Anthony Hamilton PC (Ire) ( – 1719), also known as Antoine and comte d'Hamilton, was a soldier and a writer. As a Catholic of Irish and Scottish ancestry, his parents brought him to France in 1651 when Cromwell's army overran Ireland.
At the Restoration the family moved to England and lived at Whitehall. When Catholics were excluded from the army, Anthony followed his brother George into French service and fought in the Franco-Dutch War (1672–1678). He was wounded in the Battle of Entzheim. After the accession of the Catholic James II in 1685, he joined the Irish Army and fought for the Jacobites in the Williamite War (1689–1691). He saw action in the battles of Newtownbutler and the Boyne. The defeat led him to his last French exile.
In France Hamilton lived at the exile court at Saint-Germain-en-Laye where he became a courtier, poet, and writer. He chose French as his language and adopted a light and elegant style, seeking to amuse and entertain his reader. He wrote the Mémoires du Comte de Grammont, which focuses on the time his brother-in-law Philibert de Gramont spent at the court of Charles II. These memoirs are a classic of French literature and a source for the history of the Stuart Restoration. Hamilton also wrote many letters, poems, and five tales.
Birth and origins Anthony was born in 1644 or 1645
in Ireland, probably at Nenagh (), County Tipperary.
He was the third son of Sir George Hamilton and his wife Mary Butler.
His father was Scottish, the fourth son of James Hamilton, 1st Earl of Abercorn. He supported the lord lieutenant of Ireland, James Butler, Marquess of Ormond, during the Irish Confederate Wars and the Cromwellian conquest and called himself a baronet.
Anthony's mother was half Irish and half English, the third daughter of Thomas Butler, Viscount Thurles, and his English Catholic wife Elizabeth Poyntz. Thurles (courtesy title) predeceased his father, Walter Butler, 11th Earl of Ormond, and never succeeded to the earldom. The Butlers were Old English. She was a sister of James Butler, making Anthony's father a brother-in-law of the lord lieutenant.
Anthony's father has been confused with his granduncle George Hamilton of Greenlaw and Roscrea. Both are called George and both married a Mary Butler. In 1640 Ormond had granted Anthony's father Nenagh for 31 years. Anthony was probably born there.
Hamilton's parents had married in 1635.
Anthony was one of nine siblings. They are listed in his father's article, but also see James, George, Elizabeth, Richard, and John individually. Anthony's parents were both Catholic, and so was he.
Irish childhood Hamilton was born during the Irish Confederate War. His father, despite being Catholic, sided with the lord lieutenant against the Confederates. The war had been halted by a truce in 1643. An attempted peace failed in March 1646. After a last extension the truce expired on 1 May. The newborn Anthony, his mother, and his siblings were brought to Dublin in May for their security.
In 1647 Ormond abandoned Dublin to the parliamentarians and left for England. Anthony, his mother, and siblings seem to have stayed behind in Ireland. Ormond together with Anthony's father returned to Ireland in 1648. In 1649, during the Cromwellian conquest, Ormond made Anthony's father receiver-general of the revenues as well as governor of Nenagh Castle, which he in vain tried to defend against Henry Ireton in November 1650.
First exile Having lost the leadership to the Catholic clergy, Ormond left for France in December 1650. Hamilton's father followed with his family in spring 1651. Anthony was about seven. They were accommodated by Anthony's aunt Elizabeth Preston, the Marchioness of Ormond, near Caen, Normandy. His father and his elder brothers, James and George, served Charles II in various functions. Lady Ormond left for England in August 1652, whereas Anthony's mother moved to Paris, where she lodged in the . The Hamilton brothers frequented Charles II's and his mother's, Henrietta Maria, exile court at the Louvre.
Restoration In May 1660 the Restoration brought Charles II on the English throne. Hamilton's father and his elder brothers moved to Whitehall, where the court was. Charles II restored Donalong, Ulster, to Hamilton's father. About that year Charles allegedly created Hamilton's father baronet of Donalong and Nenagh.
Hamilton's elder brothers, James and George, became courtiers at Whitehall. The King arranged a Protestant marriage for James. Early in 1661 Hamilton's father also brought his wife and younger children to London, where they lived all together in a house near Whitehall.
In January 1663, at the court, the Hamilton brothers met Philibert, chevalier de Gramont, who had been exiled by Louis XIV for courting a maid of honour, on whom he had set his eyes.
Gramont integrated easily as French was spoken at the court.
Hamilton befriended Gramont, who soon became part of the inner circle. Gramont courted Hamilton's sister Elizabeth.
An anecdote tells how George and Anthony intercepted Gramont at Dover, asking him whether he had not forgotten something in London. He replied "Pardonnez-moi, messieurs, j'ai oublié d'épouser votre sœur." (Forgive me, Sirs, I have forgotten to marry your sister). This episode might have happened in autumn 1663 when Gramont's sister Susanne-Charlotte told him in error that he could return to France. He went but found that he was not welcome. However, perhaps Gramont attempted to leave Elizabeth later, in December just before he announced his intention to marry her.
Gramont married Elizabeth in London, either in December 1663 or early in 1664. In March 1664, Louis XIV, having heard of Gramont's marriage, allowed him to return.
Second exile In 1667 the King dismissed from his Life Guards the Catholics who refused to take the Oath of Supremacy. Among them was Anthony's brother George, who in 1668 went to France. Anthony probably accompanied him. In 1671 George recruited a regiment in Ireland for French service. Hamilton seems to have accompanied him and in May helped his cousin John Butler to extinguish a fire in Dublin Castle. Hamilton then took service in his brother's regiment, fighting in the Franco-Dutch War (1672–1678). George and Anthony were later joined by their younger brother Richard. In 1672 the regiment garrisoned Liège and then occupied Utrecht in June. In 1673 Hamilton, by now a Captain, was in Limerick recruiting for the regiment.
Anthony probably fought together with George under Turenne against Imperial troops in the Battle of Sinsheim in June 1674, and did surely so at Entzheim in October, where both were wounded. In the winter 1674–5 Anthony, George, and Richard travelled to England from where George returned to France while Anthony and Richard continued to Ireland to recruit. French ships picked up the recruits at Kinsale in April 1675, after a missed appointment at Dingle in March. Hamilton's Irish voyage caused him to miss Turenne's winter campaign in which Turenne marched south and surprised the Germans in upper Alsace, beating them at Turckheim.
In July 1675 Hamilton's regiment was at Sasbach, where George witnessed Turenne's death. At the retreat from Sasbach in August, the regiment suffered 450 casualties in the rearguard actions of the Battle of Altenheim. Louis XIV called in Condé, who stopped the German advance but retired at the end of the campaign. In the winter 1675–6 George, accompanied by either Anthony or Richard, again went recruiting and visited Lady Arran, wife of Richard Butler, 1st Earl of Arran, in January 1676. She called them "ye monsieurs". The regiment quartered that winter in Toul.
Luxembourg commanded on the Rhine in the campaign of 1676. 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. Reputedly, Hamilton succeeded his brother as comte d'Hamilton, but that title may never have existed.
Thomas Dongan, who had been lieutenant-colonel, was preferred over Hamilton as the new colonel of what had been Hamilton's regiment. Louis XIV told Anthony that he had no regiment for him. Anthony left while Richard became lieutenant-colonel.
The Franco-Dutch war ended with the Treaties of Nijmegen, concluded between August 1678 and October 1679. The regiment was disbanded in December, anticipating the signature in February 1679 of the peace between France and the Emperor.
Ireland Hamilton had returned to Ireland by 1677. His father died in 1679. His nephew James, the future 6th Earl of Abercorn, then aged 17 or 18, inherited the family's lands.
Hamilton may have visited France and have been the "comte d'Hamilton" who in January 1681 played a zephyr in the performance of Quinault's ballet Triomphe de l'Amour, to music by Lully, at the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye before Louis XIV. However, possibly, this was Richard. In summer 1681 Anthony lived in Dublin.
In February 1685 the Catholic James II acceded to the English throne. In April James sent Richard Talbot to Ireland to purge the Irish Army of "Cromwellians". Talbot replaced Protestants with Catholics, recruiting among others Anthony and his younger brothers Richard and John. Anthony was appointed lieutenant-colonel of Sir Thomas Newcomen's infantry regiment. In June James created Talbot earl of Tyrconnell. In August Hamilton was also made governor of Limerick, where his company of Newcomen's regiment was garrisoned, replacing Sir William King, a Protestant. Hamilton attended Mass in public. In October 1685 the king appointed Henry Hyde, 2nd Earl of Clarendon, a Protestant, lord lieutenant of Ireland. Clarendon arrived in January 1686. He considered Hamilton a moderate Catholic and possible ally. Clarendon praised Hamilton, saying that he understood the regiment better than its colonel. Clarendon also stated that Hamilton objected to replacing good Protestant officers with mediocre Catholic ones. Near the end of 1686, Hamilton became a member of the Irish privy council. In 1687 he was promoted colonel. In 1688 Hamilton was colonel of a regiment of foot.
At the eve of the Glorious Revolution in September 1688, James asked Tyrconnell to send four Irish regiments to England. Hamilton's was among them. The troops landed on the English west coast in October and marched across the midlands to southern England. Hamilton's regiment was stationed in Portsmouth, where the Duke of Berwick was governor. The regiment surrendered in Portsmouth on 20 December.
On the 23 James II embarked for France. It seems that Hamilton followed him. Anthony and John returned with James II to Ireland in 1689. Richard was already there.
In 1689 during the Williamite War, Tyrconnell promoted Hamilton major-general and gave him the command of the dragoons of an army under Justin McCarthy, Viscount Mountcashel, that he sent north to Belturbet, County Cavan, to fight the rebels of Enniskillen. In the battle of Newtownbutler, in July, Hamilton commanded the horse. The outcome would show that he was "better with his pen than with his sword". Mountcashel asked him to pursue retreating enemy troops, but the enemy led him into a trap and Hamilton's dragoons were routed. Hamilton was wounded in the leg at the beginning of the action and fled the scene. With Captain Peter Lavallin of Carroll's dragoons he was court martialled by Rosen, the highest-ranking French general. Given his family's influence, Hamilton was acquitted, but Lavallin was shot. This affair destroyed Hamilton's reputation as a soldier. When in spring 1690 the Irish Brigade was formed, the French wanted neither Richard nor Anthony among its officers.