Hoooper, JOHN

Hoooper, JOHN, an English bishop and martyr, was born in Somersetshire about 1495, and educated at Merton College, Oxford, whence in 1518 he passed to a Cistercian monastery at Gloucester. The reading of Zwingli made him a Reformer, and having for some time served as chaplain to Sir Thomas Arundel he twice went, in 1539-40, for safety's sake to the Continent, and after travelling in France and Germany married and settled for three years at Zurich. In 1549 he returned to England, and became a popular preacher in London. In 1550 he was appointed Bishop of Gloucester, and for his difficulty about the oath and his objections to wearing the episcopal habit was imprisoned for some time in the Fleet. His labours as a bishop were incessant, and he wore out nature in devotion to his duty. In 1552 he received the bishopric of Worcester in commendam. Next year at the commencement of Mary's reign he was committed to the Fleet, and after eighteen months' imprisonment was tried for heresy and condemned to death. He was burned at the stake at Gloucester, February 9, 1555, his sufferings being much prolonged by the use of green wood. His Early Writings were edited by the Rev. Samuel Carr in 1843; his Later Writings, by the Rev. Charles Nevinson in 1852, both for the Parker Society.