Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 15.djvu/334

 proclamation was issued forbidding the assembling of country gentlemen in Edinburgh, and put an end to the scheme. It was renewed, however, when the twenty-second article of the treaty dealing with the number of Scotch representatives in the united parliament came up for discussion. Hamilton summoned a meeting of his party, and proposed that the Marquis of Annandale should move for the settlement of the Hanoverian succession, and that on the certain rejection of the measure they should enter a protest and immediately leave the house in a body never to return, and then proceed with the national address to the queen. Hamilton's programme received the support of his party, and the address was drawn up. But on the day on which the protest was to be made in parliament he at first declined to go to the house, alleging that he was suffering from toothache. His friends, however, prevailed on him to appear in his place, and then learned from him that he utterly refused to present the counter-resolution. He would support it, but could not take the initiative. While he argued the house had passed to other points. Various explanations have been assigned of his motives. Lockhart asserts that he was threatened by the Duke of Queensberry. Hamilton's quite untrustworthy son, Colonel Hamilton, says that he had been dissuaded, in a letter from Lord Middleton, the Pretender's secretary of state (Transactions during the Reign of Queen Anne, p. 41). It is suggested by Hill Burton (Hist. of Scotland from 1689 to 1745, i. 477) that a vision of kingship may have influenced the duke. But the same writer probably more nearly hits the mark in attributing the duke's strange behaviour to his nervous reluctance to commit himself. The same tendency was exhibited in his practice of never answering a letter with his own hand, and when Colonel Hooke visited Scotland to report on the Jacobites he was quite unable to extract anything definite from the duke. He was equally irresolute on the occasion of the futile French expedition to Scotland in January 1708. He set out to his Staffordshire estate and remained there waiting for an express to summon him to lead his countrymen to battle. He had, however, on his arrival been placed under surveillance, and when the news came of the failure of the expedition he was taken prisoner with other Scotch nobles to London. Here he entered into a compact with the whigs, and on engaging to support their party in the election of Scotch peers for parliament, he was admitted to bail, which was very soon discharged, and obtained the like privilege for most of his fellow-prisoners. This certainly was, as Lockhart remarks (Memoirs, p. 367), one of the nicest steps the Duke of Hamilton ever made. At the election in July of the same year Hamilton was chosen one of the sixteen Scotch representative peers. At first attached to the whigs he threw them over on the impeachment of Dr. Sacheverell, for whom, after much wavering, he both spoke and voted, and was rewarded on the incoming of the tory administration by his appointment to the office of lord-lieutenant and custos rotulorum of the county palatine of Lancaster. Two months later (December 1710) he was sworn of the privy council. In September of the following year he was created by patent a peer of Great Britain, under the title of Baron of Dutton and Duke of Brandon. The patent was challenged by the House of Lords, and after several debates it was resolved by a majority of five that no patent of honour granted to any peer of Great Britain who was a peer of Scotland at the time of the union can entitle such peer to sit and vote in parliament, or to sit upon the trial of peers. The Scotch peers thereupon, headed by Hamilton, discontinued their attendance at the house, and only returned when the rule was amended, to the effect that a Scotch peer might enjoy full parliamentary rights at the request of the peers of Great Britain. But no such request was preferred on behalf of Hamilton, who continued to sit as a representative peer. On the death of Earl Rivers in August 1712, he was appointed to his post of master-general of the ordnance, and shortly afterwards was given the order of the Garter in addition to that of the Thistle bestowed on him by James II, an unprecedented honour for a subject. On the conclusion of the peace of Utrecht, Hamilton was appointed ambassador extraordinary to France, but amid preparations for his mission he was killed in a duel with Charles Mohun, fifth Lord Mohun [q.v.], in Hyde Park on 15 Nov. 1712. He and Lord Mohun had married nieces of the Earl of Macclesfield, who on his death constituted Lord Mohun his sole heir. Hamilton instituted a suit in chancery, which dragged on for eleven years. At a hearing before a master in chancery on 13 Nov. Hamilton reflected on one of the defendant's witnesses, and Lord Mohun retorted that the witness had as much truth as his grace. Hamilton made no reply, and the incident apparently ended there, but next day he received a visit from General George Maccartney [q.v.] on behalf of Lord Mohun, the upshot of which was the meeting in Hyde Park. The duke's second was Colonel John Hamilton, who exchanged thrusts with General Maccartney