Decoding Marie Maitland: An Interview with Ashley Douglas

Ashley Douglas’s book ‘With My Own Hand’ is published and available in bookshops today, Thursday 16th July. Ahead of the launch, I met up with her in Edinburgh’s New Town, near the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, where she has been busy discussing Scottish history and its dominant characters with Kate Anderson, Senior Curator of pre-1700 portraiture for the National Galleries of Scotland.

On her website, Ashley describes herself as a ‘multilingual researcher, writer and translator, specialising in LGBT+ history and the Scots language’ and whilst, of course, that neatly sums her up, it hardly describes this phenomenon of a woman.

To understand the significance of ‘With My Own Hand’, you must understand Douglas in a lot more depth than that headline. It really is important.

The Making of a Multilingual Historian

She has top-class educational qualifications, with a First Class Honours degree in German from the University of St Andrews, which included total immersion in the language for her third year, when she studied the parallel course at Bonn University. This was not a course taught in English for foreigners, but the same course as her German counterparts, taught entirely in German—and it counted for 50% of her degree.

Needless to say, she is a fluent German speaker. It was during this course that she began to realise the similarities between German and her own Scottish tongue. Her course included linguistics, which she loved, and Ashley went on to complete a Master’s degree in Scottish History at St Andrews, showing how her interests and passions were developing.

A Unique Skill Set in LGBT+ and Scots History

In the ten or so years since she graduated, Ashley has developed a very unique skill set, which has led to collaborations in all of her fields of interest. She works with Time for Inclusive Education (TIE), which delivers Scotland’s LGBT Inclusive Education programme, including learner workshops, curriculum resources, and professional learning for teachers on behalf of the Scottish Government.

She is proud to have written ‘The Lass and The Quine’ (Tippermuir), as it is the first original LGBT+-inclusive children’s book published in the Scots language. As well as her work with the National Galleries of Scotland, she also works with a range of organisations such as the National Library of Scotland and Historic Environment Scotland. She is, in fact, the ‘go-to’ person for the work she does. She is the expert. This work is truly vital.

So, she’s a historian, a native Scots speaker with a gift for languages. She’s a seasoned researcher, and she works with the most prestigious organisations in her field. She understands linguistics—the scientific study of human language: not the rules of “correct” speaking, but how language actually works.

And she’s been trained in palaeography, the academic discipline and study of historical writing systems, historic penmanship, and ancient manuscripts. Not only that, but she is thorough, disciplined, determined and dogged.

‘I’m a doer,’ she says. And if she decides to do something, she does it properly, completely and to the highest of standards. You better believe it. Oh, and she is a proud lesbian. No sitting on the fence here—she says she’s the epitome of a lesbian and is loving every minute. She and her wife Eilidh married young and will celebrate their tenth wedding anniversary next year. She’s very obviously still totally in love and so very proud of her wife.

Inside the Maitland Quarto: Uncovering Poem 49

Back to the book. ‘With My Own Hand’ is ‘a narrative non-fiction biography’ of 16th-century Marie Maitland, daughter and sister of one of Scotland’s most powerful political families, and has been an ongoing and pretty all-consuming project for the last five years.

It all began when she contributed to the National Library of Scotland’s ‘Wee Windaes’ project. Her interest in 16th-century Scottish history and the Scots language meant that she was fully aware of the Maitland Quarto, which includes the largest single collection of Marie’s father Sir Richard Maitland’s own poems, as well as works by King James VI. The Quarto is a ‘treasure trove of the Scots language in its heyday’, according to Douglas.

Her research started with a 1920 edition of the Quarto—the original is held in the Pepys Library of Magdalene College, Cambridge—and at this point, Marie was not on her mind at all. That changed when she found Marie’s name on the front page and then discovered that, although most poems in the Quarto are attributed, there were a few that had no attributions. Then she came across ‘Poem 49’ and she realised she had come across something really special.

And then her work began in earnest. She scoured the National Records of Scotland and ploughed through volumes of the Register of Deeds for the Court of Session, handwritten in ‘secretary hand’, developed for speed by professional clerks. It’s tricky enough that they are handwritten and not always very neatly, but to save time the pen was often not lifted from the page, meaning words run together. Additionally, different forms of some letters are used.

Ashley had to very painstakingly work her way through volumes of these Deeds, having no idea if there was anything to find in the first place and having to be scrupulous to ensure she didn’t miss anything if it were to be there. Whenever she found something interesting, she had to work out what, if any, significance it held. It was like looking for needles in haystacks, when you don’t even know if there are any needles—and if you find a sharp object, is it a needle, and if so, does it have any relevance?

From Archival Discoveries to Publisher Offers

With her hallmark tenacity, Douglas kept on going and once she realised she had enough material and evidence, she started writing her book. She knew she’d have to find an agent and so she drafted a detailed proposal, once she had the first three chapters to show.

Having been successful at this stage—she is represented by Caro Clarke of Portobello Literary—it was then time to pitch to publishers, having accrued a bank of evidence over three years by this point. And this is where the significance of knowing more than the headlines about Ashley Douglas becomes apparent.

In order to pitch to publishers, authors have to convince them why they should consider the book at all, what its USP is, and then why you should be the one to tell the tale. In Douglas’s case it’s obvious: it’s an untold story with great contemporary relevance and interest and, frankly, Douglas is ‘the only person in the world’ who could have written it.

Caro tried to keep Ashley’s expectations realistic and advised nothing might happen for a while, but she actually had several publisher offers in the first week. She chose Hachette and the rest is history—all puns intended.

After she had signed the contract with Hachette, she had to ‘get on with it’ and she knew it was time to go to Cambridge and look at the original manuscript. It was time-consuming, expensive and hard work, but absolutely necessary. Without seeing the original, she wouldn’t have seen the anagram in Poem 69 which breaks up—and therefore hides—Marie’s name in plain sight, indicating that she was both scribe and author. Nor would she have been able to discern the obvious paper changes that belie the apparent order of the manuscript. Amazing attention to detail.

Not content with ‘knowing’ her research and theories were watertight, Douglas stress-tested her findings in the most rigorous places she could find, including giving academic lectures, where she knew any flaws would immediately be found and pointed out to her vigorously. None were found. Now there’s a surprise.

Stress-Testing the Research and Looking to the Future

Having explored Douglas’s bona fides and the journey she’s been on to write and publish her astounding book, we chatted a while about pride in her work, unexpected spin-offs and what the future holds.

Ashley is astonishingly candid and generous and, whilst rigorous and serious about her work and rightly proud of her achievements, is an absolute joy to spend time with. She’s most proud of the extent of her exacting and original research into primary sources; she has no time for authors who only use secondary sources. For instance, she found out that a ‘reliable source’ that has been often quoted said that Marie was the mother of a poet who was born after she died.

She has few regrets: namely, not being able to pinpoint some things, for example where Marie is buried or the name of her lover. And whilst her biggest challenge was all of her archival research—‘detective work’—her biggest enjoyment was found in ‘finding the good stuff’.

Unexpected spin-offs have been a wonderful collaboration with singer Josie Duncan called A’Chiad Litir/The First Letter—which culminated in a concert comprising a series of songs in either Gaelic or English, alluding to various elements of Marie’s life and work—and working with playwright Rona Munro, whose ‘James’ historical plays follow the Stewart kings. Douglas may be unique, but her interests and passions are not.

As to the future, Ashley is looking forward to some more holidays, writing another children’s book in Scots and dealing with her one real regret over these last few years—not spending enough time with her wife Eilidh. Oh, and did I mention she has a full-time day job too? This woman really is extraordinary.

Featured Image: Ashley Douglas – Author Photo

‘With My Own Hand – The Secret Life of Marie Maitland, Scotland’s 16th-Century Sappho’ by Ashley Douglas, is published today by Hachette UK (July 2026)