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 ness and cruel handling of the bodies of the saints among all the rest besides.’ Early in the reign Hopton reported to the queen a number of scandalous stories about herself which he found current in his diocese, and very stringent orders were sent to the justices to discover and punish the authors of them as well as the enemies of the true faith (, pt. ii. Appendix, bk. ii. No. 14;, Hist. of the Church, iv. 238). Hopton's zeal against heresy was stimulated by Ratcliffe, earl of Sussex, then resident in his diocese, by whose directions he established a system of ‘espionage’ over the propagators of unsound doctrines (, Cranmer, p. 525). Fuller says that Hopton was unmerciful in his visitations; but on a visitation of Norwich at Whitsuntide 1556, he left the city when the alleged heretics were brought up before him for examination by his officials, feeling himself no match for the quick wits of his opponents (, iii. 628). The persecution continued till the end of Mary's reign. Six suffered in Hopton's diocese in 1555, ten in 1556, sixteen in 1557, and fourteen had been burnt by November 1558, when the death of Mary, twelve days after the last had gone to the stake, interrupted Hopton's atrocities. According to Foxe, those who suffered at the stake in Hopton's diocese numbered forty-six in all. In only two dioceses, London and Canterbury, was the list of martyrs longer. Mary's death was speedily followed by his own. The date is not stated, but it was before the end of the year (1558). He died so deeply in debt that, ‘for all his spare hospitality, he was not able to pay half he owed.’ His debts to the crown swallowed up nearly all he left, his other creditors receiving little or nothing (, Life of Archbishop Parker, i. 75). 

HOPTON, RALPH, (1598–1652), son of Robert Hopton of Witham, Somerset, and Jane, widow of Sir Henry Jones, and daughter of Rowland Kemeys of Vaudry, Monmouthshire, was born about 1598 (, Rutland, p. 133;, Baronage, ii. 469; , Memoirs of Excellent Personages, 1668, p. 341). According to Wood he was a gentleman-commoner of Lincoln College, Oxford, and the statement is confirmed by the fact that he presented to the college about 1616 ‘a double gilt bowl’ (Athenæ Oxonienses, ed. Bliss, ii. 152; information from the Rev. Andrew Clark). At the beginning of the ‘thirty years' war’ Hopton entered the service of the elector palatine, and is said to have escorted the queen of Bohemia in her flight after the battle of Prague (, p. 342). In December 1624 Hopton was lieutenant-colonel of Sir Charles Rich's regiment raised in England for Mansfeld's expedition (, i. 153). When recalled to take part in the Cadiz expedition he declined to serve, because the fleet was not properly equipped either with provisions or money (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1625–6, pp. 27, 71, 123). At the coronation of Charles I (2 Feb. 1625) he was made a knight of the Bath (, Book of Knights, p. 186). On 12 Sept. 1628 he was appointed one of the commissioners for draining Sedgmoor (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1628–1629, p. 397). He represented Bath in the first parliament of Charles I, and Somerset in the Short parliament. In the parliament of 1628, as in the Long parliament, he sat for Wells. In the latter assembly he sided at first with the popular party, and both spoke and voted for Strafford's attainder (, Notes of the Long Parliament, p. 48;, iv. 248). He was appointed spokesman of the committee named to present the Remonstrance to the king, and reported his answer to the commons (Commons' Journals, ii. 328, 330).

In the spring of 1642, however, Hopton was one of the most prominent of the king's supporters in the commons. He excused the attempt to seize the ‘five members,’ and opposed the declaration of the house concerning it. He spoke also against the militia ordinance, and on 4 March so vigorously attacked a proposed manifesto of the parliament that he was sent to the Tower for ten days. According to Hopton the committee who had drawn the declaration had taxed the king with apostasy ‘upon a less evidence than would serve to hang a fellow for stealing a horse’ (, Studies and Illustrations of the Great Rebellion, pp. 469, 479, 482; Commons' Journals, ii. 467;, Rebellion, iv. 338).

In July 1642 the king sent the Marquis of Hertford to Somerset as lieutenant-general of the six western counties, and Hopton accompanied him, with the title of lieutenant-general of the horse in his army. He raised a troop at his own cost, and personally arrested William Strode, one of the de-