Series 1 > Miscellany of the Scottish History Society (First volume)

INTRODUCTION
77
baronies of Nether Kelwood, Granoch, Almorness, Rampatrick,
Airikstane, Fangarth, Branchie, Gratney, Holywood, and Drys-
dale, in the county of Dumfries, and stewartry of Kirkcudbright,
Castlehead of Falkland in Fife, Tyninghame in East Lothian,
and the offices of the bailliary of the Abbeys of Dundrennan
and Lincluden. His lordship appears to have been a personal
friend as well as a client of Sir Thomas Hope, whose profes¬
sional advice and assistance he frequently required in the
management of his extensive possessions. Among the Laing
mss., in the library of Edinburgh University, there is preserved
an original letter to him from Thomas, first Earl of Had¬
dington (to whom he sold Tyninghame in 1627, see Letters
in, v, and vi), in which the latter bears very favourable testi¬
mony to the character and conduct of Hope. It is dated 8th
January 1631, and is interesting as presenting us with an
estimate of these, formed by one of his own contemporaries.
Referring to certain legal questions between the Earl of An-
nandale and another, Lord Haddington writes,—
‘ Your lordship may be assured that my lord advocat will
giue him no advantage against you nor to any other, so far as
his great sufficiencie can resist it, and that in your businesse
with Sir Richard Graham he will giue that aduice which agries
with the dutie of a worthie man, who respects both parties for
allowable considerations. For as he will euer acknowledge
what he owes you for the help he had from you and your
friends to promoue him and establish him in his place, so out
of the necessitie of the time that forces men to provide meanes
to maintaine them against the envie and calumnies that puts
all men to their defenses, he must gain the favour and protec¬
tion of such as are powerfull to support. But I sail neuer
beleeue that any man sail be able to moue him to breake any
point of dutie to your lordship. Your lordship and I haue
long trusted him according to the loue and kindness we found
in him, and striue to deserue it. His employments for his
Maiesties seruice, wherby he procures to himself much dislike,