Sir James Maxwell of Calderwood, knight

SIR JAMES MAXWELL OF CALDERWOOD

Sir James Maxwell of Calderwood, here treated, is the son of Sir John Maxwell of Calderwood, Kt. and his wife Elizabeth Hamilton Stirnet: Hamilton 18

Death

Sir James Maxwell of Calderwood, here treated, died intestate in September 1622. Maxwell Memoirs I: 472 [NRS: CC14/5/2]

His Testament Dative and Inventory

Confirmation was granted on 11 December 1622. [National Records of Scotland, Lanark Commissary Court, The Testament Dative and Inventory of Sir James Maxwell of Calderwood, knight, parish of Carluke, reference CC14/5/2]

His Additional Testament Dative and Inventory

Confirmation was granted on 19 January 1629. [National Records of Scotland, Lanark Commissary Court, The Testament Dative and Inventory of Sir James Maxwell of Calderwood, knight, parish of Carluke, reference CC14/5/3]

First Marriage

Sir James Maxwell of Calderwood married Helen Porterfield. Memoirs I: 472-3

Second Marriage

James Maxwell of Calderwood, here treated, married Isabel Hamilton They were contracted on 12 February 1579. RMS 1580-1593: charter number 780

Third Marriage

Sir James Maxwell of Calderwood married Lady Margaret Cunningham. Memoirs I: 475-6

Evidence from the National Records of Scotland

                   1

26 March 1580 and 1 May 1580: Charter by which James Maxwell of Calderwood confirms that he has given the lands of Meikle Dripps in the barony of Kilbride and sheriffdom of Lanark to his future wife Isobel Hamilton. His charter follows from a contract of marriage dated 12 February 1579 between James Maxwell of Calderwood, Alexander Hamilton of Innerwick, Issobellam Home, lady of Innerwick, his mother, and Isobel Hamilton daughter the said lady. His charter was confirmed under the Great Seal of Scotland on 10 January 1584-85. RMS 1580-1593: charter number 780

                   2

1617-20: (Extract) Letters of Inhibition, with Executions following thereon, at instance of Sir James Maxvell of Caldervod, Kt., for himself and Nicolas Maxvell, his daughter, against Alan Lockhart of Cleghorne and Alexander, his son, spouse of said Nicolas, following on Marriage Contract .National Records of Scotland, Papers of the Dick-Lauder family of Fountainhall, reference GD41/373

                   3

8 November 1617: Letters of Inhibition made between said parties whereby said Alan Lockhart bound himself to infeft said Nicolas and Alexander in £2 land of Bothwell, Langbyres, Herunshill and other lands. National Records of Scotland, Papers of the Dick-Lauder family of Fountainhall, reference GD41/373

Printed Evidence

Registrum Magni Sigilli Regum Scotorum. The Register of the Great Seal of Scotland, A.D. 1580-1593. Edited by John Maitland Thomson, MA., Advocate. (H. M. General Register House, Edinburgh, 1888), 1155 pp. including indices and errata

Genealogy

1. William Fraser, Memoirs of the Maxwells of Pollock, Vol. I. Memoirs & Charters, 497 pp.
2. William Fraser, Memoirs of the Maxwells of Pollock, Vol. II. Correspondence, , 453 pp.
3. Stirnet: Hamilton 18

Biographical Summary by Wikipedia

Sir James "9th of Calderwood" Maxwell
Born about 1550 in Calderwood, Renfrewshire, Scotland

Ancestors ancestors

Son of John Maxwell and Elizabeth (Hamilton) Maxwell

Brother of Robert Maxwell

Husband of Helen (Porterfield) Maxwell — married [date unknown] in Renfrewshire, Scotland Husband of Isabel (Hamilton) Maxwell — married 12 Feb 1579 [location unknown] Husband of Margaret (Cunningham) Maxwell — married 6 Sep 1610 in Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland

Father of Unknown Maxwell, Unknown Maxwell, John Maxwell and Alexander Maxwell

Died 1622 in Calderwood, Renfrewshire, Scotland

Family

He married Helen Porterfield, daughter of John Porterfield of Porterfield.[2] They had two daughters. Given names are not known.[1]

   first daughter

   second daughter 

He married his second wife Isabel Hamilton on 12 Feb 1579. They had three son and six daughters.[1] Their children included:

   Sir James Maxwell, 1st Baronet of Calderwood, d. Abt 1670

   Sir Alexander Maxwell, of Saughton

   Nichola Maxwell, d. Jan 1643

   Agnes Maxwell 

He married his third wife Margaret Cunningham, daughter of the James, 6th Earl of Glencairn, on 6 Sep 1610. She died about 1622. They had two sons and four daughters.[1] They included:

   Col. John Maxwell, d. 1650, Dunbar, England

   Catherine Maxwell 

Sources

   ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Bernard Burke, Ashworth P Burke, A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerage and Baronetage, 76th edition (London: Harrison and Sons, 1914), p. 761, digital images, https://books.google.com/books?id=RVggAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA761 (http://books.google.com : accessed 31 August 5 2016).

   ↑ Frank Burke Porterfield, The Porterfields (Roanoke, Virginia: Multiprint Inc, 1947), p. 8, digital images, http://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=1227. Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 5 August 2016).

See also:

   Sir James Maxwell, of Calderwood d. 1622: MacFarlane Clan & Families Genealogy, http://www.clanmacfarlanegenealogy.info/genealogy/TNGWebsite/getper... 

472 THE MAXWELLS OF CALDERWOOD.
When his chief, John Lord Maxwell, was brought to the scaffold on 21st May 1613, for the
slaughter of the Laird of Johnstone in 1608, the Lairds of Pollok and Calderwood performed the
painful duty of attending his lordship in his last moments. Lord Maxwell, in his dying speech,
craved pardon of Pollok and Calderwood, and his other friends present, acknowledging that whereas
he was born to have been author of their honour and safety, he had procured to them harm and
discredit. 1
On 28th July 1572, Sir James Maxwell, with about fifty other persons, including his son
James, was " delatit for arte and pairt of the slauchteris and murthour of vmquhile the King and
twa Regentis." Sir James found his son James pledge for his appearance to the extent of £1000,
while James his son found Sir James Hamilton pledge for his appearance to the extent of £2000. 2
Nothing further appears to have followed on this " dilation."
Unfortunately for Sir James, this was not his only appearance in the Criminal Court, and he
did not get off so easily on the second occasion. There was a feud between him and his cousins,
the Lindsays of Dunrod, on the one side, and Alexander Lekkie of that ilk, on the other side,
which led to the murder of the latter in the year 1601. He was shot by Alexander Lindsay of
Dunrod, out of the window of a farm-house of his own, at Hagton Hill, near Glasgow. The per-
petrator of this crime remained undiscovered for twenty years after the death of Lekkie, when
Dunrod, then become an old man, confessed the whole affair, and Sir James Maxwell and his
allies were indicted at the instance of the widow and son of the deceased Laird of Lekkie,
before the Court of Justiciary, on loth December 1620. The proceedings were postponed on
several occasions, pending the intercession of mutual friends — " noblemen, barones, and gentilmen"
who were endeavouring to bring the unhappy feud of so long continuance betwixt the two houses to
terms of agreement and reconciliation.
King James VI., by a letter dated from Greenwich, 1st June 1622, granted a respite for
the trial of the accused persons till the 5th of October following ; and by a second letter from
Windsor, on 7th August 1622, ordered the Justice and Justice-Clerk not to proceed in the
criminal prosecution till they understood from the Council that they have given up all further
dealing in that matter. 3 Sir James's death, in September 1622, put an end to the proceedings
against him.