THE HAMILTON-DOUGLLSES.—(CONTINUED.)
ARRAN was a weak man, whose character, ever irresolute and therefore repeatedly treacherous as respected his alliances and friendships, vacillated between amiable sentimentality and spas- modic ferocity. Although not a man of any capacity and quite unpractised in military or naval service, his Royal connection and feudal power seem to have given him from the first a dispropor- tionate share in public commands. In 1504 he was sent to Den- mark to assist the King of that country, and in 1507 to France ore a mission to the French Court. Passing secretly and without per- mission through England, the jealousy of Henry VII. was• aroused, and when in the following year Arran was returning with his bastard brother, Sir Patrick Hamilton, in the same manner, he was arrested in Kent by an agent of the English King, and re- fusing to take an oath which bound them to the observance of peace within that country, the brothers Hamilton were committed' to custody, and not released for several months, notwithstanding the remonstrances and menaces of King James. In 1513 Arran was most unfortunately chosen, probably simply from his social position, as generalissimo of the forces despatched by James IV. to the assistance of the French. Such a fleet as Scotland had not yet seen was raised, and with a force of 3,000 men on board the expedition started with strict orders to proceed straight to France without ravaging any of the English territories. In defiance of this Arran conducted the fleet to Carrickfergus in Ire- land, landed his troops, and stormed the town, sparing neither age nor- sex, this being during a time of peace with England, and contrary to an express promise of King James to that country. Arran then re- turned to Ayr with his plunder, and sailed again before the arrival of Sir Andrew Wood, whom the angry King had sent to supersede- him. " On the future history of this armament, "says Tytler, "there rests a deep obscurity. That it reached France is certain, and it is equally clear that only a few ships ever returned to Scot. land. Of its exploits nothing has been recorded." Arran re- mained in France till the battle of Flodden relieved him from, all fear of the incensed King, and he returned with the Duke• of Albany, the son of Alexander, brother of James III., and con- sequently his own first cousin. He aspired to the Regency, which, however, was obtained by Albany, but he was appointed Captain of the Castle of Edinburgh. In the struggle with Angus and Home the latter was committed to the custody of Arran, but he• was persuaded by his prisoner to release him and fly with him to- England. Albany seized Arran's castles, but on the intercession, of the Princess Mary—Arran's mother—he consented to admit her- son to grace, and Arran deserted Angus and Home as madly as- he had joined them. Scarcely had he returned, however, than he entered into fresh combinations against Albany with Lennox,. Glencairn, Mare of Caldwell, and others; but this rebellion also„. though formidable at first, was crushed by Albany, and Arran. again obtained his pardon, this time through the influence of Beaton. On the withdrawal of Albany to France, in June, 1517, Arran was constituted Lieutenant-General of the Kingdom, Warden of the Marches, and one of the Lords of Regency. In this office lie came into violent collision with Angus, and an encounter took place between their followers in the streets of Edinburgh, April 30, 1520, in which Sir Patrick Hamilton and others were killed.. In 1521 Albany returned and recovered his authority, and Arran was again appointed one of the Council of Regency during his temporary withdrawal to France in 1522 ; but on his final retirement in 1524, in conjunction with the Queen Dowager, Arran possessed himself of the Government till in his turn dispossessed by Angus. After a faint attempt at resistance to the Donglases, Arran, in his usual fashion, deserted his former friends, made terms with Angus, and went so far as to command a force sent against his own
nephew, the Earl of Lennox, who was attempting to deliver the young King from his thraldom. In an engagement near Linlith- gow, September 4, 1526, Lennox was routed by Arran and Angus, and killed after he had surrendered by Sir James Hamilton, natural son of Arran, usually called the Bastard of Arran, a man of great ferocity of character. In bitter remorse Arran threw himself by the side of Lennox's body, exclaiming that " the wisest, the best, the bravest man in Scotland had fallen," and shutting himself up in one of his castles, refused to take any farther share in the Government. On the forfeiture of Angus, Arran had a charter of the barony of Bothwell (November 16, 1528), but died soon after, before the 21st July, 1529.
He left several natural sons, one of whom was John Hamilton, afterwards celebrated as the unprincipled and profligate Archbishop of St. Andrew's, who played a conspicuous part in the scenes of Queen Mary's reign and the minority of James VI., and was executed at Stirling on April 1, 1570. Arran was succeeded by his eldest son James, second Earl, who was in several respects a copy of his father. There was, however, one important difference between them—that the seeondEarl leant to the side of the Reformed doctrines as much as a man of his irresolute character could be said to adhere to any opinions. On the melancholy death of James V. in December, 1342, after the disaster of Solway Moss, Arran, from his rank and his Protestant leanings, was selected as the fittest person to take the post of Regent or Governor to the infant Queen Mary. Mr. Tytler describes him as a man of amiable disposition, but indolent in his habits, and unhappily of that undecided temper which unfitted him to act with energy and success in times of so much confusion and difficulty. The Estates of Parlia- ment, which assembled on the 13th of March, 1543, passed an Act confirming Arran as Regent, as being the second per- son in the realm, and nearest to succeed to the Crown failing the Queen and her children,—and one of the first Acts passed under his auspices was to allow the use of the Bible in the vulgar tongue. Henry VIII.'s agents described him as " a soft God's man, that loved well to look on the Scripture." Cardinal Beaton, who on the strength of an alleged will of King James was claiming the Regency, was arrested and imprisoned, and " two stout gospellers " had licences to preach granted them. Beaton from his prison laid Scotland under an Interdict, a sentence which then operated practically as well as theoretically in that kingdom. The public excitement was so great that Arran thought it advisable to place Beaton in merely nominal restraint, which at once became actual liberty and renewed political activity. Henry VIII. was endeavouring to secure a union of the two Crowns by the marriage of his son Edward with the infant Queen, and as a bribe to Arran he promised him the hand of the Princess Elizabeth for his son. Arran eagerly accepted the offer, and after much negotiation a treaty was agreed to in the Scotch. Parliament in June, 1543, and signed by Henry in July, in spite of the opposi- tion of Beaton and Mary of Guise the Queen's French mother, of which treaty the marriage of Edward and Mary with securities for the liberties of Scotland and a promise by the latter not to assist France, were the principal points. But in September Arran, alarmed at the threatening attitude of the Catholic party, who had carried off the young Queen to Stirling Castle, sought a reconciliation with Beaton, confessed his heresy, and was received again into the favour of the Church of Rome. Disputes now thickened between King Henry and the Scotch Government, and mutual complaints of breaches of engage. ment and acts of hostility led in December to the annulling of the treaties by the Scottish Parliament, in which from one cause or the other nearly all parties had united against England, and to the revocation of the licence to read the Bible in the vulgar tongue. The next year saw the invasion of Scotland by Seymour, Earl of Hertford, which broke up effectually for the time the English party in that kingdom. The subsequent invasion by the Protector Somerset and the battle of Pinkie are matters of history. Arran continued nominally at the head of the Government till 1554, but his name was a mere cover for the successive ascendency of dif- ferent parties. In April, 1554, Mary of Guise succeeded in com- pelling him to resign his authority as Regent to her, not- withstanding the opposition of Arran's bastard brother, the Primate of St. Andrew's, who had lately obtained considera- ble influence over his mind. On the occasion of sending the young Queen of Scotland to France in June, 1548, Arran had been created by the King of France Duke of Chatelherault, with a pension of 30,000 livres a year. He bad several charters of Church lands in 1550, and one of the barony of Kettlestoun, county Linlithgow, February 5, 15,51. When the match between the Dauphin of France and Queen Mary was assented to by the Scotch Parliament, the succession of the Hamiltons in case of failure of children to the Queen was once more solemnly recognized and provided for. In 1559 Chatelherault again took his side against the Queen Regent, along with the Protestant 'Lords of the Con- gregation; and there were projects of marriage between his son Arran and Queen Elizabeth, which came to nothing owing to the repugnance of the latter to the weak young nobleman. On the return of Mary to Scotland Chatelherault hoped to obtain her hand for his son, and he so strongly opposed) the marriage with Darnley, even rising in arms, that when in December, 1565, he submitted to the Queen, she compelled him to leave the kingdom and retire to France. In that country he continued till 1569, while his family, headed by the Primate of St. Andrew's, intrigued with every party, and be- trayed every party by turns. The most flagrant instance of their double-dealing was in 1567, immediately after the im- prisonment of Mary at Lochleven, when professing openly to be partisans of that Queen, they proposed secretly to Moray and the other party that Mary should be executed at once, as the only means of reconciling all parties, but in truth because that pro- ceeding would leave only a feeble infant between them and the Crown of Scotland. In 1509 the Duke returned from France with a commission from Mary as her Lieutenant•General, but on Moray marching against him again temporized, and agreed to acknowledge the young King's authority, lay down his arms, and repair to a convention at Edinburgh, giving hos:ages for his good behaviour, on condition that the Queen's partisans had their estates restored to them, and that some plan consistent with her honour and preser- vation were agreed to between the two parties. Ho repaired to Edinburgh accordingly, but Moray, who had kept up his forces on the pretext of reducing the Borders to order, after ho had done so, called upon Chatelherault and his friends to sign at once, as a preliminary to all discussion, an acknowledgment of the King's authority, and on their refusing had them seized and imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle.
From this restraint Chatelherault was released in 1570 by Kirkaldy of Grange, after the assassination of the Regent Moray by Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh. He then contributed the strength of the Hamiltons to the final struggle in favour of Mary which was made by Grange, and joined him at Edinburgh Castle with troops, his fourthson, Lord Claud Hamilton, ancestor of the Marquis of Aber- corn, taking an active part in the sallies made from the beleaguered garrison. In 1571, however, Dumbarton Castle, the othergreat strong- hold of Mary's faction, was taken by a daring escalade on the part of Crawford of Jordanhill, the devoted attendant of Darnley in his last days, who pursued an unrelenting mission of vengeance against Mary. In this castle was John Hamilton, the Archbishop of St. Andrew's, who was instantly hurried to trial for the deaths of Darn- ley and the Regent Moray, condemned, and hanged and quartered without delay. The Duke of Chatelherault and the Hamilton had been outlawed by the Regent Lennox in July, 1571, and the death of the Primate raised the fury of the family to the highest pitch. A surprise of Lennox's camp at Stirling, planned and ex- ecuted by a party of men commanded amoug others by Lord Claud Hamilton, was at first successful in making prisoners of the Regent, of Morton and nearly all the leaders of the opposite party ; but the Borderers who constituted the surprising force then abandoning themselves to plundering the city, the townsmen rallied, Mar issued from the castle of Stirling, the assailants were in their turn surprised and routed, and the prisoners were all rescued with the exception of Lennox, who while still a prisoner was shot by Captain Calder, at the previous instigation, as ho alleged, of Lord Claud and the Earl of Huntley (Chatelherault's son- in-law), in revenge for the Archbishop's death. Mar succeeded as Regent, but soon dying Morton assumed that post, and speedily re- duced the Queen's party to such extremities that on the 23rd Feb- ruary, 1573, the Hamiltons made separate terms with him, aban- doning Kirkaldy and Lethington to their fate. The terms stipu- lated their complete submission to the existing Government, and their acknowledgment as illegal of all the enterprises of the Queen's party, while they obtained restitution of the estates of those adherents of the Queen who should submit, and a general Act of oblivion for them except as regarded the murders of the Regents Moray and Len- nox. Ti is ended the political career of the Duke, who died at Hamil- ton on the 22nd January, 1575. He left four sons, the eldest of whom, James, third Earl of Arran, did not succeed to the title of Chatelherault, which was resumed by the Crown of France. His career was a miserable one. Taken prisoner in the castle of St. Andrew's when Cardinal Beaton was murdered in 1546, ho was re- leased by the French, visited the Court of France in 1555, and was appointed Captain of the Scottish Guards there. But discovering
that the brothers Guise were plotting to cut him off as an adherent of the Reformed faction, he fled from France in 1559, and returned to Scotland with a strong hatred to the French party, visiting England on his way back, and having an interview with Queen Elizabeth. He was formally recommended to her as her husband by the Lords of the Congregation in 1560, but was courteously declined, and in the following year he became a suitor to Queen Mary, but being the only one of the nobility who opposed her having the exercise of her own religion he lost all chance of her acceptance of him. The parsimony of his father at the same time kept him in a state of poverty quite inconsistent with his position as a Prince of the Royal Blood, and his natural tendency to insanity being increased by disappointments in all quarters, he became more and more eccentric till his extravagancies at length extended to actual frenzy, and he was formally declared insane.
On the death of the Duke his father the family estates devolved on the second son, Lord John Hamilton, who in 1541 had the commendatory of the rich abbey of Aberbroth- wick, or Arbroath, conferred on him, and usually went by the title of the commendator of Arbroath. He had a charter of the lands of Eastwod from Hugh, Earl of Eglintoun, October 24, 1562. He with his brother Claud and the Primate of St. Andrew's became the leading spirits of the Hamiltons, and to them must be attributed the treacherous and discreditable part played by the family during this period. The Primate, John Hamilton, partici- pated in the death of Darnley, and he and the other Hamiltons proposed that of Mary, but they once more rose in her favour after her escape ,from Lochleven, in May, 1568, which had been plotted chiefly by Lord John, who received the Queen at Hamilton, and gathered round her an army of above 6,000 men, who were all dispersed at the battle of Langside. He submitted to Moray, but with Lord Claud plotted the death of that Regent, and, as we have seen, took part in the final struggle for Mary against the Regents Lennox, Mar, and Morton, the first of whom owed his death to an order of Lord Claud. Submitting to Morton in 1573, the Hamil- tons escaped for the time the consequences of their various crimes, but joining Morton's enemies in his temporary overthrow, when be recovered his power in 1579 they were the first to experience his vengeance. The greed of the Douglases added to the motives of Morton on other grounds. Arbroath's possessions are described as the greatest and the richest in Scotland at that time. "These lands were conterminous with:the vast estates of the Earl of Angus, which included nearly all the Overward of Clydesdale, as Arbroath's did the Netherward. But although," observes Mr. Tytler, "his enmity against Arbroath and his brother was entirely selfish, Morton was not guilty of injustice when he persuaded the young King that it was his duty to proceed with severity against the House of Hamilton. It had a long reckoning of crime and blood to account for." The fatal exception to the oblivion in the agree- ment of 1573 was employed as the instrument of the destruction of the House, and they were declared. guilty under the Acts of attainder passed against the murderers of Moray and Lennox. Morton and Angus besieged and took the castle of Ilamiliou, and its commander, Arthur Hamilton of Merton, was banged, with others of the family, among whom was Arthur Hamilton, brother of Bothwellhaugh, who had held his stirrup while he mounted after the murder of Moray. The castle of Dreffan, in which the Duchess of Chatelherault and her insane son Arran resided, was also taken, and they were both imprisoned. Arbroath fled, disguised as a sailor, to Flanders and France, Lord Claud to England, where he implored the intercession of Elizabeth, who accordingly sent a gentleman to Scotland for that purpose. But he found the young King and the whole body of the nobility inflamed with the deepest hatred against the Hamiltons, expressing a conviction that their restoration would be dangerous to his person, and resolute against their pardon or return. Thus in October, 1579, fell utterly the House of Hamil- ton. But it was only for a time. The Scotch nobles, as we have pointed out, were hard to extirpate, and the Hamiltons, as of Royal blood, were almost beyond the reach of the law. Their repeated treacheries were condoned by opinion as acts of " policy " justifi- able in them as in Kings, and they seem never to have been out of favour with the mass of the people.
Previous page
