table, strict in his morals . . . and every way worthy of the sacred character he bore.' In 1635 he married Margaret, only daughter of Alexander Thomson, one of the ministers of Edinburgh, and had two sons and four daughters.
[Keith's Cat.; Wodrow's Hist.; Records of the Kirk; Burnet's Hist, of his Own Time; Birnie's Family of Bromhill; Scott's Fasti; Register of the Synod of Galloway, 1664-71.]
HAMILTON, JAMES (fl. 1640–1680), painter, belonged to the family of Hamilton of Murdieston in Fifeshire. A strong royalist, he quitted Scotland during the Commonwealth for Brussels, where he practised for some years as a painter of animals and still life. Hamilton had three sons, all born at Brussels, who were highly distinguished in the same line of painting: (1) Ferninand Philip, born 1664, who was appointed painter to the Emperor Charles VI at Vienna, where he resided and died in 1750; (2) John George, born 1666, was also employed by the emperor at Vienna, where he died about 1733; and (3) Charles William, born 1670, was employed by Alexander Sigmund, bishop of Augsburg, where he resided and died in 1754. Pictures by the two elder brothers are in the galleries at Vienna, Munich, Dresden, &c.
[Nagler's Künstler-Lexikon; Bryan's Dict. of Painters and Engravers, ed. Graves; Redgrave's Dict. of Artists.]
HAMILTON, JAMES, sixth Earl of Abercorn (1656–1734), was eldest son of James Hamilton, by Elizabeth, daughter of John, lord Colepeper [q. v.], and grandson of Sir George Hamilton of Dunalong [see under Hamilton, James, first Earl of Abercorn]. He was groom of the bedchamber to Charles II, and in the following reign commanded a regiment of horse. At the Revolution he sided against King James, and in February 1688-9 was sent to Ireland to assist in the defence of Londonderry (Hist. MSS. Comm. 12th Rep. App. pt. vi. 162-73). He had refused to assume the title of baronet on his grandfather's death in 1679, but in 1701, on the death of his cousin Charles, fifth earl, he became Earl of Abercorn; on 9 Sept. 1701 he was created Viscount Strabane in the Irish peerage. As a Scottish peer he steadily supported the union in 1706. He was a privy councillor in the reigns of Anne, George I, and George II. He died 28 Nov. 1734, and was buried in Henry VII's chapel in Westminster Abbey. By his wife Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Sir Robert Reading, bart., of Dublin, he had nine sons and four daughters.
Hamilton, James, seventh Earl of Abercorn (d. 1744), the second son, succeeded his father. He was sworn a member of the privy council of England 20 July 1738, and of that of Ireland 26 Sept. of the following year. He died in Cavendish Square, London, 13 July 1744, and was buried in the Duke of Ormonde's vault in Westminster Abbey on 17 Jan. following. By his wife Anne, daughter of Colonel Plumer of Blakesweare, Hertfordshire, he had six sons and a daughter. His two eldest sons, James, eighth earl, and John (d. 1755), are separately noticed. Abercorn devoted considerable atten- tion to scientific pursuits, and was a fellow of the Royal Society of London. He was the author of 'Calculations and Tables relating to the Attractive Power of Loadstones,' 1729, published under the initials 'J. H.' Walpole, in his 'Royal and Noble Authors,' wrongly attributed the work to the sixth earl, but the error was corrected by Park, who points out that in 'Bibl. Westiana ' it is entered under the name of Lord Paisley. In the 'British Museum Catalogue' Abercorn is also credited with being the joint author along with Dr. Pepusch of a 'Treatise on Harmony, containing the Chief Rules for Composing in Two, Three, and Four Parts,' 1730; 2nd ed. 1731.
[Douglas's Scottish Peerage, ed. Wood, i. 11; Walpole's Royal and Noble Authors, ed. Park, vol. v.; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
HAMILTON, JAMES, eighth Earl of Abercorn (1712–1789), eldest son of James, seventh earl [see under Hamilton, James, sixth Earl of Abercorn], by Anne, daughter of Colonel John Plumer of Blakesweare, Hertfordshire, was born on 22 Oct. 1712. On 23 March 1736 he was summoned to the House of Peers in Ireland as Baron Mountcastle. He succeeded his father as Earl of Abercorn and Viscount Strabane in 1744, and in 1761 and subsequent general elections, including that of 1784, was chosen one of the sixteen Scottish representative peers. He opposed the bill to repeal the American Stamp Act in 1766, and voted for the rejection of Fox's India Bill in 1783. He was created a peer of Great Britain on 8 Aug. 1786 by the title of Viscount Hamilton, with remainder to John James Hamilton, son of his brother John Hamilton (d. 1755) [q.v.] No new election of Scottish representative peers having been ordered in the room of him and the Duke of Lauderdale, who had been also on the same occasion created a British peer, a committee of privileges finally decided on 13 Feb. 1787 that, having been created British peers, they had ceased to sit as representatives of the peerage of Scotland. In 1745 Abercorn purchased from the Duke of Argyll
