There can hardly be a family in Scotland that has had a deeper and more lasting influence than the Maitlands – as much as the Stuarts, Hamiltons, and Douglases, and on a par with the Cecils, who dominated the rule of Elizabeth I of England.
The surname Maitland is said to have arrived in Britain just after the Norman conquest of 1066, possibly from Mautalant in Pontorson or Les Moitiers d’Allonne in the Cotentin Peninsula of Normandy.
King Henry I of England had purchased the Cotentin Peninsula in 1088 and suggested that his brother-in-law King David I of Scotland should grant lands to younger sons of Cotentin families.
The earliest public record of the name dates to 1138 in
