James Hamilton

Colonel James Hamilton (died 1673) was a courtier to Charles II after the Restoration. He appears in the Mémoires du Comte de Grammont, written by his brother Anthony.

In 1651 when about 13, James and his Father and the rest of the family fled Ireland during the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland. Hamilton then joined the exile court on its wanderings and returned to England with the king at the Restoration. The king appointed him ranger of Hyde Park. Hamilton left the Catholic church to marry a Protestant and the king then appointed him a groom of his bedchamber. In 1666 Hamilton represented Strabane in the Irish Parliament. In 1673, during the Third Anglo-Dutch War, Hamilton lost a leg in a sea-fight with the Dutch and died from the wound a few days later. In 1701 his eldest son succeeded a cousin as 6th Earl of Abercorn.