the end of their term of office refused to deliver up the king to their appointed successors, Arran and the Bishop of Aberdeen. Arran thereupon mustered a force and advanced to Linlithgow, but on Angus marching out against him, accompanied by the king, he shrank from taking up the gage of battle, and after a precipitate retirement dispersed his forces. The marriage of the queen-dowager with Henry Stewart shortly afterwards alienated nearly all her former supporters, and Arran now came to terms with Angus, and, although he received no office of trust, supported him against Lennox when the latter endeavoured to obtain possession of the king. Lennox was the nephew of Arran, and his nearest heir, and Arran's divorce of his second wife, by whom he had no children, had caused an alienation between them. On 4 Sept. 1526 he was sent by Angus with a large force to prevent Lennox, who had a secret understanding with the king, from marching on the capital. Arran had seized the bridge over the Avon, near Linlithgow, and sent a messenger to Angus asking for reinforcements. Lennox was hampered with the difficulties of crossing, and after a fierce struggle his lines had begun to waver, when the arrival of the Douglases spread a panic which resulted in utter rout. Lennox was cruelly slain in cold blood by Sir James Hamilton (d. 1540) [q. v.], after he had been taken prisoner. His death was deeply mourned not only by the king, but by Arran, who was seen after the battle ‘weeping verrie bitterlie besyd the Earl of Lennox, saying “the hardiest, stoutest, and wysest man that evir Scotland bure, lyes heir slaine this day,” and laid his cloak of scarlet upon him, and caused watchmen stand about him, quhile the kingis servantis cam and buried him’ (Pitscottie, p. 328). On the forfeiture of the estates of the rebel lords, Arran received a grant of the lands of Cassilis and Evandale. After the escape of the king from the power of the Douglases at Falkland, Arran attended the meeting of the council at Stirling, at which the Douglases were forbidden to approach within six miles of the court on pain of death. He was also one of those who sat on the forfeiture of Angus, and after the act of forfeiture was passed received the lordship of Bothwell (Reg. Mag. Sig. i. entry 707). He died before 21 July 1529.
Arran was married first to Beatrix, daughter of John, lord Drummond, by whom he had a daughter, Margaret, married to Andrew Stewart, lord Evandale and Ochiltree, whose grandson was Captain James Stewart [q. v.], the accuser of the regent Morton, and favourite of James VI, by whom he was created Earl of Arran, while James Hamilton, third earl [q. v.], was still living, but insane. He was married secondly to Elizabeth, daughter of Alexander, lord Home, from whom he was divorced on the ground that her previous husband, Thomas Hay, son and heir of John, lord Hay of Yester, was still living when the marriage took place (notarial copy of sentence of divorce in Cal. of Documents relating to Scotland, iv. 173–9; process of divorce against Elizabeth Home in ‘Hamilton Papers,’ Maitland Club Miscellany, iv. 199; and Hist. MSS. Comm. 11th Rep. App. pt. vi. pp. 49–50). By this marriage he had no issue. The legality of the divorce was afterwards disputed by the Earl of Lennox, on the ground that the wife's first husband was dead when the second marriage took place. On this plea Lennox afterwards claimed against the descendants of the third wife—whom he represented to be bastards—to be next heir to the crown. The third wife was Janet, daughter of Sir David Bethune of Creich, comptroller of Scotland, and widow of Sir Thomas Livingstone of Easter Wemyss. By her he had two sons, James, second earl of Arran and duke of Châtelherault [q. v.], and Gavin; and four daughters, first, Isabel, married to John Bannatyne of Corhouse; second, Helen, to Archibald, fourth earl of Argyll; third, Johanna, to Alexander, fifth earl of Glencairn; and fourth, Janet, to David Boswell of Auchinleck. He had also four natural sons whom he acknowledged: Sir James Hamilton of Finnart (d. 1540) [q. v.], ancestor of the Hamiltons of Evandale, Crawfordjohn, &c., Sir John Hamilton of Clydesdale, James Hamilton of Parkhill, and John Hamilton [q. v.], archbishop of St. Andrews.
[Cal. Docs. relating to Scotland, vol. iv.; Cal. State Papers, Henry VIII; Reg. Mag. Sig. Scot. vol. i.; Hamilton Papers, in Maitland Club Miscellany, vol. iv.; Hist. MSS. Comm. 11th Rep. App. pt. vi.; Histories of Lindsay of Pitscottie, Bishop Lesley, and Knox; Douglas's Scottish Peerage (Wood), i. 697–8.]
HAMILTON, Sir JAMES (d. 1540), of Finnart, royal architect, was a natural son of James Hamilton, second lord Hamilton and first earl of Arran [q. v.], and was therefore half-brother of James Hamilton, second earl of Arran [q. v.], governor of Scotland, and of John Hamilton, archbishop of St. Andrews [q. v.] He is admitted to have been a man of exceptional ability, but was wild and impetuous, regardless of principles, and yet a bigot in religion. Though the stain on his birth precluded him from all hope of succession to his father's title, he was deemed a fitting companion for the youthful king,
