Hamilton became a Lord of the Bedchamber to George I and was installed as Governor of Edinburgh Castle in 1714. He also sat in the House of Lords as a Scottish representative peer. Promoted to field marshal (the first-ever promotion to this rank) on 31 January 1735, he commissioned the building of a temple at his Buckinghamshire home, Cliveden, by the architect Giacomo Leoni later that year.
