Richard Hamilton (officer)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bornc. 1649
DiedDecember 1717
Relatives
AllegianceFrench army
Richard Hamilton
Bornc. 1649
DiedDecember 1717
Relatives
Military career
AllegianceFrench army
Conflicts
Military career
AllegianceJacobite army
ConflictsWilliamite War in Ireland

Richard Hamilton PC (Ire) (c. 1649 – 1717) was an officer in the French and the Irish army. In France he fought in the Franco-Dutch War (1672–1678) under Turenne and in the War of the Reunions (1683–1684) at the Siege of Luxembourg.

In Ireland he fought for James II during the Williamite War, rising to the rank of lieutenant-general. He defeated the Protestants of Ulster at the Break of Dromore and the Cladyford in 1689. Later that year he commanded during part of the Siege of Derry. In 1690 he fought bravely at the Battle of the Boyne, where he was taken prisoner. In 1692 he was exchanged for Lord Mountjoy and joined the exile court at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France. Hamilton died in French exile.

Family tree
Richard Hamilton with parents and other selected relatives.[a] He never married.[1] His father is sometimes confused with his granduncle, Sir George Hamilton of Greenlaw and Roscrea.[2]
Claud
1st Ld
Paisley
1546–1621		Margaret
Seton
d. 1616
James
1st Earl
Abercorn
1575–1618		Marion
Boyd
d. 1632
Recusant		Sir George Hamilton
of Greenlaw
& Roscrea
d. bef. 1657
James
2nd Earl
d. 1670		Sir George Hamilton
1st Baronet of
Donalong
c. 1608 – 1679		Mary
Butler
d. 1680
James
c. 1630 – 1673
Courtier
d.v.p.*		Elizabeth
Colepeper
d. 1709		Anthony
c. 1645 – 1719
Writer		Richard
c. 1649 – 1717
James
6th Earl
c. 1661 – 1734		Elizabeth
Reading
d. 1754
Legend
XXXSubject of
the article		XXXEarls of
Abercorn
*d.v.p. = predeceased his father (decessit vita patris)

Richard was born about 1649,[b] in Ireland, before his family fled to France in 1651 during the Cromwellian Conquest.[3][4] He was the fifth son of Sir George Hamilton and his wife Mary Butler. His father was Scottish, the fourth son of the 1st Earl of Abercorn. His father supported the Marquess of Ormond in the Irish Confederate War and the Cromwellian conquest[5] and was a would-be baronet.[6][7][c]

Richard's mother was half Irish and half English, the third daughter of Thomas, Viscount Thurles, and his English Catholic wife Elizabeth Poyntz.[8] Viscount Thurles (courtesy title) predeceased his father, the 11th Earl of Ormond, and therefore never succeeded to the earldom.[9] The Butlers were Old English.[10] Richard's mother also was a sister of the 1st Duke of Ormond (previously known as the Marquess of Ormond),[8] making her husband a brother-in-law of the Duke.[11][5]

His place of birth and the date of his parents marriage are affected by errors caused by confusing his father with his granduncle, Sir George Hamilton of Greenlaw and Roscrea. Both are called George, and both married a Mary Butler. Richard's place of birth probably is Nenagh (/ˈniːnæ/)[12], County Tipperary.[d] Hamilton's parents had married in 1635, despite earlier dates reported in error due to the mistaken identity.[15][e]

Richard was one of nine siblings.[16] See James, George, Elizabeth, Anthony, and John.[f] Richard's parents were both Catholic,[g] and so was he.[17]

Irish wars and first French exile

Richard's father was a soldier in the Irish army and fought for the royalists under his uncle James Butler, the Earl of Ormond, in the Irish Confederate Wars (1641–1648) and the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland (1649-1653) until early in 1651, when his family followed Ormond into French exile.[3] They went to Caen, Normandy,[18] where they were accommodated for some time by Elizabeth Preston, the Marchioness of Ormond. Lady Ormond with her children left for England in August 1652,[19] whereas Richard's mother moved to Paris, where she lived in the Convent of the Feuillantines [fr].[20]

Restoration

In May 1660 the Restoration brought Charles II on the English throne.[21] Richard's father and his elder sons moved to the court at Whitehall.[22] Charles II restored Donalong, Ulster, to Hamilton's father.[23] About that year Charles allegedly created Hamilton's father baronet of Donalong and Nenagh,[c] but the king, if he really went that far, refused to go further because the family was Catholic.[24]

Richard's elder brothers, James and George, became courtiers at Whitehall.[25] In 1661 the King arranged a Protestant marriage for James.[26][27][28] Early in 1661 Richard's father also brought his wife and younger children to London,[29] where they lived for some time all together in a house near Whitehall.[30]

In French service

Wanting to be a soldier and unable to take the oath of supremacy, obligatory in the English army, Richard followed the example of his elder brothers George and Anthony and went into French service. In 1671 he was commissioned into the regiment that George had raised. This regiment fought for France in the Franco-Dutch War (1672–1678). He must have fought with George under Turenne in the battles of Sinsheim in June 1674, and Entzheim in October.[31] At Entzheim his brothers George and Anthony were wounded.[32]

In 1674 Richard visited England with his elder brothers George and Anthony. George returned to France from England, but Anthony and Richard continued to Ireland to recruit for the regiment.[33] The recruits were picked up by French ships at Kinsale in April[34] after a missed appointment at Dingle in March.[35] Richard's voyage caused him to miss Turenne's winter campaign in which the French marched south and surprised the Germans in upper Alsace, beating them at Turckheim in January 1675.[36]

In July 1675 Hamilton's regiment was at Sasbach, where George witnessed Turenne's death.[37] At the retreat from Sasbach in August, the regiment suffered 450 casualties in the rearguard actions of the Battle of Altenheim.[38] Louis XIV called in Condé, who stopped the German advance[39][40] but retired at the end of the campaign.[41] In the winter 1675–76 George, accompanied by either Richard or Anthony, again went recruiting[42] and visited Lady Arran, wife of Richard Butler, 1st Earl of Arran, in January 1676. She called them "ye monsieurs".[43] The regiment quartered that winter in Toul.[42]

Luxembourg commanded on the Rhine in the campaign of 1676.[44] In June George was killed in a rearguard action at the Zaberner Steige (Col de Saverne), where imperial troops under the Duke of Lorraine pursued the French who were retreating eastward to Zabern (Saverne) in lower Alsace.[45][46] Thomas Dongan became colonel and Richard lieutenant-colonel.[47] In 1678 Richard succeeded Thomas Dongan as the regiment's colonel. In August the Peace of Nijmegen ended the Franco-Dutch War.[48] The regiment was disbanded in December.[49] Richard joined a French regiment that he commanded for over six years. This seems to have been the Roussillon Regiment, according to a remark in a letter from Louvois to Avaux.[50]

Either Richard or Anthony played a zephyr in the performance of Quinault's ballet the Triomphe de l'Amour, to music by Lully, on 21 January 1681 at the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye before Louis XIV.[51][52][53][54] In the War of the Reunions (1683–1684), Richard commanded the Altmünster sector in the Siege of Luxembourg in 1684 under Maréchal de Créquy.[55]

In March 1685 Hamilton was obliged to leave France after a bitter disagreement with Louvois, the minister of war, over the state of his regiment and a brawl with the Marquis d'Alincourt [fr] over the Princess de Conti, Louis XIV's recently widowed daughter.[56] Having sold his regiment a few days before, Hamilton took leave of the king on 16 March and left for England.[57]

In Irish service

Last French exile

Notes and references

Related Articles

Wikiwand AI