THE HAMELTON-DOUGLASES.—(CONTINUED.)
his brother George is said to have played into the hands of the English) joined Arran, and after an unsuccessful attempt at Mel, rose overtook and routed the English at Ancram Muir, Evers falling in the engagement. Angus commanded the van of the Scotch army at the fatal battle of Pinkie, September 10, 1547, and re- pulsed the English at first, but being harassed by their archers, and endeavouring to shift his ground, the movement was construed by the borderers into a flight, a great panic ensued, and the Scots were totally routed with a loss of 10,000 men, Sir George Douglas, the Earl's brother, falling in the fight. In the same year Angus, making a "resignatiOn" of the whole estates of the Earl- dom, obtained three new charters to himself,- his wife, their son and heir apparent James Douglas in fee, and the heirs male of his body, in default to the heirs male of the Earl and his assigns for ever, of the lordships and baronies of Keremure, Abernethy, Sel- kirk, Jedburgh Forest, Bonkle, or Bonkill, and Prestonn, Douglas, Crawford-Douglas, Temptallon, Bothwell, Dunsyre, and Kettle- scheil. The Earl died at Temptallon Castle in 1556. His only son by his third wife Margaret, daughter of Robert Lord Maxwell, having died before him, he was succeeded by his nephew David, seventh Earl of Angus, eldest son of the Sir George Douglas who fell at Pinkie. This David was sickly in body and inactive in habits, and only survived to the year 1558. He married Margaret, daughter of Sir John Hamilton of Clydesdale, brother of James, second Earl of Arran and Governor of Scotland, by whom he left a son, Archibald, who succeeded as eighth Earl of Angus when only two years old, being placed under the guardianship of his uncle, James Douglas, Earl of Morton, the celebrated Regent of Scotland.
This latter nobleman wasthe real head of the Douglas family during the troublous times of the reign of Mary and the minority of James VI. He was the second son of Sir George Douglas of Pittendriech, brother of the sixth Earl of Angus, and shared his father and uncle's misfortunes. While they were exiles in England young James Douglas lived in disguise in the Highlands under the name of James Innes, or " James the Grieve," from the office of bailiff the functions of which he performed. In this condition of life he gained that intimate knowledge of men andthat practical knowledge of life which enabled him afterwards to exercise so important an influence over the history of Scotland. He married Lady Elizabeth Douglas, daughter of James third Earl of Morton, the descendant (as we have already mentioned) of a younger branch of the earlier Douglases and in virtue of a charter of his father-in-law James Douglas succeeded him in 1553 in the Earldom of Morton and in his extensive estates, including the barony of Dalkeith, several other baronies and lands in the counties of Peebles, Haddington, Lanark, Kirkcudbright, Fife, Perth, and Dumfries, with limitations over eventually, in default of the immediate relatives of James Dougl is, to collaterals of the previous line of Morton. He Ivae sworn a Privy Councillor in 1561, and appointed High Chancellor of Scotland in 1563. It is impossible to follow his career in detail, for it is identical with the history of the period, but his share in the murder of Rizzio is well known. He had to fly the kingdora from the vengeance of Mary, but Bothwell obtained his pardon, enlisted him against Darnley and endeavoured to procure his par- ticipation in the murder of the unhappy King ; but Morton sagaciously refused to join unless he had the express orders of the Queen under her handwriting. He took part subsequently against Bothwell, co-operated with the Regent Moray, was again made High Chancellor and also High Admiral, and commanded the van. of the army which defeated Mary at the battle of Langside in 1568. He was one of the Commissioners sent to England to prefer an accusation against Mary, and on the death of the Earl of Mar the office of Regent of Scotland was conferred on him, November 27, 1572. Even during the nominal regency of Mar he had regulate& every public measure, and on Mar's death the administration seems to have devolved as a matter of course upon him. " He was supported by the great majority of the nobles, by the influential party of the Church, and by the friendship of England." Morton's regency, which lasted for six years, was like himself, firm and vigorous, but unsparing and exacting. His ability was admitted and admired even by his enemies. He held firmly by the English alliance under great difficulties, and yet maintained the national dignity better than any ruler of Scotland had done since the civil troubles of that kingdom began. Property and person were made secure in Scotland, and he himself never used a guard, and would pursue his diversions, " walking abroad with his fishing-rod over his shoulder or his hawk on his wrist." The Borders were curbed into quietness, and the foreign commerce increased so rapidly that in 1575 Killigrew, the English Ambassador, reckoned Scotland able to raise 20,000 mariners. On the other hand, while wit difficulty Morton balanced the conflicting interests of th
t selfish nobles, and maintained the power of the Crown against them all, he had alienated the affections of the middle and lower orders by his exactions. The merchants of the capital resisting these, some of the most affluent had been imprisoned by him, and they scrupled not to say that if he did not speedily change his measures the same burghers' hands which had put him up would as surely pull him down again. He had alienated the affections of the Kirk and of the ministers by setting up a form of episcopacy, the Tulchan Bishops," as the common people contemptuously called them, an allusion well understood in the Scotch dairies, implying their being mere instruments for the Regent's own purpose. He had created them they said merely to place dependents and kinsmen of his own in seats of office and profit, and Morton's well-known avarice added to the force of this imputation, while his profligate private life gave additional support to the outcry. On the other hand, Morton incensed at the demagogical spite of the clergy, said openly that there would be no peace or order in the country till some of the ministers were hanged. In March, 1578, a conspiracy against Morton, headed by Argyll, proved successful, the young King being persuaded to sanction the measures of the conspirators. Morton, summoned to surrender the Regency, yielded to the storm, and James himself assumed nominally the government of the kingdom. Morton after a short interval of apparently unambitious retirement regained his power, but only to lose it again, and ultimately his life, by the as- cendancy of Captain James Stewart, the King's favourite. On his resignation of the regency he had obtained Royal pardon for all misdeeds he might have committed at any former period, and this had been ratified by Parliament on the 25th of July. But in defiance of this he was accused by Captain Stewart, 30th December, 1580, of being accessory to the murder of Darnley, committed prisoner to Dunbar Castle, removed to Edinburgh Castl e in May, 1581, brought to trial and found guilty on the 1st of June, and executed the next day by the guillotine, called "the Maiden," which he had himself introduced into Scotland. He died with dignity and calm courage, professing only his penitence for his past misconduct in private life. He is described as of low stature, handsome, and of a graceful bearing. With all his faults he was probably the greatest of the House of Douglas, certainly the one of that family to whom Scotland is most indebted as a nation, though his character was rather of the type of Strafford than of Pym. The estates of Morton, who died without issue, were by his attainder forfeited to the Crown ; but after the title and estates had been granted to John Lord Maxwell, grandson of the third Earl, an Act of Indemnity having been passed in 1585 and letters of "rehabi- litation " of the late Earl having been issued, Lord Maxwell was deprived of the title, which descended on Morton's nephew, Archibald, eighth Earl of Angus, as next heir of entail, and on his death in 1588 on Sir William Douglas of Lochleven.
Archibald, the eighth Earl of Angus, whose career was politi- cally a more moderate but less decided copy of his uncle's, gained the name of " the Good Earl," which in some respects he seems to have merited. He received several grants of lands chiefly in the county of Lanark and the hereditary offices of Steward of Fife and Keeper of the Palace of Falkland. He was also one of the Wardens of the Marches, in which office he is said to have acted with great capacity and justice. On his uncle's execution he retired into England, where he became a great friend of Sir Philip Sidney, but in 1582, after the raid of Ruthven, he returned to Scotland, and was one of the associated lords who then obtained possession of the government. In 1583 James shook off their power and required them to surrender by a proclamation, which Angus obeyed. But in 1584, with the Earl of Mar and Lord Glamis, he seized the castle of Stirling, and issued a proclamation against Stewart, now created Earl of Arran, the King's minion. On the King advancing against them, however, with an army they were obliged to fly into England. Angus was then attainted in the Parliament which met in 1584. However, the next year he returned with the other banished lords, overthrew and expelled Arran, and obtained a pardon for themselves and a restitution of their properties. Angus did not long survive this final success, dying in 1588, as people said, from the effects of sorcery. Leaving no children he was succeeded as ninth Earl of Angus by his relative, William, grandson of Sir William Douglas of Glenbervie, second son of Archibald " Bell-the-Cat." He was a zealous partizan of the Reformation in the days of Mary, and succeeded to the Earldom of Angus in 1588, in spite of the opposition of King James, who claimed it as the grandson of Lady Margaret Douglas, the daughter of the sixth Earl of Angus by the Queen-Dowager of Ssotland. The ninth Earl died July, 1591, and was succeeded by hitasson William, tenth Earl of Angus, who was well versed in the antiquities and history of Scotland, and wrote a chronicle of the Douglases. Becoming a Roman Catholic he engaged with the Earls of Errol and Huntley in 1592 in a treasonable plot with the King of Spain to re establish their faith in Scotland. He was seized January 1, 1592, and committed to the castle of Edinburgh, but escaped in February to the north, where he joined the two other Earls, and they came into the King's presence on the 11th of October and offered to submit to a legal trial. In November it was declared that they should be exempted from any inquiry into their correspondence with Spain, but should either renounce " Popery " before February, 1591, or depart from the
kingdom. However, they did neither, and continued their correspondence, Angus, however, not going to the same extre- mities as the other two. In 1603 he had a new charter to him- self and his eldest son of the earldom of Angus, and retiring to the Continent passed the rest of his life in acts of devotion, dying at Paris, March 3, 1611. His son, William, the eleventh Earl, was noted chiefly for his hospitality and the magnificence of his house- hold at Douglas Castle, in which he surpassed all the other noble- men of Scotland. Charles I. made him Chief Warden of the Bor- ders, and on 17th June, 1633 (the day before his coronation in Scotland), raised him in the peerage as MARQUIS OF DOUGLAS. Joining Montrose after his victory at Kilsyth, Aug. 1615, he shared his defeat at Philiphaugh on the 13th September, but escaping made terms with the successful Covenanters. In Cromwell's Act of Grace and Pardon in 1654 his fine was set down at 1,0001., and he died on the 19th February, 1660. He was twice married. From his first marriage sprang the extinct Dukedom and Barony of Douglas and the present Countess of Home, the heiress general of the House of Douglas ; from his second marriage proceeds the present House of Hamilton-Douglas, which represents the heir male of the Douglases.
Archibald, Earl of Angus, eldest son of the eleventh Earl of Angus and first Marquis of Douglas, was also fined 1,0001. in Cromwell's Act of Grace, and died in 1655 before his father. His son James succeeded his grandfather as second Marquis of Douglas, was a Privy Councillor to Charles II. and James If., and died February 25, 1700. His two elder sons died before him, and he was succeeded as third Marquis of Douglas by his son, Archi- bald, who on the 18th April, 1703, was created Duke of Douglas, Marquis of Angus and Abernethy, Viscount of the Forest of Jedburgh, and Lord Douglas of Bonkill, Prestoun, and Roberton. At the Union with England the Duke entered a formal protest against this Act prejudicing the right of the House of Douglas and Angus to lead the van of the Scotch army, to carry the crown of Scotland in procession, and to give the first vote in Parliaments, councils, and convocations in Scotland. On the rebellion of '15 the Duke called out his retainers on the side of the House of Hanover, and served as a volunteer in the battle of Sheriff Muir. He died at Edinburgh, July 21, 1761. The ducal title then became extinct, but the Marquisato of Douglas devolved on the descendant of William Douglas, Earl of Selkirk and Duke of Hamilton, eldest son of the first Marquis of Douglas by his second marriage, who had married the heiress of the Hamiltons. 'There was a great-law suit known as the " Douglas Case" consequent on the death of the Duke of Douglas. He had left his real and personal property to his nephew, Archibald Stewart, the son of his sister, Lady Jane Douglas, by Sir John Stewart of Grandtully, Perthshire. The Duke of Hamilton in 1762 tried to establish that Archibald Stewart was not the son of Lady Jane Douglas, but this was decided against him in 1771. On the other hand, Mr. Stewart (who took the name of Douglas) claimed the Earldom of Angus. But no decision was given on the point, and he was created a British peer as Baron Douglas of Douglas on the 9th July, 1790. This title on the death of his grandson James, fourth Lord Douglas, in 1857, also became extinct, and the family estates of the Douglases then devolved on his niece, Elizabeth, daughter of Henry Montagu Scott, last Lord Montagu of Borgston, and wife of the present Earl of Home. We now turn to the male line of the Douglases, which became the heir general of the Hamilton's, and proceed to give some account of the latter family.
THE HOUSE OF. HAMILTON.
The earliest ancestor who can be assigned with any evidence to •the Hamiltons is, as we have already mentioned, Gilbert do Hameldun, whose son, Sir Walter, swore fealty to Edward I. in 1292 and 1294, and afterwards espousing the cause of " the Bruce," had from the latter, March 10, 1316, a charter of Machane in Clydesdale, to which on the 28th July, 1323, was added the barony of Kinneil in the sheriffdom of Edinburgh, with the lands
of Larbert and Aldcathi, and also the barony of CADYOW (now Hamilton) in the sheriffdom of Lanark. He was twice married— his second wife being Mary, daughter of Sir Adam de Gordoune- and he left two sons. From the younger, John, are descended the Earls of Haddington. The elder son, Sir David, was taken pri- soner with David Bruce at the battle of Neville's Cross, 1346, but immediately ransomed. His seal is attached to the Act of Settle- ment of the Crown of Scotland, 1371, and he died in 1374. His eldest son, Sir David, used the designation " De Hamylton," which neither his father nor grandfather had used, though it had been employed by some of the younger branches of the family. He had a grant of the lands of Bothwell Muir in 1377, and having married Johannetta, daughter of Sir Edward Keith, Great illareschal of Scotland, was dead before 1392. His eldest son, Sir John de Hamilton, succeeded his father as Lord of Cadyow. He was taken prisoner by the English, but obtained an order to be set at liberty October 28, 1398. He married a daughter of Sir James Douglas of Dalkeith, and his third son by her, Thomas, was the ancestor of the Earls of Claubrassil, the Viscounts of Limerick, and other families in Ireland. The eldest son, Sir James Hamilton of Cadyow, was one of the hostages for the ransom of James I. in 1421, when his income is estimated at 500 marks, and after his return home was made a Privy-Councillor and knighted. His fourth son, Gawin, was ancestor among other families of the Hamiltons of Bothwellhaugh—immortalized or damned to fame by the murder of the Regent Moray. The eldest son, Sir James Hamilton, was created a lord of Parliament, 28th June, 1445, by Royal charter regranting him the lands and baronies of Cadyow, and Machane, and the supe- riority of the lands of Hamilton farm, and the lands of Corsbaskat, in the sheriffdom of Lanark, and the barony of Kinneil, in the sheriffdom of Linlithgow, resigned by him into the King's hands,— all which were erected into one free lordship, to be denominated in future the lordship of Hamilton, and the manor-house of the said James Hamilton, called the Orchard, in the barony of Cadyow, to be in future the principal messuage of the lordship, and to be styled " Haativrox," and the said James was by the same Charter created and nominated hereditary lord of " our Parliament," " the said James and his heirs performing to us and our heirs and successors, Kings of Scotland, the services due and wont." Lord Hamilton was one of the Commissioners to conclude a peace with the English in 1449, and in 1451 founded the collegiate church of Hamilton. He joined the Douglases in their illegal association against every authority in 1451, but submitted with them in 1452, after the death of the Earl. He had a charter of seisin from the Douglas of the barony of Drumsargard, and from Malise, Earl of Menteith and Lord of Kympunt, whose sister Euphemia he had married, he had on December 17, 1453, a charter to him and his heirs male by her of the lands of Elastone, in the lordship of Kympunt and constabulary of Linlithgow. We have already mentioned his junction with the Douglases in their rebellion of 1454 and his desertion of them at Abercorn, which led to the downfall of the great Earls of Douglas. This is the first remarkable instance of the political vacillations by which the Hamiltons are so unfortu- nately distinguished in the history of Scotland. He was appointed in 1455 Sheriff of Lanark, and had a grant of the baronies of Drumsargard and Cormunoock in the same county, forfeited by Douglas. Ile had also a charter of the 23rd of October with a great number of limitations of the baronies of Drumsargard, Hamilton, and itlachane in Lanark ; of the barony of Kinneil in Linlithgow ; the lands of Kirkgunzean and Coratraithane in Kirkcudbright ; and of Cesaford in Roxburgh allunited into the free barony of Hamilton. On the 6th August, 1457, he had a grant of Fynmarde in Renfrew, forfeited by the. Douglas. He was a benefactor to the College of Glasgow, the master and students of which were thereby bound daily after dinner and supper to pray for the souls of his lordship and Euphemia his wife. He was often engaged in negotiations, and in 1472 was one of the Ambassadors Extraordinary to the Court of Eng- land. On the 13th May, 1473, he had charters of part of the lordship of Bothwell and of half of the barony of Crawfordjohn in Lanark. He died November 12, 1479. His second wife was Mary, eldest daughter of King James II., and widow of Thomas Boyd, Earl of Arran. Bit her he left a son, James, who succeeded as second Lord Hamilton. He also left several natural sons, who are more or less mentioned in the annals of those times. The Hamiltons thus became the heads of one of the collateral branches of the Royal House of Scotland, a pedigree which the family have never forgotten since, but which has brought with it a long train of misfortunes to them. They now begin to assume a very promi-
nent position in the history of Scotland, but our notice of their career is necessarily limited to its salient points.
James, the second Lord Hamilton, son of the Princess Mary Stewart and nephew to James DLL, was infeft in the heritable sheriffship of Lanark, 1489, and had a charter of the lands of Paddocruke, 30th May, 1499. In 1503 he was sworn a Privy Counciller to his cousin, James IV., and being sent to England to conclude the marriage with Margaret, daughter of Henry VII., was created after the nuptials EARL OF ARRAN, with a charter, August 11, 1503, to him and the heirs male of his body, of the lands and earl- dom of Arran in the shire of Bute, on account of his relationship to the King and his services in negotiating the marriage, as especially stated in the charter. He had also a charter of the same date establishing him the King's justiciary within the bounds of Arran.
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