William Maxwell, 5th Earl of Nithsdale
Scottish noble
William Maxwell, 5th Earl of Nithsdale (1676 – 2 March 1744), was a Roman Catholic member of the Scottish nobility who took part in the Jacobite rising of 1715. He was attainted with his titles forfeited. However, Lord Nithsdale made a celebrated escape from the Tower of London by changing clothes with his wife's maid the day before he was due to be executed. The lordship of Herries of Terregles was later restored to his descendants and remains extant.
Early life
Willaim was the only son of Robert Maxwell, fourth Earl of Nithsdale (1627–1683), and Lady Lucy Douglas (d. 1713), daughter of William Douglas, 1st Marquess of Douglas. He was probably born at Terregles Castle, near Dumfries, in 1676. His father died when he was still a child, and he was raised by his mother, the Dowager Countess. She ensured that he was educated in the Roman Catholic faith and remained loyal to the exiled Stuart dynasty.
Jacobite supporter
On reaching the age of 21, in 1697, and becoming earl, William secretly visited the Jacobite court at Saint-Germain to give his allegiance to the exiled King James II and VII, where he met his future wife Lady Winifred Herbert, daughter of the Duke of Powis.
“William Maxwell, 5th Earl of Nithsdale” enters the record as scottish noble. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what William, Maxwell and Earl can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q8015262. VIAF identifies the subject as 1155091. The Library of Congress control number is no96047309. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1676, 1744, 1715 and 1627.
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This entry incorporates text from “William Maxwell, 5th Earl of Nithsdale” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.