HAMILTON, THOMAS, second Earl of Haddington (1600–1640), covenanter, eldest son of Thomas, first earl of Haddington [q. v.], by his second wife, Margaret, daughter of James Foulis of Colinton, was born 25 May 1600. In 1615 he received a license to go abroad, and had returned in 1621, when he took part in the pageant at the opening of the Scottish parliament on 25 July. In 1625 he attended along with his father the funeral of James I in Westminster Abbey (Balfour, Annals, ii. 118). On succeeding his father in 1637 he became a member of the privy council. He was one of those who signed the 'king's covenant' at Holyrood on 22 Sept. 1638 (Gordon, Scots Affairs, i. 108; Spalding, Memorials, i. 107), and also the letter of the council offering their lives and fortunes in maintenance of the 'foresaid religion and confession' (Gordon, i. 110). With the members of the council, Argyll excepted, he drew up, at the king's request, the famous proclamation published at Glasgow on 20 Nov. dissolving the assembly (ib. ii. 27). When General Leslie in 1640 led an army into England, Haddington was left in Scotland with a force of ten thousand men for the defence of the borders (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1640, p. 584). On 29 Aug. he beat back an attempt of the garrison of Berwick to capture a magazine of victuals and arms near Coldstream. He did not follow up the retreat of the garrison, but returned to his headquarters at Dunglass Castle, Haddington, where a huge quantity of gunpowder was stored. At midnight, after his return, the castle was suddenly blown up, the greater number of those within the building being instantly killed, as well as a large number in the courtyard (Baillie, Letters and Journals, i. 258; Gordon, Scots Affairs, iii. 262; Spalding, Memorials, i. 337; Balfour, Annals, ii. 396). The earl and his half-brother Robert were among those who perished. Suspicion fell on Haddington's page, Edward Paris, an Englishman, who been entrusted with the keys of the vault in which the powder was stored, but he also perished with the others, one of his arms being afterwards found 'holding ane iron spune in his hand' (Balfour, ii. 396). Haddington was twice married. By his first wife, Lady Catherine Erskine, he had six sons and one daughter, including Thomas, third earl, who married Henrietta de Coligny, granddaughter of Admiral Coligny, celebrated as the Countess de la Suze for her beauty and adventures, and died 8 Feb. 1645; and John, fourth earl, died 1 Sept. 1669. By his second wife, Lady Jean Gordon, third daughter of the second Marquis of Huntly, he had a posthumous daughter. Portraits of the earl by Vandyck, Theodore Russell, Jameson, and others are at Tynninghame.
[Robert Baillie's Letters and Journals (Bannatyne Club); Gordon's Scots Affairs (Spalding Club); Spalding's Memorials of the Troubles (Spalding Club); Sir James Balfour's Annals of Scotland; Douglas's Scottish Peerage (Wood), i. 680; Sir William Fraser's Earls of Haddington, 1889]
HAMILTON, THOMAS, sixth Earl of Haddington (1680–1735), second son of Charles, fifth earl, by his wife Lady Margaret Leslie, eldest daughter of John, duke of Rothes, lord high chancellor of Scotland, was born 29 Aug. 1680. His father having died in 1685, while he was yet an infant, he was trained up in whig principles by his uncle, Adam Cockburn of Oriniston, and is designated by Lockhart one of Cockburn's 'beloved pupils' (Papers, i. 112). By an agreement made on the occasion of his father's marriage his elder brother John succeeded to the earldom of Rothes, and Thomas Hamilton to the earldom of Haddington; and on 25 Feb. 1687 Hamilton received a new patent of the earldom with the former precedency. On 23 Jan. 1691 he also received a patent of the hereditary office of keeper of the park of Holyrood. Haddington, with his brother the Earl of Rothes, was one of the leaders of the party termed the squadrone volante, who by finally declaring for the union with. England had great influence in overcoming the opposition to it. He remained a steady supporter of the Hanoverian cause, and on the outbreak of the rebellion in 1715 accompanied the Duke of Argyll to Stirling, and afterwards served with him at the battle of Sheriffmuir, where he received a wound in the shoulder and had a horse shot under him. In 1716 he was appointed lord-lieutenant of the county of Haddington, and invested with the order of the Thistle. The same year he was elected one of the sixteen representative peers of Scotland, and he was re-chosen in 1722 and 1727. He died at New Hailes 28 Nov. 1735. Lockhart says 'he much affected and his talent lay in a buffoon sort of wit and raillery;' and he describes him as 'hot, proud, vain, and ambitious' (ib. i. 112-13). Two anonymous publications have been attributed to him, 'Forty Select Poems on Several Occasions' and 'Tales in Verse for the Amusement of Leisure Hours.' He devoted much attention to the improvement of his estate, especially as regards enclosing and planting. He wrote 'A Treatise on the Manner of rais-
