Volume 4

A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen / edited by Robert Chambers.

Date:
1854-1855
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen / edited by Robert Chambers. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    338/354 (page 84)
    Nitldry of Niddry, county of Linlithgow. He declined being a partaker in the pecuniary grant, which, on the 9th of June ensuing, was moved by the chan- cellor of the exchequer, as a reward for the services of him and oilier distin- guished generals. On the death of his brother by his father’s prior marriage, he succeeded to the family title of earl of Hopetoun, and in August, 1619, he attained to the rank of general. He died at Paris, on the 27th August, 1623, in the 58th year of his age. From the Edinburgh Annual Register for 1823 we extract a character of this excellent and able man, which, if it have a small decree too much of the beau ideal in its composition, seems to be better fitted to the person to whom it is applied, than it might be to many equally celebrated. “ As the friend and companion of Moore,” says this chronicle, “ and as acting under Wellington in the Pyrenean campaign, he had rendered himself conspicuous. But it was when, by succession to the earldom, he became the head of one of the most ancient houses in Scotland, and the possessor of one of its most extensive properties, that his character shone in its fullest lustre. He exhibited then a model, as perfect seemingly as human nature could admit, of the manner in which this eminent and useful station ought to be filled. An open and magnificent hospitality, suited to his place and rank, without extravagance or idleSparade, a full and public tribute to the obligations of religion and private morality, without ostentation or austerity; a warm interest in the improvement and welfare of those extensive districts with which his possessions brought him into contact—a kinjl and generous concern in the welfare of the humblest of his dependents,—these qualities made him beloved and respected in an extraordinary degree, and will cause him to be long remembered.”1 HOPE, (Sib) Thomas, an eminent lawyer and statesman of the fifteenth cen- tury, and’the founder of a family distinguished for its public services, was the son of Henry Hope, a considerable Scottish merchant, whose grandfather, John de Hope, was one of the gentlemen attending Magdalene de Valois, first consort of James V., at her coming into this country in 1537. Henry Hope, a younger brother of the subject of this memoir, following the profession of his father, was the progenitor of the great and opulent branch of the Hopes of Amsterdam; a house, for extent of commerce and solidity of credit, long considered superior, without exception, to any private mercantile company in the world. Thomas Hope, after having distinguished himself at school in no small degree, entered upon the study of the law, and made so rapid a progress in juridical knowledge, that he was at a very early age called to the bar. However, like the generality of young lawyers, he enjoyed at first a very limited practice ; in 160G, he burst at once upon the world on the following occasion. Six ministers of the church of Scotland having thought proper to deny that the king and his council possessed any authority in ecclesiastical affairs, were on that account imprisoned for some months in Blackness castle, indicted for high treason, and on the l Oth of January, 1606, put upon trial at Linlithgow, before a jury consisting' chiefly of landed gentlemen of the three Lothians. As it was carefully promulgated that the king and court had openly expressed the highest displeasure against the ministers, and had declared that they w ould show no favour 3 The esteem and affection in which the earl was held in the scenes of private life, and in his character as a landlord, has, since his death, been testified in a remarkable manner by the erection of no fewer than three monuments to liis memory, on the tops of as many hills—one in Fife, on the mount of Sir David Lindsay, another in Linlithgowshire, near Hopetoun House, and the third in the neighbourhood of Haddington. An equestrian statue of his lordship has also been erected in St. Andrew’s Square, Edinburgh, with an inscription from the pen of Sir Walter Scott. A correct and masterly engraving of Lord Hopetoun, representing him standing beside his horse, has been published.