Everything about John Hooper totally explained
» For the Canadian sculptor of the same name, see John Hooper (sculptor).
John Hooper (1495-1500 -
February 9,
1555) was an
English churchman,
Bishop of Gloucester and
Worcester. He was
martyred during the
Marian Persecutions.
Biography
Much is uncertain about Hooper's early life. Hooper is said to have been born in
Somerset to a wealthy family, but he may have been born and raised in
Devon or
Oxfordshire. He took his
BA at
Oxford in
1519. He is said to have then become a
Cistercian monk at
Gloucester (which is problematic as there were no Cistercian houses there and
Gloucester Abbey was
Benedictine), but in
1538 a John Hooper appears among the names of the
Black Friars at Gloucester and also among the
White Friars at
Bristol who surrendered their houses to the king. A John Hooper was likewise
canon of
Wormesley Priory in
Herefordshire; but identification of any of these with the future
bishop is doubtful. Rather, he appears to have been in 1538
rector of
Liddington,
Wiltshire, a
benefice in
Sir Thomas Arundell's gift, though he must have been a non-resident incumbent.
The Greyfriars' Chronicle says that Hooper was "sometime a
white monk"; and in the sentence pronounced against him by
Stephen Gardiner he's described as "olim monachus de Cliva Ordinis Cisterciensis," for example of the Cistercian house of
Cleeve Abbey in
Somerset. On the other hand, he wasn't accused, like other married bishops who had been monks or
friars, of infidelity to the vow of chastity; and his own letters to
Heinrich Bullinger are curiously reticent on this part of his history. He speaks of himself as being the only son and heir of his father and as fearing to be deprived of his inheritance if he adopted the reformed religion.
Before 1546 Hooper had secured employment as steward in Arundell's household. Hooper speaks of himself at this period as being "a courtier and living too much of a court life in the palace of our king." But he chanced upon some of
Zwingli's works and Bullinger's commentaries on
St Paul's epistles which elicited an evangelical conversion. After some correspondence with Bullinger on the lawfulness of complying against his conscience with the established religion, and following some trouble in England c. 1539–40 with
Stephen Gardiner,
bishop of Winchester to whom Arundell had referred him out of concern for his new views, Hooper determined to secure what property he could and take refuge on the continent in Paris for an unknown period of time. Hooper returned to England to serve
Sir John St Loe,
constable of
Thornbury Castle,
Gloucestershire, Arundell's nephew.
Hooper found it necessary to leave for the continent again, probably in 1544, and he reached
Strasbourg by 1546 in the midst of the
Schmalkaldic war when he decided to permanently move to
Zürich. But first he returned to England to receive his inheritance, and he claims to have been twice imprisoned. In Strasbourg again in early 1547, he married Anne de Tserclaes (or Tscerlas), a Belgian in the household of Jacques de Bourgogne, seigneur de Falais. He proceeded by way of
Basel to
Zürich, where his Zwinglian convictions were confirmed by constant intercourse with Zwingli's successor,
Heinrich Bullinger. He also made connections with
Martin Bucer,
Theodore Biliander,
Simon Grinaeus, and
Conrad Pellican. During this time Hooper published
An Answer to my Lord of Wynchesters Booke Intytlyd a Detection of the Devyls Sophistry (1547),
A Declaration of Christ and his Office (1547), and
A Declaration of the Ten Holy Commandments (1548).
It wasn't until May
1549 that Hooper returned to England. There he became the principal champion of Swiss
Protestantism against the
Lutherans as well as the
Catholics, and was appointed chaplain to
Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, the
Lord Protector. Hooper then had a hand in the formation of the Zwinglian inspired Dutch and French
Stranger churches in Glastonbury and London. Hooper enjoyed at this time a friendship with
John a Lasco and served as a witness for the prosecution in
Bishop Bonner's trial in 1549.
Somerset's fall from power endangered Hooper's position, especially as he'd taken a prominent part against Gardiner and Bonner, whose restoration to their sees was now anticipated.
John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland and subsequently
earl of Warwick, however, overcame the reactionaries in the Council, and early in 1550 the Reformation resumed its course. Hooper became Warwick's chaplain, and after a course of
Lenten sermons before the king he was offered the bishopric of
Gloucester. This led to a prolonged controversy (see
vestments controversy); in his sermons before the king and elsewhere Hooper had denounced the "Aaronic vestments" and the oath by the saints, prescribed in the new
Ordinal; and he refused to be consecrated according to its rites.
Thomas Cranmer,
Nicholas Ridley,
Martin Bucer and others urged him to submit; confinement to his house by order of the Council proved equally ineffectual; and it wasn't until he'd spent some weeks in the
Fleet prison that the "father of
nonconformity" consented to conform, and Hooper submitted to consecration with the legal ceremonies (
March 8,
1551).
Once installed as bishop, Hooper set about his episcopal duties with enthusiasm. His visitation of his
diocese (printed in
English Hist. Rev. Jan. 1904, pp. 98-121) revealed a condition of almost incredible ignorance among his clergy. Fewer than half could say the
Ten Commandments; some couldn't even repeat the
Lord's Prayer in English. Hooper did his best; but in less than a year the bishopric of Gloucester was reduced to an archdeaconry and added to
Worcester, of which Hooper was made bishop in succession to
Nicholas Heath. He was opposed to Northumberland's plot for the exclusion of
Mary Tudor from the throne; but this didn't save him from speedy imprisonment when she became queen.
He was said to have been given sanctuary at
Sutton Court before being sent to the
Fleet on
September 1 on a doubtful charge of debt; the real cause was his steadiness to a religion which was still by law established.
Edward VI's legislation was repealed in the following month, and in March 1554 Hooper was deprived of his
bishopric as a married man. There was still no statute by which he could be condemned to the stake, but he was kept in prison; the revival of the
heresy acts in December 1554 was swiftly followed by execution. On
January 29,
1555, Hooper,
John Rogers,
Rowland Taylor and others were condemned by Gardiner and degraded by Bonner. Hooper was sent down to suffer at Gloucester, where he was
burnt on 9 February, meeting his fate with steadfast courage and unshaken conviction.
Hooper was the first of the bishops to suffer because he represented the extreme reforming party in England. While he expressed dissatisfaction with some of
Calvin's earlier writings, he approved of the
Consensus Tigurinus negotiated in 1549 between the Zwinglians and
Calvinists of
Switzerland; and it was this form of religion that he laboured to spread in England against the wishes of Cranmer, Ridley, Bucer,
Pietro Martire and other more conservative theologians. He would have reduced episcopacy to narrow limits; and his views had considerable influence on the
Puritans of
Elizabeth's reign, when many editions of Hooper's various works were published.
Works
Two volumes of Hooper's writings are included in the Parker Society's publications and another edition appeared at Oxford in 1855. In 1550 he translated book 2 of
Tertullian's "Ad Uxorem" (To his wife), which is the first English translation of any of Tertullian's works.
See also
- Gough's General Index to Parker Soc. PubI.;
- Strype's Works (General Index);
- Foxe's Acts and Monuments, ed. Townsend; Acts of the Privy Council;
- Cal. State Papers, "Domestic" Series; Nichols's Lit. Remains of Edward VI.;
- Burnet, Collier, Dixon, Froude and Gairdner's histories; Pollard's Cranmer;
- Dict. Nat. Biogr..
Further Information
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