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Updated: June 23, 2025
The maternal family of Lady Nithisdale were, therefore, of the same faith with her husband, and, like his family, they had suffered deeply for the cause of the Stuarts; and it is remarkable that, with what some might deem infatuation, many descendants of those who had seen their fairest possessions ravaged, their friends and kindred slain, should be ready to suffer again.
Orders were immediately issued for her arrest; and the Monarch protested that Lady Nithisdale did whatever she pleased in spite of him; that she had given him more trouble than any other woman in Europe. Again driven into obscurity, Lady Nithisdale took the opinion of a very celebrated lawyer, whose name she does not specify, and, upon his opinion, determined to retire to the Continent.
Among the list of the most considerable chiefs in Scotland, with an account of their disposition for or against the Government, the Earl of Nithisdale is specified by contemporary writers as one who is able to raise three hundred men, and willing to employ that force in the service of the Pretender.
John Maxwell, who assumed the title of Earl of Nithisdale, appears to have remained absent from Scotland until the troubles of 1745 began. It was probably on the death of his father in 1744, that he returned to take possession of the family estates, that this, the representative of the family of Maxwell, ventured to appear in Dumfriesshire.
Lady Nithisdale's relation of this anxious and eventful day, the twenty-third of February, is far too animated to be changed in a single expression. She had refused to remain confined with Lord Nithisdale in the Tower, on the plea of infirm health; but actually, because she well knew that she could better aid his cause whilst herself at liberty.
Those whom she had mortally offended were eager to punish her courage by imprisonment. The Solicitor-General, however, showed a more compassionate spirit than his employers, and in the course of several debates in the House of Commons, submitted that if Lady Nithisdale paid so much respect to Government as not to appear in public, it would be cruel to make any farther search after her.
At Trepons, in the upper part of Nithisdale, was the first blood drawn that was shed in this disastrous quarrel, Mr. Bell of Nimsea, a Jacobite gentleman, being there shot through the leg by one of the guards, on his refusing to obey orders. The occurrence was typical of the remorseless cruelty which was afterwards exhibited towards the brave but unfortunate insurgents.
They still," so thought Lady Nithisdale, "remembered the defence of the castle of Carlaverock against the republicans by Lord Nithisdale's grandfather, and were resolved not to let his grandson escape from their power."
Germains, or in the romantic haunts of Nithisdale, we have no information to decide, neither have the descendants of the family been able even to ascertain the date of her marriage.
His escape, according to Lady Nithisdale, both infuriated and alarmed George the First, "who flew into an excessive passion," as she expresses it, on the news transpiring; and exclaimed that he was betrayed, and that it could not have been done without a confederacy.
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