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The chief of the Hopes bears one of the more distinctive and evocative crests in Scottish heraldry. It depicts a broken globe, flanked by clouds from which a rainbow spreads across the sky. Accompanied by the Latin motto At Spes Infracta—translated as “But Hope is Unbroken”—the imagery is both symbolic and carefully chosen. The rainbow, a longstanding emblem of hope and divine promise, contrasts with the fractured globe, which represents the troubles and uncertainties of the earthly world. Together, they convey the idea that even when worldly affairs are shattered, hope endures. It is essentially contrasting earthly woes with heavenly perfection.
The crest in its current form is recorded in Alexander Nisbet’s System of Heraldry of the 1720s, but its origins almost certainly lie earlier. It is generally associated with Sir Thomas Hope of Craighall, the eminent jurist and King’s Advocate of the early seventeenth century. Evidence suggests the device was already in use by the 1630s, as it appears on the seal of Sir Thomas’s son in 1636 (see the Clan Hope website).
The emblem’s allegorical imagery and confident symbolism fit well within the Renaissance visual language popular in Scotland around 1600, a period when learned families increasingly adopted crests that reflected intellectual ideals as much as lineage or martial prowess.