The surname is one of the most common and famous in Scotland, coming from the Norman baron Walter Fitzgilbert de Hameldone, a supporter of Robert the Bruce in the fourteenth century. His name came from the now deserted village of Hameldone (Old English hamel, "crooked", and dun, "hill") in the parish of Barkby in Leicestershire. The arrival of Hamiltons in Ireland is inextricably linked to the Plantation of Ulster in the seventeenth century, when a large number of the powerful Scottish landowners granted territory in the province were members of that family. They gained possession of vast tracts of land in counties Armagh, Cavan, Fermanagh and Tyrone, and settled many of their kinsmen on these estates. Sir Frederick Hamilton fought in the army of the Swedish King Gustavus Adolphus before settling in Ulster, and his grandson Gustavus Hamilton was created Viscount Boyne in 1717.