Overview
James Hamilton, 1st Viscount Claneboye (24 January 1644) was a Scot who became owner of large tracts of land in County Down, Ireland, and founded a successful Protestant Scots settlement there several years before the Plantation of Ulster. Hamilton was able to acquire the lands as a result of his connections with King James I, for whom he had been an agent in negotiations for James to succeed Queen Elizabeth I.
Early life and academic career
Hamilton was the eldest of six sons His father Hans was the first Protestant minister of Dunlop in East Ayrshire, Scotland. He was probably the James Hamilton who studied at the University of St Andrews and received a BA in 1584 and an MA in 1585. He employed fellow Scot James Fullerton as usher. Young Ussher followed them to Trinity. Hamilton and Fullerton were presbyterians, unlike Loftus who was episcopalian. Hamilton became bursar of Trinity in 1598.
Agent for King James VI of Scotland
Hamilton and Fullerton were also agents and informants for King James VI of Scotland. He eventually carried the official news of Elizabeth's death to Scotland.
Settlement in County Down
In 1601, Gaelic chieftain Conn O'Neill of Ulster sent his men to attack English soldiers after a quarrel and was consequently imprisoned. O'Neill's wife made a deal with Scots aristocrat Hugh Montgomery to give him half of O'Neill's lands if Montgomery could get a royal pardon for O'Neill. Montgomery obtained the pardon but in August 1604 Hamilton discovered the plan for the land. James Fullerton, now Sir James and an advisor to King James, convinced the king that the lands were too large to be split in two and should be divided into three, with one-third going to his associate Hamilton; the king agreed. four years before the Plantation of Ulster in 1610. The settlement was a success and Hamilton was knighted by the king at Royston on 14 November 1609. Hamilton was elected a member of parliament for County Down in 1613. He was also a privy councillor.
In 1641, when in his eighties, he returned to his Scottish home town of Dunlop and built a mausoleum for his parents in the churchyard where his father had been minister. He erected a school attached to the mausoleum which he named Clandeboye School. Both buildings still stand. In the Irish Rebellion of 1641, the native Irish population rose against English settlers, and later also Scottish settlers, and killed thousands of them. The regiments raised by Hamilton and Hugh Montgomery's son, Hugh Montgomery, 2nd Viscount Montgomery, saved their areas of County Down from the degree of damage done in other parts of Ulster. Hamilton died, aged about eighty-four, on 24 January 1644 and was buried in the church at Bangor.
Family and succession
Hamilton's first wife was Alice Penicook (sometimes referred to, apparently incorrectly, as Penelope Cooke), and she was with him until at least 1602. His second wife was Ursula Brabazon (died 1625), sixth daughter of Edward Brabazon, 1st Baron Ardee and Mary Smythe, and sister of the 1st Earl of Meath. He divorced Ursula in about 1615 to marry Jane Phillips (died 1661), the mother of his son. She was the daughter of Sir John Phillips of Picton Castle, Pembrokeshire. Hamilton was succeeded as Viscount Claneboye by his only son James,
See also
*Killyleagh Castle for more on his successors *John Livingstone
External links
* Hamilton & Montgomery Settlement 1606 * The Hamilton manuscripts: containing some account of the settlement of the territories of the upper Clandeboye, Great Ardes, and Dufferin, in the county of Down, 1867, at the Internet Archive