Historical and genealogical memoirs of the House of Hamilton

HISTORICAL AND GENEALOGICAL MEMOIRS
SIR WALTER DE HAMILTON.
sir Walter In charters, and other documents of the age, he is usually designed
DE HAMILTON. |'_ , _.„ . J,' , ' : 'I? ~„
Walterusjilius Gilberti, or sometimes Walter Fitz-Gilbert.
In the chartulary of Paisley he appears as one of the witnesses to the
charter of confirmation by James, Great Steward of Scotland, to the monas-
tery of Paisley, of the privilege of a herring-fishery in the Clyde, anno 1294.
Prynne's Collections, He appears to have had large possessions in Scotland at this period ; for
Ragman Roil, in Nis- we find him, with many others, swearing fealty to King Edward the First,
anno 1292, for lands lying in Lanarkshire, and again, in 1294, for lands
lying in other counties.*
During the contest which ensued for the succession to the Scottish
crown, after the death of Alexander the Third, he adhered to the English,
or Baliol interest. Edward the Second appointed him governor of the
Castle of Bothwell, and he held that important fortress for the English at
the period of the battle of Bannockburn, as appears from Barbour, in his
Metrical History of the Bruce : —
" Quhen the gret bataill on this wiss,
Was discumfyt as Ik dewyss,
Quhar thretty thowsand wele war ded,
Or drownyt in that ilk sted ;
And sum war in till handis tane ;
And othyr sum thair gate war gane ;
The Erie of Herford fra the melle
* In the remarks on the Ragman Roll, in Nisbet's Heraldry, vol. ii. App. fol. 46,
it is stated, " Walter Fitz-Gilbert de Hamilton is the same great man that is men-
tioned before in this record, &c. All that we shall add here is, that he must be a
very considerable person, and possessed of an estate in different places, when he is
swearing fealty to the King of England in different counties, though, by the by, he
seems to have a special relation to the shire of Lanark. '