James Hope of Hopetoun

The sixth son of Sir Thomas Hope of Craighall, Fife, Scotland, by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of John Binning or Bennet of Wallyford, Haddingtonshire, he was born on 12 July 1614.

On the death of his brother, Sir Thomas Hope of Kerse, a lord of session, on 23 August 1643, his friends made a vain attempt to get him named as successor, the enactment of the Act of Classes, disqualifying from office anyone directly or indirectly accessory to the "Engagement" with England.

[1] In January 1646, Hope went to London and borrowed money from Robert Inglis and his Dutch agent, Anthonis Tierens, for a study trip abroad to research mineral technologies.

For inciting his brother, Sir Alexander Hope, to suggest to Charles II the advisability of surrendering England, Ireland, and even a part of Scotland to Cromwell to save the rest, he was shortly afterwards sent to prison, but on 20 January was ordered to confine himself within his country estate.

In 1654 he was made a commissioner for the sale of forfeited estates, but in July of the same year he was omitted in the new commission of justice, because his conduct at the dissolution of Barebone's Parliament had displeased Cromwell.

On a visit to Holland in the following year, in connection with his lead business, he caught "Flanders fever", of which he died, two days after landing in Scotland, at his brother's house of Granton, on 23 November 1661.

[1] James Hope's diary reveals his keen interest in minerals, metallurgy and manufacture, and much of his income derived from the Leadhill lead mines which came with his wife's property.

In August 1647 he became involved in a plan to set up a glassworks at Prestonpans proposed by the Italian portrait painter Isaac Visitella and his brothers Cornelius and Christopher.

[6] Hope presented the exiled Charles II with a nugget of Scottish gold and met him at Falkland Palace in July 1651.