Winifred Maxwell Countess of Nithsdale

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Standard Name: Nithsdale, Winifred Maxwell,,, Countess of
Birth Name: Winifred Herbert
Styled: Lady Nithsdale
Titled: Countess of Nithsdale
Styled: Lady Winifred Herbert
Self-constructed Name: The Countess of Nithsdale
During the early eighteenth century Winifred, Lady Nithsdale , wrote family letters about business and relationships. She is remembered for the letter to her sister which tells, with a historian's narrative flair and command of detail, how when her husband (a Jacobite) was condemned to death for treason, she planned and carried through the daring coup of smuggling him out of prison.
Lithograph from a painting of Winifred Maxwell, Countess of Nithsdale, by an unknown artist. She is seated with a landscape visible behind, her hand on a small dog that sits beside her. She is wearing a gown with low neck, wide sleeves, and white trim at the sleeves and neckline, plus a long shawl. Her hair is curled, high on top, with part lying spread on her shoulders. Scottish Portrait Gallery.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Family and Intimate relationships Constance Smedley
They had known each other as students at Birmingham Art School, and met again in 1907 when he designed the decor for a special dinner which CS gave at the Lyceum Club .
Smedley, Constance, and Maxwell Armfield. Crusaders. Chatto & Windus, 1912, x, 416 pp.
179-83
Family and Intimate relationships Lady Lucy Herbert
Lady Powis , mother of two future writers (Lucy and Winifred , then about ten and seven), joined her husband in the Tower of London, on a charge of Roman Catholic plotting against...
Family and Intimate relationships Lady Lucy Herbert
Mother Teresa Joseph (LLH ) was visited at her Brugesconvent by her sister Lady Nithsdale , in shaken health after her successful rescue of her husband from the Tower of London and her...
Family and Intimate relationships Lady Lucy Herbert
LLH 's younger sister, Winifred, later Lady Nithsdale , acquired a reputation as a heroine by successfully carrying through a daring plan to spring her husband from his captivity in the Tower of London the...
Family and Intimate relationships Tillie Olsen
Tillie's father, Samuel Lerner , came from the same part of Russia (now Belarus) as his wife. As the only boy in a family of girls he had grown up with many privileges, but...
Friends, Associates Jane Barker
She addressed to an unnamed Jacobite lady an account of this miraculous cure, in a covering letter with which she sent the piece of tissue she called the tumour. The recipient of this odd gift...
Occupation Lady Lucy Herbert
Under her rule the community grew in numbers, celebrated its centenary in 1729 (with two barrels of beer for the neighbours as well as two hundred loaves of bread given to the poor), rebuilt its...
Occupation Lady Eleanor Butler
In addition to their better-known activities, the women became antiquarians with a particular interest in women's writing. They copied early texts by women, like Ann Fanshawe 's still unpublished Memoirs. Henrietta Maria Bowdler sent...
politics Lady Lucy Herbert
It was LLH who persuaded her sister Winifred to write out the full story of how she engineered her husband's escape from the Tower and who then preserved and apparently circulated the story. She no...
politics Mary Countess Cowper
Though she was, against the traditions of her birth family, whole-heartedly a Whig and anti-Jacobite, MCC was troubled by the execution of the rebel lords after the 1715 rebellion. Of Lord Nithsdale 's escape from...
Residence Anne Finch
AF and her husband lost their home in Westminster Palace at James's exile. They did not accompany him into exile, like Lady Nithsdale or Jane Barker ; instead, they took shelter with various friends and connections.
McGovern, Barbara. Anne Finch and Her Poetry: A Critical Biography. University of Georgia Press, 1992.
55-7
Textual Features Edna Lyall
The story revolves around Jacobite plots and persecution of Quakers in the period when Queen Mary II was Regent for her husband, William , during his absences abroad. It introduces actual characters like the former...
Textual Features Barbarina Brand Baroness Dacre
Fully half of this three-volume publication is taken up by the tale of how Lady Nithsdale liberated her husband from the Tower of London in 1716.
Textual Production Mary Matilda Betham
MMB wrote bridal verses for a young woman she knew in August 1833.
qtd. in
Betham, Ernest, editor. A House of Letters. Jarrold and Sons, 1905.
231
She was also commissioned for the portrait of a young nun, great-grand-daughter of the Lord Nithsdale who had barely escaped execution...
Textual Production John Buchan
His later biographies include Sir Walter Scott, 1932, and Oliver Cromwell, 1934. His later essay collections include A Book of Escapes and Hurried Journeys, 1922 (which relates among other things the story...

Timeline

No timeline events available.

Texts

Nithsdale, Winifred Maxwell, Countess of, and Sheffield Grace. A Letter from the Countess of Nithsdale. J. Rider, 1827.
Nithsdale, Winifred Maxwell, Countess of. Genuine Account of the Escape of Lord Nithsdale. F. Humble, 1816.