Richard Hamilton ( officer ) Richard Hamilton ( c . 1655 - December 1717 ) was a Jacobite Irish army officer who fought on both sides during the Williamite War in Ireland . Biography . Richard was a younger son of George Hamilton of Donalong , an Irish baronet and the younger son of James Hamilton , 1st Earl of Abercorn . He was a younger brother of the playwright Anthony Hamilton . As an infant the family moved to France , until the Restoration , when his family moved to Whitehall . In 1678 he succeeded Thomas Dongan as the regiment ' s colonel , but it was disbanded later that year and he joined a French regiment , which he commanded for over six years . He was said to have been popular in the French court and in 1681 was documented as putting on a performance in front of Louis XIV as a zephyr at Saint - Germain - en - Laye in Quinault ' s ballet " Le Triomphe de l ' amour " . In March 1685 he departed from the French service after a bitter disagreement with the minister of war over the state of his regiment and after a brawl with Marquis d ' Alincourt , fighting for the affections of the Princess de Conti , Louis XIV ' s recently widowed daughter . After returning to England , he was made a colonel of dragoons of Ireland by James II on 20 June 1685 . He was promoted to brigadier in April 1686 , making him the third most senior member of the Irish army . In May 1686 he was appointed to the privy council of Ireland . He was promoted to major - general on 12 November 1688 . In early 1687 , Richard Talbot , 1st Earl of Tyrconnell held considerable sway and was promoted to the position of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland . When word of the Glorious Revolution arrived in Ireland , many Protestants hostile to Tyrconnell immediately declared their support for William of Orange . William dispatched Colonel Richard Hamilton to Tyrconnell to request his surrender , thinking that Hamilton would be a useful intermediary as a fellow Catholic . Hamilton instead urged Tyrconnell to reject William ' s terms and joined Tyrconnell ' s side . Upon landing at Ringsend in January 1689 he was reported to have gone straight to a tavern , where he ‘ broke out into loud laughter , saying he could not forbear it , thinking how finely he had shammed the Prince of Orange ’ . He was promoted to Lieutenant - General and immediately marched through Ulster at the head of a Catholic army seizing Protestant towns . He engaged and defeated Sir Arthur Rawdon in the battle called the Break of Dromore on 14 March 1689 . Under Tyrconnell he later commanded the right wing of the Irish army , defending the ford at Oldbridge during the Battle of the Boyne on 1 July 1690 . He once raided the Antrim Castle with his men and took Viscount Massereene ' s silver plate and other silverware and furniture up to a value of £3000 , a considerable loss at the time . Hamilton was caught and placed before King William and kept a prisoner in Dublin until January 1691 , when he was moved to Chester Castle . He was released in April 1692 in exchange for Lord Mountjoy , after which he departed again for France , arriving in Versailles . There he served under Marshal Bellefonds in King James ' s invasion force in Normandy , but were forced to retreat in 19 – 24 May 1692 . Hamilton became active in the exiled Jacobite court and in 1696 he became James ' s master of the robes . In March 1708 they attempted to invade Scotland but the attack was aborted . In 1713 , Hamilton was implicated in a scandal in which he had plotted to usurp Lord Middleton as secretary of state and in destitution later went to live with his niece , the abbess of the convent of St Marie , Poussay where he lived a life of piety and died in December 1717 .