James Hamilton, 6th Earl of Abercorn,
PC (Ire) (
c. 1661 – 1734), was a Scottish and Irish peer and politician. Appointed a
groom of the bedchamber to
Charles II after his father's death in battle, he took the Williamite side at the
Glorious Revolution and in March 1689 supplied
Derry with stores that enabled the town to sustain the
Siege of Derry until it was relieved in August. Shortly after inheriting a Scottish and Irish peerage from a second cousin, he was created a viscount in Ireland for his services to the Williamite cause.
James's mother was a daughter of
John Colepeper, 1st Baron Colepeper, an English courtier.[4] His parents married in 1661.[5] James, the younger, was one of six sons, of which three survived into adulthood.[6]and are listed in his father's article. James, the younger, was raised a Protestant as his father, who had originally been a Catholic, had converted to that faith to marry his mother.
Father's and grandfather's successions
On 6 June 1673 when he was about twelve years old, his father died from a wound received at a sea fight with the Dutch in the
Third Anglo-Dutch War.[7] James, the younger, was compensated by an appointment as an extra groom of the bedchamber on 18 April 1680.[8] His father had predeceased his grandfather who still held the land of Donalong between
Strabane and
Derry in Ireland.
When his grandfather died in 1679, James, the younger, inherited the land and should have succeeded to his grandfather's baronetcy, i.e. Baronet Hamilton of Donalong, but he never assumed the title calling himself Captain Hamilton, his rank in the English army.[9] This might indicate that this baronetcy had never been properly created.[10]
Marriage and children
Captain Hamilton married the heiress Elizabeth Reading, daughter of
Sir Robert Reading, 1st Baronet, of Dublin, and Jane Hannay, widow of
Charles Coote, 1st Earl of Mountrath, in January 1684.[11] Charles II issued a warrant on 22 January 1684 to create Hamilton "Baron Hamilton of Bellamont", county Dublin, in the Irish peerage, but it never passed the seals.[12]
Charles (1704–1786), MP, married and had issue[21]
—and five daughters:
Elizabeth Hamilton, married firstly on 2 January 1711
William Brownlow, and secondly in 1741 Martin, Count de Kearnie[22] Through her first marriage she is an ancestress of actor
Ralph Fiennes.[citation needed]
Captain Hamilton's post in the bedchamber ended with the King's death in 1685. He had entered a career in the army and held a commission in the English army of the new king,
James II.
In 1688 at the
Glorious Revolution he sided with
William. In spring 1689 when war menaced in northern Ireland, he was sent to Derry with provisions in order to prepare the city for a likely siege. On 21 March 1689 he[28] arrived at Derry from England with two ships: the frigate
HMS Jersey and the merchantman Deliverance,[29] bringing gunpowder, munition, weapons, and £595 in cash.[30] These provisions were to be crucial during the
Siege of Derry. He also brought the commission from King William and Queen Mary that confirmed Colonel
Robert Lundy as Williamite governor of the town.[31]
In June 1701 died in
Strabane his second cousin
Charles Hamilton, 5th Earl of Abercorn, without surviving children.[36] Captain Hamilton was his second cousin. The great-grandfather they had in common was
James Hamilton, 1st Earl of Abercorn (see Family tree). Captain Hamilton succeeded as 6th Earl of Abercorn in the Scottish and 7th Baron Hamilton of Strabane in the Irish peerage. His eldest, James, acquired the
courtesy title Lord Paisley as the heir apparent. The new Lord Abercorn also entered into the possession of the corresponding lands.
About six months later, on 2 December 1701, Lord Abercorn was rewarded by King William with the titles of Viscount Strabane and Baron Mountcastle, both in the
Peerage of Ireland.[37] The former was an enhancement of his title of
Baron Hamilton of Strabane and was probably given to improve his precedence at the Irish House of Lords.
His father-in-law had built several lighthouses on Ireland's coast under a patent from Charles I. They had been made over to Hamilton as part of the dowry. In 1703 the Irish government found the lighthouses neglected and took them over. Hamilton was compensated by a payment of £3,000.[38]
Death, succession, and timeline
Abercorn died on 28 November 1734 at the age of 73[39] and was buried on 3 December in the Ormond vault of the
Henry VII Chapel in
Westminster Abbey.[40] The Ormond Vault was opened in 1868 and was found to be filled with many coffins stacked one over the other. Their number was estimated at 59.[41] Individual identification beyond the top layer was not attempted. Abercorn's remains may well be there.
He was succeeded by his eldest son James as the 7th Earl. His wife died on 19 March 1754.[42]
Timeline
As his birth date is uncertain, so are all his ages.
^Henderson 1890, p.
185: "Hamilton, James, sixth Earl of Abercorn (1656–1734)"
^Cokayne 1910, p.
4: "Tabular pedigree of the Earls of Abercorn"
^Cokayne 1910, p.
6, line 4: "being s. [son] and h. [heir] of Col. James H. by Elizabeth da. [daughter] of John (Colepepper) 1st Lord Colpeper, who was s. and h.ap. [heir apparent] of Sir George H. of Donalong, co. Tyrone, 1st Bart. [Ireland]), who was 4th s. of the 1st Earl."
^Burke & Burke 1915, p.
54, right column, line 39: "1. James, Col. in the service of Charles II and Groom of the Bedchamber, m. [married] 1661, Elizabeth, dau. [daughter] of John, Lord Colepeper."
^Paul 1904, p.
57, line 19: "... had six sons, of whom three only survived their infancy:"
^
abPaul 1904, p.
57, line 3: "His regiment being embarked on board the navy, in one of the expeditions of the Duke of York against the Dutch, Colonel Hamilton had one of his legs taken off by a cannonball of which wound he died 6 June 1673 ..."
^
abBurke & Burke 1915, p.
55, left column, line 30: "James, 6th Earl of Abercorn, who had declined to assume the title of Baronet on the decease of his grandfather, 1679, and was known as Captain Hamilton."
^Cokayne 1903, p.
305, note c: "This non-assumption of the dignity throws some little doubt on its creation."
^
abCokayne 1910, p.
6, line 16: "He m. [married] (Lic. at Fac. off 24 January 1683/4) Elizabeth (then aged about 15), only child of Robert Reading, of Dublin, Bart. (so created 1675) ..."
^Handley 2004, p.
852, right column, line 41: "... Hamilton had a warrant as Lord Bellamont, but that it would not be executed until 'some further matter b done for him'."
^Paul 1904, p.
61, line 14: "William Hamilton, baptized at St. Peter's, Dublin, 20 October 1703; lost off Lizard Point, 10 November 1721, in the Royal Anne galley, going out with Lord Belhaven to his government of Barbadoes, as a volunteer in the sea service."
^Burke & Burke 1915, p.
55, left column, line 48: "Charles, M.P. for Truro, left issue by his 1st wife, 2 daus. [daughters] He m. []married 2ndly Agnes, dau. of David Cockburn, M.D. of Ayr."
^Walters 1972, p.
99: "There was also a new occasion for pleasure in the form of a plain but nevertheless attractive matron aged thirty-five, seven years his senior. She was Jane, daughter of the Earl of Abercorn and third wife of Lord Archibald Hamilton ..."
^
abWills 1841, p.
328, line 10: "James Hamilton afterwards Earl of Abercorn, who brought to its [i.e. Derry's] relief from England a quantity of arms and ammunition, with five thousand pounds in money."
^Childs 2007, p.
61: "HMS Jersey (captain John Beverley RN) and the merchantman Deliverance entered Lough Foyle on 21 March" ...
^Witherow 1879, p.
75: "On the same day, the 21st of March, Captain James Hamilton arrived from England, bringing with him 8000 stand of arms for the garrison, 480 barrels of powder, and £595 in money;"
^Walker 1893, p.
14"March 20. Captain James Hamilton arrived from England, with Ammunitions and Arms, 480 Barrels of Powder, and Arms for 2000 men, and a Commission from the King and Queen for Col. Lundy to be Governour of the City, ..."
^MacGeoghegan 1763, p.
738: "Le capitaine Jacques Hamilton(a) ... [footnote](a) il étoit neveu de Richard Hamilton, qui commandoit ce siége pour le roi ..."
^
abLodge 1789, p.
117: "... and died at Strabane June 1701."
^
abCokayne 1910, p.
6, line 12: "Accordingly, on 2 Sep. 1701, he was cr. Baron Mountcastle, co. Tyrone, and Viscount Strabane [I.] ..."
^Bergin 2009, 4th paragraph. "A lighthouse patent and related pension of £500 a year, conveyed to him by his father-in-law as part of his marriage settlement, were investigated in 1703 by the house of commons, which complained that the lighthouses were neglected; he surrendered both in return for £3,000."
^
abCokayne 1910, p.
6, line 19: "He d. [died] 28 Sep. 1734, aged 73, and was bur. 3 Dec in the Ormonde vault in Henry VII's Chapel, Westmin. Abbey."
^Chester 1876, p.
342: "1734 Dec. 3 Lord James Hamilton, Earl and baron of Abercorn, Baron Paisley, Hamilton, Mountcastle, and Kilpatrick, Scotch honours, and Viscount Struband [Strabane] and Mountcastle of the Kingdom of Ireland: in the Duke of Ormond's vault."
^Stanley 1869, p.
630: "The Ormond Vault. Report of its examination on the 3rd of August 1868."