Lord William Hamilton (c. 1706 – 11 July 1734) was a

member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members o ...

for

Lanarkshire Lanarkshire, also called the County of Lanark ( gd, Siorrachd Lannraig; sco, Lanrikshire), is a historic county, lieutenancy area and registration county in the central Lowlands of Scotland. Lanarkshire is the most populous county in Scotl ...

Early life

Lord William was the second oldest child of

James Hamilton, 4th Duke of Hamilton Lieutenant General James Hamilton, 4th Duke of Hamilton and 1st Duke of Brandon (11 April 1658 – 15 November 1712) was a Scottish nobleman, soldier and politician. Hamilton was a major investor in the failed Darien Scheme, which cost many o ...

, and his second wife Elizabeth (née Gerard). When the 4th Duke died in a duel, Lord William's eldest brother

James James is a common English language surname and given name: *James (name), the typically masculine first name James * James (surname), various people with the last name James James or James City may also refer to: People * King James (disambiguati ...

succeeded to the dukedom and became the head of the Jacobite interest in Scotland. In 1726, it was rumoured that Lord William would be given a troop of horse, when King George I recalled the Duke of Hamilton from Rome, where he had been seeing the Old Pretender.

Marriage

Early in 1733, the already married Countess of Hertford became infatuated with Lord William and addressed a love poem to him, but he never responded; instead,

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (née Pierrepont; 15 May 168921 August 1762) was an English aristocrat, writer, and poet. Born in 1689, Lady Mary spent her early life in England. In 1712, Lady Mary married Edward Wortley Montagu, who later served a ...

and the Baroness De La Warr conspired to write a poem on his behalf to reject Lady Hertford. In May that year, he eloped with the beautiful but impoverished Frances Hawes, daughter of a stockbroker who lost all his fortune due to the South Sea Sufferer's Act of 1721, without the Duke's knowledge, having been led to believe he was marrying an heiress. The couple hurried to

consummate In many traditions and statutes of civil or religious law, the consummation of a marriage, often called simply ''consummation'', is the first (or first officially credited) act of sexual intercourse between two people, following their marriage to ...

the marriage to make it legally binding, fearing that her father might try to have it annulled, and it turned out to be a love match. Lord William was appointed Vice-Chamberlain to the queen, Caroline of Ansbach, the same year. As the second son, he was himself poor enough for Queen Caroline to refer to him and his wife as "handsome beggars". The couple had a stillborn child. Lord William returned to

to represent his eldest brother's interests and became

on 16 May 1734, succeeding his uncle

Archibald Archibald is a masculine given name, composed of the Germanic elements '' erchan'' (with an original meaning of "genuine" or "precious") and ''bald'' meaning "bold". Medieval forms include Old High German and Anglo-Saxon . Erkanbald, bishop of ...

, but fell ill in June and died at his house in

Pall Mall, London Pall Mall is a street in the St James's area of the City of Westminster, Central London. It connects St James's Street to Trafalgar Square and is a section of the regional A4 road. The street's name is derived from pall-mall, ...

, on 11 July. His widow was soon pressured to remarry, becoming Viscountess Vane. In her scandalous memoirs, she describes her grief over the loss of her first husband, which was ridiculed by Horace Walpole.

References

External links

Lord William Hamilton
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hamilton, Lord William 1700s births 1734 deaths British MPs 1734–1741

William William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...

Younger sons of dukes Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for Scottish constituencies