John Hamilton, 2nd Lord Belhaven and Stenton

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John Hamilton, 2nd Lord Belhaven and Stenton

John Hamilton, 2nd Lord Belhaven and Stenton (born July 5, 1656 , † June 21, 1708 in London ), was a Scottish nobleman and politician.

Life

He came from the Hamilton family and was the older son of Robert Hamilton, Lord Pressmennan († 1695), and his wife Marion Denholm. His father held a non-hereditary lord title as a judge at the Court of Session from 1689.

In 1674 he married Margaret Hamilton, the eldest daughter of his tenth uncle, Sir Robert Hamilton, 1st Baronet († 1670). With her he had two sons:

At the death of his sixth degree uncle and at the same time the grandfather of his wife, John Hamilton, 1st Lord Belhaven and Stenton , he inherited the title of Lord Belhaven and Stenton created in 1647 on June 17, 1679 due to a special inheritance regulation . He became a member of the Scottish Parliament .

In 1681 he was imprisoned for a period of time because he had made derogatory comments in Parliament about James, Duke of York , who would later become King James II. During the Glorious Revolution of 1689 he was one of the parliamentarians who invited William of Orange to take over the government of Scotland and fought on his side against the Jacobites in the Battle of Killiecrankie in July 1689 .

From 1695 he was one of the directors of the Company of Scotland , which tried unsuccessfully in the Darién project to establish a Scottish colony in Panama . The catastrophic failure of the project brought Scotland to the brink of national bankruptcy in the following years, thus promoting the amalgamation of Scotland with England to form the Kingdom of Great Britain . Together with Andrew Fletcher , he was one of the most resolute opponents of this union and vigorously opposed it in parliament. His parliamentary speech against the Union in November 1706 aroused great public attention. He could not prevent the Act of Union 1707 .

In 1708 he was arrested on suspicion of campaigning for a French invasion. He died a little later in a prison in London. His older son John inherited him.

Literature and web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wikisource: Speech against the Union.
predecessor Office successor
John Hamilton Lord Belhaven and Stenton
1679-1708 		John Hamilton
personal data
SURNAME Hamilton, John, 2nd Lord Belhaven and Stenton
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Belhaven and Stenton, John Hamilton 2nd Lord
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Scottish nobleman
DATE OF BIRTH July 5, 1656
DATE OF DEATH June 21, 1708
Place of death London