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Hamilton
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Hamilton

not to resume it, but to forthwith pass sentence on the recalcitrant ministers. On the following day they were deposed, and warrants being shortly afterwards issued for their arrest Hamilton consulted his safety by retiring to Scotland, and was appointed minister of the church at Dumfries. In September 1642 he revisited Ireland, in order to minister to the spiritual necessities of the colonists, but returning to Scotland he was in March 1644 appointed by the general assembly to superintend the administration of the covenant in Ulster (Reid, Presbyterian Church, ii. 27-42). On his return to Scotland the ship in which he and several others, including his father-in-law, had taken their passage, was captured by the Harp, a Wexford frigate, commanded by Alaster MacDonnell, who was bringing reinforcements to Montrose in the highlands. Alaster MacDonnell, who hoped by an exchange of prisoners to secure the release of his father, old Colkittagh, then in the hands of the Marquis of Argyll, landed his prisoners at Ardnamurchan, and confined them in Mingary Castle. There Hamilton remained for ten months, witnessing the release of several of his companions, and the death of his father-in-law, the Rev. David Watson, and another minister, Mr. Weir, until the exertions of the general assembly and Scottish parliament set him free on 2 May 1645 (Hamilton MSS. p. 78). He returned to his charge at Dumfries, and was afterwards removed to Edinburgh. Being appointed a chaplain to Charles II by the general assembly, he was taken prisoner at Alyth in Forfarshire by Colonels Alured and Morgan, and carried to London, where he was confined for a short time in the Tower. Released by Cromwell's order, he returned to Edinburgh, where he preached till the restoration of the episcopacy in Scotland drove him from his pulpit, and compelled him to retire to Inveresk. He died at Edinburgh on 10 March 1666. By his wife, Elizabeth Watson, daughter of David Watson, minister of Killeavy, near Newry, he had fifteen children, all of whom died in their infancy except one son, Archibald, who was a leading minister in the presbyterian church in Ireland, and three daughters, Jane, Mary, and Elizabeth. He was, according to Livingstone, 'a learned and diligent man,' his style of preaching being 'rather doctrinal than exhortatory.'

[Hamilton MSS. ed. by T. K. Lowry; Reid's Hist, of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland; Patrick Adair's True Narrative of the Rise and Progress of the Presbyterian Church; McBride's Sample of Jet-Black Prict-Calumny, Glasgow, 1713; and the Lives of the Revs. Robert Blair and John Livingstone.]

R. D.


HAMILTON, JAMES (1610–1674), bishop of Galloway, was the second son of Sir James Hamilton of Broomhill, by Margaret, daughter of William Hamilton of Udston, and brother of John, first lord Belhaven. He was born at Broomhill in 1610, studied at the university of Glasgow, graduated there in 1628, and in 1634 was ordained as minister of Cambusnethan by Archbishop Lindsay. He was deposed by the synod of Glasgow in April 1639 for signing the protestation of the bishops and their adherents against the assembly of 1638, but on professing penitence was restored by the assembly of 1639. The committee, to whom his case was referred, reported that 'he was a young man of good behaviour, and well beloved of his parish, and guilty of nothing directly but the subscribing of the declinature.' After this he went with the times. Bishop Burnet says: 'He was always believed episcopal. Yet he had so far complied in the time of the covenant, that he affected a peculiar expression of his counterfeit zeal for their cause, to secure him- self from suspicion; when he gave the sacrament, he excommunicated all that were not true to the covenant, using a form in the Old Testament of shaking out the lap of his gown; saying so did he cast out of the church and communion all that dealt falsely in the covenant.' In 1648 he supported the 'Engagement,' and was urged by his kinsman the Duke of Hamilton to accept a chaplaincy in the army raised for the rescue of the king. At the Restoration he was rewarded by a grant of money and the bishopric of Galloway, and along with Sharp, Leighton, and Fair- foul was consecrated at Westminster 15 Dec. 1661. Galloway was a stronghold of the extreme covenanters. Many of the ministers refused to submit to episcopacy, and when de- prived held field meetings, which were largely attended by their old flocks. At the request of the bishop and his clergy, whose ranks had been recruited from the north, soldiers were quartered on the frequenters of conventicles to compel their attendance at church, and there appears to be good authority for the statement that Sir James Turner, the officer in command, 'was obliged to go beyond his instructions to satisfy the bishop.' Hamilton acquired the estate of Broomhill in 1669 from his brother, who had been raised to the peerage, and died in August 1674. Burnet describes him as 'a good-natured man, but weak.' Wodrow says : 'His gifts were reckoned every way ordinary, but he was remarkable for his cunning and time-serving temper; ' while one of his grandsons describes him as 'mighty well seen in divinity, accurate in the fathers and church history . . . very pious and chari-