John Maitland was the most significant Scottish politician of the late-Stewart age and a man of considerable learning and pronounced ability. When still in his twenties he was chosen to represent the Church of Scotland as a lay member of the Westminster Assembly, a body set up to consider the question of reform in the English Church; he was a leading member of the Committee of both Kingdoms (the prototype for cabinet government in the United Kingdom) and was responsible for negotiating the Treaty of Carisbrooke, an agreement between Charles I and the Scots designed to save the king and the nation from political extremism.
In later life he was Secretary of State for Scotland, High Commissioner to the Scottish Parliament and a member of Charles II’s ‘Cabal’. His influence on both Scottish and English politics was immense, yet he is oddly a difficult figure to define. He seemed a Tory who was at heart a Whig, and a Whig who was in appearance a Tory, if these terms can be used for a man who was neither Whig nor Tory. Above all he was a Covenanter who was also a royalist, and a royalist who never quite ceased to be a Covenanter. This ambiguity has been borne out by historical analyses of his political role, which have swerved between astonishing extremes. |
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