MAULE, John (1706-81), of Inverkeilor, Forfar.

John Maule was the secretaryHMC Polwarth, v. 235. of Lord Ilay, later Duke of Argyll, who managed elections in Scotland under Walpole and the Pelhams. Returned on the interest of his half-brother, Lord Panmure, he voted consistently with the Administration, which however did not protect him from suspicion on account of his Jacobite ancestry. During the Forty-five,

when the magistrates of Edinburgh were searching houses for arms, they came to Mr. Maule’s, brother of Lord Panmure and a great friend of the Duke of Argyll. The maid would not let them go into one room, which was locked, and, she said, full of arms. They now thought that they had found what they looked for and had the door broke open—where they found an ample collection of coats of arms.Horace Walpole to Mann, 13 Sept. 1745. Maule’s father was a great antiquarian.

About this time he and Lord Panmure sent a memorandum to Henry Pelham denying charges of their having been brought into Parliament by, and of favouring, the Jacobite interest.Newcastle (Clumber) mss. Classed as ‘Old Whig’ in 1746, he was re-elected unanimously in 1747, vacating his seat next year on being appointed to a sinecure ‘as a douceur to the Duke of Argyll’ for failing to get Charles Areskine made lord president of the court of session.HMC Polwarth, v. 261, 266; Horace Walpole to Geo. Montagu, 18 May 1748. He died 2 July 1781.