William Maitland of Lethington

He adhered to the party of James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray, illegitimate half-brother of the Queen, against the extreme measures of John Knox, and generally held his own against the preachers.

Throckmorton recorded Maitland's personal answer, which outlined that English interference was not welcome at this time and might even be counterproductive, and that Throckmorton would not be allowed to see Mary: Being in place to knowe more than you can knowe, I saye unto yowe ..., in case you doe on the Quenes majesties behalf your mestris, presse this company to enlarge the Quene my soveraigne, and to suffer you to goe unto her (at Lochleven Castle), or doe use any thretnynge speache in those matters, the rather to compasse them (rather than achieve them), I assure you, you wyll put the Quene my soveraigne in greate jeopardye of her lyffe: and therefore there is none other waye for the present to do her good but to give place and use mildness.

Kirkcaldy resisted with firmness worthy of his high military reputation, until the walls were breached and shattered, his provisions expended, the wells choked with ruins and inaccessible, and the artillery silenced.

By Elizabeth's orders, Sir William Drury saw himself obliged to surrender his prisoners to Regent Morton, and the gallant Kirkcaldy and his brother were executed at the Market Cross in Edinburgh.

Maitland of Lethington, already ill, was moved to a cell in the newly completed Leith Tolbooth, for his own protection, where the following month he either died "in the Roman fashion" by taking his own life, through poison on 9 July 1573, rather than face the humiliation of public execution.

Jamie Reid-Baxter has suggested that the Scots Renaissance comedy Philotus, about a lecherous octogenarian seeking marriage to a teenage girl, may first have been performed during the Maitland-Fleming wedding celebrations in Stirling.