son, whose proceedings were entirely displeasing to him, had merely borrowed from him (Cal. State Papers, For. Ser. 1572–4, entry 1533). His attempt to secure Elizabeth's mediation in his behalf was, however, unsuccessful; and legal proceedings taken against Captain Hume, who held possession of the castle as representing the government, were met by Morton by an act assoilizeing Hume (Acta Parl. Scot. iii. 163). It was not till 10 Feb. 1583–4, two years after Morton's death, that an act of council was passed at the special instance of the king restoring to the Maitlands their forfeited lands (Reg. P. C. Scotl. iii. 633). The king expressed himself as greatly grieved at the wrong Sir Richard had sustained, ‘being of so great age, having faithfully served our noble progenitors, our grandsire, gudsire, guddame, mother, and ourself, being oftentimes employed by them, and yet in his great age continuing in a public charge, never having offended against us or our crown in any sort, neither having been forfaulted’ (ib.) On 1 July 1584 Maitland resigned his seat on the bench, but by special favour was permitted to name as his successor Sir Lewis Bellenden [q. v.], and to hold the fees and emoluments of his office for life. He died 20 March 1586, at the age of ninety. No portrait of him is known.
Maitland's chief claim to remembrance is his collection of early Scottish poems, second only in importance to the Bannatyne collection. It is included with other manuscripts in two volumes, which were presented by the Duke of Lauderdale to Samuel Pepys, and are preserved in the Pepysian Library at Magdalene College, Cambridge. Among the amanuenses he employed was his daughter, Margaret Maitland. The collection has never yet been published in altogether complete form; but a large selection from it, including Maitland's own poems, was published by John Pinkerton, in two vols. 1786, under the title ‘Ancient Scottish Poems never before in Print,’ &c. Maitland's own poems were reprinted in Sibbald's ‘Chronicle of Scottish Poetry,’ 1807, vol. iii., and by the Maitland Club in 1830, an appendix being added of selections from the poems of his sons, Sir John Maitland of Thirlestane and Thomas Maitland, from the Drummond MS. in the university of Edinburgh. The poems of Sir Richard Maitland are of special interest from their bearing on the events, customs, and peculiarities of his time. Although manifesting small poetic ardour, they are characterised by grace, force, and picturesqueness of expression, by shrewd knowledge of the world, and by a gentle cynicism. Among the best known is his ‘Satire on Town Ladies,’ in which the ‘newfangleness of geir’ is amusingly exposed. He was also the author of a ‘Cronicle and Historie of the House and Surname of Seaton unto the Moneth of November ane thousand five hundred and fifty aught yeares,’ which, with a continuation by Alexander Seton, viscount Kingston, was printed by the Maitland Club in 1829 from a manuscript in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh. The same work, under the title ‘Genealogy of the House and Surname of Setoun, by Sir Richard Maitland of Ledington, Knight, with the Chronicle of the House of Setoun, compiled in metre by John Kennington, alias Peter Manye,’ was published at Edinburgh in 1830 from a manuscript in the possession of Mr. Hay of Drummelzier, Peeblesshire. A manuscript volume of his ‘Decisions from 15 Dec. 1560 to the penult. July 1565’ is in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh. Maitland's literary services have been specially recognised by the foundation in 1828 in his honour of the Maitland Club, Glasgow, which has rendered invaluable service by its publication of manuscripts bearing on Scottish antiquities and history.
By his wife Mary, daughter of Sir Thomas Cranstoun of Crosbie, Maitland had three sons and four daughters. The sons were William of Lethington [q. v.]; John, lord Maitland of Thirlestane [q. v.]; and Thomas, who was a fellow-student with Andrew Melville at St. Andrews and Paris, was the prolocutor with George Buchanan in his ‘De Jure Regni apud Scotos,’ and was the author of several verses published in the appendix to the Maitland Club edition of his father's poems; of a treatise ‘On undertaking war against the Turks;’ of an oration in favour of setting Queen Mary at liberty and restoring her to her throne entitled ‘Ad Ser. Princip. Eliz. Anglor. Reg. Epistola,’ 1570 (copy in the University Library, Edinburgh); and of a clever squib, representing a conference of the lords with the regent, in which the peculiarities of the various speakers are wittily caricatured (published in Calderwood, ii. 315–25; Bannatyne Miscellany, vol. ii.; and Richard Bannatyne, Memorials, pp. 3–13). He was forfaulted along with his brothers 14 May 1571 (Calderwood, iii. 78), and died in Italy in 1572 at the age of twenty-two. The daughters were Helen, married to Sir John Cockburn of Clerkington; Margaret, to William Douglas of Whittinghame; Mary, to Alexander Lauder of Hatton; and Isabel, to James Heriot of Trabroun.
