James Maxwell (scholar)

James Maxwell (c.1581 – in or after 1635) was a Scottish scholar, known as an author on mythology and prophecy. Most of his works are lost.[1] He advocated for the view that the House of Stuart would found the Last World Empire of prophetic tradition.[2]

Life

He was the only son of William Maxwell of Little Airds, and grandson of William Maxwell of Kirkconnell, Kirkcudbrightshire, man-at-arms to James V of Scotland, and also in the service of his queen, Mary of Guise, and of his daughter, Mary Queen of Scots. He was educated at Edinburgh University, where he graduated M.A. 29 July 1600.[3] In his Edinburgh time he was a follower of John Napier.[4] He then went abroad.[3]

Maxwell lived in London for a period, and renounced Calvinism in 1607, adopting a conservative religious viewpoint.[1] He spent time in the Tower of London from the middle of 1620 to February 1621, after publishing a pamphlet against the claim of the Elector Palatine to Bohemia. This slant towards the House of Habsburg, at the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War, put paid to Maxwell's hopes of advancement in England, and in particular of a post he coveted, historian in Chelsea College.[1] He then returned to the continent of Europe.[3]

Around 1630 Maxwell had been working as genealogist to Philip IV of Spain.[5] On 30 April 1631 he wrote from Brussels to Archbishop William Laud, complaining of threats of assassination because he would not forsake Protestantism. Emperor Ferdinand II had, he declared, commanded his presence at court, and offered him spiritual preferment, with the office of imperial antiquary and genealogist, and a pension of a thousand crowns after the death of Sebastian Tegnangel.[3] (Tegnangel in fact died in 1636.)[6] In recompense for his books written in defence of the Church of England against the Puritans, and towards finishing one on the king's genealogy, he asked for a lay prebend.[3] Gilbert Blackhall commented on Scots of this period who had spurned offers from the Spanish king, and their lack of Habsburg prospects (and may have had Maxwell in mind). Court patronage generally dried up in Brussels after 1633.[7]

Works

Maxwell dealt in his publications with religion, history, genealogy, and antiquarian research, as well as poetry. His style has been compared to that of Sir Thomas Urquhart, and earned from Laud the nickname "Mountebank Maxwell".[3] He identified with a neo-Platonic tradition, against Aristotelianism: Plato and Hermes Trismegistus, but also Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Marsilio Ficino, and Franciscus Patricius.[8]

Admirable and Notable Prophecies

Admirable and Notable Prophecies[9] (1615) has been called Maxwell's "most substantial" publication, and touches on a wide range of prophetic material.[10] He had been evolving, since the death of Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, a prophetic future around Prince Charles, Henry's brother. In his 1612 memorial work for Prince Henry, Maxwell also flattered Prince Charles with a far-fetched comparison to Skanderbeg, relying on the equation of Albania with Albany. The following year, as Charles's sister Elizabeth married, he put a flattering turn on a well-known prophecy of Johann Carion about Emperor Charles V, for the benefit of Prince Charles.[11] Carion by misprision had revived an older prophecy of Alexander of Roes (c.1280), intended to apply to Charles of Anjou and his claim to become Emperor.[12]

Admirable and Notable Prophecies of 1615 shifted ground somewhat. It is a history of prophecy from Hildegard of Bingen to Nostradamus, with emphasis on Joachim of Fiore.[13] Supporting the House of Stuart's imperial claim, Maxwell cites here a shortened form of the Second Charlemagne prophecy, in the form given to it by Telesphorus of Cosenza, which was originally a pro-French slant on the Last Emperor.[14] In this work he correspondingly places less emphasis on the Magdeburg (Carion) prophecy as applied to Prince Charles; but it was later picked up and reinforced by the Anglo-Saxon scholar William Retchford.[15] After Charles I's execution, William Lilly, who knew the prophecy as given currency by Maxwell's work, was concerned in Monarchy or No Monarchy (1651) to argue that it did not apply to "Charles II of Scotland".[16]

Maxwell argues that the apostasy of the Catholic Church can be read from Catholic authors.[17] He also goes back to Carion, through a Latin version of Hermann Bonus, to pick up a related Magdeburg prophecy on the reformation of the Roman Catholic Church.[11] He believed that this change could be non-violent; and that Charles was a fit person to retake Constantinople, restoring the Eastern Roman Empire. Opposing the Ottoman Empire as he did, he supported also the House of Habsburg.[18] Maxwell found both a popular audience for verse summaries of his ideas, and some learned sympathy with Henry Spelman, Matthew Sutcliffe, and Patrick Young.[19]

Other works

While in France in 1600 Maxwell wrote in Latin Tyrannidi-graphia Ecclesiæ militantis secundum Danielis Prophetiam. It was dedicated to Edinburgh University and sent, but was lost on the way, by John Welsh of Ayr.[1] Among his productions is a poem entitled Carolanna, for the death of Anne of Denmark in 1619;[20][21] Maxwell wrote it under the pseudonym of James Anneson, a play on the names of the king, queen, and their son Charles.

Maxwell also published:[3]

Maxwell printed a catalogue of 22 of his unpublished works: controversial theology, royal genealogies and panegyrics, a poem on the antiquity of the city of London, tracts on fortune-telling and astrology, A Centurie of most noble Questions in Philosophie, James-anna, or the Patterne of a Perfect Cittie, among others. A list in Carolanna contained fifteen more Latin titles.[3]

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 Williamson, Arthur H. "Maxwell, James". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/18400. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  2. ↑ Arthur H. Williamson, George Buchanan, Civic Virtue and Commerce: European Imperialism and Its Sixteenth-Century Critics, The Scottish Historical Review Vol. 75, No. 199, Part 1 (Apr. 1996) , pp. 20–37, at p. 34. Published by: Edinburgh University Press. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25530707
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9  Lee, Sidney, ed. (1894). "Maxwell, James (fl.1600-1640)". Dictionary of National Biography. 37. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  4. ↑ Marsha Keith Schuchard (1 January 2002). Restoring the Temple of Vision: Cabalistic Freemasonry and Stuart Culture. Brill. p. 289. ISBN 90-04-12489-6.
  5. ↑ D. C. Worthington (January 2004). Scots in Habsburg Service: 1618 – 1648. Brill. p. 97. ISBN 90-04-13575-8.
  6. ↑ D. C. Worthington (January 2004). Scots in Habsburg Service: 1618 – 1648. BRILL. p. 98. ISBN 90-04-13575-8.
  7. ↑ D. C. Worthington (January 2004). Scots in Habsburg Service: 1618 – 1648. Brill. pp. 99–101. ISBN 90-04-13575-8.
  8. ↑ Gerald R. Cragg (1975). Freedom and Authority. Westminster Press. p. 20. ISBN 0 664 20738 3.
  9. ↑ Admirable and Notable Prophecies, vttered in former time by 24. famous Romain-Catholickes, concerning the Church of Romes defection, Tribulation, and reformation. Written first in Latine, & now published in the English tongue, both by James Maxwell, a Researcher of Antiquities, London, by Ed. Allde, 1615.
  10. ↑ Arthur H. Williamson, (1979). Scottish National Consciousness in the Age of James VI. John Donald. p. 103. ISBN 0859760367.
  11. 1 2 3 Robert E. Lerner (2009). The Powers of Prophecy: The Cedar of Lebanon Vision from the Mongol Onslaught to the Dawn of the Enlightenment. Cornell University Press. pp. 175–6. ISBN 0-8014-7537-6.
  12. ↑ Robert E. Lerner (2009). The Powers of Prophecy: The Cedar of Lebanon Vision from the Mongol Onslaught to the Dawn of the Enlightenment. Cornell University Press. p. 162 note 13. ISBN 0-8014-7537-6.
  13. ↑ Marjorie Reeves (1976). Joachim of Fiore and the Prophetic Future. SPCK. p. 157. ISBN 0-281-02887-7.
  14. ↑ Ursula Mühle-Moldon (1 January 1993). "Every prediction is a twin": säkulare Prophetien im England des 17. Jahrhunderts. P. Lang. p. 205 note 31. ISBN 978-3-631-45995-9.
  15. ↑ Lucy Munro (28 November 2013). Archaic Style in English Literature, 1590–1674. Cambridge University Press. p. 58. ISBN 978-1-107-04279-7.
  16. ↑ Robert E. Lerner (2009). The Powers of Prophecy: The Cedar of Lebanon Vision from the Mongol Onslaught to the Dawn of the Enlightenment. Cornell University Press. pp. 177–8. ISBN 0-8014-7537-6.
  17. ↑ Gerald R. Cragg (1975). Freedom and Authority. Westminster Press. p. 168. ISBN 0 664 20738 3.
  18. ↑ Williamson, Arthur H. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/18400. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  19. ↑ Steve Murdoch; Andrew MacKillop (2002). Fighting for Identity: Scottish Military Experience C. 1550–1900. BRILL. p. 16. ISBN 90-04-12823-9.
  20. ↑ Robert E. Lerner (2009). The Powers of Prophecy: The Cedar of Lebanon Vision from the Mongol Onslaught to the Dawn of the Enlightenment. Cornell University Press. p. 177 note 45. ISBN 0-8014-7537-6.
  21. ↑ Carolanna, That is to say, a Poeme in honovr of ovr King Charles – James, Qveene Anne, And Prince Charles: But principally in honour of the immortall memory of our late noble & good Queene of Albion and Vnion, London, by Ed. Allde.
  22. ↑ Roger A. Mason (27 April 2006). Scots and Britons: Scottish Political Thought and the Union of 1603. Cambridge University Press. p. 203 note 26. ISBN 978-0-521-02620-8.
  23. ↑ Yôsēf Qaplan; Richard Henry Popkin; Henry Méchoulan (1989). Menasseh Ben Israel and His World. Brill. p. 9 note 3. ISBN 90-04-09114-9.
Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Lee, Sidney, ed. (1894). "Maxwell, James (fl.1600-1640)". Dictionary of National Biography. 37. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 

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