- ‘Eight Sermons preached on several occasions from 1681 to 1713.’ These are admirably written with studied plainness, but able, earnest and scholarly.
- ‘An Inquiry into the State of Antient Weights and Measures, the Attick, the Roman and the Jewish,’ 1721.
- ‘De Benedictione Patriarchæ Jacobi, Gen. xlix. conjecturæ,’ 1728. This was published by Hooper’s own directions on his deathbed, at Oxford, by Thomas Hunt (1696-1774) [q. v.], who prepared in 1757 an excellent edition in 2 vols. of most, not all, of Hooper’s works. Another edition of the same was republished at Oxford in 1855.
however, that a new edition of Tertullian’s works was being prepared abroad, he sent his ‘notes’ (which were very highly thought of) to the editors, and they were lost.
[Prowse’s MS. Life of Bishop Hooper; the Works of the Right Rev. George Hooper, Bishop of Bath and Wells, new edition, in 2 vols., Oxford, 1855 (reprint of Hunt’s edition of 1757); Life of Bishop Ken, by Dr. Plumptre, dean of Wells, 1888; Burnet’s History of His Own Time; Hearne’s Collections, ed. Doble, Oxf. Hist. Soc. i. 217, ii. 362, iii. 27, 174, 177; Whiston’s Memoirs; Life of Isaac Milles; Strickland’s Lives of the Seven Bishops.]
HOOPER, JOHN (d. 1555), bishop of Gloucester and Worcester, was born towards the end of the fifteenth century in Somerset, where his father was a man of wealth. The exact date and place are not known. He himself usually spelt his name Hoper, others wrote it Houper. He graduated B.A. at Oxford early in 1519, but his college is unknown (Oxf. Univ. Reg. Oxf. Hist. Soc. i. 108). An older kinsman of the same names was elected fellow of Merton College, Oxford, in 1510, and was afterwards (1514) principal of St. Alban Hall (cf. Memorials of Merton, Oxf. Hist. Soc. p. 248). Hooper, the future bishop, is said, very doubtfully, to have also studied at Merton College, but the statement is possibly due to a confusion between the two John Hoopers. The ‘Chronicle of the Grey Friars of London’ (ed. Nichols, Camd. Soc. p. 63), says of him ‘That sometyme [he] was a whyte monnke,’ which points to his having been a Cistercian. He is said, after leaving the university, to have entered the Cistercian monastery at Gloucester, where he probably received holy orders. On the dissolution of the monasteries he went to reside in London, and, according to Foxe, lived ‘too much of a court life in the palace of the king.’ He soon became impressed by the writings of Zuinglius and Bullinger, and went back to Oxford with the intention of forwarding reforming views. He attracted the attention of Dr. Richard Smith (1500–1563) [q. v.], regius professor of divinity, who made preparations to seize and try him under the Six Articles Law; but Hooper fled in time from Oxford, and became steward in the household of Sir Thomas Arundell [q. v.]. His patron, finding that his opinions savoured of heresy, sent him to Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, to be convinced of his errors. But, after a disputation with the bishop, Hooper returned with his views unchanged, and it became necessary for him to fly from England to escape a prosecution for heresy. He went to Paris in 1539, but soon returned to England. Finding danger still threatening, he assumed the disguise of a captain of a ship and again went abroad, passing to Ireland, and thence by way of France to Switzerland. At Strasburg he had met with a lady of Antwerp, Anna de Tserelas, whom he married at Basle towards the end of 1546. In March 1547 Hooper went to Zurich, where he resided two years. He became very intimate with Bullinger, and corresponded also with Bucer and John Laski, or a Lasco [q. v.], whose opinions he eagerly adopted.
In May 1549, when the reformation was well established in England, Hooper returned and became chaplain to Protector Somerset. He now appeared as the leader of the advanced section of the reformers. He lectured twice a day in some of the London churches, and drew enormous auditories. His demeanour was excessively severe and repellent, and he was not personally popular. He engaged in controversy about divorce, maintaining its lawfulness, both for the woman and the man, in case of adultery. He was also engaged in a controversy with Traheron on predestination, and took a prominent part in denouncing Bonner. His views on the Eucharist recommended him to the young king, and he was chosen to preach the Lent lectures before him in 1550. He selected for his subject the prophet Jonas, and made many bitter attacks on the ordinal then lately set forth, on the oath by the saints, and the vestments. By his combativeness he much angered Cranmer, who caused him to be brought before the council, where he was severely rated. The king, however, was faithful to him, and the Lord-protector Warwick offered him the see of Gloucester, then vacant. The letters-patent nominating him to the see are dated 3 July 1550 (Rymer, Fœdera, xv. 240). Hooper refused the see, on the ground of his fixed objection to the wording of the oath of supremacy; thereupon the king, on 20 July, erased with his own hand the specification of saints and angels. Hooper still hesitated on account of the vestments, which he considered idolatrous, upon which the king, on 5 Aug., issued a dispensation to Archbishop Cranmer, which was signed
