James Hamilton, 6th Earl of Abercorn

James was born in 1661 or 1662,[1][lower-alpha 1] the eldest son of James Hamilton and his wife Elizabeth Colepeper. His father was a colonel in the English army, Hyde Park Ranger, a groom of the bedchamber to Charles II of England, and a member of a cadet branch of the Abercorns. James's mother was a daughter of John Colepeper, 1st Baron Colepeper[3] His parents married in 1661.[4] They had six sons, of which three survived into adulthood.[5]

He heads the list of brothers below as the eldest:

1. James (c. 1661 – 1734)
2. George (died 1692), became a colonel in the foot guards and fell in the Battle of Steenkerque[7]
3. William (after 1662 – 1737), married his cousin Margaret Colepeper and became the ancestor of the Hamiltons of Chilston[8]

He was raised a Protestant as his father, who was originally a Catholic, had converted to that faith to marry his mother. He was the heir apparent of the Donalong cadet branch of the earls of Abercorn, which started with his grandfather Sir George Hamilton, 1st Baronet, of Donalong, who was the fourth son of James Hamilton, 1st Earl of Abercorn.

On 6 June 1673 when he was about twelve years old, his father died from a wound received at a sea-fight with the Dutch in the Third Anglo-Dutch War.[9] He was compensated by an appointment as an extra groom of the bedchamber on 18 April 1680.[10] His father had predeceased his grandfather who still held the land of Donalong between Strabane and Derry in Ireland.

When his grandfather died in 1679, he inherited the land and should have succeeded to his grandfather's baronetcy, i.e. Baronet Hamilton of Donalong, but he never assumed the title calling himself Captain Hamilton, his rank in the English army.[11] This might indicate that this baronetcy had never been duly created.[12]

Captain Hamilton married the heiress Elizabeth Reading, daughter of Sir Robert Reading, 1st Baronet, of Dublin, and Jane Hannay, widow of Charles Coote, 1st Earl of Mountrath, in January 1684.[13] Charles II issued a warrant on 22 January 1684 to create Hamilton "Baron Hamilton of Bellamont", county Dublin, in the Irish peerage, but it never passed the seals.[14]

James and Elizabeth had 14 children of which 10 survived into adulthood, six sons:

1. James (1686–1744), became the 7th Earl[15]
2. John (c. 1694 – 1714), never married[16]
3. George (died 1775), MP, married and had issue[17]
4. Rev. Hon. Francis Hamilton (1700–1746), married and had issue[18]
5. William (1703–1721), was lost aboard HMS Royal Anne Galley[19]
6. Charles (1704–1786), MP, married and had issue[20]

—and four daughters:

1. Elizabeth Hamilton, married firstly on 2 January 1711 William Brownlow, and secondly in 1741 Martin, Count de Kearnie.[21] Through her first marriage she is an ancestress of actor Ralph Fiennes.
2. Mary (born before 1704), married in January 1719 Henry Colley of Carbury Castle, County Kildare and have issue[22]
3. Philippa Hamilton (died 1767), married Rev. Benjamin Pratt without issue, then married Michael O'Connell of London and had one son[23]
4. Jane (before 1704 – 1753), married Archibald Douglas-Hamilton as his third wife.[24] She also was mistress to Frederick, Prince of Wales.[25]

Lord Abercorn in parliamentary robes

Captain Hamilton's post in the bedchamber ended with the King's death in 1685. He had entered a career in the army and held a commission in the English army of the new king, James II.

In 1688 at the Glorious Revolution he sided with William. In spring 1689 when war menaced in northern Ireland, he was sent to Derry with provisions in order to prepare the city for a likely siege. On 21 March 1689 he[26] arrived at Derry from England with two ships: the frigate HMS Jersey and the merchantman Deliverance,[27] bringing gunpowder, munition, weapons, and £595 in cash.[28] These provisions were to be crucial during the Siege of Derry. He also brought the commission from King William and Queen Mary that confirmed Colonel Robert Lundy as Williamite governor of the town.[29]

He therefore helped to defend Derry. His uncle Richard Hamilton (officer), lieutenant-general in the Irish Royal Army, attacked it.[30]

After the end of the Williamite war in Ireland, he was elected as one of the two MPs for Tyrone County in the Irish House of Commons on 22 September 1692 and again on 12 August 1695.[31][32][33]

In June 1701 died in Strabane his second cousin Charles Hamilton, 5th Earl of Abercorn, without surviving children. [34] Captain Hamilton was his second cousin. The great-grandfather they had in common was James Hamilton, 1st Earl of Abercorn (see Family tree). Captain Hamilton succeeded as 6th Earl of Abercorn in the Scottish and 7th Baron Hamilton of Strabane in the Irish peerage. His eldest, James, acquired the courtesy title Lord Paisley as the heir apparent. The new Lord Abercorn also entered into the possession of the corresponding lands.

About six months later, on 2 December 1701, Lord Abercorn was rewarded by King William with the titles of Viscount Strabane and Baron Mountcastle, both in the Peerage of Ireland.[35] The former was an enhancement of his title of Baron Hamilton of Strabane and was probably given to enhance his precedence at the Irish House of Lords.

Lord Abercorn took his seat in the Irish House of Lords (as Viscount Strabane) on 21 September 1703, and in the Parliament of Scotland (as Earl of Abercorn) on 3 October 1706. By April 1711, he had been appointed also to the Privy Council of Ireland.

Abercorn died on 28 November 1734 at the age of 73[36] and was buried on 3 December in the Ormond vault of the Henry VII Chapel in Westminster Abbey.[37] The Ormond Vault was opened in 1868 and was found to be filled with many coffins stacked one over the other. Their number was estimated at 59.[38] Individual identification beyond the top layer was not attempted. Abercorn's remains may well be there.

He was succeeded by his eldest son James as the 7th Earl. His wife died on 19 March 1754.[39]

• Burke, Bernard; Burke, Ashworth P. (1909), A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Peerage and Baronetage, the Privy Council, Knightage, and Companionage (71st ed.), London: Harrison
• Burke, Bernard (1949), A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerage and Baronetage of the British Empire (99th ed.), London: Burke's Peerage Ltd.
• Chester, Joseph Lemuel (1876), Registers of Westminster Abbey, London: Private Edition
• Childs, John (2007), The Williamite Wars in Ireland 1688 - 1691, London: Hambledon Continuum Press, ISBN 978-1-85285-573-4
• Cokayne, George Edward (1903), Complete Baronetage, 3 (1st ed.), Exeter: William Pollard & Co – 1649 to 1664
• Cokayne, George Edward (1910), Gibbs, Vicary (ed.), The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct, or Dormant, 1, Ab-Adam to Basing (2 ed.), London: St. Catherine Press
• Handley, Stuart (2004), "Hamilton, James, sixth Earl of Abercorn", in Matthew, Colin; Harrison, Brian (eds.), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 24, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 852–853, ISBN 978-0198614111
• Henderson, Thomas Finlayson (1890), "Hamilton, James, sixth Earl of Abercorn (1656–1734)", in Lee, Sidney (ed.), Dictionary of National Biography, 24, New York: MacMillan and Co., p. 185
• House of Commons (1878), "Members of Parliament", Parliamentary Papers, London: H. M. Stationery Office, 62 (for the subject as MP)
• Lodge, John (1789), The Peerage of Ireland, 5, Dublin: James Moore - Viscounts
• MacGeoghegan, James (1763), Histoire de l'Irlande ancienne et moderne (in French), 3, Amsterdam
• Paul, James Balfour (1904), The Scots Peerage, 1, Edinburgh: David Douglas - Abercorn to Balmerino
• Sainty, Sir John Christopher; Bucholz, Robert O. (1997), Officials of the Royal Household 1660 – 1683: Department of the Lord Chamberlain and Associated Offices, London: University of London, Institute of Historical Research, ISBN 9781871348408
• Stanley, Arthur Penrhyn (1869), Historical Memorials of Westminster Abbey (3rd ed.), London: John Murray
• Walker, Rev. George (1690), The siege of Londonderry in 1689, as set forth in the Literary Remains of Colonel the Rev. George Walker, D.D., London: Robert Clavel & Ralph Simpson
• Walters, John (1972). The Royal Griffin: Frederick Prince of Wales 1707–51. London: Jarrolds. ISBN 0-09-111240-0.
• Wills, Rev. James (1841), Lives of Illustrious and Distinguished Irishmen Sir James Hamilton, First Viscount Strabane, 4, Glasgow: MacGregor, Polson & Co, pp. 55–56
• Witherow, Thomas (1879), Derry and Enniskillen in the Year 1689, London & Belfast: William Mallan & Son

• Robert O. Bucholz Database of Court Officers 1660 – 1837 Loyola University of Chicago