Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 24.djvu/206

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Hamilton
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Hamilton


writer in 1884. There also appeared under Hamilton's name, 'Ane godlie exhortatioun maid and sett forth be the . . . Johane Arch bishop of Sainctandrous. . . . With the auyse of the Prouinciale Counsale . . . to al Vicaris, Curatis, &c. ... to be red and schawin be thame to the Christiane peple quhen ony ar to resaue the said Blyssit Sacrament, pp. 4, 4to (John Scott, St. Andrews, 1559) This was known as the 'Twopenny Faith from the price at which it was sold. A facsimile of the first edition from the only known copy was printed in the 'Bannatyne Miscellany,' iii. 315. The Catechism and 'Twopenny Faith' were published together in 1882 by authority of the Church of Scotland.

[Crawfurd's Officers of State; Dr. Cameron Lees's Abbey of Paisley, 1878, where extracts from the State Papers referring to Hamilton's career are printed in full; Robertson's Concilia Scotiæ (Bannatyne Club), i. 147-82; Hamilton's Catechism, Oxford, 1884; Lyon's Hist. of St. Andrews; Gordon's Scotichronicon, i. 284-294; A Lost Chapter in the History of Mary Queen of Scots recovered, by John Stuart, p. 93; Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 204.]

T. G. L.

HAMILTON, JOHN, first Marquis of Hamilton (1532–1604), second son of James Hamilton, duke of Chatelherault (d. 1575) [q. v.], by his wife Lady Margaret Douglas, eldest daughter of the third Earl of Morton, was born in 1532. In 1541 he received the abbey of Arbroath in commendam, but he did not enter into possession till 1551. Lord Herries states that he was detained as a hostage in the castle of St. Andrews in 1546 (Memoirs, p. 17), but in all probability only his eldest brother, James Hamilton, earl of Arran (1530-1609) [q. v.], was so detained. Lord Hamilton was one of those who subscribed at Leith on 10 May 1560 the ratification of the treaty with Elizabeth, made at Berwick in the previous February (Knox, Works, ii. 53), and he also signed the order of parliament proposing a marriage between Elizabeth and his brother James, earl of Arran (Keith, History, ii. 8). On the imprisonment of Arran for his revelations regarding a scheme for carrying off the queen, Hamilton and other members of the family fell into partial disgrace, but on the advice of his father he in March 1563 went to court to attend upon the queen (Cal. State Papers, For. Ser. 1563, entry 558), and, to the surprise of many, seemed to be in high favour (ib. 1563-4, entry 181). In the following year he went on a visit to Italy, obtaining license to be absent two years (ib. 665). He was in Edinburgh at the time of the murder of Darnley (Calderwood, ii. 353), and not improbably was aware that the murder was in contemplation, but nevertheless was one of the assize who formally acquitted Bothwell (Keith, ii. 545). He took a not unimportant part in furthering the schemes of Bothwell, and it was his relative -John Hamilton, archbishop of St. Andrews [q. v.], who granted Bothwell divorce from his wife Lady Jane Gordon. While Mary was at Carberry Hill, Hamilton and Huntly were marching to reinforce her with eight hundred men, when an order reached them to retire in consequence of an arrangement having been entered into with the insurgents ('Narrative of the Captain of Inchkeith' in Tettlet, Relations politiques, ii. 306). Shortly after Mary was sent to Lochleven, the rumour arose that Hamilton with Huntly and others was engaged in a plot for her deliverance (ib. p. 309; Du Croc to the King of France, ib. p. 326). On 14 July he and the Archbishop of St. Andrews sent a joint letter to Thrbckmorton to assure him of their own desire and that of most of the nobility to relieve their sovereign, to pursue the murderers of the king, and to secure the protection of the prince (Cal. State Papers, Scott. Ser. i. 252). Throckmorton suspected, however, that the Hamiltons really desired the ruin or death of the Queen of Scots, and Elizabeth gave them no encouragement to adopt direct measures for her deliverance. On being summoned to attend a meeting of the general assembly of the kirk on 21 July, Hamilton sent a letter declining to do so on the ground that the nobility were divided in regard to the detention of the queen, and that Edinburgh was in possession of those favourable to her detention, to whose opinion 'he was not adjoined as yet' (Letter in Keith, iii. 174-5). He was absent from the coronation of the young prince at Stirling (Cal. State Papers, Scott. Ser. i. 255), and continued in communication with Throckmorton in regard to a proposal for the deliverance of the queen. In the beginning of 1568 he went through England to France without :he license of the regent, his ostensible purpose being to obtain support in a scheme for the restoration of Mary (Calderwood, iii. 402; Cecil to Norris, 26 Feb. 1567-8). He had a fruitless interview in London with lizabeth. He appears to have been still in France at the time of Mary's escape from Lochleven, and was not present at her defeat at Langside, though stated to have been so by Sir James Melville (Memoirs, p. 201), who substitutes his name for that of his brother Claud [q. v.] Sir James Melville refers to a rumour that the Hamiltons were 'myndit to cause the Queen marry my Lord Hamilton in case their side won the victory,' and also states that he was informed by 'some that wer