[1] The Hamilton chiefs descend from Walter fitz Gilbert of Hambledon, who appears in a charter to the Monastery of Paisley in about 1294.

In face of this it has been recently shown that the single cinquefoil was also borne by the Umfravilles of Northumberland, who appear to have owned a place called Hamilton in that county.

It may be pointed out that Simon de Montfort, the great earl of Leicester, in whose veins flowed the blood of the Beaumonts, obtained about 1245 the wardship of Gilbert de Umfraville, second earl of Angus, and it is conceivable that this name Gilbert may somehow be responsible for the legend of the Beaumont descent, seeing that the first authentic ancestor of the Hamiltons is one Walter FitzGilbert.

[1] He was made regent of Scotland while the queen was still a child and proposed to marry his son to her, in order to secure his claim to the throne.

[1] James Hamilton was created Duke of Châtellerault because he had figured prominently in the marriage negotiations with France.

[1] Hamilton led a royalist army into England but was defeated at the Battle of Preston (1648) by the Parliamentarians of Oliver Cromwell.

[1] Matters were made worse with her kinsman Hamilton, Earl of Abercorn, challenged her right to succeed to the title.

This was where deputy-führer Rudolf Hess aimed to reach during his doomed peace mission to see Douglas, 14th Duke of Hamilton, in 1941.

The family moved to Lennoxlove House in East Lothian, which remains the residence of the current Duke.

They stayed in Swedish service and Malcolm's son Gustav David Hamilton was named the title of count in 1751, and in 1765 he gained the rank of field marshal.

John James Hamilton [de] (1642–1717) went after Glorious Revolution to Germany, where he served for Philip William, Elector Palatine.