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 against them to persons absent in Ireland (Rot. Parl. 33 Edw. I). During his term of office he sealed the statute de tallagio non concedendo and the commission for the trial of Sir William Wallace. He died on 20 April 1307, while in attendance upon the king at Fountains Abbey, and was succeeded by Ralph de Baldock, bishop of London. He is described as a man of business of moderate abilities.  HAMILTON, WILLIAM, second (1616–1651), son of James, second marquis of Hamilton [q. v.], and younger brother of James, first duke of Hamilton [q. v.], was born on 14 Dec. 1616 (, Lives of the Hamiltons, ed. 1852, p. 529). He was educated at the university of Glasgow, and seems to have been for some time under the tuition of Robert Baillie (, Letters, ed. Laing, ii. 354). After travelling and spending some time in France, Hamilton returned home, and made his appearance at court about 1637. His brother, on whom he was wholly dependent, finding him 'rarely accomplished and fitted for the greatest affairs,' kept him at court, and arranged a marriage between him and a rich heiress, Lady Elizabeth Maxwell, eldest daughter to the Earl of Dirleton (1638,, p. 530). On 31 March 1639 Hamilton was created Earl of Lanark, Lord Machanshire and Polmont (, Peerage, ed. Brydges, i. 534). About February 1640, on the death of the Earl of Stirling, Lanark was appointed to succeed him as secretary of state for Scotland (, pp. 205, 531 ; Historical Works of Sir James Balfour, ed. 1825, ii. 427). The office was important, but he exercised no influence on the policy which he was charged to carry out. He had no experience at all in Scottish affairs, and trusted entirely to his brother's information and advices (, p. 531). To Lanark, in virtue of his official position, the peace overtures of the covenanting leaders were addressed, and he took part also in the treaty of Ripon, but merely as an assistant to the commissioners (, iii. 1210, 1258, 1276). He accompanied the king to Scotland in the summer of 1641, took the covenant 18 Aug. 1641, and contrived to keep his secretaryship in the rearrangement of offices which then took place (, iii. 44, 69, 151). His brother had now fallen under the king's suspicion, and Lanark, though assured by Charles that he believed him honest, imagined his own life as well as his brother's to be in danger, and accompanied the latter in his flight from Edinburgh on ] 2 Oct. 1641 (Lanark's own narrative of the Incident is printed in the Hardwick State Papers, ii. 299 ; the depositions respecting it are printed in Hist. MSS. Comm. 4th Rep. p. 164). In the explanations which followed the king announced publicly that he had no complaints to make of Lanark, 'he wes a verey good young man' (, iii. 99). At the beginning of the civil war Lanark attended the king to Nottingham and to Oxford. In December 1642 Charles despatched him to Scotland to second his brother's endeavours to prevent the Scots from intervening in the war on the side of the parliament (, p. 259). The failure of his brother's policy again involved him in trouble, and on returning to Oxford in December 1643 both were arrested, though the charges against the secretary were 'chiefly his concurrence with his brother' (ib. p. 346). The king declared to Lanark under his signet that he did not intend to remove him from his office, but the latter, believing himself about to be sent prisoner to Ludlow Castle, escaped in the disguise of a groom, and made his way to London (ib. p. 347 ;, ii. 138). Indignant at the treatment he had received, he made his peace through the Scottish commissioners in London, and returned to Scotland. At the convention of the estates in April 1644 he appeared, 'gave evidences of his deep sorrow for adhering to the king so long,' added 'malicious reflections upon his Sacred Majesty,' and 'so was received to the Covenant, and acted afterwards so vigorously in the cause, that ere long he was preferred to be a ruling elder' (Memoirs of Henry Guthrie, 1702, p. 131 ). On 18 July 1644 he presented a complaint against Sir James Galloway and Sir Robert Spottiswood for usurping his office of secretary, which office he occupied again after the execution of Spottiswood in 1646 (, iii. 225). Lanark took some part in the war against Montrose, and just before the battle of Kilsyth was employed in raising troops in the south-west of Scotland to oppose him ; after that battle he fled to Berwick (Guthrie, pp. 151-4). Burnet describes him during this period as 'forced to comply in many things with the public counsels, but he began very soon to draw a party that continued to cross the more violent and fierce motions of Argyle and his followers' (, p. 347). Lanark was one of the commissioners sent by the Scotch committee of estates in May 1646 to Newcastle to treat with the king, and succeeded in regaining the confidence of Charles (ib. p. 351). All his efforts were now directed to persuading the king to com- 