Sir James Hope

James Hope of Hopetoun (1614–1661), was a Scottish lawyer, industrialist and politician.

He was the owner of Keith Marischal.

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. From February 1636 to October 1637 he studied law in France. After his first marriage in 1638 he devoted himself to the working of the lead mines on the estate, at Leadhills.

In 1642 Hope was appointed general of the cunzie-house, an office with both a civil and a criminal jurisdiction. 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, he was, on 1 June 1649, chosen an ordinary lord of session. In this year and also in 1650 he sat in parliament as commissioner for the county of Stirling. He was also one of the committee of estates, and a commissioner both of public accounts and for the revision of the laws.

Hope was one of those sent to take any statement from Montrose on his arrival as a prisoner in Edinburgh. On 20 May 1650 he was appointed president of the committee for the examining of prisoners taken during the civil war. When the Scottish people, after the execution of Charles I, were set on restoring the monarchy, Hope suggested a compromise. He voted at Perth on 20 June 1650 against levying an army to resist the advance of Oliver Cromwell, and was denounced by Argyll. On 7 January 1651 he was refused a passport to leave the country. 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.

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