HADDINGTON,
Viscount of,
a title (extinct) in the peerage of Scotland, conferred in 1600, on
Sir John Ramsay, brother of George, first Lord Ramsay of Dalhousie
(see RAMSAY, surname of), for having been instrumental in saving the
life of James the Sixth, in the mysterious affair called the Gowrie
conspiracy. He was a favourite page of the king, and, on that
occasion, when his majesty had retired with Alexander Ruthven, brother
of the earl of Gowrie, he agreed to take charge of a hawk for one of
the servants, while the latter was at dinner. On the alarm arising
that the king had ridden forth, Ramsay hurried to the stable for his
horse, and in doing so, he heard the king’s voice at the window of
Gowrie house, crying, “I am murdered! Treason! My lord of Mar, help!
Help!” On which, running up a back staircase, he rushed against the
door of the chamber, and burst it open, when he found Alexander
Ruthven struggling with the king, who, on seeing him, exclaimed, “Fy!
Strike him low, he has secret armour on.” Casting from him the hawk
which still sat upon his hand, Ramsay drew his dagger, and plunged it
twice in Ruthven’s body, and the king, exerting all his strength,
threw him down stairs, where he was despatched by Sir Thomas Erskine
and Hugh Herries, the king’s physician. The earl, supported by seven
of his attendants, in attempting to force his way into the house, was
encountered by Ramsay, who pierced him through the heart, and forced
his attendants to retreat. For this signal service the king heaped
dignities upon him, and retained him constantly in his favour. On
being created viscount of Haddington he received, for an augmentation
of honour, an arm holding a naked sword and a crown in the midst
thereof, with a heart at the point, to impale with his own arms, and
the motto, “Haec dextra vindex principis et patriae.” Besides being
viscount of Haddington and Lord Ramsay of Barns in the peerage of
Scotland, he was, in 1620, created a peer of England, by the titles of
earl of Holdernesse and baron of Kingston upon Thames, with this
special addition of honour that upon the 5th of August
annually, the day appointed to be observed in giving thanks to God for
the king’s preservation, he and his male heirs for ever should bear
the sword of state before the king, in remembrance of his happy
deliverance. He died, without surviving issue, in 1625, when his
titles became extinct.
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HADDINGTON, Earl
of, a
title in the peerage of Scotland, conferred in 1627 on Sir Thomas
Hamilton, an eminent advocate and judge, a memoir of whom is given
below. His title was at first earl of Melrose, but eight years
afterwards it was changed to Haddington. The first earl’s grandfather
was Thomas Hamilton of Orchartfield, Bathgate, and Ballencrieff,
second son of Hugh Hamilton of Innerwick, descended from a branch of
the Hamiltons of Cadzow, the original stock of the ducal family of
Hamilton. This Thomas Hamilton of Orchartfield was killed at Pinkie,
10th Sept. 1547, leaving two sons, Thomas his successor,
and John, a secular priest, a memoir of whom, from a sketch by the
accurate Lord Hailes will be fund below. The elder son, Sir Thomas
Hamilton of Priestfield, was knighted before 1597, and had a charter,
30th May 1597, of the estates of Balbyn and Drumcairn in
Perthshire, which his father had received in excambion with James
Hamilton of Innerwick, for the lands of Ballencrieff in
Linlithgowshire, and another of Priestfield the same year. By the
influence of his son, the first earl of Haddington, he was admitted a
lord of session 29th May 1607, when he took the judicial
title of Lord Priestfield, but the following year resigned his seat on
the bench to his second son, Sir Andrew Hamilton of Redhouse, an
estate which he received in marriage with the daughter and sole
heiress of John Laing of Redhouse, also one of the lords of session.
Sir Andrew, on being raised to the bench on 28th June 1608,
assumed the judicial title of Lord Redhouse. He was a privy councillor
to King James the Sixth, and died in 1637. A younger brother, Sir John
Hamilton of Magdalens, was also a lord of session under the title of
Lord Magdalens, having been appointed to a seat on the bench on 27th
July 1622. As he held also the appointment of lord clerk-register,
conferred the same year, he was obliged, in February 1626, to resign
his seat on the bench, in accordance with a resolution of Charles the
First that officers of state should not be lords of session. At the
same time he was removed from the exchequer, but to this latter
situation he was restored on 12th July following. He was
again admitted to a seat on the bench, as an extraordinary lord, on 2d
November 1630; and died at Holyroodhouse on 28th November
1632. A fourth son of Sir Thomas Hamilton, Lord Priestfield, was
Patrick Hamilton of Little Prestoun, secretary to his brother, the
earl of Haddington, and founder of the family of Fala. Alexander, the
fifth and youngest son, a general of artillery, had a high command in
the army sent to the assistance of the king of Sweden, under the first
duke of Hamilton in 1631, and died in 1649.
The first
earl of Haddington was thrice married. By his first wife, a daughter
of Borthwick of Newbyres, he had an only daughter; by his second wife,
a daughter of Foulis of Colinton, county of Edinburgh, he had three
sons and six daughters; and by his third wife, a daughter of Ker of
Ferniehirst, and the widow of Sir Patrick Hume of Polwarth, he had an
only son, the Hon. Robert Hamilton of Wester Binning, who was killed
at Dunglass castle, when that fortress was blown up in 1640, as
afterwards related.
Thomas, the
eldest son, second earl of Haddington, born 25th May 1600,
succeeded his father in 1637. In the great civil war he adhered to the
cause of the Covenanters, and was appointed colonel of one of their
regiments. In 1640, when General Leslie marched into England, Lord
Haddington was left in Scotland, to watch the motions of the garrison
of Berwick. He fixed his quarters at Dunglass castle, in the county of
Haddington, where a considerable quantity of gunpowder was stored up.
On the 30th of August, about midday, as he was standing in
the court of the castle, reading a letter which he had received from
General Leslie to a number of gentlemen, the powder-magazine blew up,
and one of the side walls in its fall overwhelmed his lordship and all
his auditors, except four who, by the force of the explosion, were
thrown to a considerable distance. The earl’s body being found among
the ruins, was buried at Tyninghame. With his lordship was killed,
besides his youngest son, several of his kinsmen of the name of
Hamilton. Scotstarvet states that a report prevailed that a faithless
page, an English boy of the name of Edward Paris, in resentment of the
earl’s jestingly saying to him that his countrymen were a pack of
cowards to suffer themselves to be beaten, and to run away at Newburn,
thrust a red-hot iron into a barrel of gunpowder, and so was killed
with the rest. This incident is often erroneously connected with
Dunglass castle on the Clyde, though the two places are separated by
the whole breadth of the island. The second earl was twice married:
first to Lady Catherine Erskine, fourth daughter of the seventh earl
of Mar, and by her had Thomas, third earl, John, fourth earl, two
other sons, and a daughter; and, secondly, to Lady Jean Gordon, third
daughter of the second marquis of Huntly, and by her had a posthumous
daughter.
Thomas,
third earl, was a boy under thirteen years of age at the time of his
father’s death. Soon after he visited the Continent, and espoused by
contract at Chatillon in France, 8th August 1643, Henrietta
de Coligny, eldest daughter of Gaspard, Count de Coligny, and
great-granddaughter of Admiral Coligny, celebrated for her wit,
beauty, and adventures, afterwards the countess de la Suze. He died of
consumption, 8th February 1645, while scarcely eighteen
years old. His brother John succeeded as fourth earl, and died 1st
September 1669. By his countess, Lady Christian Lindsay, second
daughter of the fifteenth earl of Crawford, he had an only son,
Charles, fifth earl, and three daughters, the eldest of whom, Lady
Margaret, married John, earl of Hopetoun, who was drowned on his
voyage to Scotland when accompanying the duke of York, 5th
May 1682.
Charles,
fifth earl, born in 1650, married Lady Margaret Leslie, eldest
daughter of John, duke of Rothes, lord-high-chancellor of Scotland. On
her father’s death in 1681, the dukedom became extinct, but the
countess succeeded as countess of Rothes. The earl died in 1685, aged
35, and the countess in 1700. They had three sons; John, who succeeded
as eighth earl of Rothes (see ROTHES, earl of); Thomas, in whose
favour his father resigned his earldom of Haddington, and to whom a
new patent, with the former precedency, was granted; and Charles, who
died young.
Thomas, the
second son, became sixth earl of Haddington. Born 29th
August, 1680, he was trained up in whig principles, under the care of
his uncle, Adam Cockburn of Ormiston, and distinguished himself as a
warm supporter of the liberty of the people. He had a charter of the
earldom of Haddington, 25th February 1687, and another of
the hereditary office of keeper of the park of Holyroodhouse, 23d
January 1691. He was a zealous supporter of the treaty of union. On
the breaking out of the rebellion of 1715, he accompanied the duke of
Argyle to Stirling, 16th September, and served as a
volunteer under his grace, two months afterwards, at the battle of
Sheriffmuir, where he received a wound in the shoulder, and had a
horse shot under him. In 1716 he was appointed lord-lieutenant of the
county of Haddington, and invested with the order of the Thistle,
being also constituted one of the lords of the police. The same year
he was elected one of the sixteen representative Scots peers, and
rechosen at the general elections of 1722 and 1727. He died at New
Hailes, 28th November, 1735, in his 55th year.
To this earl have been attributed a collection of Fescennine verses,
published surreptitiously at Edinburgh, and afterwards at London, with
the titles of ‘Forty Select Poems, on several occasions,’ and ‘Tales
in Verse, for the amusement of Leisure Hours.’ He is the author of ‘A
Treatise on the manner of Raising Forest Trees,’ in a letter to his
grandson, dated at Tyninghame 22d December 1733. Published at
Edinburgh in 1761. Subjoined is his portrait, in the character of
Simon the Skipper, from an engraving in Park’s edition of Walpole’s
Royal and Noble Authors, vol. V.:
[portrait of Thomas 6th earl of Haddington]
At the age of sixteen, his lordship had married his cousin,
Helen, only daughter of John Hope of Hopetoun, and had two sons and
two daughters. The elder son, Charles Lord Binning, author of several
elegant poems, a memoir of whom is afterwards given in larger type,
died before his father. The second son, the Hon. John Hamilton, a
member of the faculty of advocates, died in 1772. The younger
daughter, Lady Christian Hamilton, married Sir James Dalrymple of
Hailes, baronet, and was mother of the celebrated Sir David Dalrymple,
Lord Hailes. Lord Binning had married Rachel, youngest daughter, and
at length sole heiress, of George Baillie of Jerviswood, by whom he
had five sons and three daughters. Thomas, the eldest, born in
October, 1720, became, on the death of his grandfather, seventh earl
of Haddington. George, the second, on succeeding to his maternal
grandfather’s estate of Jerviswoode, took the name of Baillie, and
died at Mellerstain, 16th April 1791, aged 74. The Hon.
Charles Hamilton, the youngest son, entered the army. He died governor
of Blackness castle in 1806, in his 79th year.
The eldest son, Thomas, 7th earl of Haddington, was
educated at the university of Oxford, and in 1740, accompanied by his
brother George, he set out on his travels to the continent. Both
brothers became members of the “Common room,” established at Geneva
the same year. His lordship died at Ham in Surrey, May 19, 1794, in
his 74th year. He was twice married; first, to Mary,
daughter of Rowland Holt, Esq. of Redgrave, Suffolk, by whom he had 2
sons, Charles, 8th earl of Haddington, and Hon. Thomas
Hamilton, who died young; and 2dly, to Anne, eldest daughter of Sir
Charles Gascoigne, knight, issue one daughter, who died in infancy.
Charles, 8th earl, born July 5, 1753, was, when Lord
Binning, captain of the grenadier company of the duke of Buccleuch’s
fencible regiments in 1778. In 1804, he was appointed lord-lieutenant
of Haddingtonshire, and at the general election of 1807, was chosen
one of the 16 representative Scots peers. He died March 17, 1828.
His only son, Thomas, 9th earl, born at Edinburgh,
June 1, 1780, was educated at the university of his native city, and
graduated at Oxford. In July 1802, he was elected M.P. for St.
Germains; in 1807 for Cockermouth; and for Callington, at the general
election the same year. He was afterwards member for Rochester, and a
commissioner for the affairs of India. In 1814 he was sworn a privy
councillor. In July 1827, in his father’s lifetime, he was created a
peer of the United Kingdom as Baron Melros of Tyningham, and in 1828
he succeeded his father. In December 1834, he was appointed
lord-lieutenant of Ireland, but continued in that post only to the
following April. He was first lord of the admiralty from Sep. 1841 to
Jan. 1846, when he was constituted lord-privy-seal, but retired from
that office in the following July. In 1843 he received £43,000, as
remuneration for the office of hereditary keeper of Holyrood Park,
that office being then abolished. He married Lady Maria Parker,
daughter of 4th earl of Macclesfield, without issue. He
died Dec. 21, 1858.
He was succeeded in all his titles, except that of Baron Melros,
by his cousin, George Baillie, Esq. of Mellerstain and Jerviswoode,
grandson of Hon. George Hamilton; born in 1802, married in 1824
Georgina, daughter of Archdeacon Robert Markham; issue, 5 sons and 3
daughters. His eldest son, George, Lord Binning, born in 1827, married
Helen, daughter of Sir John Warrender, Bart., with issue. By royal
license, dated Dec. 31, 1858, he was authorized to take the surname of
Arden in addition to Baillie. (See BAILLIE.) In April 1859, the 10th
earl assumed, by royal license, the additional original surname of
Hamilton.
The earl’s sisters and brothers were, by royal warrant, 1859,
raised to the rank of an Earl’s children. They are, 1. Eliza, born in
1803, married in 1821, 2d marquis of Breadalbane. 2. Charles Baillie,
born in 1804, admitted advocate 1830, sheriff of Stirlingshire, 1853,
lord advocate of Scotland, 1858, M.P. for Linlithgowshire, 1859, a
lord of session as Lord Jerviswoode same year, married in 1831, Hon.
Anne Scott, 3d daughter of Hugh, Lord Polwarth, with issue. 3. Robert,
major in the army, born in 1807. 4. Rev. John Baillie, born in 1810,
married, with issue. 5. Capt. Thomas Baillie, R.N., born in 1811. 6.
Mary, born in 1814, married in 1840, Lord Haddo, who succeeded as 5th
earl of Aberdeen in Dec. 1860, with issue. 7. Georgina, born in 1816,
married in 1835, Lord Polwarth, with issue. Her ladyship died in April
1859. 8. Catherine Charlotte, born in 1819, married in 1840, 4th
earl of Ashburnham, with issue. 9. Grisel, born in 1822.
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HADDO, Lord,
a secondary title of the earl of Aberdeen. See GORDON OF Haddo.
