William, 2nd Duke of Hamilton (1616-1651) emerges the more admirable in comparison with his brother. He had courage, intelligence, and honesty, and might have proceeded, after the Civil War, to a distinguished career. His courage, however, cut short his life. Leading the King's troops at the Battle of Worcester in 1651, he could not be restrained from fighting in the thick of carnage, his leg was shattered by a ball from a Cromwellian musket, and he died twelve days later. He was thirty-four years old, and had been Duke for two years.
In his will, made the previous year, he wrote: "Considering the extraordinary kindness my late dearest brother James, Duke of Hamilton, did express to me both in his life and at his death by preferring me even to his own children, I conceive myself in duty and gratitude bound to prefer his to mine, and therefore I do leave and nominate my dearest niece Lady Anna Hamilton, his eldest lawful daughter, as my sole executor . . . and freely give unto her all my jewels, silver, plate, hangings, pictures, beds and whatsoever goods else are mine."2 As for the titles, they would be hers anyway, by the terms of the patent of 1643. Thus Anne became Duchess of Hamilton in her own right.
It is at this point, anno 1651, that the male heir of the Hamilton family ceases to be found in the senior branch. Henceforth, the head of the Hamiltons is the man who bears the title of Abercorn, descended from the Marquess of Hamilton's younger brother Claud. The implications of this situation were not lost on the Earl of Abercorn, who immediately set in motion a lawsuit claiming the right to all the Hamilton estates and titles. This was a fanciful claim, for he must have known that all previous entails had been cancelled by the 2nd Duke, as one can so easily redirect an inheritance in the Scottish peerage, and that his settlement of the estates on Anne had been legally recognised. However, Abercorn's anomalous position as male head of the family was tacitly recognised in 1661 when Duchess Anne named the Abercorn line as eventual heirs in the event of the failure of the Hamilton line. This has yet to occur, but the stipulation is still valid today.
Duchess Anne further complicated matters by marrying William Douglas, Earl of Selkirk, and petitioning the King to make him what we should now call a Life Peer, with the title of Duke of Hamilton.
Thus, she was Duchess of Hamilton twice over, once in her own right, and once by virtue of being married to the new Duke. Or, if you like, the 3rd Duke of Hamilton of the first creation (Anne) married the 1st (and last) Duke of Hamilton of the second creation. Their son, who became 4th Duke, inherited his mother's, not his father's, title.
This man, the 4th Duke of Hamilton (1658-1712) was a disaster. He has been accorded a lengthy footnote in history by the circumstances of his death, in the most notorious of all Hyde Park duels, but the fuss generated by the duel has obscured all previous mention of him. From the first, he was a bone-headed wastrel, using the Hamilton estate, even in the lifetime of his mother, as simply a bottomless source of revenue with which to amuse himself. Selfish, pleasure-seeking, indolent and arrogant, his squalid end might easily have been predicted by those who knew him. He had spent some time in prison on suspicion of Jacobite sympathies (and sent there on the advice of his own father), during which time he contrived to father a child by Barbara Fitzroy (daughter of Charles II and Barbara Villiers), to which he paid no attention whatever; the child was brought up in the household of its grandmother Villiers. Even those who have kind words to say about him do so, it is clear, under the pressure of wishing to be fair towards a man whom many thought had been murdered. There is a letter written within days of the duel in which the writer says, "I assure you he has more friends at present than ever he had while alive."3 The taint of pride and vanity, never far below the surface in the Hamiltons, together with the absurdly hot-tempered habits of the day, was responsible for a duel which created more excitement than any other. In fairness, Hamilton's opponent, Lord Mohun, came to' Hyde Park with an even more unsavoury reputation than the Duke. Lord Mohun was an infamous profligate. Perpetually drunk, always seeking quarrels, he was no stranger to Hyde Park. He had frequently been engaged in duels, or midnight brawls, and had been twice tried for murder.4 His connection with Hamilton was by marriage. They had both married nieces of the Earl of Macclesfield, who on his death-bed had named Mohun as his sole heir, to the exclusion of Hamilton. For eleven years the Duke fought this decision in the courts, and was eventually provoked to cast doubt upon the credibility of one of Mohun's witnesses, to which Mohun retorted that the witness had as much truth as His Grace. The following day the Duke was visited by General Maccartney, on behalf of Lord Mohun, challenging the Duke to meet his lordship in Hyde Park, the usual place for such assignations. The challenge was accepted, the appointment fixed for seven o'clock the next morning, Sunday, 15th November 1712.
Maccartney, who brought with him a similarly fierce and hot- tempered reputation, was Lord Mohun's second. The Duke was seconded by his illegitimate son, Colonel Hamilton. In short, there could hardly have been assembled four more dangerous, foolhardy men; the encounter was bound to be bloody. The Duke addressed Maccartney: "I am well assured, sir," he said, "that all this is by your contrivance, and therefore you shall have your share in the dance; my friend here, Colonel Hamilton, will entertain you." The fight then began with the fury of mad dogs, the seconds joining in, as was then sometimes the custom. No attempt was made at skill; such hatred and pride swelled their emotions that they fell upon each other with unbridled ferocity. It was less an affair of honour than of anger. Maccartney was the first to be disarmed, having wounded his opponent in the right leg. But Colonel Hamilton's attention was diverted by cries of pain from the Duke and, ignoring Maccartney, he rushed to his aid. The Duke had been wounded in both legs. Mohun had been struck through the groin, in the arm, and several times in the chest. Their swords were dripping with blood, their faces bathed in it, the grass around them stained. Still they fought on, in rage and fury, paying no thought whatever to self-defence. Some early morning strollers came upon the scene, stood and watched in awe. Then each man made a lunge at the other, simultaneously. The Duke's sword passed right through Lord Mohun's body, to the hilt. Being ambidextrous, he had been fighting with his left hand; Mohun with his dying gesture slashed the Duke's unprotected right arm, severing an artery.5 The Duke fell against a tree, into the arms of Colonel Hamilton, who had dropped his sword. Maccartney then grabbed the sword, and plunged it into the dying Duke's breast, as he lay supported by his son. One of Mohun's footmen, according to contemporary rumour, also attacked the Duke. Mohun died on the spot, and Hamilton was dead before he could be conveyed to his house. The onlookers had made no move to help or intervene, but as soon as the Duke's body was carried off, they fell upon the tree and stripped away pieces of bark for souvenirs. Sightseers flocked there for days afterwards. Comment excited by the affair lasted a long time, and divided London society along political lines. The Tories said that the Duke's death had been engineered by the Whigs, who had an army of thugs lurking in Hyde Park wating to finish off the job should Lord Mohun bungle it. There was of course no truth in this. But the role of Maccartney was sufficiently suspicious for the Privy Council to order an enquiry, at which Colonel Hamilton testified on oath that Maccartney had struck the Duke while he was holding him against the tree. Maccartney had already fled to Holland, so he must have thought there was some truth in the allegation himself. On the strength of Hamilton's evidence, a warrant was issued for Maccartney's arrest, and proclamation was made offering a reward by the Crown of £500 for his apprehension. The Duchess of Hamilton added a further £200. Foreign governments were approached with a view to extradition.
On the accession of George I Maccartney returned to England and was arrested for murder. He was tried in June 1716, when Hamilton's evidence was discredited by his admission of possible error. (Hamilton had himself been tried and acquitted.) Maccartney was found not guilty of murder, but guilty of manslaughter, and was burnt in the hand with a cold iron, according to the custom of the day.
Just before the d
uel, Hamilton had been appointed Ambassador to Paris, and had delayed his departure in order to settle the dispute with Mohun. Had he left in time, he would probably have disappeared into the fog of minor history, never to be remembered. He had recently been created Duke of Brandon in the peerage of Great Britain (by Queen Anne in 1711), being one of the first creations since the union with Scotland. But the House of Lords had voted that he should not be entitled to a seat under this name; he would be allowed to continue to sit as a representative peer fo: Scotland. The Lords did not object to the principle, but to its being applied in favour of the 4th Duke of Hamilton.
Of his son, the 5th Duke, little is known, save that he reflected family traits in finding it difficult to make up his mind whether he was a Jacobite or not. He married three times. His brother earns a mention for the simple distinction of being called Lord Anne Hamilton. He was named after his godmother, Queen Anne, an honour which he may have lived to regret. We have no record that he found his name embarrassing, but it is known that Lord Anne was kept by a wealthy older woman, Mary Edwards, with an income of £60,000 a year, until she grew tired of him. There is a possibility that they married secretly in 1731; he was already twice a widower by 1729, when he was twenty-six years old.
His first wife had died at the age of eighteen in giving birth to the son and heir, the 6th Duke of Hamilton and 3rd Duke of Brandon (i724-
Elizabeth and Maria Gunning were the daughters of an impoverished Irishman, John Gunning, of County Roscommon. They were so poor that they had to escape the bailiffs by handing their furniture out of a window after midnight.6 They came to London while they were still under twenty, and somehow or other gained access to the Duchess of Bedford, after which they were presented at Court. From that moment there was no looking back for the Gunnings. Their qualities were beauty of face and body, and pleasant good nature. With such boons, their want of a dowry or a station in life was, for once, of small matter. Within months of their arrival they were the most famous ladies in London. At the presentation, says Walpole, "the crowd was so great, that even the noble mob in the Drawing- room clambered upon tables and chairs to look at her. There are mobs at their doors to see them get into their chairs; and people go early to get places at the theatres when it is known they will be there."7
One of those who were captivated by the beauty of Elizabeth Gunning was the "hot, debauched, extravagant" Duke of Hamilton, a well-known rake, hardly ever sober, and alarmingly over-sexed. So much did he want her, and so passionate were his imprecations, that when she said she would not submit to his desires before they were married, he married her within the hour. At Hyde Park Corner there was a church, St George's Chapel, where clandestine or hurried marriages often took place. The parson was summoned from his bed at 12.30 a.m., but even he would not perform the ceremony without, at least, a ring. So Elizabeth Gunning became Duchess of Hamilton with the ring from a bed-curtain. She was eighteen years old. Henry Fox described the marriage with euphemism: "I fancy he tried what he could without matrimony. But at one o'clock (not prevailing I suppose) sent for his friend Lord Hume out of bed . . . in consequence of which he was in bed with the lady soon after two, and carried her out of town the next morning."8
They journeyed northwards to the Duke's palace in Scotland and when it was known they would stop at an inn in Newcastle 700 people sat up all night, to catch a glimpse of her.9 Maria Gunning became Countess of Coventry, and died of consumption in 1760. The Duke of Hamilton died in 1758, aged thirty-four, apparently of a cold, and the following year Elizabeth married Lord Lorne, eventually Duke of Argyll. In this way the ancient dispute between the Hamiltons and the Campbells, deadly enemies in the seventeenth century, was resolved by a poor but pretty Irish girl.
Her rise in rank was unique in peerage. From being Miss Gunning she accumulated five dukedoms, six marquessates, nine baronies, two viscountcies, six counties (earldoms) - twenty-eight titles in all. No one in the world beneath a crowned head possessed so many peerage dignities.
All four of her sons became dukes. Her eldest by Hamilton was 7th Duke of Hamilton, who died at the age of fourteen, and was succeeded by his brother as 8th Duke (1756-1799). From his mother he inherited commanding beauty of face, from his father an overdeveloped sexual appetite. He was convicted of adultery with the Countess of Eglinton in 1788, as a result of which the Earl was granted a divorce. He had an affair with one Mrs Esten, producing an illegitimate daughter, to whom he left as much as he could, obliging his successor in the dukedom to buy it all back. His legitimate wife was a commoner, one of the Burrell girls, daughters of a Customs officer; she divorced him sixteen years later. The Duke was never able to control his dissipated ways, his love for low company, his alcoholism, or the Hamilton quick temper. He died aged forty-four, from too much good living.
The 9th Duke was father to Lady Anne Hamilton, poor Queen Caroline's only friend, and supposed author of that scandalously revealing Secret History of the Court of England. Creevey saw her waiting upon the Queen, leaning on her brother Archy's arm, "though she is full six feet high, and bears a striking resemblance to one of Lord Derby's great red deer".10 Another daughter was Charlotte, who married the 11th Duke of Somerset, taking with her many Hamilton heirlooms which were to cause irreconcilable rifts in the Somerset family a generation later.
For the next hundred years, the dukes of Hamilton were chiefly notable for the exaggerated importance they attached to their own rank and ancient birth. The 10th Duke of Hamilton (1767-1852) carried pride in family to risible extremes. He firmly believed, without a hint of tongue in cheek, that he was heir to the throne of Scotland, being descended from the regent Earl of Arran. Heaven knows what he would have done to anyone who pointed out that the Earl of Abercorn was the direct descendant in the male line. Strangely enough, both this Duke and his approximate contemporary, Marquess of Abercorn, were known as magnifico, for they rivalled each other in pomposity. For his part, the Duke decided that no nobleman of his extraordinary class should be without a hermit in the grounds of his palace; it was a fashionable ornament. So he advertised for one, stipulating that the hermit should shave his beard only once a year, and only lightly.11 It was, however, in his death that he surpassed himself. He had an Egyptian sarcophagus brought to Scotland from Thebes, which had been made for an ancient Egyptian queen, and bore her sculpted and painted image on the outside. He had bought it in open auction for £11,000, outbidding the British Museum. To house the sarcophagus he built a colossal and ridiculous mausoleum, with dome and marble and statues, in which would lie himself and his nine predecessors, as well as all future heirs to the throne of Scotland. "What a grand sight it will be," he used to say, "when Twelve Dukes of Hamilton rise together here at the Resurrection!" He frequently would go to his splendid tomb and lie in it to see how it fitted. His last ride out was to buy spices for his own embalming (and he was embalmed), and as he lay dying he was haunted by the thought that he might not fit the sarcophagus, which could not be altered being made of Egyptian syenite, the hardest of all rocks. His last words were, "Double me up! Double me up!", but no amount of doubling could squeeze his body into the mummy-case, so his feet had to be chopped off, and placed in separately.12[12]
The 11th Duke (1811-1863), son of the modern Pharaoh, had his share of honest Hamilton excess. He married a German princess and was friend and neighbour to the Duchess of Teck, who often visited Baden. The Tecks' little daughter, Princess May of Teck, remembered the Hamiltons in later life when she sat on the consort throne of England as Queen Mary.13 The nth Duke never travelled in France with a lesser retinue than 200 horses, carriages, and servants. He used to drive down the Champs-Elysees in a carriage drawn by twelve horses and six postilions, in contravention of the law which forbade anyone but the Emperor Napoleon to drive with more than eight horses and postilions (it was called the Sumptuary Law). Hamilton, of c
ourse, considered himself at least the equal of Napoleon, and far aloof from such petty legalities.14
The 12th Duke (1845—1895) married a daughter of Louise von Alten, who was in turn Duchess of Manchester and Duchess of Devonshire. On him we must linger a while, for he resurrected the old quarrel over who should be the Duke of Chatelherault. Briefly, we must go back and see what happened to this title, conferred on James Hamilton, 2nd Earl of Arran, in 1549.The patent of Henri II creating the dignity specifically nominates Arran's heirs in perpetuity ("pour lui, ses hoirs et ayants cause, a perpetuite"). But who were Arran's heirs? Certainly not the dukes of Hamilton. The heir male of Arran was Abercorn, and the heir of line was the Earl of Derby. According to an edict of Louis XIV, dated May 1711, all French dukedoms could only descend through the direct male line, which would make Abercorn entitled to the dukedom of Chatelherault. The Hamiltons were not having any of this.
From 1651 (the death of the 2nd Duke of Hamilton) until 1799, the family made no attempt to claim the French title, although they had occasionally pocketed the income from the duchy while it lasted. Then, in 1818, the Marquess of Abercorn was recognised in France as Due de Chatelherault. The 10th Duke of Hamilton (the one who died like an Egyptian Empress) was disdainful. He simply assumed the title the following year, 1819, as if the Abercorn line did not exist. He was acting illegally in so doing.
The squabble went on for the rest of the century, and fills two huge boxes of documents in the Hamilton archives. The Hamiltons had the upper hand, for they were in a position to pull strings — the 12th Duke's mother was a cousin of Napoleon! Accordingly, in 1864, he succeeded in being "confirmed" in the French title by the French Emperor, "le Duc d'Hamilton a ete maintenu et confirme, par decret du avril 20, 1864 dans le titre hereditaire du Due de Chatelherault etc."15 Hamilton's case rested on his ancestor, the 2nd Duke and last in the male line of Hamiltons in that branch of the family, having entailed his French honours on 19th March 1650 upon Duchess Anne and her heirs.16 Two things make this view of events untenable, (1) that the 2nd Duke could not have altered the entail of a French duchy, it was simply not in his power to do so, (2) that Napoleon could not "confirm" a title which the "holder" did not legally possess.
The Dukes Page 41