Jump to content

Charles Hamilton, 5th Earl of Abercorn

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Charles Hamilton
Earl of Abercorn
Tenure1691–1701
PredecessorClaud, 4th Earl
SuccessorJames, 6th Earl
DiedJune 1701
Strabane
Spouse(s)Catherine Lenthall
Issue
Detail
Elizabeth
FatherGeorge, 4th Baron H. of Strabane
MotherElizabeth Fagan

Charles Hamilton, 5th Earl of Abercorn (died 1701) succeeded his brother who had been attainted as a Jacobite and, having conformed to the established religion, could get the attainder reversed.

Family tree
Charles Hamilton with wife, parents, and other selected relatives. He married a second cousin.[a]
James
1st Earl
Abercorn

1575–1618
Marion
Boyd

d. 1632
Recusant
James
2nd Earl

c. 1604 –
c. 1670
Claud
2nd Baron
H. of
Strabane

c. 1606 – 1638
Jean
Gordon
James
Lord Paisley

c. 1635 –
bef. 1670
d.v.p.*
George
3rd Earl

c. 1636 –
bef. 1683
James
3rd Baron
H. of
Strabane

1633–1655
George
4th Baron
H. of
Strabane

1636/7 – 1668
Elizabeth
Fagan
William
Lenthall

d. 1686
Catherine
c. 1653 – 1723
Claud
4th Earl

1659–1691
Charles
5th Earl
d. 1701
Elizabeth
d. 1699
Legend
XXXSubject of
the article
XXXEarls of
Abercorn
XXXBaron Hamilton
of Strabane
*d.v.p. = predeceased his father (decessit vita patris)

Birth and origins

[edit]

Charles was born between 1659 and 1668,[b] probably at Kenure House in Rush near Dublin. He was the second son of George Hamilton, and his wife Elizabeth Fagan. His father was the 4th Baron Hamilton of Strabane, an important landowner in County Tyrone. The Strabanes were a cadet branch of the Abercorns and like the latter of Scottish origin.

Charles's mother was Irish and a rich heiress, the only child of Christopher Fagan of Feltrim, County Dublin. Charles was one of four siblings, who are listed in his father's article.

His parents were both Catholic, but he later conformed to the established religion. The family's usual residence was Kenure House in Rush near Dublin, where he and his siblings were probably born and where his father died.[1]

Brother's succession

[edit]

Charles's father died on 14 April 1668 at Kenure House[1] and his elder brother, Claud, succeeded as the 5th Baron of Strabane.[2] Charles became heir presumptive as his brother was unmarried. In about 1680 Claud also succeeded as the 4th Earl of Abercorn after the death of his cousin George in faraway Padua, Italy.[3]

However, in August 1691, when Charles was about 26, Claud was killed in a sea-fight when a Dutch privateer attacked the ship that should have brought him from Limerick to France.[4] His brother had been a Jacobite and had been attainted in Ireland on 11 May 1691. Charles succeeded him immediately as the 5th Earl of Abercorn as the family's Scottish titles were not affected by the attainder but could not become Baron Hamilton of Strabane as that title was forfeit.

Abercorn, as he was now, had supported the Prince of Orange and was a Protestant,[5] perhaps due to his marriage. On 24 May 1692, he obtained a reversal of his brother's attainder and also succeeded as Baron Hamilton of Strabane, becoming the 6th holder of that title. In that capacity he took his seat in the Irish House of Lords on 31 August 1695.

Marriage and children

[edit]

About 1690 Abercorn married Catherine Lenthall (née Hamilton), the widow of William Lenthall of Burford, a grandson of the speaker, and the daughter of James Hamilton, Lord Paisley. She was his second cousin, the common great-grandfather being James Hamilton, 1st Earl of Abercorn.[6] Her father had converted to the Church of Scotland and she was a Protestant as her father and her first husband had been.

Charles and Catherine had an only child:

In 1697 Abercorn signed the Association, an oath of loyalty King William and Queen Mary that had been introduced in reaction to the Jacobite assassination plot of 1696.[8][9]

On 3 April 1697 John Pryor was found murdered in the garden of Burford Priory.[10] He had been a steward to William Lenthall, Abercorn's wife's first husband. Abercorn was accused of the murder and jailed but was finally acquitted.[11]

Death, succession, and timeline

[edit]

Abercorn died childless in Strabane in June 1701.[12] His only child, Elizabeth, had predeceased him in 1699. His widow died on 24 May 1723 in Pall Mall, London, and was buried in the Richmond vault of the Henry VII Chapel at Westminster Abbey.[13]

With his death, the senior line of the Abercorns and the Strabanes failed. With regard to the Abercorns, the succession reverted to the next of the cadet branches descending from the five sons of the 1st Earl of Abercorn as it already had done in about 1650 when George, the 3rd Earl, died unmarried in Padua. As the 1st Earl's third son, William, 1st Baronet of Westport, had no children, the succession passed to the descendants of the fourth son, Sir George Hamilton, 1st Baronet, of Donalong. Our subject, the 5th Earl, was therefore succeeded as Earl of Abercorn by his second cousin, James Hamilton, the grandson of Sir George. James Hamilton would thus become the 6th Earl of Abercorn.

With regard to the Strabanes, Charles, our subject, was the 6th Baron, and the last heir-male of Claud Hamilton, the 2nd Baron, to whom the title had been regranted after the 2nd Earl had resigned it. The succession, therefore, needed to make use of the special remainder, which also allowed succession through heirs-male from the body of the grantee's father.[14] Therefore, not only the Scottish but also the Irish title devolved to his second cousin, James Hamilton. James, therefore, became 6th Earl of Abercorn and 7th Baron Hamilton of Strabane. From that time on these two titles merged and would always be worn by the same person.

Timeline
As his birth date is uncertain, so are all his ages. Italics for historical background.
Age Date Event
0 Estimated 1665 Born, probably at Kenure House[b]
2–3 14 Apr 1668 Became heir presumptive after his brother succeeded as 5th Baron Hamilton of Strabane[1]
14–15 About 1680 Brother Claud succeeded as the 4th Earl of Abercorn.[3]
19–20 6 Feb 1685 Accession of James II, succeeding Charles II[15]
23–24 13 Feb 1689 Accession of William and Mary, succeeding James II[16]
24–25 About 1690 Married his 2nd cousin Catherine Lenthall (née Hamilton) and became a Protestant[6]
25–26 Aug 1691 Succeeded as 5th Earl of Abercorn as his brother is killed in a sea-fight.[4]
26–27 24 May 1692 Obtained reversal of the attainder and also becomes Baron Hamilton of Strabane
29–30 31 Aug 1695 Took his seat in the Irish House of Lords.
31–32 3 Apr 1697 Accused of murdering John Pryor at Burford
31–32 16 Jul 1697 Tried for John Pryor's murder and acquitted[11]
33–34 Feb 1699 Elizabeth, his only child, died.[7]
35–36 Jun 1701 Died in Strabane[12]

Notes and references

[edit]

Notes

[edit]
  1. ^ This family tree is partly derived from the Abercorn pedigree pictured in Cokayne.[17] Also see the list of children in the text.
  2. ^ a b He was born between 1659 (birth of his elder brother) and 1668 (his father's death).

Citations

[edit]
  1. ^ a b c Paul 1904, p. 50. "George, 4th Lord Strabane, who, dying 14 April 1668 at his house at Kenure, County Dublin, was buried in St. Mechlin's Church, near Rush in that county ...
  2. ^ Cokayne 1910, p. 5, line 19, left. "On 14 Apr. 1668 he [Claud Hamilton] suc. his father in the Irish peerage and estates."
  3. ^ a b Paul 1904, p. 49, line 34. "George, third Earl of Abercorn, succeeded his father but died unmarried in Padua, on his journey to Rome, whereby the male line failed in the eldest branch, so that we return to Claud, Lord Strabane, second son of James ..."
  4. ^ a b London Gazette 1691, Issue 2687, page 1, right column. "Rye, August 8 [1691] ... the Orange Branch of Flushing, George Pierre commander, from Ireland, with a Prize of 6 guns and 6 Pattereroes, bound from Limericke to France, having on board several Passengers, and among the rest the Lord Abercorne, who was killed in the fight."
  5. ^ Handley 2004, p. 852, right column, line 50. "The fifth earl, his brother, the protestant Charles Hamilton, had his attainder reversed and received the lands from the crown in 1691."
  6. ^ a b Paul 1904, p. 52, line 8. "He married his cousin Catherine, only child of James, Lord Paisley, relict of William Lenthall of Burford ..."
  7. ^ a b Paul 1904, p. 52, line 13. "Elizabeth, who died young, and was buried in the chancel of St. Michan's Church, Dublin, 22 February 1699;"
  8. ^ Paul 1904, p. 52, line 3. "... and 2 December 1697 signed the declaration and association in defence of the person and government of King William ..."
  9. ^ Cressy 1982, p. 227. "As the Lords and Commons discussed the crisis they found that Lord Keeper Somers had ready a document for them to sign ..."
  10. ^ Monk 1891, p. 120. "Mr. John Prior was murdered ..."
  11. ^ a b Cokayne 1910, p. 5, line 31. "On 16 July 1697, he was tried at Oxford for the murder of Mr Prior of Burford, and acquitted."
  12. ^ a b Lodge 1789, p. 117. "... and died at Strabane June 1701."
  13. ^ Chester 1876, p. 308. "1723 June The Right Hon. Catherine, Countess Dowager of Abercorn: in the Duke of Richmond's vault in K. H. 7th's Chapel."
  14. ^ Cokayne 1910, p. 6. "James Hamilton Earl of Abercorn etc. [S. [Scotland]], also Lord Hamilton, Baron of Strabane [I.], under the spec. rem. in the creation (1617) of that dignity."
  15. ^ Fryde et al. 1986, p. 44, line 46. "James II. ... acc. 6 Feb. 1685 ..."
  16. ^ Fryde et al. 1986, p. 45, line 11. "William III. ... acc. 13 Feb. 1689 ..."
  17. ^ Cokayne 1910, p. 4. "Tabular pedigree of the Earls of Abercorn"

Sources

[edit]
Peerage of Scotland
Preceded by Earl of Abercorn
1691–1701
Succeeded by
Peerage of Ireland
Forfeit
Title last held by
Claud Hamilton
Baron Hamilton of Strabane
1692–1701
Succeeded by