James Hamilton, 1st Duke of Châtellerault, 2nd Earl of Arran ( – 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. He was the eldest legitimate son of James Hamilton, 1st Earl of Arran, by his second wife, Janet Beaton (or Bethune).HMC 11th Report Part VI: Hamilton (London, 1887), pp, 51-52. 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, who had received the barony of Cadzow from Robert the Bruce. 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.
In 1529 he succeeded his father as Earl of Arran while still a minor. He was made a ward of James Hamilton of Finnart, his illegitimate elder half-brother.
Marriage
In 1532, Lord Arran married Margaret Douglas, who was about ten years older than him.Amy Blakeway, "The attempted divorce of James Hamilton, earl of Arran, Governor of Scotland", Innes Review, 61:1 (2010), p. 5. She was a daughter of James Douglas, 3rd Earl of Morton, and Catherine Stewart, herself a natural daughter of James IV. 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.
James and Margaret had five sons: James (1537–1609), succeeded him as the 3rd Earl of Arran but became insane in 1562; "... who was born in 1537 or in 1538 ..." Gavin, died young; John (1540–1604), became the 1st Marquess of Hamilton; David (died 1611);Chatellherault's will, NAS ECC8/8/4 Claud (1546–1621), from whom descend the earls, marquesses and dukes of Abercorn.
— and three daughters: Barbara,Amy Blakeway, "The attempted divorce of James Hamilton, earl of Arran, Governor of Scotland", Innes Review, 61:1 (2010), p. 6. who married Alexander, Lord Gordon in February 1549,John G. Harrison, "The Bread Book and the Court and Household of Marie de Guise in 1549", Scottish Archives, 15 (2009), p. 40.Amy Blakeway, Regency in Sixteenth-Century Scotland (Boydell, 2015), pp. 127–128. and married secondly in 1553 James Fleming, 4th Lord Fleming.Elaine Finnie, "The House of Hamilton", Innes Review, 36:1 (Spring 1985), p. 18. Jean, married Hugh Montgomerie, 3rd Earl of Eglinton, in 1555.Elaine Finnie, "The House of Hamilton", Innes Review, 36:1 (Spring 1985), pp. 17–18. Anne (died before April 1574), married George Gordon, 5th Earl of Huntly, in 1558.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.
In 1544 Arran tried to divorce his wife.Elaine Finnie, "The House of Hamilton", Innes Review, 36:1 (Spring 1985), p. 10. She seemed to have been suffering from poor mental health. Significantly, two of their sons, James and Claud, later became insane.Amy Blakeway, "The attempted divorce of James Hamilton, earl of Arran, Governor of Scotland", The Innes Review, 61:1 (May 2010), pp. 1–23
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.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.
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. Arran was appointed Regent or Governor of Scotland after a meeting in Edinburgh on 3 January 1543.Margaret Sanderson, Cardinal of Scotland, David Beaton (Edinburgh, 1986), pp. 154–157. Arran consolidated his power base by making gifts of the late king's possessions to his supporters and kinsmen.John G. Harrison, Wardrobe Inventories of James V: British Library MS Royal 18 C (Historic Scotland: Edinburgh, 2008), p. 9 However, 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.
Pro-English policy
Initially, Arran was a Protestant and a member of the pro-English party. In 1543 he helped to negotiate a plan for 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. 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.Rosalind K. Marshall, Mary of Guise (Collins, 1977), p. 119. Historians refer to this period as Arran's "Godly fit".Timothy Slonosky, Civic Reformation and Religious Change in Sixteenth-century Scottish Towns (Edinburgh University Press, 2024), p. 129.
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.Rosalind K. Marshall, Mary of Guise (Collins, 1977), p. 121. 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.
Pro-French policy Regent Arran celebrated the Treaty of Greenwich at the Holyrood Abbey on 25 August 1543.Rosalind K. Marshall, Mary of Guise (Collins, 1977), p. 132. However, in September Arran turned around. He secretly met Cardinal Beaton at Callendar House and reconciled himself with his former enemy.Margaret Sanderson, Cardinal of Scotland (Edinburgh: John Donald, 1986), p. 170. Shortly after he became Catholic and joined the pro-French faction.Retha M. Warnicke, Mary Queen of Scots (Routledge, 2006), p. 28. Around this time Friar Mark Hamilton wrote a history of the Hamilton family.Thomas James Salmon, Borrowstounness and District (Edinburgh: William Hodge, 1913), p. 24J. Foggie, Renaissance Religion in Urban Scotland: The Dominican Order, 1450–1560 (Brill, 2003), pp. 59, 71, 285. Arran made penance for his "godly fit" at the Franciscan Friary in Stirling.Margaret Sanderson, Cardinal of Scotland: David Beaton (Edinburgh: John Donald, 1986), p. 170. Mary, Queen of Scots, was crowned at Stirling on 9 September.Rosalind K. Marshall, Mary of Guise (Collins, 1977), p. 133.
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.Rosalind K. Marshall, Mary of Guise (Collins, 1977), p. 141.David M. Head, "Henry VIII's Scottish Policy: A Reassessment", Scottish Historical Review, 61:171, Part 1 (April 1982), p. 21. 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.James Balfour Paul, Accounts of the Treasurer, vol. 8 (Edinburgh, 1908), p. 242. 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.
In 1544 an attempt was made to transfer the regency from him to Mary of Guise. A convention or Parliament of the nobility at Stirling in June suggested she should be regent instead.Pamela E. Ritchie, Mary of Guise (Tuckwell, 2002), p. 18: Margaret Sanderson, Cardinal of Scotland (Edinburgh: John Donald, 1986), p. 170. Conflict seemed possible, but Arran when fortified Edinburgh her forces retired.Rosalind K. Marshall, Mary of Guise (Collins, 1977), p. 142. Arran held a Parliament in November 1544 and declare the resolutions of the June meeting to be of no effect.Margaret Sanderson, Cardinal of Scotland (Edinburgh: John Donald, 1986), p. 187. 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.Rosalind K. Marshall, Mary of Guise (Collins, 1977), p. 144.
In June 1547 Arran gathered a large army to expel the English from Langholm and the surrounding area.David Caldwell, Vicky Oleksy, Bess Rhodes, The Battle of Pinkie, 1547 (Oxbow, 2023), pp. 28–31. 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.James Balfour Paul, Accounts of the Treasurer of Scotland, vol. 9 (Edinburgh, 1911), pp. 84–97. Arran had an armoured "jack" covered with purple taffeta, then changed his mind, choosing purple velvet.Accounts of the Treasurer of Scotland, vol. 9 (Edinburgh, 1911), pp. 97–98. 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."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.
Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset sent tracts into Scotland, hoping to garner support for the English cause. His agents were ordered to display his proclamation on church doors and even on the gate of Stirling Castle. On 25 August 1547, Arran gave orders that no one should read the proclamations "set forth in print in Scotland to seduce the hearts of the people to his opinion".Marcus Merriman, The Rough Wooings (Tuckwell, 2000), p. 277.
In September 1547, Arran assembled a large Scottish army to resist an English invasion led by the Duke of Somerset but was defeated at the battle of Pinkie. He was forced to abandon some of his clothes at the battlefield.James Balfour Paul, Accounts of the Treasurer of Scotland, vol. 9 (Edinburgh, 1911), p. 140.