a poet in her own right.[2] 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.[3] The Maitland Quarto is a significant primary source of Scottish and world LGBT history. Together with the Maitland Folio manuscript, the Maitland Quarto is one of the Maitland Manuscripts,[4] which are important sources for Scots literature of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. She recorded and preserved her father's extensive writings as his sight became increasingly poor, eventually resulting in his blindness.

Early life

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

Marie had three brothers and three sisters. Her eldest brother, William Maitland of Lethington (died 1573), was Secretary to Mary, Queen of Scots.[5] Her second eldest brother was John Maitland, 1st Lord Maitland of Thirlestane (1543-1595), Lord Chancellor of Scotland.

The Maitland Manuscripts

The Maitland folio and quarto manuscripts are anthologies of poems compiled and authored by the Maitland family. The manuscripts are written in Italic and Secretary hands. John Pinkerton was the first to suggest that Marie Maitland was the scribe. Her name appears twice on the titlepage of the quarto manuscript.[6] Some poems within the Maitland Quarto are written by her while others name her or are dedicated to her. These lines, in the Scots language, come from the end of Poem 49, which was almost certainly written by Marie.

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
.[7]

Pamela M. King has suggested that, as one of Sir Richard's younger children, Marie could still have been living at Lethington Castle, the family home, when it was confiscated in 1571 following her brother William's arraignment for treason, and that the poem Lethington (No. 68), which she attributes to her, was a response to that experience.[8] Joanna Martin has identified Lethington as being one of the earliest of the 'country house' genre of poems.[9]

In 2021, Scottish researcher and writer Ashley Douglas and the educational charity Time for Inclusive Education developed 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.[10]

Family and literary relationships

In 1586, Marie married Alexander Lauder of Haltoun, (buried in Holyrood Abbey 14 November 1627), Sheriff Principal of Edinburgh.[11] She 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.[12] [13]

Hatton or Haltoun is an estate near Kirkliston in Ratho parish. Alexander Lauder was a son of William Lauder (died 1596) and Jean Cockburn (died 1600). William Lauder hosted the Earl of Bothwell at Hatton on 23 April 1567, the day before he abducted Mary, Queen of Scots.[14] [15] The poet Alexander Scott, who wrote Ane New Yeir Gift to Quene Mary was a connection by marriage of the Lauders.[16] Jean Cockburn's aunt, Elizabeth Douglas, Lady Temple Hall, was a poet, working in the same circle of East Lothian poets.[17]

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.[18]

Marie Maitland, Lady Haltoun's children included:

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.[22]

George Lauder, a son of Alexander Lauder and Annabella Bellenden, was a soldier.[23] He was a friend of William Drummond of Hawthornden and gained a considerable reputation as a poet.[24]

Further reading

External links

Notes and References

  1. Book: Crockett, William Shillinglaw. Minstrelsy of the Merse: The Poets and Poetry of Berwickshire : a Country Anthology. 35. 1893. J. and R. Parlane. en.
  2. Andrea Thomas, Glory and Honour: The Renaissance in Scotland (Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2013), pp. 154, 173.
  3. https://wee-windaes.nls.uk/the-maitland-quarto-and-poem-49/ National Library of Scotland: Wee Windaes Poem 49
  4. 68146. Maitland, Mary (d. 1596), writer .
  5. Web site: Loughlin. Mark. Maitland, William, of Lethington. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
  6. Joanna M. Martin, The Maitland Quarto (Scottish Text Society, 2015), pp. 28-32.
  7. 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.
  8. 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,
  9. 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,
  10. https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/features/marie-maitland-scotlands-16th-century-sappho Marie Maitland: Scotland's 16th century Sappho, SNPG
  11. Lorna Hutson, England's Insular Imagining: The Elizabethan Erasure of Scotland (Cambridge, 2023), p. 143.
  12. Jenny Wormald, Court, Kirk, and Community (London, 1981), p. 30.
  13. https://www.historyworkshop.org.uk/womens-history/whats-in-a-surname/ History Workshop, What's in a Surname? Rebecca Mason
  14. Robert Chambers, 'Locality of the Abduction of Queen Mary', PSAS, 2 (1859), p. 335
  15. James Anderson, Collections relating to the History of Mary Queen of Scots, 2, p. 275.
  16. 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.
  17. Sebastiaan Verweij, The Literary Culture of Early Modern Scotland (Oxford, 2017), pp. 81, 84-87.
  18. Winifred Coutts, The Business of the College of Justice in 1600 (Edinburgh: Stair Society, 2003), pp. 561-2, NRS CS7/187/346v.
  19. Jane Stewart Smith, The Grange of St. Giles (Edinburgh, 1898), pp. 245.
  20. Adrian Cox, 'Decorative Plaster', Brian Kerr, 'Cathcart Castle, Glasgow: Excavations 1980–81', Scottish Archaeological Journal, 38 (2016), pp. 61-66.
  21. Helen Lauder's will details her costume and jewellery, National Records of Scotland CC8/8/51 pp. 151-2.
  22. Jane Stewart Smith, The Grange of St. Giles (Edinburgh, 1898), p. 241.
  23. Lauder, George. 32. 195. Bayne, Thomas Wilson.
  24. Jane Stewart Smith, The Grange of St. Giles (Edinburgh, 1898), pp. 243-5.