That
the name Maxwell originates in the border country of Scotland is not in dispute.
But how the Maxwells spread world-wide is a harder story to tell.
Early in the thirteenth century there
were two families of the name both descended from the progenitor Herbert de
Maccusweil. The Chiefly line had homes on the Maxwell barony in the borders
near Kelso and at the castle of Caerlaverock on the Solway coast. The principal
cadet lived at Nether Pollok on the banks of the Clyde. Both families proliferated
and expanded their influence and power by service to the crown and by advantageous
marriages.
At the time of Robert the Bruce the family
was one of great power and was courted by both the English and the Scots for
their controlling interests in the border. Undoubtedly the first Maxwells ventured
abroad around this time. Sir Aymer Maxwell seems a likely candidate for one
of the first crusaders and his marital ties with the daughter of Sir Roland
de Mearns strengthens this theory as the later was a known crusader. Both Maxwell
of Pollok and Sir James Maxwell of Calderwood are believed to have gone on the
second crusade the latter in the service of the French king. It appears that
Sir Herbert Maxwell of Caerlaverock accompanied Sir James Douglas on his pilgrimage
to the holy lands with the heart of Robert the Bruce. Sir Herbert was one of
knights who brought the Bruce’s heart back to Scotland when their mission foundered
in Spain.
Living on the border, the Maxwells had
a hard life during the wars of independence and were at times subjected to over
lordship in both the English and Scottish causes. Sir Eustace Maxwell finally
came down in favour of the Scottish camp and was a witness to the treaty of
Arbroath in 1392, a document widely regarded as Scotland’s declaration of independence.
Around this time, some Maxwell families
are believed to have settled in England possibly due to the unsettled state
of the border country. A large family seems to have settled in Surrey in the
middle of the 15th century. Also at this time there was a widespread
settlement of English and Scots in Ireland and Maxwells start to appear in Irish
records from the 1450’s onward.
As the reformation swept throughout Europe
over the next one hundred years more Maxwells left their homelands for England
and Ireland looking for peaceful existence. Those that went to Ireland found
themselves caught up in the great troubles of that state inflicted by Henry
VIII and later by Queen Elizabeth.
During the sixteenth century, Scots sailing
vessels began to cross the Atlantic to both South and North America and one
can suppose that amongst these early transatlantic seafarers were Maxwells.
There is evidence of several of the Clydesdale Maxwell families being involved
in mercantile trade from the fifteenth century onward. The Maxwells of Newark
were a leading merchant family with their deep water dock on the Clyde by modern
day Port Glasgow. At what date the first Maxwell settled in North America, I
can not say, but it would be a fair assumption to suppose that it was around
the 1580’s.
With the union of the crowns in 1605
there came a mass migration of lowland Scots to England where the climate and
living was easier. Maxwells were amongst these émigrés. Maxwells from Ireland
also moved back across the water either to Scotland but more usually to England.
The Maxwells particularly in the border country had been a landed family and
those that migrated from Scotland were usually younger sons who were unlikely
to inherit their fathers estates and so set out into the world to seek their
fortunes. The Clydesdale Maxwells were undoubtedly more numerous but had less
property so younger sons had been entering trades or established businesses
for a couple of centuries before emigration started in earnest. As a result
of having little or no attachment to the land these Maxwell found it easier
to migrate in search of greener pastures.
Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth
century, Maxwells in their hundreds shipped out of the ports of Scotland, England
and Ireland destined for the North American continent, there to settle and become
the greatest population of Maxwells in the world today. There they fought on
both sides during the war of independence and were amongst the first pioneers
to head out to the west. When the First Fleet set sail for Australia in 1788,
two of the officers were Maxwells although both died without descendants they
were the first Maxwells to set foot in the Antipodes. More Maxwells followed
some in convicts chains. Maxwells
helped open up the dark continent of Africa, one of the authors own relatives
died at Lakoja on the west coast in the 1860's.
Back in Europe, Maxwells had travelled as professional soldiers through out the continent for hundreds of years. Some had risen so high in foreign service that they commanded armies. Mad King Ludwig of Bavaria had a General John Maxwell in command of part of his army and another General Maxwell had command of a Russian Army in the eighteenth century. It is to be noted that a great many Maxwells have risen to high command in the various Armies of the world, it may be something in the blood!.
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