| Sometime before November 1504 the Earl of Arran raised an action against his wife, stating that though they were married and had lived as man and wife, he was not bound to adhere to her or show her a husband's affection, because a marriage had formerly been solemnised between her and the above-named Thomas Hay. The latter was dead before the divorce was pronounced, but it was proved by the depositions of witnesses that he had appeared before a notary to object, and had asserted that Elizabeth Home was his lawful wife, and therefore could not rightly be joined in marriage to Hamilton. The date when this assertion was made is not given, but there is evidence that Thomas Hay, whether he had been abroad or not, was in Scotland on 20 June 1491, a year after his alleged wife's marriage to Hamilton. If he took proceedings then, it is strange that the divorce was not pronounced until 1504. Further, the sentence of divorce, though pronounced in that year, was repeated in similar terras on 11 March 1509-10, which corroborates a statement made by Sir George Douglas in 1542 that the Governor's father lived with his first wife twenty years, a period represented by the years between 1490 and 1510. It is thus evident that the divorce of 1504 was considered doubtful by contemporaries, and that the parties separated finally only after the renewal of the sentence. |