tidings from Meerut of the mutiny caused him to re-embark for India. lie reached Calcutta in August 1857. At the request of the governor-general he drew up a plan for the restoration of order in Central India, which after discussion with Sir Colin Campbell, then in Calcutta, was adopted. A column of Bombay troops from Mhow was to move on Calpee, taking Jhansi on its way; another column of Madras troops, starting from Jubbulpore, was to cross Bundelkund to Banda. Hamilton, as political officer, accompanied the Bombay force under Sir Hugh Rose, afterwards Lord Strathnairn, which started from Indore on 6 Jan. 1858, and was present with it in every action fought (medal and clasp). When the Central Indian field-force, as the army was called, approached Jhansi in March 1858, Hamilton, with characteristic decision and self-reliance, set aside the counter-orders of the governor-general and the commander-in-chief, which would have diverted the force to Chirkaree in Bundelkund. Hamilton thus enabled Rose to carry the operations to a brilliant conclusion (Malleson, v. 108). On 20 June 1858 Hamilton entered Gwalior with Sindia. He remained at Gwalior until order was restored. For his services in Central India Hamilton received the thanks of parliament, and was made a K.C.B. (civil division). He was a member of the supreme council of India in 1859-60, but was compelled to retire through ill-health. After his return home he served as high sheriff of Warwickshire, of which county he was a magistrate and deputy-lieutenant, and unsuccessfully contested South Warwickshire in the liberal interest in 1868.
Hamilton married, in 1831, Constantia, third daughter of General Sir George Anson, G.C.B. (see Foster, Peerage under 'Earl of Lichfield'), by whom he had two sons and three daughters. She died on 28 Nov. 1842. Hamilton died at his seat, Avon Cliffe, Stratford-on-Avon, Warwickshire, on 31 May 1887, aged 85.
[Foster's Baronetage, under 'Hamilton of Silverton Hill, Lanarkshire;' East Indian Registers, under dates; Kaye's and Malleson's Hist. of Indian Mutiny (cabinet ed., London, 1888–9), iii. 135, v. 90 et seq.; R. T. E. Holmes's Indian Mutiny; Colonel W. K. Stuart's Reminiscences of a Soldier, London, 1874, vol. ii.; Annual Register, 1887; Illustrated London News, 8 Oct. 1887 (will, personalty 17,000l.)]
HAMILTON, THOMAS, Earl of Melrose and afterwards first Earl of Haddington (1563–1637), was descended from a younger branch of the noble family of Hamilton, the link of connection being John de Hamilton, a younger son of the Walter Hamilton or Walter Fitzgilbert who received the barony of Cadzow from Robert the Bruce. The earl was the son of Thomas Hamilton of Priestfield, created a lord of session by the title of Lord Priestfield in 1607. His mother was Elizabeth, daughter of James Heriot of Trabroun. He was born in 1563, and, after attending the high school of Edinburgh, went to Paris, where his studies were superintended by his uncle, John Hamilton (fl. 1568–1609) [q. v.] who was rector of the university. He was admitted advocate at the Scottish bar on 1 Nov. 1587, and as early as 9 Nov. 1592 appointed ordinary lord of session under the title of Lord Drumcairne. The same year he was appointed, along with Sir John Skene [q. v.], a member of the law commission. From an early period he had secured the confidence and friendship of James VI, who, in allusion to the street in which he resided, familiarly designated him 'Tam o' the Cowgate.' While the king found his administrative talents of the highest value, Hamilton showed remarkable tact in furthering the pet aims of the king. It was possibly he who suggested the establishment of a commission of the exchequer consisting of eight persons, afterwards known as Octavians, to administer the public finance (Reg. P. C. Scotl. v. 254). Through his connection with this commission, which was appointed 9 Jan. 1595–6, Hamilton gradually acquired a supreme position in the administration of Scotland. The commission had the rank in council and parliament of officers of state, and virtually the whole office of government was committed to them. They received no salary, but 'simply professed they had only regard to the king's estate and revenues' (Calderwood, v. 393). Spotiswood asserts that 'never were the rents of the crown so thrifty and so rightly used as in the short time of their employment,' but their duties rendered them unpopular with many persons of influence. They especially gave offence to those noblemen called the 'cubicular courtiers' who, finding their interests prejudiced, 'sought by all means to kindle a fire betwixt them and the kirk playing with both hands' (ib. p. 510). During the anti-popish riot in Edinburgh in September 1597, caused by the sentence of the council against David Black, the fury of the mob was specially directed against Thomas Hamilton and other supposed prominent papists in the commission, who barely escaped with their lives (ib. p. 513); and the four commissioners sent by the kirk to the king specially requested that he should 'remove from his company' Thomas Hamilton and others as the 'chief authors of all the troubles of the kirk' (ib. p. 514). In the anonymous letter mysteriously delivered to the
