Series 2 > Seafield correspondence from 1685 to 1708

x CORRESPONDENCE OF EARL OF SEAFIELD
the strong influence of the powerful house of Hamilton.
As Lady Anna Hamilton’s contract of marriage was dated
7th and 13th April 1631, and as she died at Struthers
in Fife on 16th October 1632, his mother, Lady Anna
Montgomerie, must have been born sometime that latter
year. Lady Anna Hamilton’s two eldest brothers were
the first and second Dukes of Hamilton. James, the
first duke, fought as a Royalist in the Civil War, and
was beheaded in Palace Yard in 1649. Her brother
William, the second duke, fought for King Charles at
Worcester, and died on 12th September 1651, nine days
after that battle. Her sister Margaret married John,
seventeenth Earl of Crawford and Lindsay, and had
daughters, Anna, who married John, Earl, afterwards
Duke of Rothes, Christian, who married John, Earl
of Haddington, and Elizabeth, who married David,
Earl of Northesk. These three ladies, influentially
married, were therefore first cousins of Lady Anna
Montgomerie. They frequently corresponded with her,
especially Anna Lindsay, wife of the Duke of Rothes,
who during the reign of Charles the Second was a power¬
ful Scots politician.
Writing on the 9th of November 1664 from ‘ Halirud
hous ’ to the Countess of Findlater, A. Lindsay, as she
signs herself, says :—
Sine ye are pleased to inquyr if my Lord be Chanseler,
I shall tell you it hath plased his Magestie to apoint my
Lord to keep the seill till such time as on be nominat;
and for sume time hath ordened him his Comitionar, ther
being ane Asemblie to sit in sume munthes. Such a
weghtie charg his frindes could have wished he had not
layne onder; bot he hath submited to the King’s comands.
The Lord derect him, for he never stoud in more neid of
help from God.
Anne, eldest daughter of the first duke, and cousin of