James Hope of Hopetoun

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