James Maitland, 8th Earl of Lauderdale
Encyclopedia
James Maitland, 8th Earl of Lauderdale KT
PC
(26 January 1759 – 10 September 1839) was Keeper of the Great Seal of Scotland, and a representative peer
for Scotland
in the House of Lords
.
near Ratho
, the eldest son and heir of James Maitland, 7th Earl of Lauderdale
, whom he succeeded in 1789, he became a controversial Scottish
politician
and writer. His tutor had been the learned Dr. Andrew Dalzel, and James Maitland then attended the universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow, completing his education in Paris
where, it is said, he became radicalised.
and successfully stood for election to parliament the same year. From 1780 until 1784 he was a Member of Parliament
representing Newport
and from 1784 to 1789, Malmesbury
. In the House of Commons
he supported the prominent Whig Charles Fox
and took an active part in debate, and was one of the managers of the Impeachment of Warren Hastings
.
From 1789, in the House of Lords
, where he was a representative peer
for Scotland, he was prominent as an opponent of the policy of Pitt
and the English government with regard to France
. He was a frequent speaker and also distinguished himself by his active opposition to the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act, the Sedition Bill, and other measures. Upon the outbreak of the French Revolution, of which he was thought to be in sympathy, he ostentatiously appeared in The House in the rough costume of Jacobinism.
In July 1792 he fought a bloodless duel with Benedict Arnold
after impugning Arnold's honour in the House of Lords.
, Lord Lauderdale travelled again to France. The attack on the Tuileries, and the imprisonment of King Louis XVI of France
, took place three days after the earl's arrival in the French capital. After the massacres of the 2nd September, the British ambassador having left Paris, the earl left Paris on the 4th for Calais
. However, he returned to Paris the following month and did not leave for London until December 5. Upon his return from France he published a Journal during the residence in France from the beginning of August to the middle of December 1792. According to the antiquarian
Andrew Thomson: "James Maitland 8th Earl of Lauderdale was known as 'Citizen Maitland'. An extremist, he was in Paris
during the French Revolution
and was a personal friend of Jean-Paul Marat
. He rarely visited Scotland." The earl had helped to found the British Society of the Friends of the People
in 1792.
as Baron Lauderdale of Thirlestane and sworn a member of the Privy Council
. For a short time from July 1806 he was keeper of the Great Seal of Scotland
.
. Arriving on the 5th he and Yarmouth set about the arduous task of treating with Napoleon and Tallyrand. Yarmouth was recalled on the 14th and Lauderdale was left alone. Following the renewal of hostilities he left Paris for London on October 9. A full account of the progress and termination of the negotiations appeared in the London Gazette
of 21 October 1806.
After acting as the leader of the Whigs
in Scotland, Lauderdale became a Tory
and voted against the Reform Bill of 1832
. Lord Lauderdale was made a Privy Counsellor
in 1806 and a Knight of the Thistle
in 1821.
Hereditary Bearer for the Sovereign of the Standard of Scotland, and this right was retained by his heirs until 1910.
In 1790, James Maitland, 8th Earl of Lauderdale matriculated arms in the character of Hereditary Bearer for the Sovereign of the Standard of Scotland and Hereditary Bearer for the Sovereign of the National Flag of Scotland.
In 1952 after a meeting with the Earls of Lauderdale and Dundee the Lord Lyon advised the Queen to confirm the Earl of Lauderdale's right to bear the saltire
as the Bearer of the National Flag of Scotland, and to confirm that the Earl of Dundee
as the Bearer of the Royal Banner bears the Royal Standard of the lion rampant.
The "Inquiry" was the first work to draw attention to the economic consequences of a budget surplus or deficit and its influence on the expansion or contraction of the economy, and was thus the basis of the later Keynesian economic theories which are now widely applied.
, near Lauder
, Berwickshire
, aged 80.
He married 15 August 1782, Eleanor (1762–1856), only daughter and heiress of Anthony Todd, Secretary to the General Post Office. They had nine children, of whom a daughter, Lady Julia Jane married, in 1823, Sir John Warrender, Baronet (b.1786); of the boys (none of whom married), his heir and successor was James Maitland, 9th Earl of Lauderdale
(1784–1860) and another was Admiral Sir Anthony Maitland (1785–1863). Upon the death of the 9th Earl the Earldom had a new destination within the family, whilst the United Kingdom barony bestowed upon him became extinct.
Order of the Thistle
The Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle is an order of chivalry associated with Scotland. The current version of the Order was founded in 1687 by King James VII of Scotland who asserted that he was reviving an earlier Order...
PC
Privy Council of the United Kingdom
Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, usually known simply as the Privy Council, is a formal body of advisers to the Sovereign in the United Kingdom...
(26 January 1759 – 10 September 1839) was Keeper of the Great Seal of Scotland, and a representative peer
Representative peer
In the United Kingdom, representative peers were those peers elected by the members of the Peerage of Scotland and the Peerage of Ireland to sit in the British House of Lords...
for Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
in the House of Lords
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....
.
Early years
Born at Haltoun HouseHaltoun House
Haltoun House, or Hatton House, was a Scottish baronial mansion set in a park, with extensive estates in the vicinity of Ratho, in the west of Edinburgh City Council area, Scotland...
near Ratho
Ratho
Ratho is a village and civil parish in the west of Edinburgh, the capital city of Scotland. It was formerly in the old county of Midlothian. Newbridge and Kirkliston are other villages in the area. The Union Canal passes through Ratho. Edinburgh Airport is situated only 4 miles ...
, the eldest son and heir of James Maitland, 7th Earl of Lauderdale
James Maitland, 7th Earl of Lauderdale
James Maitland, 7th Earl of Lauderdale , and was one of the sixteen representative peers for Scotland in the House of Lords....
, whom he succeeded in 1789, he became a controversial Scottish
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
politician
Politician
A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...
and writer. His tutor had been the learned Dr. Andrew Dalzel, and James Maitland then attended the universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow, completing his education in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
where, it is said, he became radicalised.
Parliamentary career
Upon his return home in 1780 he was admitted a member of the Faculty of AdvocatesFaculty of Advocates
The Faculty of Advocates is an independent body of lawyers who have been admitted to practise as advocates before the courts of Scotland, especially the Court of Session and the High Court of Justiciary...
and successfully stood for election to parliament the same year. From 1780 until 1784 he was a Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
representing Newport
Newport (Cornwall) (UK Parliament constituency)
Newport was a rotten borough situated in Cornwall. It is now within the town of Launceston, which was itself also a parliamentary borough at the same period...
and from 1784 to 1789, Malmesbury
Malmesbury (UK Parliament constituency)
Malmesbury was a parliamentary borough in Wiltshire, which elected two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons from 1275 until 1832, and then one member from 1832 until 1885, when the borough was abolished.- MPs 1275–1508 :...
. In the House of Commons
British House of Commons
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...
he supported the prominent Whig Charles Fox
Charles James Fox
Charles James Fox PC , styled The Honourable from 1762, was a prominent British Whig statesman whose parliamentary career spanned thirty-eight years of the late 18th and early 19th centuries and who was particularly noted for being the arch-rival of William Pitt the Younger...
and took an active part in debate, and was one of the managers of the Impeachment of Warren Hastings
Impeachment of Warren Hastings
The Impeachment of Warren Hastings was a failed attempt to impeach the former Governor-General of India Warren Hastings in the Parliament of Great Britain between 1788 and 1795. Hastings was accused of misconduct during his time in Calcutta particularly relating to mismanagement and personal...
.
From 1789, in the House of Lords
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....
, where he was a representative peer
Representative peer
In the United Kingdom, representative peers were those peers elected by the members of the Peerage of Scotland and the Peerage of Ireland to sit in the British House of Lords...
for Scotland, he was prominent as an opponent of the policy of Pitt
William Pitt the Younger
William Pitt the Younger was a British politician of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He became the youngest Prime Minister in 1783 at the age of 24 . He left office in 1801, but was Prime Minister again from 1804 until his death in 1806...
and the English government with regard to France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
. He was a frequent speaker and also distinguished himself by his active opposition to the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act, the Sedition Bill, and other measures. Upon the outbreak of the French Revolution, of which he was thought to be in sympathy, he ostentatiously appeared in The House in the rough costume of Jacobinism.
In July 1792 he fought a bloodless duel with Benedict Arnold
Benedict Arnold
Benedict Arnold V was a general during the American Revolutionary War. He began the war in the Continental Army but later defected to the British Army. While a general on the American side, he obtained command of the fort at West Point, New York, and plotted to surrender it to the British forces...
after impugning Arnold's honour in the House of Lords.
French Revolution
In 1792 in the company of John MooreJohn Moore (Scottish physician)
John Moore was a Scottish physician and writer.He was born at Stirling, the son of a clergyman. After taking his medical degree at Glasgow, he served with the army in Flanders during the Seven Years' War, then proceeded to London to continue his studies, and eventually to Paris, where he was...
, Lord Lauderdale travelled again to France. The attack on the Tuileries, and the imprisonment of King Louis XVI of France
Louis XVI of France
Louis XVI was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre until 1791, and then as King of the French from 1791 to 1792, before being executed in 1793....
, took place three days after the earl's arrival in the French capital. After the massacres of the 2nd September, the British ambassador having left Paris, the earl left Paris on the 4th for Calais
Calais
Calais is a town in Northern France in the department of Pas-de-Calais, of which it is a sub-prefecture. Although Calais is by far the largest city in Pas-de-Calais, the department's capital is its third-largest city of Arras....
. However, he returned to Paris the following month and did not leave for London until December 5. Upon his return from France he published a Journal during the residence in France from the beginning of August to the middle of December 1792. According to the antiquarian
Antiquarian
An antiquarian or antiquary is an aficionado or student of antiquities or things of the past. More specifically, the term is used for those who study history with particular attention to ancient objects of art or science, archaeological and historic sites, or historic archives and manuscripts...
Andrew Thomson: "James Maitland 8th Earl of Lauderdale was known as 'Citizen Maitland'. An extremist, he was in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
during the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
and was a personal friend of Jean-Paul Marat
Jean-Paul Marat
Jean-Paul Marat , born in the Principality of Neuchâtel, was a physician, political theorist, and scientist best known for his career in France as a radical journalist and politician during the French Revolution...
. He rarely visited Scotland." The earl had helped to found the British Society of the Friends of the People
Friends of the People Society
The Society of the Friends of the People was formed in Great Britain by Whigs at the end of the 18th century as part of a movement seeking radical political reform that would widen electoral enfranchisement at a time when only a wealthy minority had the vote...
in 1792.
New peerage
Upon the formation of the Grenville administration in February 1806, Lauderdale was made a peer of the United KingdomPeerage of the United Kingdom
The Peerage of the United Kingdom comprises most peerages created in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland after the Act of Union in 1801, when it replaced the Peerage of Great Britain...
as Baron Lauderdale of Thirlestane and sworn a member of the Privy Council
Privy council
A privy council is a body that advises the head of state of a nation, typically, but not always, in the context of a monarchic government. The word "privy" means "private" or "secret"; thus, a privy council was originally a committee of the monarch's closest advisors to give confidential advice on...
. For a short time from July 1806 he was keeper of the Great Seal of Scotland
Great Seal of Scotland
The Great Seal of Scotland allows the monarch to authorise official documents without having to sign each document individually. Wax is melted in a metal mould or matrix and impressed into a wax figure that is attached by cord or ribbon to documents that the monarch wishes to make official...
.
Napoleonic treaty
On 2 August 1806 the earl, fully fluent in French, departed for France, invested with full powers to conclude peace, the negotiations for which had been for several weeks carried on by the Earl of YarmouthEarl of Yarmouth
Earl of Yarmouth is a title that has been created three time in British history, once in the Peerage of England and twice in the Peerage of Great Britain. The first creation came in the Peerage of England in 1679 in favour of the politician and scientist Robert Paston, 1st Viscount Yarmouth...
. Arriving on the 5th he and Yarmouth set about the arduous task of treating with Napoleon and Tallyrand. Yarmouth was recalled on the 14th and Lauderdale was left alone. Following the renewal of hostilities he left Paris for London on October 9. A full account of the progress and termination of the negotiations appeared in the London Gazette
London Gazette
The London Gazette is one of the official journals of record of the British government, and the most important among such official journals in the United Kingdom, in which certain statutory notices are required to be published...
of 21 October 1806.
After acting as the leader of the Whigs
British Whig Party
The Whigs were a party in the Parliament of England, Parliament of Great Britain, and Parliament of the United Kingdom, who contested power with the rival Tories from the 1680s to the 1850s. The Whigs' origin lay in constitutional monarchism and opposition to absolute rule...
in Scotland, Lauderdale became a Tory
Tory
Toryism is a traditionalist and conservative political philosophy which grew out of the Cavalier faction in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. It is a prominent ideology in the politics of the United Kingdom, but also features in parts of The Commonwealth, particularly in Canada...
and voted against the Reform Bill of 1832
Reform Act 1832
The Representation of the People Act 1832 was an Act of Parliament that introduced wide-ranging changes to the electoral system of England and Wales...
. Lord Lauderdale was made a Privy Counsellor
Privy Council of the United Kingdom
Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, usually known simply as the Privy Council, is a formal body of advisers to the Sovereign in the United Kingdom...
in 1806 and a Knight of the Thistle
Order of the Thistle
The Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle is an order of chivalry associated with Scotland. The current version of the Order was founded in 1687 by King James VII of Scotland who asserted that he was reviving an earlier Order...
in 1821.
Banner dispute
In 1672 on the death of the Earl of Dundee, the Duke of Lauderdale was appointedHereditary Bearer for the Sovereign of the Standard of Scotland, and this right was retained by his heirs until 1910.
In 1790, James Maitland, 8th Earl of Lauderdale matriculated arms in the character of Hereditary Bearer for the Sovereign of the Standard of Scotland and Hereditary Bearer for the Sovereign of the National Flag of Scotland.
In 1952 after a meeting with the Earls of Lauderdale and Dundee the Lord Lyon advised the Queen to confirm the Earl of Lauderdale's right to bear the saltire
Flag of Scotland
The Flag of Scotland, , also known as Saint Andrew's Cross or the Saltire, is the national flag of Scotland. As the national flag it is the Saltire, rather than the Royal Standard of Scotland, which is the correct flag for all individuals and corporate bodies to fly in order to demonstrate both...
as the Bearer of the National Flag of Scotland, and to confirm that the Earl of Dundee
Earl of Dundee
Earl of Dundee is a title in the Peerage of Scotland. It was created in 1660 for John Scrymgeour, 3rd Viscount Dudhope. At his death in 1668, Duke of Lauderdale declared that the first Earl had no heirs-male, and had the crown seize all of his lands...
as the Bearer of the Royal Banner bears the Royal Standard of the lion rampant.
Writings
He wrote an Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of Public Wealth (1804 and 1819), a work which has been translated into French and Italian and which produced a controversy between the author and Lord Brougham; The Depreciation of the Paper-currency of Great Britain Proved (1812); and other writings of a similar nature.The "Inquiry" was the first work to draw attention to the economic consequences of a budget surplus or deficit and its influence on the expansion or contraction of the economy, and was thus the basis of the later Keynesian economic theories which are now widely applied.
Death and Lineage
He died at Thirlestane CastleThirlestane Castle
Thirlestane Castle is a castle set in extensive parklands near Lauder in the Borders of Scotland. The site is aptly named Castle Hill, as it stands upon raised ground. However, the raised land is within Lauderdale, the valley of the Leader Water. The land has been in the ownership of the Maitland...
, near Lauder
Lauder
The Royal Burgh of Lauder is a town in the Scottish Borders 27 miles south east of Edinburgh. It is also a royal burgh in the county of Berwickshire. It lies on the edge of the Lammermuir Hills, on the Southern Upland Way.-Medieval history:...
, Berwickshire
Berwickshire
Berwickshire or the County of Berwick is a registration county, a committee area of the Scottish Borders Council, and a lieutenancy area of Scotland, on the border with England. The town after which it is named—Berwick-upon-Tweed—was lost by Scotland to England in 1482...
, aged 80.
He married 15 August 1782, Eleanor (1762–1856), only daughter and heiress of Anthony Todd, Secretary to the General Post Office. They had nine children, of whom a daughter, Lady Julia Jane married, in 1823, Sir John Warrender, Baronet (b.1786); of the boys (none of whom married), his heir and successor was James Maitland, 9th Earl of Lauderdale
James Maitland, 9th Earl of Lauderdale
James Maitland, 9th Earl of Lauderdale , styled Viscount Maitland between 1789 and 1839, was a British peer and Whig politician.-Background and education:...
(1784–1860) and another was Admiral Sir Anthony Maitland (1785–1863). Upon the death of the 9th Earl the Earldom had a new destination within the family, whilst the United Kingdom barony bestowed upon him became extinct.
Works
- An Inquiry into The Nature and Origin of Public Wealth and into the Means and Causes of its Increase 1804 (second edition 1819)