Charles Hamilton, 5th Earl of Abercorn (died 1701) succeeded his brother who had been attainted as a Jacobite and, having conformed to the established religion, could get the attainder reversed.
Family tree
Charles Hamilton with wife, parents, and other selected relatives. He married a second cousin.[a]
Charles was born between 1659 and 1668,[b] probably at Kenure House in Rush near Dublin. He was the second son of George Hamilton, and his wife Elizabeth Fagan. His father was the 4th Baron Hamilton of Strabane, an important landowner in County Tyrone. The Strabanes were a cadet branch of the Abercorns and like the latter of Scottish origin.
Charles's mother was Irish and a rich heiress, the only child of Christopher Fagan of Feltrim, County Dublin. Charles was one of four siblings, who are listed in his father's article.
His parents were both Catholic, but he later conformed to the established religion. The family's usual residence was Kenure House in Rush near Dublin, where he and his siblings were probably born and where his father died.[1]
Brother's succession
Charles's father died on 14 April 1668 at Kenure House[1] and his elder brother, Claud, succeeded as the 5th Baron of Strabane.[2] Charles became heir presumptive as his brother was unmarried. In about 1680 Claud also succeeded as the 4th Earl of Abercorn after the death of his cousin George in faraway Padua, Italy.[3]
However, in August 1691, when Charles was about 26, Claud was killed in a sea-fight when a Dutch privateer attacked the ship that should have brought him from Limerick to France.[4] His brother had been a Jacobite and had been attainted in Ireland on 11 May 1691. Charles succeeded him immediately as the 5th Earl of Abercorn as the family's Scottish titles were not affected by the attainder but could not become Baron Hamilton of Strabane as that title was forfeit.
Abercorn, as he was now, had supported the Prince of Orange and was a Protestant,[5] perhaps due to his marriage. On 24 May 1692, he obtained a reversal of his brother's attainder and also succeeded as Baron Hamilton of Strabane, becoming the 6th holder of that title. In that capacity he took his seat in the Irish House of Lords on 31 August 1695.
Marriage and children
About 1690 Abercorn married Catherine Lenthall (née Hamilton), the widow of William Lenthall of Burford, a grandson of the speaker, and the daughter of James Hamilton, Lord Paisley. She was his second cousin, the common great-grandfather being James Hamilton, 1st Earl of Abercorn.[6] Her father had converted to the Church of Scotland and she was a Protestant as her father and her first husband had been.
On 3 April 1697 John Pryor was found murdered in the garden of Burford Priory.[10] He had been a steward to William Lenthall, Abercorn's wife's first husband. Abercorn was accused of the murder and jailed but was finally acquitted.[11]
With his death, the senior line of the Abercorns and the Strabanes failed. With regard to the Abercorns, the succession reverted to the next of the cadet branches descending from the five sons of the 1st Earl of Abercorn as it already had done in about 1650 when George, the 3rd Earl, died unmarried in Padua. As the 1st Earl's third son, William, 1st Baronet of Westport, had no children, the succession passed to the descendants of the fourth son, Sir George Hamilton, 1st Baronet, of Donalong. Our subject, the 5th Earl, was therefore succeeded as Earl of Abercorn by his second cousin, James Hamilton, the grandson of Sir George. James Hamilton would thus become the 6th Earl of Abercorn.
With regard to the Strabanes, Charles, our subject, was the 6th Baron, and the last heir-male of Claud Hamilton, the 2nd Baron, to whom the title had been regranted after the 2nd Earl had resigned it. The succession, therefore, needed to make use of the special remainder, which also allowed succession through heirs-male from the body of the grantee's father.[14] Therefore, not only the Scottish but also the Irish title devolved to his second cousin, James Hamilton. James, therefore, became 6th Earl of Abercorn and 7th Baron Hamilton of Strabane. From that time on these two titles merged and would always be worn by the same person.
Timeline
As his birth date is uncertain, so are all his ages. Italics for historical background.
^This family tree is partly derived from the Abercorn pedigree pictured in Cokayne.[17] Also see the list of children in the text.
^ abHe was born between 1659 (birth of his elder brother) and 1668 (his father's death).
Citations
^ abcPaul 1904, p. 50. "George, 4th Lord Strabane, who, dying 14 April 1668 at his house at Kenure, County Dublin, was buried in St. Mechlin's Church, near Rush in that county ...
^Cokayne 1910, p. 5, line 19, left. "On 14 Apr. 1668 he [Claud Hamilton] suc. his father in the Irish peerage and estates."
^ abPaul 1904, p. 49, line 34. "George, third Earl of Abercorn, succeeded his father but died unmarried in Padua, on his journey to Rome, whereby the male line failed in the eldest branch, so that we return to Claud, Lord Strabane, second son of James ..."
^ abLondon Gazette 1691, Issue 2687, page 1, right column. "Rye, August 8 [1691] ... the Orange Branch of Flushing, George Pierre commander, from Ireland, with a Prize of 6 guns and 6 Pattereroes, bound from Limericke to France, having on board several Passengers, and among the rest the Lord Abercorne, who was killed in the fight."
^Handley 2004, p. 852, right column, line 50. "The fifth earl, his brother, the protestant Charles Hamilton, had his attainder reversed and received the lands from the crown in 1691."
^ abPaul 1904, p. 52, line 8. "He married his cousin Catherine, only child of James, Lord Paisley, relict of William Lenthall of Burford ..."
^ abPaul 1904, p. 52, line 13. "Elizabeth, who died young, and was buried in the chancel of St. Michan's Church, Dublin, 22 February 1699;"
^Cressy 1982, p. 227. "As the Lords and Commons discussed the crisis they found that Lord Keeper Somers had ready a document for them to sign ..."
^Monk 1891, p. 120. "Mr. John Prior was murdered ..."
^ abCokayne 1910, p. 5, line 31. "On 16 July 1697, he was tried at Oxford for the murder of Mr Prior of Burford, and acquitted."
^ abLodge 1789, p. 117. "... and died at Strabane June 1701."
^Chester 1876, p. 308. "1723 June The Right Hon. Catherine, Countess Dowager of Abercorn: in the Duke of Richmond's vault in K. H. 7th's Chapel."
^Cokayne 1910, p. 6. "James Hamilton Earl of Abercorn etc. [S. [Scotland]], also Lord Hamilton, Baron of Strabane [I.], under the spec. rem. in the creation (1617) of that dignity."
Fryde, E. B.; Greenway, D. E.; Porter, S.; Roy, I., eds. (1986). Handbook of British Chronology. Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks, No. 2 (3rd ed.). London: Offices of the Royal Historical Society. ISBN0-86193-106-8. – (for timeline)
