CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
According to the accounts usually given
to the origin of the Family Hamilton, the earliest progenitor in Scotland was Gilbert,
who is stated to have passed from Leicestershire in England into Scotland in
the thirteenth century. He was also
referred to as Gilbert de Hameldone and it is believed that he may have been of
the family of Beaumont/Bellomont, Earls of Leicester.[1] He married Isabella Randolph (sister of
Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray) and their son was Walter FitzGilbert de
Hameldone, 1st of Cadzow, (a. 1296, 1323).
Sir William Fraser, who edited "The
Manuscripts of the Duke Hamilton" [2]
came to a different conclusion. He
states that Walter Fitz-Gilbert whom tradition makes to have escaped from
England in 1323, was settled in Scotland previous to that year. His ancestry, however, still remains a
mystery, though the most plausible suggestion is that he belonged to a Northumbrian
family. About the year 1209 Roger and
Robert de Hameldon appear in Northumberland.
A Walter FitzGilbert appears in 1201; his wife was Emma de Umfraville. The Umfravilles were a great baronial family
and bore, equally with the ancient
Earls of Leicester, a single cinquefoil on their shield. The origin of the
three cinquefoils in the Hamilton escutcheon may, perhaps, be traced to this
source. This heraldic fact tends to
confirm the alleged Northumbrian descent of the Hamiltons.
On the 28th August 1296,
Walter FitzGilbert (obviously not the same person whose name appears in 1201)
paid homage to King Edward I at Berwick, and in the "Ragman Roll" is
described as "Wauter fitz Gilbert de Hameldone".
David FitzWalter (see below) was
present at the coronation of King Robert II in 1371 and affixed his seal to the
Settlement of the Crown upon King Robert's eldest son. The seal is still in good preservation
bearing three cinquefoils, and the legend "Sigill David Filii
Walteri".
King Robert II, by charter dated 11th
November 1375, ratified an exchange of lands between Sir Robert Erskyne and
David de Hamylton, son and heir of David FitzWalter (filii Walteri),
Knight. This second David was first to
assume the surname of Hamilton, it having been previously used apparently as a
territorial designation.
The following information is taken
from the work of Maurice E. Hamilton:
The Hamiltons who held Hambleton in Leicestershire and
were later granted the Royal Barony of Cadzow probably immigrated to England
from the Seine Valley in France, which they may have entered from Hainault in
the south of present-day Belgium.
The earliest recorded Hamilton is Gilbert de Hameldun, a
witness to a charter confirming the gift of the church at Cragyn to the Abbey
of Paisley in 1271. According to one legend, Sir Walter FitzGilbert Hamilton
expressed admiration for Robert the Bruce at the court of King Edward II in
about 1323, upon which he was struck by John de Spencer (or one Dispenser). A
duel followed and de Spencer fell. (Alternatively, de Spencer may have refused
to fight and Hamilton killed him.) Hamilton fled towards Scotland, hotly
pursued. Near the border, he and his esquire donned the dress of woodcutters
and began working. As the soldiers passed, his esquire hesitated and, to divert
attention, Hamilton called out "Throu," the traditional woodcutters'
exclamation. They were not recognized, and Hamilton's life was saved. The
Hamilton coat of arms commemorates this escape.
The son of Gilbert by Isabel was Sir Walter Fitz Gilbert
de Hamildon (variously spelled Homildon, Hamildon, Hameldone, or Hambleton), an
English knight who owned properties in Renfrewshire. The first recording of his
name was as Walterus filius Gilberti in 1294, when he witnessed a
Stewart charter granting the monastery of Paisley the right to fish for herring
in the River Clyde. Fitz Gilbert swore loyalty to King Edward I in 1292
and again in 1296 for his estates in Lanarkshire and other counties and was
Governor of Bothwell Castle for England during the early part of the Scottish
Wars of Independence. After the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314--during which
thirty thousand Scotsmen commanded by Bruce defeated 100,000 Englishmen led by
Edward II and captured Stirling Castle--Walter Fitz Gilbert surrendered
Bothwell Castle to Robert the Bruce. In appreciation of this support, Bruce
knighted him and awarded him forfeited Comyn lands, including the properties of
Cadzow in Lanarkshire. Here, in the area later named Hamilton, Fitz Gilbert
built Cadzow Castle, and here his descendants would built magnificent Hamilton
Palace and later Chatelherault. Fitz Gilbert first married Helen and then Mary,
daughter of Sir Adam Gordon of Gordon, a union that produced his heir, Sir
David Fitz Walter Fitz Gilbert, and John Fitz Walter.
Sir William Fraser[3]
(supported by John Anderson) gives the descendants of Walter
FitzGilbert as follows:
He was twice married – his first wife
dying before 1320; he married secondly Mary Gordon by whom he had two sons –
Sir David Hamilton, the first to use the name of Hamilton), and the ancestor of
the Hamiltons Earls of Arran and Dukes of Hamilton and Abercorn; and John (de
Hameldone), who married Elizabeth, da. of Sir Alan Stewart of Darnley
and Crookston; their son, Sir Alexander Hamilton, Knt., of
Ballencrief, 1st of Innerwick, who died before 1454, married Elizabeth, da.
and co-heir of Thomas Stewart Earl of Angus, by whom he had a son Sir
Archibald (2nd of Innerwick). Sir Archibald married Margaret, da. of John Montgomery of
Thornton. By whom he had a son Sir Alexander (3rd of
Innerwick), who married Isobel, da. of John Schaw of Sauchie. The last-named Sir Alexander had four sons:-
(1)
Hugh, the ancestor of the family of Innerwick;
(2)
John; who had a son Claud;
(3)
Alexander; and
(4)
Thomas of Orcharfield and 1st of Priestfield in Midlothian.
The latter married Margaret Caul (Anderson names her as
Margaret Cant, sister of Adam Cant of Priestfield) and died in or before 1537,
leaving two sons, Thomas and George. The eldest, being the second of that name
at Orcharfield and Priestfield, was made a Burgess of Edinburgh in 1541, and
was killed at the battle of Pinkie on 10th Sept. 1547; he married
Elizabeth, da. of Robert Leslie of Innerpeffer, and had two sons, Thomas of
Priestfield, the father of the 1st Earl of Haddington, and John, who
became a secular priest of the Roman Catholic Church, and distinguished himself
by great zeal and activity in its service; he was imprisoned in the Tower of
London in 1609 and died there in 1610.
George, the 2nd son of
Thomas Hamilton and Margaret Caul (Cant?), was created a Burgess of
Edinburgh with his brother in 1541.
Besides these two sons Thomas
Hamilton 2nd of Priestfield had others, whose names have not
been ascertained.[4] However, Anderson shows another two
children being, Marion Hamilton who m. James Macartney in Edinburgh, and Oliver
Hamilton, who may thus have been the father of William Hamilton 1st
of Ballyfatton.
Sir William Fraser states that the
earliest document in which the crest of the oak tree with the cross-cut saw
appears is dated 1525, and that in 1457 James, 1st Lord Hamilton,
used a crest an oak tree without a saw.
[1] Vide "House of Hamilton" by John Anderson.
[2] Eleventh Report, appendix part VI. "Historical MSS, Commission" 1887. Edited by William Fraser, Edinburgh.
[3] "Memorials of the Earls of Haddington" Edinburgh 1889
[4] Vide "Memorials of the Earls of Haddington" Vol I, p. 17, and cf " Acts of Parliament of Scotland" Vol III, p.383)