HOOPER, JOHN (d. 1555), bishop of Gloucester and Wor cester and martyr, was born in Somerset about the end of the 15th century and graduated B.A. at Oxford in 1519. In 1538 a John Hooper appears among the names of the Black friars at Gloucester, another among the White friars at Bristol who sur rendered their houses to the king, and another as canon of Wormesley priory in Herefordshire ; but identification of any of these with the future bishop is doubtful, and in the sentence pronounced against him by Gardiner he is described as "olim monachus de Cliva Ordinis Cisterciensis," i.e., of the Cistercian house at Cleeve, Somerset. Before 1S46 he was employed in the household of Sir Thomas Arundell and 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 ; and after some molestation in England and some corre spondence with Bullinger he took refuge on the continent, reach ing Strasbourg in the midst of the Schmalkaldic war. There he married Anne de Tserclaes, and later proceeded by way of Basle to Zurich, where his Zwinglian convictions were confirmed by constant intercourse with Bullinger, Zwingli's successor.
In May Hooper returned to England. He at once became the principal champion of Swiss Protestantism against the Lu therans as well as the Catholics and was appointed chaplain to protector Somerset. After Somerset's fall he became Warwick's chaplain and after a course of Lent lectures before the king was offered the bishopric of Gloucester. This led to a prolonged con troversy ; Hooper had already 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. Cranmer, Ridley, Bucer and others urged submission; confinement to his house by order of the council proved ineffectual; and he spent some weeks in the Fleet prison before he submitted to consecration with the legal ceremonies (March 8, 1551).
Although he had opposed Northumberland's plot for the ex clusion of Mary from the throne, he was sent to the Fleet on Sept. I, 1553, on a doubtful charge of debt to the queen; the real cause was his staunchness to a religion which was still by law estab lished. Edward VI.'s legislation was, however, repealed in the following month, and in March 1554 Hooper was deprived of his bishopric as a married man.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 Hooper was kept in prison, and in December the heresy acts were revived. On Jan. Hooper, Rogers, Rowland Taylor and others were con demned by Gardiner and degraded by Bonner. Hooper was sent to Gloucester, where he was burnt on Feb. 9, meeting his fate with steadfast courage and unshaken conviction.
Hooper was the first of the bishops to suffer, because his Zwinglian views placed him further beyond the pale than Cran mer, Ridley and Latimer. He represented the extreme reform ing 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 Calvin ists of Switzerland; and it was this form of religion that he laboured to spread in England against the wishes of Cranmer, Ridley, Bucer, Peter Martyr and other more conservative theo logians. 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 his works were published.