Margaret Hamilton, Lady Belhaven and Stenton

Margaret Hamilton, Lady Belhaven and Stenton (bef. 1625 – c.1695) was a Scottish noblewoman known for her part in faking her husband's death and her knowledge of herbal remedies.

Margaret Hamilton and her husband, by Anthony Van Dyck.

Family

Margaret was the illegitimate daughter of James Hamilton, 2nd marquess of Hamilton. It has been suggested that her mother was Anne Stewart, the widowed daughter of Walter Stewart, 1st Lord Blantyre.^[1]

She married her distant relative John Hamilton, who was created 1st Lord Belhaven and Stenton by Charles I in 1647.^[2] They had three daughters – Anne, Margaret, and Elizabeth – and a son, who died in childhood in 1661.

Faking John's death

In 1648, the Hamiltons feared that John might be arrested because he had financially supported Lady Margaret's half-brother, James Hamilton, 1st duke of Hamilton, who had led a Royalist army into England and been executed by the Parliamentarians. Margaret and John arranged for John to fake his death, pretending that he had drowned in the Solway Firth. Lady Margaret went into public mourning, and John's death was recorded by the Lyon King of Arms in 1652. He returned after six years in hiding and actually died in 1679.^[3][4]

Medical practitioner

Lady Margaret's correspondence demonstrates that she was a sought-after nurse and practitioner of herbal remedies. She collected recipes and made up her own plasters, and advised her great-niece, Margaret Hamilton, countess of Panmure, in maintaining a healthy pregnancy.^[5]

Death and legacy

Lady Margaret died in or after 1694, predeceased by two of her children.^[4] The line continued through her daughter Anne, who married Sir Robert Hamilton, 1st baronet of Silvertonhill.^[6]

Lady Margaret was sketched and painted several times by the studio of Anthony Van Dyck.^[4]

References

1. Mosley, Charles, ed. (1999). Burke's Peerage and Baronetage. Vol. 1 (106 ed.). p. 1283.
2. Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerage and Baronetage of the British Empire. Burke's Peerage Limited. 1830. p. 59.
3. Marshall, R. K. (1983). Virgins and viragos: a History of Women in Scotland from 1080 to 1980. p. 108.
4. "Hamilton, Margaret, Lady Belhaven and Stenton (b. in or before 1625, d. in or after 1694), royalist heroine and medical practitioner". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. 2004. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/93811. Retrieved 2023-11-30. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
5. Marshall, R. K. (1982). "'Take of dragon's blood two drachms': the treatment of pregnancy and miscarriage in seventeenth-century Scotland". Nursing Mirror: 32–6.
6. Burke, Bernard (1854). "A" Visitation of the Seats and Arms of the Noblemen and Gentlemen of Great Britain and Ireland: Second Series. Hurst and Blackett. p. 38.