James Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh and Woodhouselee shot James Stewart, Earl of Moray and Regent for James VI of Scotland on the 23rd of January, 1570 in Linlithgow, Scotland. This stained glass window (courtesy of Wikipedia commons) is in St. Giles Kirk/Cathedral and was financed by George Philip Stuart, the 14th earl of Moray as part of a Victorian restoration in the 1880s. It depicts the assassination of Stewart by Hamilton as he fired his brass match-lock carbine with a rifled barrel from the house of John Hamilton, the Archbishop of St. Andrews. James Hamilton went into exile, but the Hamilton family suffered for this crime. Archbishop Hamilton, who was great supporter of Mary, Queen of Scots, was eventually hanged for being an accessory to murder. He was the illegitimate son of James Hamilton, the First Earl of Arran. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia:
The Abbey of Paisley is now a Church of Scotland church. Because he continued practicing the Catholic faith, saying Mass, etc, Hamilton was imprisoned in 1563, but Mary, Queen of Scots, had him released:
He baptized with solemn rites, in December, 1566, the infant prince James, afterwards James VI. The opposition of the Protestant party to the use of Catholic ceremonies, upon which Mary was determined, had delayed the baptism for six months. The queen having restored the archbishop's consistorial jurisdiction, which the parliament of 1560 had abolished, he took his seat in the assembly of 1567. In the troubles which beset the hapless Mary, Hamilton was the queen's constant supporter. After the ruin of her hopes at Langside, and her flight into England, which he had done his utmost to prevent, he was compelled to seek his own safety in Dumbarton Castle, but in 1571 that stronghold was cast down and Hamilton taken prisoner. He was carried to Stirling, and three days after his capture, was hanged there in his pontifical vestments on the common gibbet. No record remains of any formal trial; he was put to death on the strength of his previous forfeiture as a traitor on the fall of Mary. Though a man of wisdom and moderation, possessed of many sterling qualities, and a valiant champion of the Catholic cause, Hamilton was not free from grave irregularities in his private life, as records of legitimation of his natural children testify.
In spite of these "irregularities in his private life", and his lack of foresight into what was going to happen when Catholicism in Scotland was made illegal, the Catholic Encyclopedia entry concludes:
He published two works defending the teachings of the Catholic Church, including Archbishop Hamilton's Catechism.
A very good story. James Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh was one of my 13th great-grandfathers.
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