He died relatively young at about 32 and his wife, Jean Gordon, married Sir Phelim O'Neill, one of the leaders of the 1641 rebellion, after his death.
His father had been a Protestant, but his mother, Marion Boyd, was a Catholic, who brought him, like all his siblings, up in that religion.
His father predeceased his grandfather, who still was Lord of Paisley and held the lands of the former Scottish abbey, which Claud's eldest brother eventually inherited in 1621.
[9] In May 1628 Hamilton's servant Claud Algeo was suspected to be a Catholic and was served with a convocation to appear at the presbytery of Paisley by Ramsay, an officer of the Church of Scotland.
Claud was briefly jailed in June 1628 in Edinburgh Castle for abetting his servant in an assault and ordered to pay £40 to Ramsay.
In 1633, his elder brother, James, the 2nd Earl of Abercorn in Scotland and the 1st Baron Hamilton of Strabane in Ireland, resigned his Irish title to the crown, which regranted it to Claud on 14 August 1634, with the original precedence.