Around 1630 Maxwell had been working as genealogist to Philip IV of Spain. On 30 April 1631 he wrote from Brussels to Archbishop William Laud, complaining of threats of assassination because he would not forsake Protestantism. Emperor Ferdinand II had, he declared, commanded his presence at court, and offered him spiritual preferment, with the office of imperial antiquary and genealogist, and a pension of a thousand crowns after the death of Sebastian Tegnangel. (Tegnangel in fact died in 1636.) In recompense for his books written in defence of the Church of England against the Puritans, and towards finishing one on the king's genealogy, he asked for a lay prebend. Gilbert Blackhall commented on Scots of this period who had spurned offers from the Spanish king, and their lack of Habsburg prospects (and may have had Maxwell in mind). Court patronage generally dried up in Brussels after 1633.
