James Maitland, 8th Earl of Lauderdale, KT, PC (26 January 1759 – 10 September 1839) was Keeper of the Great Seal of Scotland and a Scottish representative peer in the House of Lords.

[1] Born at Haltoun House near Ratho, the eldest son and heir of James Maitland, 7th Earl of Lauderdale, whom he succeeded in 1789, he became a controversial Scottish politician and writer.

His tutor had been the learned Dr. Andrew Dalzell and James Maitland then attended the universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow, completing his education in Paris where, it is said, he became radicalised.

In the House of Commons he supported the prominent Whig Charles Fox and took an active part in debate and was one of the managers of the Impeachment of Warren Hastings.

From 1789, in the House of Lords, where he was a Scottish representative peer, he was prominent as an opponent of the policy of William Pitt the Younger and the English government with regard to France.

He was an Englishman, and the exasperated people were desirous of revenging themselves on him: they surrounded him, mobbed him, and pressed upon him; and in defiance of the protection of two officers who were attending him, they showered stones and mud upon him from all sides.

In 1672 on the death of the Earl of Dundee, the Duke of Lauderdale was appointed Hereditary Bearer for the Sovereign of the Standard of Scotland, and this right was retained by his heirs until 1910.

[3] This work, which was translated into French and Italian, produced a controversy between the author and Lord Brougham; The Depreciation of the Paper-currency of Great Britain Proved (1812); and other writings of a similar nature.