Claude Duval legend, including claims of alchemy, gambling, and much womanising. He is reported to haunt the Holt Hotel along the A4260 (Oxford Road) in Oxfordshire, a hotel where he spent many nights when it was a small coaching inn. Recent historians have reappraised the legacy of Duval. James Sharpe in "Dick Turpin" regarded Duval as the most significant figure in the shaping of the highwayman myth. John and Philip Sugden's "The Thief of Hearts" reconstructs what is known of the historical Duval, using much fresh evidence, and shows that the traditions about the Frenchman were used by such literary luminaries as
John Hope, Lord Craighall 1641, Hope married Dame Rachel Speir, Lady Currichill, on 7 December 1643. By his first wife, Hope had two sons and six daughters. The elder son, Thomas, born on 11 February 1633, was grandfather of Sir John Hope Bruce, 7th baronet, with whom his line became extinct. The second son, Archibald Hope (1639–1706), was Lord of Session in 1689, and Lord of Justiciary in 1690. He took the title of Lord Rankeillor, and was M.P. for Fifeshire from 25 April 1706 till his death on 10 October that year. The baronetcy continued through his line when Sir Thomas Hope, 8th