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

LETTERS OF SIR THOMAS HOPE
had, as a young man, received the small property of Bandeath,
situated on the banks of the river Forth in Stirlingshire, from
his father; and in 1639 the barony and manor of Cambus-
kenneth, the property formerly of his elder brother. Sir
Alexander Erskine, was made over to him by his mother, the
countess, to whom the latter had conveyed it in consideration
of heavy debts which she had paid for him. He is said to
have been her favourite son, and at her death she bequeathed
to him the larger portion of her personal effects, including
plate, and many very valuable pictures, which are still in the
possession of his descendants. As a prominent Covenanter
Sir Charles was fined i?6000 Scots by Middleton’s Parliament
in 1662.1 By his marriage with Marie Hope he had seven
children—five sons and two daughters—most of whom died in
infancy or youth, and the fourth of whom, Charles, succeeded
him, and was afterwards made a baronet in 1666. After the
death of his first wife, he was married again, about 1655, to
Helen Skene, daughter of Sir John Skene, Lord Curriehill, and
by her, who survived him, he had a daughter, Mary, and a son,
John. He died at Edinburgh on the 8th day of July 1663,
and was buried in the family vault beneath the church at Alva.
Alexander (afterwards Sir Alexander) Hope, the sixth child,
and fifth son of Sir Thomas Hope, was born on the 12th of
March 1611. In his youth he became, first, Carver Extra¬
ordinary, and afterwards Cup-bearer to King Charles i., to
whom he appears to have been warmly devoted.2 From the
tenor of such letters as Numbers xm and xv, and from
various entries in the first portion of his father’s Diary,
it is evident that his extravagance was a cause of grief and
embarrassment to Sir Thomas.3 He was married in December
1642 to a wealthy English lady, Anna Bill, apparently a widow,
from the mention of her father-in-law, Sir Thomas Bludder,
in the contract of marriage, the original of which is still extant,
1 Wodrow’s Hist., vol. i. p. 276.
3 Hope’s Diary, pp. 44, 64, 65, 68, 73, 77.
2 See Letter xix, p. 131.