Hamilton's correspondence is dense and varied. Unlike the Leven and Melville Papers during the Revolution it is not all neatly published in one place or in one collection but scattered. The analysis on this collection is incomplete but telling. William Douglas-Hamilton was an important figure in the late seventeenth century serving in high office under both Charles II and James II. Despite his many honors, Hamilton was one of the first noblemen in Scotland to reach out to the later King William and Queen Mary. Under the Williamite administration he served as both the High Commissioner for the Scottish Parliament and the President of the Privy Council. Anne Shukman has argued that Hamilton was an experienced and wily politician who sat on vitally important committees, including those for preparing acts and granting supply. Hamilton was also willing to remain staunchly loyal to the monarch no matter who he or she was.1 He also presided over the Convention of Estates in Scotland, that was summoned at his request, and eventually offered the Scottish crown (which James had according to the Claim of Right "forefaulted") to William and Mary in March 1689.
His correspondence's physical manuscript lives at the National Records for Scotland National Records for Scotland under the designator GD406/1. Within the greater GD406 or Papers of the Douglas Hamilton Family, Dukes of Hamilton and Brandon lie more correspondence in different pockets, including printed collections outside of the National Records. The collection contains 317 letters, 7 intercepted letters, warrants, orders, accounts, proclamations etc, between the years of 1688 and 1692. Hamilton’s position as President of the Privy Council and High Commissioner meant that he operated at the interplay of politics and security and, together with the Treasury and Secretary of State, he provides an important locus point for the this investigation.
Hamilton's networks were dense. Much of his correspondence flowed through his secretary David Crawford. Which isn't that surprising given Crawford handled much of Hamilton’s day-by-day business including any requests for money or work that flowed through the Hamilton House.
As previously noted, node centrality offers an important glance into a person's centrality in a social or letter network. In any type of network, there are people who occupy positions with oversized influence based on their status or position between others. In Hamilton's personal network, unsurprisingly, he has the greatest centrality with a measure of 79, he is then followed by his son Arran who has a measure of 44, his secretary David Crawford has a degree centrality of 38, then these three men are followed by Lady Gerard (33), an Unknown sender (27), and the Duchess of Hamilton (17). Hamilton's high degree of centrality is directly related to his visibility as a public figure and his influence as both a landowner and High Commissioner of Parliament.
The papers included here constitute both state and personal papers. That is why there are distinct hubs outside of state relationships with the monarch and the privy council. This is a hetereogenerous material set with letters, memorandums, petitions, proclamations but it is primarly letters. The hubs highlight in eight places between Hamilton, his secretary Crawford, his son Arran, his wife the Duchess of Hamilton, John Clark, Lady Gerard, Madam Harcourt, and an Unknown sender. The data presented here was collected in two ways, manuscript transcription and metadata collection. The networks present reflect the metadata collection rather than the transcriptions themselves, primarily because we can reconstruct that connective network through the detailed metadata available at the Nayional Records for Scotland. This fact also accounts for the absence of a sender or receiver in some of the letters - where either the name is unclear or not present.
In terms of clustering, within the graph there are clusters present around the Duke of Hamilton, Lady Gerard, David Crawford, the Earl of Arran, John Clark, the Earl of Perth, and King William.
We found the highest betweenness centrality in the following people:
The betweenness centrality tells us the most obvious bridges are Hamilton himself, senders for which we have no names, Hamilton’s son Arran, Hamilton’s secretary, King James, Lady Gerard, John Dalrymple and Argyll. These figures are rulers, leading statesmen, secretaries, and members of the privy council. Hamilton himself sat as the High Commissioner for Parliament and on several defense committees and the privy council. He had an extensive network of communication as evinced by the graph, which included diplomats, kings, and spies.
Argyll, Dalrymple, and Arran are the political equivalents of diplomats and physically travelled around Scotland meaning their connective tissues were denser than the average letter receiver in the network. Argyll was sent on a number of expeditions throughout the period and helped quell an insurrection in the western islands. Arran found himself accused of Jacobitism on a number of occasions because of his position in the western islands. Where Dalrymple served in the privy council, in the Scottish Parliament, and as one of William’s closest advisors with his father James. Like foreign diplomats, these men were required to have regular communication with the central government. Each provided information, intelligence, and status updates of campaigns and their recommendations on next steps.