Clan Hamilton - Grand Designs Scotland's Clans

In the opening stages of World War II,

a German Messerschmitt crashed on a desolate moor just outside Glasgow.

The pilot was none other than Rudolf Hess, Hitler's deputy.

Incredibly Hess

had been trying to fly to the home of one of Scotland's

best known and most powerful families, the Hamiltons.

But the question of why Hess was so keen to contact the Duke of Hamilton

has been the subject of countless conspiracy theories ever since,

and remains a mystery, even today.

But this was just one of many remarkable episodes

in the fascinating story of the Hamilton family.

In this series I'm going on a personal journey to reveal

the extraordinary stories behind the great Clan names of history

and perhaps one of Scotland's most important families is the Hamiltons,

who have always had designs on power.

The town of Hamilton just outside Glasgow

was named in honour of one of Scotland's greatest families.

Today there is little here to remind us of the huge impact

that the Hamiltons had on this part of Scotland,

but one landmark does remain that gives us an insight

into the wealth and power once wielded by this family.

Just off the M74 outside Glasgow it's very easy to miss altogether

but the Hamilton Mausoleum is a truly remarkable building,

and perhaps one of the grandest temples to the dead anywhere,

outside ancient Egypt.

With it's imposing rotunda and two huge stone lions

guarding the mortal remains of Scotland's premier family.

CHORAL SINGING

It's just as spectacular inside as it is outside.

This extravagant and impressive structure was commissioned in 1842

to celebrate the power and wealth of the Hamilton dynasty.

Now one of the most curious and bizarre aspects of this building,

is the echo.

It has one of the longest echoes of any building, anywhere.

With it's intricately-tiled floor and beautifully-carved stone

this incredible monument symbolises the significance of the Hamiltons,

a family that have had a huge impact on Scotland.

It was in the 15th century that the Hamiltons struck it lucky.

In 1474 James, the 1st Lord Hamilton

married the sister of the King...

it put them within grasp of the Scottish throne

but it wouldn't be until two generations later

when James Hamilton the 2nd Earl of Arran

headed up the family that their chance for real power came along.

It was the arrival of one of Scotland's most famous monarchs

that would present them with their opportunity.

Mary, Queen of Scots was born here, at Linlithgow Palace in 1542

but her father James V died before he had a chance to see his baby daughter and only heir.

With no adult monarch to rule, the country needed a regent

and the man who stepped into this role

was James Hamilton, the 2nd Earl of Arran.

He was now in control of Scotland's destiny.

As Regent, Arran effectively ruled Scotland, but thanks to his family's royal connections

he was also next in line to the throne.

If anything should happen to the infant, Mary, Arran would become King.

There was a very high rate of child mortality in the 16th century,

and the likelihood of Mary, Queen of Scots dying, as an infant,

must have seemed to him, very high

so he was in a pretty promising position as far as he was concerned.

Arran was based here, at Kinneil House in West Lothian,

and for some 35 years he stood, just one frustrating step away from away from the throne.

Fortune did not shine on the Hamiltons however,

and Arran, never became King.

The Hamiltons came very close to the throne but never actually grasped it,

but their connection to royal power, the closeness to the throne

gives them great power in Scotland

and so the decisions that they make

ended up having great consequences for Scotland.

But these were turbulent times

and loyalties had to be chosen carefully.

The Hamiltons' allegiance to the throne would bring hardship

to the family over the next 100 years.

As the country was plunged into civil war,

the Hamiltons remained faithful to the Crown

but they would pay a high price for their loyalty.

The 1st and 2nd Dukes of Hamilton sacrificed their lives

defending the Crown in this bloody conflict

leaving the Hamilton family severely weakened.

Their lands were grabbed and hefty fines imposed on them when Cromwell and his army defeated the King.

It was a devastating blow for the Hamiltons.

When Cromwell invaded Scotland he seized all the Hamilton lands,

the result was that the Hamilton fortunes

reached the lowest possible ebb, they were left with nothing, really.

By the 1650s it seemed as if fate

were conspiring against the Hamilton family

but their fortunes were about to change.

The new heir to the Hamilton name was determined to regain the family's premier position.

The enormous debts they'd accumulated were quickly brought under control

and plans were drawn up to transform the family seat

from an unremarkable nobleman's home to a regal residence.

Now the Hamilton behind all of this was devoted to family service,

a loyal Scot, a staunch Protestant and...a woman.

I've come to the Hamiltons' current home, to Lennoxlove in East Lothian,

to meet historian Rosalind Marshall,

and find out more about this remarkable character.

This I suppose, is Anne, the 3rd Duchess.

It is indeed, yes.

She's not exactly a beauty but I suppose you could say

she has a face full of character.

Yes, she was no beauty

but she certainly had a strong and determined character.

Partly inherited, I suppose,

but also much of it was due to the experiences she had

in her childhood and in her teenage years.

So she's a young woman inheriting this title,

but the name Hamilton has been seriously dented has it not?

It has indeed and,

it was at this point that Anne, aged 19,

became Duchess in her own right.

It became her great ambition in life to get back all the family inheritance.

When Anne had inherited the title, the Hamilton estates were in disarray.

She had to sell personal positions such as jewellery and silver

in order to pay the fines that the family were saddled with

and Anne made sure that when the Monarchy was restored,

the family's loyalty to the Crown was remembered

and, more importantly, rewarded.

But what really makes a difference is the Restoration in 1660,

Charles II comes back to the throne and he is supportive of Anne

because of what her father and uncle had done for his father and himself.

So he pays back a huge debt and he helps her to regain her lands.

She restores

the fortunes of her estates,

builds up the viability of the estates,

helps commercialise the estates,

she becomes, almost ahead of her time, a model progressive landowner.

The Hamiltons were back and needed a family seat worthy of their status.

Duchess Anne began work on her grand design.

She set about totally rebuilding Hamilton Palace,

on a scale that compared with the finest royal palaces in Europe.

She devised a plan whereby she would employ people to alter it completely

and to rebuild it in a much more up-to-date style.

So she's, a very businesslike woman, level-headed, sober, sensible.

Very sensible and, um, full of sayings,

down-to-earth sort of remarks she would make.

One of her favourite sayings was, "a given-up battle is never won"

and, er, I think that shows a lot about her nature.

Duchess Anne's transformation of Hamilton Palace was a triumph.

She'd created a spectacular mansion house which announced to the world

the wealth and power of the Hamiltons.

I think the third Duchess is the dominant Hamilton character.

She achieves not only stability but lays the foundation of their wealth.

She had created a legacy for future generations

and somehow found the time to give birth to 13 children.

The eldest of these was James, Earl of Arran,

who stood to become the head of Scotland's premier family,

but as James reached adulthood it became clear that he was not the heir that Anne had hoped for.

His number one issue is he's profligate,

he loves to live the good life

and he spends money without thinking about where it comes from.

She became completely puzzled and disillusioned by his behaviour.

He drank too much, he chased women, he had various illegitimate children.

He ran up enormous debts.

Ever since he was a young man James had contrived to spend most of his time away from Hamilton.

He'd married a wealthy English heiress and was very reluctant to come home to Scotland.

He likes to live at the Royal Court,

he spent years in the courts of Charles II, James VII

and he even spent time in Louis XIV's court in France.

He'd rather be in England or in Paris than be in Hamilton.

It may have been a tough call in the late 17th century

to choose between London, Paris or Hamilton but there you go.

The Duchess clearly had serious doubts about James's ability

but the family needed a political representative

and as her eldest son and heir, this was James's right by birth.

In 1698, his mother resigned her titles and finally,

at the age of 40, James was named the 4th Duke of Hamilton.

As the new Duke, James would not only hold in his hands

the future of the Hamilton family, but the future of Scotland itself.

In the early 18th century, the Scottish Parliament was still run by the country's aristocracy.

But it was with reluctance that James returned to Edinburgh

to take up his place in the Scottish Government of the day.

Almost immediately he found himself slap bang in the middle of a major political crisis.

Scotland was bankrupt and faced losing its independence.

When Hamilton comes back to Scotland,

it is in the middle of political turmoil

and the English are forcing the Scots by 1705 to choose between a union,

or separation with the prospect of a military invasion.

It seemed that union with England was inevitable.

Not surprisingly there was enormous opposition to this idea in Scotland and there were riots in Edinburgh.

The writer, Daniel Defoe who'd been sent as an English spy,

commented that, 'A Scot's rabble is the worst of its kind'.

The rabble found a surprising champion in the 4th Duke of Hamilton.

As Scotland's premier Duke, James automatically became the head of the opposition party

who were committed to stopping union with England going ahead

and Hamilton thoroughly enjoyed the hero worship that his anti-union stance brought him.

The crowds turn out in support of Hamilton and they cheer him to and from Parliament House,

people write poems, they publish poems in praise of him.

He is very much celebrated as the patriotic leader of the opposition.

But Scotland's new champion of independence was about to astound everyone.

Despite the fact that he'd publicly asserted he was against the union,

when it came to the crunch it became clear that James was a Hamilton first and a Scot second.

On the night of the 1st September 1705 the Duke rose

to make his most memorable speech in the debate over the Act of Union.

For those listening he literally took their breath away.

Instead of railing against the Act,

his words signalled the end of an independent Scottish Parliament.

Crucial to the debate was how the Commissioners,

who would negotiate the union on behalf of Scotland, would be chosen.

Contrary to the wishes of his supporters,

James proposed that Queen Anne should choose the Commissioners.

In one fell swoop he had handed England a huge advantage.

Here, outside the new Scottish Parliament I'm meeting historian Derek Patrick,

to find out what drove the Duke of Hamilton to make this dramatic u-turn.

I suppose in a modern context Hamilton's actions seemed pretty bizarre,

it's like Alex Salmond backing independence,

yet doing everything in his power to block it.

It's very bizarre,

Hamilton waits until late in the day to make his move.

By that time he's given assurances

to some of his supporters there would be no vote that day,

This issue of whether the Queen or Parliament should name the Commissioners wouldn't be debated,

there would be no vote, so imagine their surprise when he stands up

and says the Queen should name the Commissioners.

I mean you can imagine their fury, their anger, their concerns and their disenchantment with this.

Now this seems like an act of betrayal.

From his party's point of view this is betrayal.

Even those close to him didn't expect him to do this.

Hamilton really bottled it, this is a complete own goal,

that means that the Queen in English ministry nominate,

basically, flunkies or second raters to come down and negotiate the union.

What's really going on here?

Here's a man who, ostensibly is trying to support Scottish independence,

yet does everything in his power to undermine his own party.

Hamilton stands to lose a lot, his wife brings extensive estates

in Lancashire and in Cheshire and they're very, very lucrative.

Hamilton's aware that if he stands to lose a few of these estates,

relations between the two nations would deteriorate further

and he's always short of cash, he enjoys the high life.

So he's not a conviction politician?

No, he looks after his own interests.

Hamilton's actions sounded the death knell

for any hopes that union with England could be averted

and put Scotland in a very weak position.

He didn't come out in favour of the anti-union party,

much to the disappointment of those

who'd been his supporters,

we can say quite bluntly, he was a hypocrite.

He is putting family interests, ultimately, ahead of those patriotic interests.

His goal is not to stop the union but to get into office.

With the Act of Union ratified and Scotland now firmly part of Great Britain,

James was rewarded with an English peerage and returned to spending much of his time in London.

In 1712 he was given another honour.

The post of Ambassador to Louis XIV's Court,

but James would never make it to Paris.

In November, just before he was due to leave the country for France,

Hamilton was challenged to a duel by a notorious London cad, Lord Mohun.

The two men had clashed in a dispute over a title.

The quarrel was meant to be settled in the courts

but after years of litigation, it was still unresolved and Mohun called Hamilton out.

Hamilton was foolish enough

to enter a duel, Hamilton allowed himself to be provoked into it.

He is a guy who doesn't think through his own position fully

and is allowed to be drawn into situations,

in this case a duel with a noted thug, a man of particular dishonour.

Early in the morning of the 15th November 1712, Hamilton and Mohun,

together with their seconds met here, in Hyde Park to fight a duel.

Mohun had a reputation as a fearsome opponent.

Hamilton, on the other hand, was 54, overweight and prone to gout.

Despite the odds being stacked heavily against him, Hamilton managed to mortally-wound Mohun.

But, as he lay dying Mohun lashed out and severed a major artery in Hamilton's arm.

Within minutes, both men were dead.

The outcome of the duel, although he technically wins it, he dies, so he wins but loses,

which is the sort of theme for his whole life, it seems.

The Hamiltons continue to display a taste for the extravagant.

In 1734 they commissioned the celebrated Scottish architect,

William Adam to build this lodge and stables just a mile from the palace.

Chatelherault became the base for the family's hunting expeditions.

But the Hamilton empire in Lanarkshire

was set to become grander still.

In 1819 when the 10th Duke inherited the title,

he felt the urge to demonstrate the power

and prestige of the family in a very ostentatious way.

Alexander, the 10th Duke was a very flamboyant character.

He set about making the already magnificent Hamilton Palace even more opulent.

He was tremendously proud of his own family and his own position

and this connection with the royal family.

He really wanted to make this the most grandiose house in Scotland

so that people could see exactly how important the Hamiltons were.

But the Duke's grand design didn't come cheap.

Alexander wanted Hamilton Palace to have the equivalent of a royal collection.

This was a task he threw himself into with great enthusiasm,

travelling the world seeking out rare and exotic pieces of art.

It's said that during his lifetime he spent the equivalent of hundreds of millions of pounds

amassing an incredible collection of paintings, sculpture and furniture.

The Duke's collection contained a number of now world-famous paintings

but he had one particular obsession.

Napoleon.

He even went to the extent of commissioning

what has become one of the most iconic portraits of the Emperor,

when Britain was still at war with France.

I wouldn't be surprised if his obsession with Napoleon was in a way

a reflection of his own view of himself and world,

they were both flamboyant characters

who were projecting their personalities.

Perhaps he felt an affinity.

Alexander's art collection at Hamilton Palace would have dwarfed

the likes of the famous Burrell collection.

Sadly it is now spread to the four winds, auctioned off to pay family debts.

But even more tragic was the fate that befell the building that had housed his magnificent collection.

This is the site of Hamilton Palace.

Now, for us today it's hard to believe the fate of this once vast and imposing building,

but the Hamiltons were once heavily involved in the mining industry.

Unfortunately they undermined the foundations of the Palace itself

and in the early 1900s it began to subside badly

and in 1921 it had to be completely demolished.

So today, the once grand house of the Hamiltons has become this sports centre and a retail park.

And so, all that remains here is the spectacular mausoleum

which the 10th Duke commissioned to celebrate the passing of his Hamilton ancestors

but flamboyant to the end, there was one honour that was reserved for HIM alone.

The Duke, bought himself an Egyptian sarcophagus to use as his coffin.

Sadly however his best-laid plans went somewhat array.

The Duke may have had a Napoleon complex but he was not a small man,

in fact he was rather tall

and the Sarcophagus that he bought had been made

for a much smaller, more petite Egyptian princess.

The story goes that when the undertakers came to place the Duke inside,

he didn't fit.

They had to chip away at the inside of the sarcophagus

to create more space

and it's claimed that they even had to break his legs

to be able to finally squeeze the tall Duke inside.

Alexander had left an impressive monument to the Hamiltons' power

but as Scotland entered the 20th century,

the influence of it's noble families was diminishing.

In 1940 Douglas Douglas-Hamilton became the 14th Duke.

A talented sportsman and aviator,

the Duke was the chief pilot on the first flight over Mount Everest.

But it would be another notorious flight during World War II

that would propel the 14th Duke into the headlines.

By 1941 Nazi Germany occupied much of mainland Europe.

In May of that year a German aircraft carrying a leading Nazi

crashed just outside Glasgow.

Incredibly the incident would draw the Hamilton family

into one of the most controversial episodes in their history.

When Hitler's deputy fuhrer, Rudolf Hess flew into Scotland in 1941

in the hope of negotiating a peace treaty with the allies,

the man he hoped would help him in this enterprise

was none other than the 14th Duke of Hamilton.

But Hess's arrival in Scotland embroiled the Hamiltons

in a scandal that would be difficult to shake off.

Hess had supposedly been heading for the home of the Hamiltons

and when he was captured it's claimed he asked to be taken to see the Duke.

I'm meeting writer Carl MacDougall to find out more about this intriguing episode.

Carl, why did Hess chose Hamilton?

It's one of the perennial questions surrounding the whole Hess business.

What we do know is that the Nazis

liked to ally themselves to the aristocracy,

it made them feel better about themselves,

gave them a certain credence and credibility

and the Hamiltons WERE the premier, ARE the premier family in Scotland,

so, perhaps that why Hess thought that it'd be a good idea to contact the Duke.

What connections had the Hamiltons had with Germany and the Nazis up to this point?

The Duke of Hamilton had been a guest at the 1936 Olympic Games and while he was there

the Duke of Hamilton met Hitler, he later met Goering who gave him a tour of the Luftwaffe.

Perhaps that's why Hess figured that it would be a good idea to come to Scotland.

Hess's plan was to fly secretly to Scotland

and make contact with the Duke of Hamilton

who, he hoped, would take him to Churchill.

Instead however, Hess was captured as soon as his parachute landed

and spent the rest of the war in prison.

But the revelation that Hess had been seeking the help of the Duke of Hamilton caused a huge scandal.

Now all this stuff, in a sense, these connections with Nazi Germany,

must have reflected quite badly on the Hamilton family, surely?

Oh, it certainly did and on the Duke of Hamilton personally,

but 12 days after Hess had landed the then Secretary of State for Aviation

made a statement in the House of Commons that ended by saying,

"Throughout the whole business, the Duke of Hamilton

"behaved properly and with great dignity"

so in effect he was exonerated.

The Hamilton family may have been totally cleared of any wrongdoing,

but nearly 70 years on conspiracy theories

still abound about why Hess tried to contact the 14th Duke.

In 2016 however, the secret Government papers about

Hess's failed mission will be released from embargo.

Finally there will be a chance to find out what really happened

when Hess came to Scotland to meet with the Hamiltons.

When that box is eventually opened and these papers are revealed,

I think we will learn A truth but whether it will be THE truth

that will satisfy everybody, that's a totally different question.

In the end, the Hamiltons remain something of an enigma,

often it seems the family came first, and Scotland second but there can be no question

that they played a huge role in shaping the country we know today.

Their grand designs on power may not always have gone according to plan

but it seems to me the most striking thing about this family

is their overriding instinct for survival, an attitude best summed up

in the words of in that most determined of ladies,

Duchess Anne Hamilton, "A given-up battle is never won".

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