HAMILTON, ALISON [SSNE 8527]
Text source
Alison Hamilton was evidently the wife of Captain George Seton [SSNE 8528], latterly of the Scots-Dutch Brigade but by this time a traitor and defector to Spanish service. On 1 August 1592 she wrote the following letter to Captain Seton (who had abandoned her) from Brussels. Seton was 'at the present in Scotland with my Lo. Seaton or where he is.'
'Best beloved Sr after my most hartly comendations & service I have written so often and sundry tymes to ye and never received yr answere marveling muckle quhat is in your mynde or quhat ye are purposed to do with me & yr bairns. Ye sall witt that there is here very evill payment and the debters trouble me very sair daily, ye are discharged of yr intertaynment unlesse ye come here yrself in person, and if ye come here shortly it will be made gude. I pray ye to send me word with the first comoditie if I sall come hame myself with the bairns or to remayne here upon yr coming Not troubling with farder attending ye coming with my humble comendations to yr brother & all guide [friendis?] from Bruxelles.'
The letter was attached by Robert Bowes, English ambassador in Scotland, to Lord Burghley among others dealing with the state of Scottish politics.
It is possible that Alison Hamilton was the daughter of James Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh, assassin of Regent Moray in 1570, who had a daughter named Alison. Bothwellhaugh was frequently in between Paris and Brussels.
Sources:
TNA, SP 52/49, f. 35, Bowes to Burghley, 1592.
Gordon MacGregor, The Red Book of Scotland, Vol. 5 (3rd ed., Scotland, 2021), p. 207.
This entry created by Dr Jack Abernethy.
FEMALE, WOMAN
Service record
- THE SPANISH NETHERLANDS, BRUSSELS
- Arrived 1592-01-01
- Departed 1592-12-31
- Capacity WIFE, purpose MILITARY