Basil Hamilton

Basil Hamilton (8 September 1696 – 14 November 1742) was a Scottish Jacobite. Early life He was the second son of Lord Basil Hamilton and Mary Dunbar, granddaughter and heiress of Sir David Dunbar, 1st Baronet, of Baldoon. His elder brother, William Hamilton, succeeded their father but died unmarried before November 1703, after which the Baldoon estate passed to Basil. His sisters were Eleanor Hamilton (wife of John Murray of Philiphaugh) and Catherine Hamilton (wife of Thomas Cochrane, 6th Earl of Dundonald). His father was the sixth son of William Hamilton, Duke of Hamilton and Anne Hamilton, suo jure Duchess of Hamilton. His maternal grandfather was David Dunbar the Younger of Baldoon. Career During the Jacobite rising of 1715 he commanded a troop of horse under Thomas Forster and was taken prisoner at the Battle of Preston. He was sentenced to death in 1716, but reprieved through the influence of his uncle Lord Orkney. His estates were forfeited, but successfully claimed by his mother, and the forfeiture was reversed in 1733.