HAMILTON, Lord William (c.1706-34), of Pall Mall, London.

Lord William Hamilton was the brother of the 5th Duke of Hamilton, the head of the Jacobite interest in Scotland. There were unfounded reports that he was to be given a troop of horse in 1726, when George I recalled the Duke of Hamilton from Rome, where he had been seeing the Pretender.Lockhart Pprs. ii. 62, 267-8, 319-20; HMC Egmont Diary, ii. 7. Made a lord of the bedchamber by George II, the Duke never performed his duties, continued to correspond with the Pretender,Stuart mss 208/124, 215/154. and was dismissed in 1733. In that year, without the Duke’s knowledge, Lord William eloped with the pretty but penniless daughter of one of the South Sea directors, whose estate had been confiscated in 1721.HMC Carlisle, 95, 114. Returned for Lanarkshire next year on his brother’s interest, he died two months later, 11 July.