Basil Hamilton
Basil Hamilton was a Scottish Jacobite.Biography
He was the second son of Lord Basil Hamilton by his wife Mary, granddaughter and heiress of Sir David Dunbar, 1st Baronet, of Baldoon. During the Jacobite rising of 1715 he commanded a troop of horse under Thomas Forster and was taken prisoner at the Battle of Preston. He was sentenced to death in 1716, but reprieved through the influence of his uncle Lord Orkney. His estates were forfeited, but successfully claimed by his mother, and the forfeiture was reversed in 1733. In 1734 he unsuccessfully stood as the Duke of Buccleuch's candidate for Dumfries Burghs. He advised against another Jacobite uprising in 1739. In 1741 he was returned to Parliament for Kirkcudbright, but died the following year. He had two sons and two daughters by his wife Isabella, daughter of Alexander Mackenzie and granddaughter of Kenneth Mackenzie, 4th Earl of Seaforth. His elder son Dunbar succeeded as fourth Earl of Selkirk in 1744 and resumed the name of Douglas.
