THE HAMILTON-DOUGLASES.—(CONCLUSION.)
LOR])JOHN HAMILTON was, on the downfall of his family, kindly received at first in France, but lost the favour of the Guises by refusing to embrace Roman Catholicism. Queen Mary sent him a ring on the eve of her execution in testi- mony of the fidelity (as she believed) of his family, and this is still kept by them,—an honourable memorial if it were only justified by facts. In. 1585 Lord John Hamilton and his brother joined the other banished Lords who in that year returned to Scotland from England, and gathering 10,000 men besieged King James in Stirling Castle, and compelled him to grant them pardon and a complete restoration to their titles and estates. The earl- dom of Arran and the baronies of Hamilton and Kinneil, with other estates of the family, had been granted away to Captain James Stewart, the King's favourite, grandson of Lady Margaret Hamilton, only daughter of the first marriage of James, first Earl of Arran, but he was now deprived of them again. A Parliament in December, 1585, repealed the Act of forfeiture against the Ham- ilton family, and they resumed their former position. Lord John Hamilton was appointed Lieutenant of the South of Scotland when the King went to Denmark in 1589 to espouse a Danish Princess, and was created Marquis of Hamilton at Holyrood House, April 17, 1599, and became a kind of favourite of King James, who fre- quently visited him at Hamilton. He died April 12, 1604. He left a natural son, Sir John Hamilton of Letrick, father of the first Lord Bargeny. He was succeeded by his only legiti- mate son James, second Marquis of Hamilton, who became fourth Earl of Arran on the death of his uncle, the insane Earl, with- out issue, in March, 1609. King James in May, 1608, sepa- rated from the Crown the lands, ere., belonging to the Abbey of Aberbrothvrick, or Arbroath, and created them into a temporal lordship in Hamilton's favour, with the title of a lord of Parlia- ment. He was sworn a Privy Councillor, appointed one of the Gentlemen of the Bedchamber and Lord Steward of the Household, and created a peer of England by the titles of Baron of Enner- dale, in Cumberland, and Earl of Cambridge, June 16, 1619, with limitation to the heirs male of his body. Ile died at Whitehall, March 2, 1625, a few days before King James. He was succeeded in his honours by his eldest son James, third Marquis of Hamilton, fifth Earl of Arran, and second Earl of Cambridge, who with his brother William, Earl of Lanerick, or
Lanark, played important parts in the great Civil War, and became the first and second Dukes of Hamilton. We can give but a brief outline of their careers, which are identical with the history of England and Scotland during that period. They both fully maintained the Hamilton family character for intrigue and inconstancy, though they were both men in some respects of estimable character and considerable ability.
James, third Marquis, was born June 19, 1606, educated in Scotland till he was fourteen, and then sent to Court, and married to Lady Mary Feilding, daughter of William, Earl of Denbigh, niece of the first Duke of Buckingham, and sister of the Parliamen- tary General Basil, Earl of Denbigh. He then went to the University of Oxford till his father's death, when after carrying the Sword of State at the coronation of Charles I. he returned to Scotland, to attend to the family property impaired by his father's magnificent style of living. He was employed by the King in 1630, having received various appointments previously, to con- clude a treaty with Gustavus Adolphus for a contingent of 6,000 men to aid that King against the Imperialists. Hamilton was accused by Lord Ochlltree of intending to employ these men to procure for himself the Crown of Scotland, but the charge not being proved, the accuser was condemned to perpetual imprison- ment. Hamilton joined Gustavus with the contingent and took part in the battle of Leipsic, but quarrelling with that great com- mander on the ground of neglect, and his troops suffering greatly from sickness, he abandoned the enterprise in disgust before the fatal battle of Lutzen. He was appointed Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1638, and here began his political difficulties. He himself leant to the Presbyterian form, as did more decidedly his brother William, but he always professed, and probably in the main entertained, loyalist views on civil matters, though he may never have :quite lost sight of the idea that in case of a revolution he might, as a moderate Presbyterian and in the line of succession to the Crown of Scotland, be called on to replace the House of Stewart. He was at first much trusted by the King, and was considered one of the junto of three—Laud and Wentworth being the other two—who governed the three kingdoms. Charles sent him down in 1639 to the Firth of Forth with a fleet and three regiments to overawe the Covenanters, but his demonstration ended in nothing, his own mother (Anne Cun- ningham, daughter of the Earl of Glencairn), a strong Covenanter, appearing, it is said, on the shore at the head of a troop of horse, and drawing a pistol from her saddle-bow, declaring she would be the first to shoot her son should he land to attack his country- men. Charles now entrusted him with a commission to treat with the Covenanters, with permission to assume the appearance of being one of them if that would advance the King's objects. Hamilton succeeded so well with the Covenanters that he gained their confidence and lost that of the King, who believed he had actually (as he possibly had) gone over to the other side. By the interest of some of the leading Covenanters he escaped the ven- geance of the Long Parliament, and in 1641 was the recognized head of one of two parties in Scotland considered hostile to the Court, but antagonistic to each:other, the Earl of Argyll heading the other. Then took place the strange affair during the King's visit to Scotland in that year called "the Iucident,"—the intended seizure of Hamilton and Argyll by the King's orders, at the insti- gation of Montrose, on a charge of treason. They received timely notice and made a hasty flight, but returned on re-assurances of safety, were absolved from all aspersions, and again treated as friends by the King. In the commencement of the Civil War his antagonism to Argyll led Hamilton to espouse the Royal cause, and he was with the King till 1643. On the 12th of April in that year he was created at Oxford Duke of Hamilton, Marquis of Clydes- dale, Earl of Arran and Cambridge, and Lord Avon and Ennerdale, to him and the heirs male of his body, with remainder to his brother and the heirs male of his body, remainder to the eldest heir female of his own body, and the heirs male of her body, they bearing the arms and name of Hamilton, with remainder over to his own right heirs. He was then sent down to Scotland to endeavour to prevent the junction of the Scotch with the English Parliament in the celebrated League and Covenant, but he com- pletely failed, and on his return to Oxford in December of the same year, being accused by his rival Montrose of commerce with the Covenanters for his own ends, was not allowed to approach the King's person, and committed a prisoner to Pendennis Castle in Cornwall. From this he was transferred to St. Michael's Mount, in the same county, and was only released on the surrender of that stronghold to Fairfax's forces towards the end of April, 1646. He waited on the King at Newcastle in July, and was employed by Charles to negotiate with the Covenanters—in whose hands he bad
placed himself—but the King's obstinacy on the point of Episcopacy prevented the success of his efforts. Charles, however, gave him a grant of the hereditary office of Keeper of Holyrood House, 18th August, 1646. He remained quiescent during the troublous year 1647, but towards its close regained sufficient influence in Scotland with a certain part of the Presbyterians to induce them to enter into what was called "the Engagement" to raise forces for the relief of the King, who had at last surrendered the contested point of religion. Simultaneous risings took place among a portion of the Presbyterians in England, and Hamilton, who had for the time overawed the party of Argyll and Loudon, entered England in July, 1648, co-operating with Sir Marmaduke Langdale at the head of the English Royalists. But these elements consorted so ill to- gether that it was no difficult matter for Cromwell to defeat them separately at the battles near Preston in August, and the Duke, after escaping from the rout, surrendered to Lambert at Ut- toxeter on the 25th of that month. The English Parliament, or the section acting with the army, was little disposed to tole- rate the continual vacillations of Hamilton, and on the 6th of February, 1649, he was brought to trial as Earl of Cam- bridge, condemned, and executed on the 9th of March. He was excepted out of Cromwell's Act of Grace in 1654, and his estates forfeited, reserving out of them 400/. a year to his eldest and 2001. a year to his youngest daughter. The Duke was succeeded in his dignities and estates by his brother William, second Duke of Hamilton, born in December, 1616, and educated at the University of Glasgow. He travelled abroad for some years and returned from France in 1637. On the 31st March, 1639, he was created Earl of Lanark and Lord Machanshire and Polmont. He was made Secretary of State for Scotland in 1640, and arrested with his brother at Oxford in December, 1643, but made his escape to Scotland, where he joined the Covenanters. He acted as a Presbyterian leader during the year 1617, being appointed one of the Parliamentary Commis- sioners to attend on the King. He joined with his brother in the Engagement of 1648, and was left in command of the Engage- ment party in Scotland while his brother invaded England. But on the defeat at Preston the party of Argyll rose in arms, and overthrowing Lanark, welcomed Cromwell to Edinburgh. Being excluded from public employment for his share in the En- gagement, Lanark went abroad to Prince Charles at the Hague, who bestowed on him the Order of the Garter. He accompanied Charles to Scotland in 1650, but the Covenanters would not tolerate his presence about the King, and he retired to the Isle of Arran till January, 1651. The power of the Covenanters being then broken by the battle of Dunbar, and the King of Scots being more at liberty, Hamilton was allowed to attend on the King, and raising a troop of horse at his own charge went with Charles on the expedition into England. At the battle of Wor- cester, on the 3rd of September, he was wounded in the knee and taken prisoner, but escaped the fate of his brother by dying of his wound on the 12th. His only son died an infant, and as he left only four daughters, the earldom of Cambridge became extinct, but the Dukedom of Hamilton (in accordance with the patent of 1643) devolved on his niece Anne, who married Lord William Douglas, eldest son of William, first Marquis of Douglas, by his second wife, a daughter of the Marquis of Huntley. We come, then, again to the House of Douglas.
William Douglas was created Earl of Selkirk and Lord Daer and Shortcleuch, August 4, 1646, and fined 1,000/. by Cromwell's Act of Grace of 1654. On the Restoration, on petition from the Duchess his wife, he was created Duke of Hamilton for life, and was sworn a Privy Councillor. He at first was chiefly engaged in repairing the dilapidations made in the family property by the recent civil war, but after the year 1673 assumed a promi- nent position in the Scotch Parliaments as the opponent of Lauderdale, the chief Minister of Charles in Scotland. Matters ran so high between the parties that in revenge for one flagrant act of deception on the part of Lauderdale his assassination was actually proposed, and only rejected by the influence of Hamil- ton—a satisfactory testimony to the improvement of the Douglas blood in his person. He continued to oppose Lauderdale, and when the insurrection of the Presbyterians took place in 1679 he offered to mediate with the insurgents if their grievances were inquired into, but in vain. He had, however, the Garter given him in 1682, and was sworn a Privy Councillor and appointed one of the Commissioners of the Treasury to James VII. (II. of England) and an Extraordinary Lord of Session, but on the arrival of the Prince of Orange in England Hamilton presided over the meeting of the Scotch nobility at Edinburgh which invited the wince to assume the Government, and also over the Conventlon of
Estates which declared the throne vacant, and invited William and Mary to fill it. He was afterwards appointed President of the Council and High Admiral of Scotland, and filled other high offices till his death, in March, 1694. According to Burnet he was rough and boisterous in his manners, and wanted polish, but was candid and sincere. He was also of an overbearing temper, "neither fit to submit nor to govern." In short he was a Douglas, and not a Hamilton. He had, however, considerable knowledge of his- tory and of the laws of his country, and is reported to have had a re- gard to justice. His widow, Anne, a woman of exempla character, on the 9th of July, 1698, resigned her dignities into the hands of King William in favour of her eldest son, James, Earl of Arran, who was thereupon created Duke of Hamilton with the original prece. dency. One of the articles of the treaty of Utrecht provided that the French King should do justice to the Hamiltons with respect to their French honours, and accordingly their claim on the dukedom of Chatelherault was compounded for by 500,000 livres, secured on the Town Hall of Paris. The Duchess died in 1716. The title a Earl of Selkirk devolved on her second surviving son, Lord Charles, and after his death on the third son, Lord John— agreeably to a new patent obtained in 1688—subsequently on the grandson of Lord Basil, fifth surviving son, from whom the present Earl of Selkirk is descended. The fourth son, Lord George Douglas, was created Earl of Orkney, and was the husband
of William mistress. This latter dignity passed through heiresses to the wife of the Hon. Thomas FitzMaurice, brother of the first Marquis of Lansdowne, and the grandfather of the present Earl of Orkney. The youngest son of the Duke of Hamilton, Lord Archibald Hamilton, a distinguished naval officer and a Lord of the Admiralty, was the father of Sir William Hamilton, well known as a classical antiquarian and a diplomatist, and as the hus- band of Nelson's Lady Hamilton.
James, the eldest son of William and Anne, Duke and Duchess of Asmilton, as Earl of Arran, served two campaigns in France, and was recommended by Louis XIV. to the favour of James II. (VII. of Scotland) on his accession. He filled some household offices and had a regiment, and in 1686, in the Parlia- ment of Scotland, he had a grant of the estates of Cultness, in Lanark, North Berwick, in Haddingtonshire, and Goodtries, in Midlothian, forfeited by Thomas and David Stewart, as a reward for opposing the Earl of Argyll's insurrection. He adhered to James at the Revolution, and opposed his deposition in the Convention of the Estates, kept up a correspondence with the Court of St. Germain's, and was twice committed prisoner to the Tower of London. It caused great astonishment and some in- dignation on the part of Argyll and the Whigs when, notwith- standing his known sentiments, he was raised on his mother's resignation to all the dignities of the family, including that of Earl of Cambridge. He continued to play an energetic part against Government, though warily, but his talents are said to have been marred by a selfish and revengeful spirit. He took a prominent part on the Scotch popular side in the Darien affair, and vehemently opposed the union with England. It was rumoured at this time that he was aspiring to the Crown of Scot- land, in opposition to both the Hanover and Stuart Houses. After the Union he continued in Scotland till the time of the intended invasion of the Pretender in 1708. He was arrested and carried up to London, but released on giving bail, which was soon discharged. On October 11, 1710, after the change of Ministry, he was made Lord-Lieutenant of the county of Lancaster, and Banger of the Forests and Admiral of the Sea Coasts thereof, and on December 13 was sworn of the Privy Council. On September 16, in the same year, he was created a peer of Great Britain as Duke of Brandon (Suffolk) and Baron of Dutton (Cheshire). He was appointed Master-General of the Ordnance in 1712, and in the same year received the Garter, both his English peerages and
this honour receiving great opposition from the English Peers, who refused to recognise the latter. In 1713 he was appointed Ambassador Extraordinary to France, but before he could set
out he was killed in a duel with Lord Mohun (whom he killed on the spot), November 15, not without suspicion of having been stabbed by Colonel Macartney, 31ohun's second,—but
Macartney on trial was only found guilty (as an accessory) of manslaughter. With his second wife, daughter of Digby, Lord Gerard of Gerard's Bromley, the Duke had considerable estates in Lancashire and Staffordshire, and he was succeeded by his son by her, James, fifth Duke of Hamilton and second of Brandon, who was one of the Gentlemer of the Bedchamber to George II., but went into opposition to Walpole in 1733, and died 1st March, 1743. His eldest son, James, sixth Duke of Hamilton and third of Bradon, died of internal inflammation after bunting, January 19,
1758. His widow, Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Charlotte, married John, Duke of Argyll, and was created in May, 1766, a peeress of Great Britain as Baroness Hamilton, of Hameldon, in Leicestershire (with reference to the apocryphal pedigree of the Hamiltons), with remainder to the heirs male of her body. Her eldest son, James George, succeeded as seventh Duke of Hamilton and fourth of Brandon, and on the death of the Duke of Douglas in 1761 became the male representative and chief of the House of Douglas as Marquis of Douglas and Earl of Angus, but in 1769 the suit for the Douglas estates was decided against him, and he died on 7th July in the same year, in the fifteenth year of his age. He was succeeded by his brother Douglas, eighth Duke of Hamilton and fifth of Brandon, who had a grant of the office of Keeper of the Palace of Linlithgow, and in 1782 was by sen- tence of the twelve judges, on reference to them by the House of Lords, declared to be entitled to sit as Duke of Brandon in the English House of Peers, notwithstanding his ancestor being a Scotch peer previously to his creation. He died without issue, August 2, 1799, and was succeeded by his uncle, Lord Archibald, ninth Duke of Hamilton and sixth of Brandon, half-brother of the sixth Duke of Hamilton, who succeeded to his mother's extensive estates in Suffolk, she being a daughter and coheiress of Edward Spencer, of Rendlesham, in that county. Before succeeding his nephew he represented the county of Lancaster in the English Parliament. He died 16th February, 1810, and was succeeded as tenth Duke of Hamilton and seventh of Brandon by his eldest son, Alexander, whose brother, Lord Archibald, took a prominent part in Parliament against the Pitt and Addington Ministries. The tenth Duke married Susan Euphemia, daughter of William Beckford, of Fonthill, the author of " Vathek " and was as well as his brother a Whig in politics. He died August 18, 1852, and was succeeded by his son, William Alexander Anthony Archibald, eleventh Duke of Hamilton and eighth of Brandon, who married the Princess Mary of Baden, was a Tory in politics, and died from an accident at Paris, July 15, 1808, being succeeded by his eldest son William Alexander Louis Stephen, twelfth Duke of Hamilton and ninth of Brandon, the present head of the House of Hamilton-Douglas. The heir-male of the Hamiltons is the Marquis of Abercorn, the descendant, like Viscount Boyne of Brancepeth Castle, of the Lord Claud Hamilton of Queen Mary's time.
No general character can be assigned to a House so composite u that of Hamilton-Douglas, though each of its parts has a marked and continuous individuality. From first to last the stamp of the Douglases has been force—a rude, almost barbarian energy, which made them invariably successful except when by some unusual chance, the rise of a strong man, or a momentary unity of opinion, Scotland was reduced to order. Such qualities diminish in value as civilization advances, and the Douglases as the centuries passed away dwindled into ordinary nobles. A little more tact, a little lees violent disregard for all but themselves, and the descendants of the Flemish adventurer would have mounted the throne of Scotland, and England have perhaps had to win her freedom from men instead of from Stuarts. The Hamiltons are altogether different. Throughout their prosperous career runs a strain more like that of an Italian than of a Scotch or English House, a strain of unscrupulous- ness born not so much of evil impulse as of the union of indomitable will with keenly perceptive intelligence. The House may be descri- bed in a phrase which expresses everything save their fortune, as the Guises of Scotland. Alone among Scotch Houses they have maintained the old alliance, are dukes in Scotland and France and princes in Germany, live habitually as much on the Continent as at
home, possess much property in France, and keep up in all four countries a state which the greatest of English nobles scarcely assume. Their home calls itself a palace, a title conceded to only one other house of an English subject, they have for years deli- berately reserved a whole county as a deer forest, and their residence
is perhaps the only one in Scotland which may rival in its accumu- lation of treasures and objects of art the palaces of the Continent. They are, too, the single House left in Britain which has been acknowledged by a Parliament as of legitimate Royal blood.
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