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'James Hamilton, 1st Earl of Arran', (c.1475–1529) was a Scottish politician.
He was a son of the 1st Lord Hamilton and Princess Mary Stewart of Scotland. Mary was a daughter of King James II and his Queen consort Mary of Gueldres. She was also a sister of King James III.
James succeeded to his father's lordship in 1479, and was made a Scottish Privy Counsellor by his first cousin King James IV, whose marriage with Margaret Tudor he negotiated in 1503. In the same year Lord Hamilton was created Earl of Arran for his skill in tournament.
He was appointed Lieutenant General of Scotland and helped to reduce the Western Isles in 1504 and to re-establish John of Denmark. Hamilton was detained in the Kingdom of England by Henry VII after a diplomatic mission to the court of Louis XII of France in 1507.
During the minority of King James V he opposed Archibald Douglas, 6th Earl of Angus and the English party. He plotted against the Regent John Stewart, 2nd Duke of Albany. He was president of the council of regency during Albany's absence in France from 1517 to 1520.
He was defeated in an attempt to overpower Angus in the streets of Edinburgh in 1520, a riot known as "Cleanse the Causeway". He was again a member of the council of regency in 1522 and Lieutenant of the South. He joined the Queen Dowager Margaret Tudor in ousting Albany and proclaiming James V in 1524.
Hamilton was compelled by King Henry VIII to readmit Angus to the council. He supported Angus against John Stewart, 3rd Earl of Lennox in 1526, but on the escape of James V from the Douglases, Hamilton received Bothwell from Angus's forfeited estates.