Hamilton manuscripts

63
as the members entitled to serve in this Parliament for
the County of Down, although they had in the meantime
been raised to the Irish peerage by Patent, with the tilles
of Viscount Claneboye, and Viscount Montgomery.
The Parliament which met on the 14th of July, 1634,
continued its sittings until the 18th of April, 1635, when
it was prorogued, and a new one called, which met on the
16th of March, 1639. The following account of the elec-
tion of members for the County of Down to this Parliament
is given in the Montgomery MSS : —
14 The other thing memorable of Sir James Montgomery
(before the grand Irish rebellion) is his concerting with
our two Viscounts [Montgomery, and Claneboye] how only
such as they thought best should be elected knights of
the shire, to serve in the Parliament, anno 1640. Their
lordships, both in affection and prudence, pitched on their
brothers, the said Sir James, and John Hamilton, Esq.
Those gentlemen were (as is required by the writt), Idonii,
Ht persons, and lully qualified to sit in Parliament. Each
of them had been for twenty -three years conversant and
employed in business of ihe county (of which they had
exact tally s and keys), and of the respective familys
therein, and those two lords' plantations did now surmount
all wastes ; so that these gentlemen's good conduct could
not fail to have the farr major number of votes in the
election, although the Trevors, Hills, M'Gennisses,
O'Neills, Bagnalls, and other interests were combined
against them— divers sham freeholders being made to en-
crease the number of choosers, which the dexterity and
dilligence of those gentlemen discovered before ye face of
the county, to the utter shame of the servants and agents
who had practised the cheat, to sett up other pretenders
who stood to be knights for the shire. It was contended
much in the fields ; and there you might have seen the
county divided into four parties, each having him mounted
on men's shoulders whom they would have their represen-
tative ; and, as neither ot them would yield y e plurality to y e
other, the Sheriff would not determine y e controversy
on view, but, like a skiltull gardner, brought all the swarms
into one, and so the poll (carefully attended, and y° truth
of each man's freehold searched into) ended the difficulty
by the reckoning made of them, which gave it by a great
many votes to Montgomery and Hamilton, many of the
Lord Cromwell's tenents appearing to their sides, the rest
of them being newters or absent. I was told (as I remem-
ber) by persons acting at that election, that Sir James
Montgomery had many more voices for him than Mr.
Ha m ilton ; for, not a few joyned him out of the other
partys, which were all generally for him to be as one
chosen ; so that his business lay most to strengthen the
Hamiltons, who brought a third part more voters of their own
people than Sir James could conduce of his brother Mont'
gomerys ; but all the Savages, with their interest, the
Eitzsymonds, the Echlins ; also, Mr. Ward's, and most of
Kildare's and Cromwell's tenents, were for him and his
colleague partys. Our two Viscounts) who, though pre-
sent) behaved as spectators only. This election was evident
proof what their lordships could atchieve by their own
Scottish interest ; and so their regard was the greater with
the Governors and Parliament." — Mont. MSS., p. 124.
John Hamilton, of Coronary, County Cavan, and Monella,
or Hamilton's Bawn, County Armagh, Esq., the third brother
of tbe first Viscount Claneboye, who is above mentioned to
have been so elected with Sir James Montgomery, died at
Killileagh, Countj Down, on the 4th, and was buried at
Mullabrack, County Armagh, on the 10th of December,
1639, (o.s.). He, consequently, never sat for the County
ot Down in Parliament, which did not meet till the *27th of
Feby, 1639 (o.s.), following, whence it appears, by the
Journals of the Irish House of Commons, that Sir Edward
Trevor of Rose Trevor, and Sir James Montgomery of
Roseniount, knights, were returned as the sitting mem-
bers. The following list of members for the County of
Down in the Irish Parliament, from 1585 till the Union, has
been extracted from the Liber Munerutri Publieoriini Jli-
bernite, and the Journals of the Irish House of Commons : —
1585, April — Sir Nicholas Bagnall, Knight, The
Newry.
Sir Hugh Magennis, Knight, Rathfriland.
1613, May 18 — Sir James Hamilton, Knight, Bangor,
and Killileagh.
Sir Hugh Montgomery, Kniglit, Newtown.
1634, July 14 — Sir Hugh Montgomery, Knight, Newtown.
Sir James Hamilton, Knight, Bangor,
and Killileagh.
1634, Oct. 22— Vere Essex Cromwell, Esq.*
1639, Mar. 16— Sir Edward Trevoe, Knight, Rose Trevor.
Sir James Montgomery, Knight, Rose-
mount.
1661, May 8 — Marcus Trevor, Esq., Rose Trevor.
Arthur Hill, Esq., Hillsborough.
1662, Oct. 22 — Vere Essex Cromwell Esq., vice Trevor,
created Viscount Dungannou.
1665, Nov. 16 — Marcus Trevor, Esq., Rose Trevor, vice
Hill, deceased.
1692, Sept. 27 — Sir Arthur Rawdon, Bart., Moira.
James Hamilton, Esq., Tullymore.+
* Afterwards Earl of Ardglass ; married Catherine, only
daughter of James Hamilton, of Bangor, and Margaret Kynas-
tor, who was then the widow of General Richard Price, and
mother of General Nicholas Price. By her second husband, she
became mother of au only daughter, Lady Elizabeth Cromwell,
who married Edward Southwell, Secretary for Ireland in the
time of Queen Anne, and was great- grandmother of Edward
Southwell, the late Lord De Clifford, who died in 1832. — Mrs.
lieilly's Memoirs,
f James Hamilton, of Tullymore, the eldest son of William,
nephew of the first Viscount Claneboye, married Anne, young-
est daughter of John, first Viscount Mordaunt. He was an
active and steady asserter of the liberties of his country, and a
chief promoter of a general rising of the Protestants of Ireland,
in 10b9, to shake off the tyranny of King James 'a government,
and was empowered by the gentlemen of Ulster to fix on a
proper person in Dublin to carry their address to the Prince uf
Orange on his arrival there. His endeavours to defend his re-
ligion and his country did not rest here ; for he and his first
cousin, James Hamilton, of Bangor, raised each a regiment of
foot, for which they were attainted by King James's Parlia-
ment, and had their estates sequestered. He wa*» member for
Downpatrick Borough, and for the Count} of Down, as above
staled, in 1692. He was also Governor of the County, and embodied
the Militia, with which he maintained peace at home, while he
supplied King William with provisions and stores on his march
to victory at the Boyne. He was sent to England, in July, 1093,
to prosecute the Lords Justices of King James, and was one of
the Commissioners for forfeited estates in Ireland in lb'99. He
died in London in 1701. — Ibid.