The Polar Star : James, First Duke of Hamilton (1606-1649)

Abstract

The 1st duke of Hamilton played an important role in the politics and life of Britain in the first half of the seventeenth century. Born in 1606 into the Scottish ancient noble family of Hamilton, who enjoyed a blood connection with the royal Stuarts, he was well placed to take full advantage of the union of the crowns in 1603 which opened up substantial opportunities in England and Ireland. The centre of that new world was the recently established Stuart court in London. Following his father, Hamilton entered that courtly world in 1620 at the age of fourteen and was executed on a scaffold outside Whitehall Palace in March 1649. During that period, he was involved in some of the most momentous events in British history, the wars of the three kingdoms and the collapse of the Stuart monarchy. His story casts a distinctive light on the period and allows a fresh account of the slowly unfolding crisis that saw an anointed king put on trial and publicly executed. The book is structured in three parts. Part one is a cluster of five studies concentrating on events in Scotland, England, Ireland and mainland Europe prior to 1638. Part two presents three chapters on Hamilton’s role in the three kingdom crisis between 1637-1643. Part three covers the remarkable final phase in Hamilton’s life detailing the Engagement, defeat at Preston and his execution in London. This biography of the 1st duke cuts a unique and distinctive path through one of the most heavily researched periods in the history of Britain. In a period of kingly personal rule, Hamilton stood at the shoulder of the king, cajoling, persuading and ultimately failing to steer him away from civil war in his kingdoms. The main source for this account is the Hamilton Papers brought into the public domain in the last few decades and used extensively for the first time.