Thomas Dalmahoy

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San Diego Sarah  •  Link

Thomas Dalmahoy MP (c 1620 – 1682) came from a 13th century Scottish knightly family.

Thomas Dalmahoy was in the service of the Hamiltons by 1632, but later claimed to have ‘suffered for my constant loyalty and duty to his Majesty [Charles II] and to his father of blessed memory’.

As master of the horse to William, 2nd Duke of Hamilton, who was mortally wounded at the second battle of Worcester, Thomas Dalmahoy arranged his funeral, and on 19 June 1655, married Lady Elizabeth Maxwell, Duchess of Hamilton, the widow of said 2nd Duke. [THERE'S A STORY HERE I'D LOVE TO KNOW.]

The Hamilton estates in Scotland remained sequestrated; but as coheir to her father (James Maxwell, 1st Earl of Dirletoun who had died in 1650), Lady Elizabeth Maxwell Dalmahoy, Dowager Duchess of Hamilton brought The Friary and interest at Guildford, Surrey for Thomas (although her daughters disputed some part of this).

Samuel Pepys, meeting the ‘Scotch gentleman’ on his way to the exiled Court in May 1660, found Thomas Dalmahoy ‘a very fine man’, and Speaker Onslow, whose family was kin to Dalmahoy’s second wife (Lady Elizabeth Muschamp Clerke) called him genteel and generous.

Thomas Dalmahoy was proposed for the order of the Royal Oak, with an income of £1,200 p.a., but that never happened. [WHAT DID HE DO TO EARN IT?]

Thomas Dalmahoy was returned for Guildford at a by-election in 1664, with the personal support of the Duke of York.

A moderately active Member of the Cavalier Parliament, Thomas Dalmahoy was appointed to 49 committees, acted as teller in 3 divisions, and made 10 recorded speeches.

Although a consistent supporter of the Government, Thomas Dalmahoy MP joined forces with Sir Nicholas Carew of the country party to oppose the Wey navigation bill in 1665, and secured its rejection on first reading. [The river Wey flows by Guildford.]

Thomas Dalmahoy MP was appointed to the committee for the continuation of the Conventicles Act in 1668.

A friend of James Butler, Duke of Ormonde, Thomas Dalmahoy MP appeared on both lists of the court party in 1669-71.

When the Wey navigation bill was reintroduced in 1670, Thomas Dalmahoy MP submitted a proviso and was appointed to the committee.

Charles Maitland, Lord Halton, the brother of John Maitland, Duke of Lauderdale, had acquired the property next to Thomas Dalmahoy MP’s ancestral home in Dalmahoy, Ratho, Midlothian, and so it was a neighbor he was defending against the increasingly vociferous demands for Lauderdale’s removal.
Dalmahoy pointed out on 13 Jan. 1674 that the Duke of Lauderdale was not in Scotland when the Scottish Parliament gave the Government the power to use the militia outside their own country.

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

PART 2

In the spring session of 1675, Dalmahoy was appointed to the committee to consider an alleged assault by Lauderdale’s servants on a witness, and reminded the House:
“the Duke of Lauderdale has been banished and imprisoned by the late usurped powers from 1648 till the King’s Restoration; and hopes he deserves not such severity.”

In the same session Thomas Dalmahoy MP became involved in a case in the House of Lords concerning his first wife’s mother (Lady Elizabeth Maxwell Dalmahoy's mother, the Countess of Dirletoun), although only as a legatee. The 4 lawyers who had appeared for the appellant were sent to the Tower, and it was moved that Dalmahoy should join them for betraying the privileges of the Commons; he protested he had neither directly nor indirectly applied to the Lords, or owned their power, and the motion was rejected.

Thomas Dalmahoy MP was named on the working lists and included among the government supporters, while Anthony Ashley-Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury in 1677 marked him ‘doubly vile’.

In "A Seasonable Argument" Dalmahoy was described as ‘a Scotch serving-man’ and ‘a creature of Lauderdale’s’.

When complaint was made of Scots regiments in the French army, Thomas Dalmahoy MP pointed out that there were 3 times as many in the Dutch service.

Thomas Dalmahoy MP as teller for the adjournment in order to avoid a debate on Lauderdale. His name appeared on both lists of the court party for this year.

Thomas Dalmahoy MP stood for re-election on the Guildford corporation interest at the first general election of 1679, and defeated the republican Algernon Sidney, despite energetic canvassing by the Quakers.

Shaftesbury marked him ‘vile’ and Dalmahoy voted against exclusion. His only committees in the first Exclusion Parliament were to inquire into the decay of the woolen manufactures and the abuses of the post office.
his only recorded speech, he again defended Lauderdale: “No man in his station has defeated the designs of the Papists more than the Duke. When 10,000 or 12,000 were up in rebellion in Scotland, all at a time, did not the Duke show himself a good subject? ... I never saw the French Ambassador with him, and I frequent his house.”

As one of the ‘unanimous club’ Dalmahoy did not stand again, and sold his Guildford property in 1681.

Thomas Dalmahoy MP died on 24 May 1682, and was buried at St. Martin in the Fields.
No other member of the Dalmahoy family sat in Parliament, either north or south of the border.
Extracts from https://www.historyofparliamenton…

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References

Chart showing the number of references in each month of the diary’s entries.

1660