James Hamilton, Duke of Châtellerault

James Hamilton, 1st Duke of Châtellerault, 2nd Earl of Arran (Template:C. – 22 January 1575), was a Scottish nobleman and Regent of Scotland during the minority of Mary, Queen of Scots from 1543 to 1554. At first pro-English and Protestant, he converted to Catholicism in 1543 and supported a pro-French policy. He reluctantly agreed to Mary's marriage to Francis, eldest son of King Henry II of France, and was rewarded by Henry by being made Duke of Châtellerault in 1549. During the Scottish Reformation, he joined the Protestant Lords of the Congregation to oppose the regency of Mary of Guise.

Family

James Hamilton was born about 1519 in Hamilton in Lanarkshire.Template:Sfn He was the eldest legitimate son of James Hamilton, 1st Earl of Arran by his second wife, Janet Beaton (or Bethune).<ref>HMC 11th Report Part VI: Hamilton (London, 1887), pp, 51-52.</ref> His paternal grandmother, Mary, was the eldest daughter of King James II. His father's family descended from Walter FitzGilbert, the founder of the House of Hamilton,Template:Sfn who had received the barony of Cadzow from Robert the Bruce.Template:Sfn His mother was the daughter of Sir David Beaton of Creich. She was the widow of Robert Livingstone of Easter Wemyss, and the second wife of the 1st Earl of Arran. They had married in 1516.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

In 1529 he succeeded his father as Earl of Arran while still a minor.Template:Sfn He was made a ward of James Hamilton of Finnart, his illegitimate elder half-brother.Template:Sfn

Marriage

File:KinneilArmorialStone.png

Arms of the earl of Arran (left) and his wife Margaret Douglas (right), Kinneil House

In 1532 Lord Arran married Margaret Douglas, who was about ten years older than him. She was a daughter of James Douglas, 3rd Earl of Morton, and Catherine Stewart, herself a natural daughter of James IV.Template:Sfn The marriage was arranged by James Hamilton of Finnart. Margaret Douglas was given the house and lands of Kinneil House for her lifetime should her husband die before her. James Hamilton of Finnart paid Morton 4,000 marks as part of the marriage settlement.Template:Sfn

James and Margaret had five sons:

1. James (1537–1609), succeeded him as the 3rd Earl of Arran but became insane in 1562;Template:Sfn
2. Gavin, died young;Template:Sfn
3. John (1540–1604), became the 1st Marquess of Hamilton;Template:Sfn
4. David (died 1611);<ref>Chatellherault's will, NAS ECC8/8/4</ref>Template:Sfn
5. Claud (1546–1621), from whom descend the earls, marquesses and dukes of Abercorn.Template:Sfn

— and three daughters:

1. Barbara, in February 1549 married or betrothed to Alexander, Lord Gordon,<ref>John G. Harrison, "The Bread Book and the Court and Household of Marie de Guise in 1549", Scottish Archives, 15 (2009), p. 40.</ref><ref>Amy Blakeway, Regency in Sixteenth-Century Scotland (Boydell, 2015), pp. 127–128.</ref> and married in 1553 James Fleming, 4th Lord Fleming;Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn
2. Jean, married Hugh Montgomerie, 3rd Earl of Eglinton in 1555;Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn
3. Anne (c. 1535 – before April 1574), married George Gordon, 5th Earl of Huntly in 1558;<ref>Melanie Schuessler Bond, Dressing the Scottish Court 1543–1553: Clothing in the Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland (Boydell, 2019), pp. 453, 459.</ref>

In 1544 Arran tried to divorce his wife. She seemed to have been suffering of poor mental health. Significantly two of their sons, James and Claud, later became insane.<ref>Amy Blakeway, "The attempted divorce of James Hamilton, earl of Arran, Governor of Scotland", The Innes Review, 61:1 (May 2010), pp. 1–23 {{#invoke:CS1 identifiers|main|_template=doi}}</ref>

An inventory of a chest of Margaret Douglas's clothes includes a purple velvet night gown with gold passementerie lined with red taffeta, a gown of black cloth of gold with gold passementerie lined with black taffeta, and other gowns and kirtles.<ref>Melanie Schuessler Bond, Dressing the Scottish Court 1543–1553: Clothing in the Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland (Boydell, 2019), pp. 657–8.</ref>

Regent of Scotland

In 1536, on the death of John Stewart, Duke of Albany, grandson of King James II, Lord Arran, came to be next in line to the throne after the King's descendants. Several of the children of the immediate royal family proved to be short-lived, so on the death of King James V on 14 December 1542, the Earl of Arran stood next in line to the Scottish throne after the king's six-day-old daughter Mary, Queen of Scots, for whom Arran was appointed Governor and Protector of Scotland.Template:Sfn In 1543, supporters of Matthew Stewart, 4th Earl of Lennox, challenged Arran's claim and legitimacy by suggesting that his father's divorce and second marriage were invalid.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

Pro-English policy

File:Enrique VIII de Inglaterra, por Hans Holbein el Joven.jpg

Henry VIII by Hans Holbein the Younger, 1540

Initially, Arran was a Protestant and a member of the pro-English party. In 1543 he helped to negotiate the marriage of the young Queen Mary to Edward, son of King Henry VIII of England, who had broken with Rome. In the same year, he authorised the translation and reading of the Bible in the vernacular.Template:Sfn On 27 January 1543 he arrested Cardinal Beaton, who favoured the Auld Alliance. Beaton was imprisoned at Dalkeith Palace and then Blackness Castle. Acting on pro-English advice, in March 1543 Arran prevented Mary of Guise from moving Mary, Queen of Scots from Linlithgow to Stirling Castle.<ref>Rosalind K. Marshall, Mary of Guise (Collins, 1977), p. 119.</ref>

However, Henry VIII doubted Arran's commitment to English policy and wanted him deposed. On 18 March 1543, Arran met the English ambassador, Ralph Sadler, in the garden at Holyrood Palace.<ref>Rosalind K. Marshall, Mary of Guise (Collins, 1977), p. 121.</ref> Later that day George Douglas of Pittendreich, brother of Lord Angus, told Sadler, that despite their successes:

if there be any motion now to take the Governor from his state, and to bring the government of this realm to the king of England, I assure you it is impossible to be done at this time. For, there is not so little a boy but that he will hurl stones against it, and the wives will handle their distaffs, and the commons universally will rather die in it, yea, and many noblemen and all the clergy be fully against it.Template:Sfn

Pro-French policy

Regent Arran celebrated the Treaty of Greenwich at the Holyrood Abbey on 25 August 1543.<ref>Rosalind K. Marshall, Mary of Guise (Collins, 1977), p. 132.</ref> However, in September Arran turned around. He secretly met Cardinal Beaton at Callendar House and reconciled himself with his former enemy. Shortly after he became Catholic and joined the pro-French faction.Template:Sfn<ref>Retha M. Warnicke, Mary Queen of Scots (Routledge, 2006), p. 28.</ref> Around this time Friar Mark Hamilton wrote a history of the Hamilton family.<ref>Thomas James Salmon, Borrowstounness and District (Edinburgh: William Hodge, 1913), p. 24</ref><ref>J. Foggie, Renaissance Religion in Urban Scotland: The Dominican Order, 1450–1560 (Brill, 2003), pp. 59, 71, 285.</ref> Arran made penance for his "godly fit" at the Franciscan Friary in Stirling. Mary, Queen of Scots, was crowned at Stirling on 9 September.<ref>Rosalind K. Marshall, Mary of Guise (Collins, 1977), p. 133.</ref>

Arran captured Dalkeith Castle in November 1543, but failed to capture the pro-English George Douglas. In December, the Parliament of Scotland declared the Treaty of Greenwich void due to shipping incidents.<ref>Rosalind K. Marshall, Mary of Guise (Collins, 1977), p. 141.</ref> The seven-year war with England now called the Rough Wooing was declared on 20 December 1543. Arran spent Christmas with Mary of Guise at Stirling Castle where they played cards.<ref>James Balfour Paul, Accounts of the Treasurer, vol. 8 (Edinburgh, 1908), p. 242.</ref> The declaration of war was brought by Henry Ray to give to Parliament. Arran replied that the parliament was dissolved, and so he thought it expedient not to answer Henry VIII on the points raised at the time.Template:Sfn

In 1544 an attempt was made to transfer the regency from him to Mary of Guise. A convention of nobility at Stirling in June suggested she should be regent instead.<ref>Pamela E. Ritchie, Mary of Guise (Tuckwell, 2002), p. 18.</ref> Conflict seemed possible, but Arran when fortified Edinburgh her forces retired.<ref>Rosalind K. Marshall, Mary of Guise (Collins, 1977), p. 142.</ref> Later, in March 1545, he agreed to abandon some of his responsibilities to her and she formed an advisory council. Arran and Cardinal Beaton decided to act against the Earl of Lennox and besieged Glasgow Castle in March 1544.<ref>Rosalind K. Marshall, Mary of Guise (Collins, 1977), p. 144.</ref>

In June 1547 Arran gathered a large army to expel the English from Langholm and the surrounding area.<ref>David Caldwell, Vicky Oleksy, Bess Rhodes, The Battle of Pinkie, 1547 (Oxbow, 2023), pp. 28–31.</ref> He had a banner made from taffeta decorated with gold foil and colours, and another banner for his trumpeter. Horses dragged the artillery and carts laden with cannonballs and tents out of Edinburgh Castle. The guns were dragged toward Langholm with oxen.<ref>James Balfour Paul, Accounts of the Treasurer of Scotland, vol. 9 (Edinburgh, 1911), pp. 84–97.</ref> Arran had an armoured "jack" covered with purple taffeta, then changed his mind, choosing purple velvet.<ref>Accounts of the Treasurer of Scotland, vol. 9 (Edinburgh, 1911), pp. 97–98.</ref> A Scottish spy, David Maitland, who signed himself "Ye Wait Quha" wrote of the preparations to Thomas Wharton, that it was "the starkest host and the monest, and with the best order that wes sen Flodwn", that is, "the strongest host and most numerous, in the best order since Flodden."<ref>Joseph Bain, Calendar State Papers Scotland: 1547–1563, vol. 1 (Edinburgh, 1898), p. 8: Amy Blakeway, 'Spies and Intelligence in Scotland', in Sara Butler & Krista Kesselring, Crossing Borders: Boundaries and Margins in Medieval and Early Modern Britain (Leiden, 2018), pp. 95–96: See Arran's household book, National Records of Scotland, E31/9 ff. 57–59.</ref>

File:Francois II Scotland 1558.jpg

A 1558 coin depicting Queen Mary and King Francis

In September 1547 Arran assembled a large Scottish army to resist an English invasion led by Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset but was defeated at the battle of Pinkie.Template:Sfn He was forced to abandon some of his clothes at the battlefield.<ref>James Balfour Paul, Accounts of the Treasurer of Scotland, vol. 9 (Edinburgh, 1911), p. 140.</ref> He nevertheless held onto the regency and continued to lead forces against the occupying troops. For two weeks in February 1548, Arran led a campaign in Teviotdale with Monsieur d'Essé to recapture Ferniehirst Castle and punish borderers. He held discussions at Jedburgh with Nicolas Durand de Villegaignon over the site and financing of a new fort.<ref>Annie Cameron, Scottish Correspondence of Mary of Lorraine (Edinburgh: SHS, 1927), pp. 289–290.</ref>

Arran reluctantly agreed in July 1548 to Mary's marriage to Francis, eldest son of Henry II of France. Henry II, by the Treaty of Haddington claimed to be Protector of Scotland,<ref>Amy Blakeway, Regency in Sixteenth-Century Scotland (Boydell, 2015), pp. 196–197, 205.</ref> and rewarded Arran by making him Duke of Châtellerault on 8 February 1549 and a knight of the Order of Saint Michael.Template:Sfn

On 19 April 1550, Regent Arran and his Privy Council made legislation about foodstuffs and rising prices. The people of Scotland were to reduce their diets and banqueting. Prices were set for wild birds and rabbits, swans would be 5 shillings, plovers 5 pence. River birds including herons and ducks were to be caught by hawking. It was forbidden to shoot deer or birds for the table with "half hag or culverin or pistolate". These acts were ratified by Parliament.<ref>John Hill Burton, Register of the Privy Council, vol. 1 (Edinburgh, 1877), pp. 94–95.</ref>

Arran came to the north of Scotland in 1552, visiting Aberdeen, Dunnotar Castle, and Huntly Castle where his daughter Barbara Hamilton lived with the family of her husband Alexander, Lord Gordon. He held "justice ayres" or courts and was accompanied by musicians, much like a Scottish monarch on progress.<ref>Amy Blakeway, Regency in Sixteenth-Century Scotland (Boydell, 2015), pp. 174–175.</ref>

Post-regency

File:YoungMaryStuart.jpg

Mary, Queen of Scots, by François Clouet, Template:Circa 1555

In 1554, Châtellerault, as he was now, surrendered the regency to Mary of Guise, and was appointed her lieutenant in Scotland.Template:Sfn He gave up the regency on the condition that he would be Queen Mary's heir if she died childless. The Scottish succession, however, had been secretly promised to France.

Châtellerault was still recognised as a significant figure in Scotland. In September 1557, Philip II of Spain, as the husband of Mary I of England sent Christophe d'Assonleville to broker peace between Scotland and England. Assonleville was instructed to speak to Mary of Guise, the Duke of Châtellerault, and representatives of Edinburgh. He was also instructed to speak with Châtellerault about amicable relations between the Scots and their Flemish trading partners. Assonleville's instructions still include his former title of "governor", though "lieutenant" was now correct.<ref>Gonzalo Velasco Berenguer, 'The Select Council of Philip I: A Spanish Institution in Tudor England, 1555–1558', The English Historical Review, 139:597 (April 2024), pp. 326–359. {{#invoke:CS1 identifiers|main|_template=doi}}: William B. Turnbull, Calendar State Papers Foreign, 1553–1558 (London, 1861), p. 335–336.</ref>

In the first months of the Scottish Reformation, Châtellerault continued to support Mary of Guise. He faced a Protestant army with the French commander at Cupar Muir in June 1559. He changed his allegiance in August 1559, joining the Protestant Lords of the Congregation to oppose the regency of Mary of Guise, and as a result his French dukedom and its estates were taken back by the new French king, Francis II, the husband of Mary, Queen of Scots. In order to discredit Châtellerault with the English government, a letter was forged by his enemies, in which Châtellerault declared his allegiance to Francis II, but the plot was exposed. On 27 February 1560, he agreed to the Treaty of Berwick with Queen Elizabeth I of England, which placed Scotland under English protection and made provision for an English army to come to the siege of Leith.Template:Sfn

After the death of Mary of Guise on 15 June 1560, Châtellerault persuaded the Parliament of Scotland to back a plan to marry his son James Hamilton to Elizabeth I, and then after the death of Francis II on 5 December 1560, he attempted, without success, to arrange for James to marry the young widowed Queen Mary.<ref>Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, vol. 2 (1814), 605-606; HMC Hamilton (London, 1887), 42, August 1560.</ref>Template:Sfn However, Mary married Lord Darnley in 1565.

In 1566 Châtellerault withdrew to his former estates in France, where he made vain attempts to regain his confiscated duchy, which in 1563 had been granted to Diane de France. In 1569, he returned to Scotland in support of Mary, but was imprisoned by the Earl of Moray, Regent of Mary's infant son, James VI. Parliament declared him a traitor. Moray was assassinated on 23 January 1570 while Châtellerault was still in prison. Nevertheless, Châtellerault was rumoured to have been an accomplice in the regent's murder by James Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh.Template:Sfn Châtellerault was released from prison on 20 April 1570. In 1573 he gave up his support for Mary and recognised her infant son as king.Template:Sfn

Châtellerault died at Hamilton on 22 January 1575.<ref>Historie of King James the Sext (Edinburgh: Bannatyne Club, 1825), p. 151.</ref>Template:Sfn He was succeeded by his eldest son James as the 3rd Earl of Arran. However, as James was insane, John his younger brother stood in for him.

Timeline

Timeline
As his birth date is uncertain, so are all his ages.
Age	Date	Event
0	1519, about	Born, probably in Hamilton, South Lanarkshire, Lanarkshire, Scotland.Template:Sfn
Template:Age	1522, about	Mother died
Template:Age	1529	Father died; he succeeded as the 2nd Earl of ArranTemplate:Sfn
Template:Age	1532, c. 23 September	Married Margaret Douglas, daughter of the Earl of MortonTemplate:Sfn
Template:Age	1542, 14 Dec	Accession of Mary, Queen of Scots, succeeding King James VTemplate:Sfn
Template:Age	1543, early	Appointed regent for Mary Queen of ScotsTemplate:Sfn
Template:Age	1543, Sep	Turned around: Met Cardinal Beaton at Callendar House and became Catholic
Template:Age	1543, 20 Dec	England declared war, starting the Rough wooing
Template:Age	1544	Tried to divorce his wife but failed
Template:Age	1547, 10 Sep	Defeated by the English at the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh
Template:Age	1549, 8 Feb	Created Duke of Châtellerault by Henry II of FranceTemplate:Sfn
Template:Age	1554	Lost the regency to Mary of Guise
Template:Age	1558	Queen Mary married Francis, Dauphin of France
Template:Age	1559, 10 Jul	Henry II of France died.
Template:Age	1560, 27 Feb	Treaty of Berwick negotiated.
Template:Age	1560 5 Dec N.S.	Francis II of France died.
Template:Age	1562	Son James, his eldest, declared insane
Template:Age	1565	Queen Mary remarried to Darnley
Template:Age	1567, 24 Jul	Accession of King James VI of Scotland, succeeding Queen Mary ITemplate:Sfn
Template:Age	1568, 13 May	Queen Mary lost the Battle of Langside and fled to England.
Template:Age	1570, 23 Jan	Regent Moray murdered; Châtellerault might have been involved
Template:Age	1575, 22 Jan	Died at Hamilton, South Lanarkshire

Sources

• Template:Cite book – 1547 to 1563
• Template:Cite book – 1543 to 1590 (for the letter, dated the 4 September 1543, from Ralph Sadler to Suffolk and Tunstall)
• Template:Cite book
• Template:Cite book
• Template:Cite EB1911
• Template:Cite EB1911 – for Walter FitzGilbert
• Template:Cite book
• Template:Cite book – Scotland and Ireland
• Template:Cite journal
• Template:Cite encyclopedia
• Template:Cite book – (for timeline)
• Template:Cite book
• Template:Cite encyclopedia
• Template:Cite book – Fife to Hyndford (for Duke of Hamilton)
• Template:Cite book

Attribution

• {{#if: |

   |{{#ifeq: Arran, Earls of |
                |{{#ifeq: |
                             |
                             |
                           }}
                |
               }}
  }}{{#ifeq:  |
   |{{#ifeq:  |
                                    |This article
                                    |One or more of the preceding sentences
                                   }} incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: 
  }}{{#invoke:template wrapper|{{#if:|list|wrap}}|_template=cite EB1911
   |_exclude=footnote, inline, noicon, no-icon, noprescript, no-prescript, _debug

   | noicon=1
  }}{{#ifeq:  ||}}

Further reading

• Franklin, David Byrd (1995). The Scottish Regency of the Earl of Arran: A Study in the Failure of Anglo-Scottish Relations. Edwin Mellen Press.
• Melanie Schuessler Bond, Dressing the Scottish Court: 1543–1553 (The Boydell Press: Woodbridge, Suffolk, 2019).
• "Kinneil House and the Power of Women, Arran's wall paintings", Michael Pearce