John Hooper became Bishop of Worcester in 1552, following a turbulent life dedicated to God and to his evangelical or reformist beliefs[i]. As we will see it only took him fifteen years to achieve a Bishopric: a post, which he only held for three years before becoming a high-profile victim of Queen Mary.
John Hooper was born into a wealthy family in about 1495. Not much else is known about him until in 1519, when he gained a BA from Oxford, possibly from Merton College[ii]. He then may have gone to Cleeve Abbey Somerset, as a Cistercian monk, read the work of Luther, and started to formulate his own Protestant beliefs but he may have been a friar elsewhere[iii]. This spell in his life was abruptly bought to an end by the dissolution of the monasteries, with Cleeve Abbey being one of the first to be affected and dissolved in 1536/7. If he was at Cleeve Abbey, Hooper was one of the sixteen monks that were forced to surrender the Abbey on 6th September 1536, and to finally leave in the spring of 1537.
On leaving monastic life he returned to Oxford. He had a disagreement with the Regius Professor of Divinity Dr. Richard Smith, who it was chronicled held very strong Catholic beliefs[iv]. Due to his reformist views and his quarrel with Smith, Hooper left and became a steward in the household of Sir Thomas Arundell, a King’s official of the dissolution.
Hooper began to read the writings of Huldrych Zwingli, a Swiss clergyman and Protestant theologian. Zwingli challenged the ideas of church ceremonies and hierarchy, services in Latin, and the idea that sacraments were relevant to salvation[v]. Hooper is known to have been affected by these teachings and he wrote to Heinrich Bullinger (Zwingli’s successor) as Bullinger’s writings also helped Hooper.
All these reformist rumblings startled his employer Sir Thomas Arundell who sent Hooper to his friend, Bishop Gardener of Winchester, to try and get Hooper to rethink his rapidly forming Protestant views[vi]. Hooper disregarded all of Bishop Gardener’s arguments and efforts. This would cause the two men to be at loggerheads for many years to come.
The passing of The Act of Six Articles in 1539, which confirmed amongst other things the chastity of the priesthood, and the belief in transubstantiation must have worried Hooper[vii]. He had however made known his views in various sermons, writings and letters, and by doing so had made himself a target. It was already known where his sympathies lay.
Hooper decided to leave England and travel to the continent, where he could hopefully link up with some like-minded people, such as Bullinger[viii]. Hooper spent most of the 1540s in Europe where he wrote to Martin Bucer, the Protestant reformer and scholar who favoured a guarded, more gentle approach to reform rather like Thomas Cranmer (Archbishop of Canterbury), or Nicholas Ridley (Bishop of London and Westminster)[ix]. Whilst abroad Hooper also met and married Anne de Tscerlas[x]. Hooper sent letters to Bullinger from his base in Basle, Switzerland, outlining the beliefs he was nurturing and developing. Bullinger replied favourably to his letters and congratulated Hooper on developing his beliefs. Hooper and Anne travelled to Zurich where Bullinger was living and for a time took up residence with him. It was also in Zurich that Hooper met Johannes Laski the Polish reformer[xi]. In their company Hooper absorbed more fully the teachings of Zwingli.
Hooper’s time in Zurich was very productive. He produced three books which outlined all he believed in. The death of King Henry VIII in 1547 changed everything for Hooper. He received word that mass was now forbidden and this encouraged him to think that reform was becoming popular. Hooper in 1549 therefore decided to return to England, now under the rule of Edward VI who was felt to be forward thinking and supportive of reform[xii]. However, the Church of England was unwilling to embrace the radical and by now quite well-known Hooper, who was on a mission to convert as much of the Church of England to as pure a style of worship as possible without the many medieval additions or alterations. He became the chaplain to the Duke of Somerset who was the Lord Protector and a very influential member of government[xiii]. Hooper preached to large groups of people[xiv]. Many ordinary people seemed glad to hear him but not so contemporary conservative clerics and seniors.
Edward Bonner, twice Bishop of London 1539-1549 and 1553-1559, preached against reformation and Protestantism. Hooper made another enemy in high places by preaching against him and denouncing Bonner. In the next blog article, we will follow Hooper’s further life and work in the last years of King Edward VI’s reign and then his martyrdom under the persecutions ordered by Queen Mary.
Julie Martin
Bibliography
Parker Society. Later Writings of Bishop Hooper together with His Letters and Other Pieces; edited for The Parker Society by Revd. Charles Nevinson. 1852. [Online]. Edition: 1852. Cambridge. The University Press. Accessed 17/7/2022. Available from: Archive.org. URL from: https://archive.org/details/laterwritingsofb25hoopuoft/mode/2up
G.R. Elton, Reformation Europe 1517-1559, Fontana Press, London 1990
Felicity Heal, Oxford History of the Christian Church: Reformation in Britain and Ireland, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2005
Diarmaid MacCulloch, Tudor Church Militant. Edward VI and the Protestant Reformation, Penguin Books, London 2001
Richard Rex, “The friars in the English Reformation” in Peter Marshall & Alec Ryrie’s The beginnings of English Protestantism, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2002
The Concise Dictionary of National Biography to 1985 – volume II: G-M, Oxford University Press, The Softback Preview 1995
Encyclopedia Britannica, Archibald Constable & Co., Edinburgh 1823
John Foxe, The Third volume of the Ecclesiastical Historie Containing the Acts and Monuments of Martyrs etc, The Company of Stationers, London 1641 (Worcester Cathedral Library DF16)
Thomas Fuller, Abel Redevivus or the dead yet speaking, T. Brudenell, London 1652 (Worcester Cathedral Library WK4)
[i] Joyce M. Horn (ed.), Ely, Norwich, Westminster and Worcester Dioceses. Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1541-1857 VII, University of London, Institute of Historical Research, 1992, p.105
[ii] Encyclopedia Britannica 1823, p.596
[iii] Richard Rex, “The friars in the English Reformation” in Peter Marshall & Alec Ryrie’s The beginnings of English Protestantism, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2002, p.47
[iv] John Foxe, The Third volume of the Ecclesiastical Historie Containing the Acts and Monuments of Martyrs etc, The Company of Stationers, London 1641, p.145 (hereafter Foxe, Ecclesiastical Historie)
[v] G.R. Elton, Reformation Europe 1517-1559, Fontana Press, London 1990, pp. 66-67
[vi] Foxe, Ecclesiastical Historie, p.145
[vii] Diarmaid MacCulloch, Tudor Church Militant. Edward VI and the Protestant Reformation, Penguin Books, London 2001, pp.5-6, 67
[viii] Foxe, Ecclesiastical Historie, p.145
[ix] https://archive.org/details/laterwritingsofb25hoopuoft/page/n13/mode/2up?q=ix [accessed 18/01/2023]
[x] https://archive.org/details/laterwritingsofb25hoopuoft/page/n13/mode/2up?q=ix [accessed 18/01/2023]
[xi] https://archive.org/details/laterwritingsofb25hoopuoft/page/n13/mode/2up?q=ix [accessed 18/01/2023]
[xii] See for example Felicity Heal, Oxford History of the Christian Church: Reformation in Britain and Ireland, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2005, p.264
[xiii] The Concise Dictionary of National Biography to 1985 – volume II: G-M, Oxford University Press, The Softback Preview 1995, p.1473
[xiv] Thomas Fuller, Abel Redevivus or the dead yet speaking, T. Brudenell, London 1652, p. 172
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