Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 24.djvu/149

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Hamilton
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Hamilton

HAMILTON, Lady ANNE (1766–1846), friend of Queen Caroline, George IV's wife, was eldest daughter of Archibald, ninth duke of Hamilton and sixth of Brandon, by Lady Harriet Stewart, fifth daughter of the sixth Earl of Galloway. Lord Archibald Hamilton [q. v.], political reformer, was her brother. She was born on 16 March 1766, and became lady-in-waiting to Caroline, princess of Wales. She held this position till the princess's foreign journey in 1813. She met Queen Caroline at Montbard on her return to England in 1820, and entered London in the same carriage with her. Afterwards Queen Caroline took up her residence with her in Portman Street, Portman Square. On the abandonment of the Pains and Penalties Bill the queen, accompanied by Lady Anne, went to Hammersmith Church to receive the sacrament. Lady Anne also walked on the queen's right in the procession to St. Paul's on 30 Nov. to return thanks for her acquittal. The queen died at Hammersmith on 7 Aug. 1821, and Lady Anne accompanied the body to Brunswick, and was present when it was laid in the royal vault there on 26 Aug. The only legacy left her by the queen was a picture of herself. On the death of William, fourth duke of Queensberry, in 1810, Lady Anne received a legacy of 10,000l.; but she presented this to her brother, Lord Archibald Hamilton, and her circumstances during her later years were by no means affluent. She died on 10 Oct. 1846 in White Lion Street, Islington, and was buried in Kensal Green cemetery. A person who had gained the confidence of Lady Anne, and obtained from her a variety of private information, published, without her knowledge and much to her regret and indignation, a volume purporting to be written by her, entitled 'Secret History of the Court of England from the Accession of George III to the Death of George IV,' London, 1832. A reprint appeared in 1878.

[Gent. Mag. new ser. 1846, pt. ii. pp. 552, 661; Memoirs of Queen Caroline, severally by Nightingale, Adolphus, and Clerke.]

HAMILTON, ANTHONY (1646?–1720), author of the ‘Mémoires du Comte de Grammont,’ third son of Sir George Hamilton [see under Hamilton, James, first Earl of Abercorn] by Mary, third daughter of Walter, viscount Thurles, eldest son of Walter, eleventh earl of Ormonde, was probably born at Roscrea, Tipperary, about 1646. Anthony Hamilton's eldest brother, James, was groom of the bedchamber to Charles II, and colonel of a regiment of foot; he died of wounds received in a naval engagement with the Dutch 6 June 1679, and was buried in Westminster Abbey, where a monument was erected to his memory by the Duke of Ormonde; his eldest son was James Hamilton, sixth earl of Abercorn [q. v.] The second brother, George, was page to Charles II during his exile, and after the Restoration was an officer of the horse guards till 1667; he then entered the French service with a troop of horse who were enrolled in the bodyguard of Louis XIV, and known as the ‘gens d'armes Anglais;’ he was made a count and maréchal du camp, and was killed at the battle of Saverne; he married Frances Jennings, afterwards Duchess of Tyrconnell [see under Talbot, Richard, Duke of Tyrconnell}}], and had by her three daughters. These two brothers are frequently mentioned in the ‘Mémoires.’ Thomas, the fourth brother, was in the naval service, and is perhaps the Thomas Hamilton of whom a biography is given by Charnock (Biographia Navalis, i. 310–11, where he is confused with his eldest brother, James); he is said to have died in New England. Richard, the fifth, is separately noticed. John, the sixth, was a colonel in the service of King James, and was killed at the battle of Aughrim in 1691. Anthony Hamilton had also three sisters, of whom the eldest was Elizabeth, comtesse de Grammont [q. v.]

Anthony Hamilton probably accompanied his brother George to France in 1667, as we hear of him in Limerick in 1673 holding a captain's commission in the French army and recruiting for his brother's corps. He appeared as a zephyr in a performance of Quinault's ballet, the ‘Triomphe de l'Amour,’ at St. Germain-en-Laye in 1681. In 1685 he was appointed to succeed Sir William King as governor of Limerick, where he arrived on 1 Aug., and soon after went publicly to mass, which no governor had done for thirty-five years. He was at this time lieutenant-colonel of Sir Thomas Newcomen's regiment, but was advanced, on Lord Clarendon's recommendation, to the command of a regiment of dragoons and sworn of the privy council in 1686. About the same time he was granted a pension of 200l. per annum, charged on the Irish establishment. With the rank of major-general he commanded the dragoons, under Lord Mountcashell, at the siege of Enniskillen, and in the battle of Newtown Butler on 31 July 1689 was wounded in the leg at the beginning of the action, and his raw levies were routed with great slaughter. Hamilton succeeded in making good his escape, and fought at the battle of the Boyne, 1 July 1690 (The Actions of the Inniskilling Men, pp. 37–8; A Farther Account of the Actions of the Inniskilling Men, pp. 60–1; Great and Good News