(1710 - 46), o. surv. s. of Hon. Frederick Hamilton; suc. fa. 1715; educ. Westminster; suc. gd.-fa. 1723 as 2nd Vct. Boyne [I]; Dilettanti 1736; MP 1736 - 41; unm.
1730 - 1 Venice (by 20 Jan. - Mar. 1730), Piacenza, Padua (by 11 Jul.), Bologna (by 18 Jul.), Leghorn, Pisa, Lucca, Florence, Rome (by 27 Jul. - 3 Aug.), Naples (mid-Aug.), Rome ( - 26 Aug.), Florence (by 29 Sep.) [Genoa, Turin, Milan] Padua (3 Nov.), Venice (by 1 Dec. 1730), Padua (Mar. 1731), Venice ( - 12 Apr.) [Malta, Lisbon, etc.] Italy [England Oct.]
Lord Boyne travelled with Edward Walpole, the second son of Sir Robert Walpole. They were in Venice for the Carnival in January 1730 and remained 'till ye Opera begins at Piacenza, rather than go to any other town in Italy'.1 They were in Padua on 11 July2 and Bologna on the 18th, intending to go on to Florence, via Leghorn, Pisa and Lucca.3 They were in Rome by 27 July, when Stosch said they meant to stay 'but a few weeks'.4 On 3 August Stosch reported they were 'entirely taken up with seeing the antiquities' and planned to return to England 'next week'; but on 10 August he said they had gone to Naples, and then that they had left Rome on 26 August for Florence.5 (Owen Swiney meanwhile had written that they were leaving Rome together in the first week of August 'to make the best of our way for Florence by Perugia and Cortona'.6) By November 1730 they were in Padua 'having seen all ye great Towns in Italy', and in December they were 'still' in Venice.7 Walpole returned to England in January 1731, but Boyne stayed in northern Italy. He was in Padua in March with Sir James Gray and Joseph Alston 'going either to Spain or Constantinople'.8 On 13 April 'Lord Boyn, Sr James Gray, Mr Alston and Mr Swiny [Swiney] went on board a small Scotch-ship last night, in order to visit the isles of Malta and Minorca, Gibraltar, Cadiz and Lisbon; from which they propose to come back by land, and see all that is worth seeing in Spain in their return to Italy again, where they are under some sort of promise to be by the end of the Autumn'.9 By October 1731 Lord Boyne was back in England.
There are two portraits of Boyne from his Italian tour: Nazari's Lord Boyne in his Cabin (which relates to the last expedition to Spain)10 and a pastel by Rosalba Carriera (priv. coll.).
1. SP 99/63, ff.123, 135 (Burges, 20 Jan., 17 Mar. 1730). 2. Brown 1880. 3. R.B. Peake, Memoirs of the Colman Family, [1841], 1:17. 4. SP 98/32, f.87. 5. SP 98/32, ff.89, 91, 101. 6. 29 Jul. 1730; Peake (at n3), 1:18 - 19. 7. SP 99/63, ff.145, 147 (Burges, 3 Nov., 1 Dec. 1730). 8. Brown 1892. 9. SP 99/63, f.159 (Burges, 13 Apr. 1731). 10. See F.J.B. Watson, Burl.Mag., 91[1949]:76 - 7.