Marie Maitland, a 16th-century Scottish gentlewoman, has for centuries been recognised as the likely scribe of the Maitland Quarto. This important manuscript, now held in the Pepys Library of Magdalene College, Cambridge, is an anthology of Scottish poetry by members of the noble Maitland family and their associates.
Maitland’s name appears twice on the first leaf and is also found in a partial anagram in the opening sonnet (“maid ane immortall”). By way of emphasis the anagram is repeated beneath the poem.
