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Hamilton, Thomas

1563-1637

Thomas Hamilton was the son of a judge. After being educated by his uncle in Paris he became an advocate at the Scottish bar in 1587, rising to be a Lord of Session in 1592. His legal talents were noticed by King James VI and I who included Thomas in the commission sent to London to treat for union in 1604. When James returned for a visit to his old kingdom in 1617 he called him 'Tam o' the Cowgate' when entertained in Thomas' lavish town house in the capital. In 1612 he was appointed Lord Clerk Register and Secretary of State. The following year he was ennobled as Lord Binning. In 1619 he was created Earl of Melrose, but in 1626 he exchanged this for the earldom of Haddington. Following the king's death he fell from the favour of his son Charles I and in 1626 resigned his prominent governmental positions. Over the course of his life he had amassed great wealth, which he invested in landed estates. The Scots Peerage remarks that in later life he had 'an income of which few, if any, Scottish peers in the seventeenth century could boast' (SP, vol. IV, p.312). His will reveals the details of the rents from his extensive estates.

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