Colonel James Hamilton was the son of an Irish royalist and became a courtier to Charles II after the Restoration. He appears in the Mémoires du comte de Grammont, written by his brother Anthony. The king appointed him ranger of Hyde Park and groom of the bedchamber. In 1673 he lost a leg in a sea-fight with the Dutch and died from the wound a few days later. In 1701 his eldest son became the 6th Earl of Abercorn.
Both his parents were Catholic, but some relatives on his father's as on his mother's side were Protestants. His grandfather, James Hamilton, 1st Earl of Abercorn, had been a Protestant, but his father and all his paternal uncles were raised as Catholics due to the influence of his paternal grandmother, Marion Boyd, a Scottish recusant. Some branches of the Hamilton family were Protestant, such as that of his father's second cousin Gustavus, who would become the 1st Viscount Boyne. His mother's family, the Butlers, were generally Catholic with the notable exception of the future 1st Duke of Ormond, his maternal uncle. He himself would later turn Protestant as seen below. His brother Thomas seems to have made the same choice as he became a captain in the Royal Navy.
Irish wars and exile
His father served in the Irish army and fought for the royalists under his uncle James Butler, Earl of Ormond, in the Irish Confederate Wars and the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland until he was forced into exile in 1651. He probably was born in Strabane, County Tyrone, Ulster, near the Dunnalong estate, which was his father's share of the land granted to his grandfather Abercorn during the Plantation of Ulster. His uncle Claud had lived in the Castle of Strabane until his death in 1638. The family probably fled before Phelim O'Neill burned the Castle of Strabane in 1641 during the Rebellion and took his aunt Jean, Claud's widow, prisoner. He was about 16 on 17 September 1646, when Owen Roe O'Neil, who had taken over from Phelim as leader of the Confederate Ulster army, captured Roscrea Castle where he lived. The confederates spared him, his siblings, and his mother but put everybody else to the sword. Owen O'Neill was leading his army south after his victory over the Scottish Covenanters at Benburb in June and was now attacking the royalists as directed by Rinuccini, the papal nuncio. His father was governor of Nenagh Castle, west of Roscrea, in October 1650 when the Parliamentarian army under Henry Ireton attacked and captured the castle on the way back from the unsuccessful siege of Limerick to their winter quarters at Kilkenny. Early in 1651, when he was about 21, his family followed Ormond into French exile. They first went to Caen where they were accommodated for some time by Elizabeth Preston, the Marchioness of Ormond. He seems then to have been employed at Charles II's wandering exile court in some ways, whereas his mother went to Paris where she lived in the convent of the Feuillantines, together with her sister Eleanor Butler, Lady Muskerry.
James returned with his parents and siblings from France to London in 1660 with the advent of the English Restoration. They were now well connected at court. His father was created Baronet Donalong in 1660 by Charles II.
Hyde Park
James was appointed ranger of Hyde Park on the death, on 13 September 1660, of the previous ranger, Henry, Duke of Gloucester, the king's brother While a ranger, he was responsible for the partial enclosure of Hyde Park and its re-stocking with deer. He was given a triangular piece of ground at the southeast corner of the Park where the street called Hamilton Place, named after him, is now. During the Interregnum buildings were erected for the first time between what is now Old Regent Street and Hyde Park Corner. After the Restoration they were leased to James Hamilton. A new lease of 99 years was obtained by Elizabeth, his widow, in 1692.
Courtier
James was known for his fine manners, his elegant dress, and his gallantry. His brother, Anthony Hamilton, describes him in the Mémoires du comte de Grammont as follows :
The elder of the Hamiltons, their cousin, was the man who of all the court dressed best: he was well made in his person, and possessed those happy talents which lead to fortune, and procure success in love: he was a most assiduous courtier, had the most lively wit, the most polished manners and the most punctual attention for his master imaginable: no person danced better, nor was any one a more general lover: a merit of some account in a court entirely devoted to love and gallantry.
In 1661, he married Elizabeth, daughter of John Colepeper, 1st Baron Colepeper. The king himself obtained the bride's hand for him. She had been a maid of honour to Mary, the Princess Royal. As the bride was a Protestant, he changed religion to marry her. This move opened him a career in the English Army. He was appointed colonel of a regiment of foot. This avoided him problems similar to those experienced by his younger brother George, who was dismissed from the Life Guards in 1667 due to his religion and then took French service. Anthony and Richard, the third and the fifth of the brothers, followed George's example. They had three sons:
William, married his cousin Margaret Colepeper and became the ancestor of the Hamiltons of Chilston.
Death and succession
He was killed in the Third Anglo-Dutch War. One of his legs was hit by a cannonball on 3 June 1673 when the ship on which he and his regiment were embarked came under fire from the Dutch. He died three days later, on 6 June 1673, of the consequences of this wound. The incident happened four days before the first Battle of Schooneveld, which was fought on 7 June 1673. He was buried on 7 June in Westminster Abbey where his uncle James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormond, erected a monument to his memory. His wife died in 1709. Despite being the eldest son, he never inherited his father's titles and land because his father outlived him by six years. However, on 2 December 1701 his eldest son, James, on the death of a second cousin, the last heir-male of the Strabane line of the Abercorns, became the 6th Earl of Abercorn.
