COLEPEPER, JOHN COLEPEPER (or CULPEPPER), ISt BARON (d. 166o), English statesman, was the only son of Sir John Colepeper, of Wigsell, Sussex. He was elected member for Kent in the Long parliament, when he took the popular side, speaking against monopolies on Nov. 9, 164o, being entrusted with the impeachment of Sir Robert Berkeley on Feb. 12, 1641, supporting Strafford's attainder, and being appointed to the com mittee of defence on Aug. 12, 1641. He separated, however, from the popular party on the Church question, fearing the effect of the revolutionary changes which were now contemplated. He op posed the London petition for the abolition of episcopacy, the project of religious union with the Scots, and the Root and Branch Bill, and on Sept. 1 he moved a resolution in defence of the prayer-book. In the following session he opposed the mili tia bill and the Grand Remonstrance, and finally on Jan. 2, 1642, he joined the king's party, taking office as chancellor of the Ex chequer. He highly disapproved of the attempt upon the five members, which was made without his knowledge, but advised the enterprise against Hull. On Aug. 25, 1642, he appeared at the bar of the House of Commons to deliver the king's final pro posals for peace, and was afterwards present at Edgehill. In December he was made by Charles master of the rolls. He was a leading member of the Oxford parliament, and was said, in opposition to the general opinion, to have counselled considerable concessions to secure peace. He received a peerage in Colepeper was despatched with Hyde in charge of the prince of Wales to the West in March 1645, and after Charles's final defeat, embarked with the prince for Scilly, and thence to France. He strongly advocated the gaining over of the Scots by religious concessions, a policy supported by the queen and Mazarin, and urged this course upon the king. In 1648 he accompanied the prince in his unsuccessful naval expedition, and returned with him to The Hague, where violent altercations broke out among the royalist leaders, Colepeper going so far, on one occasion in the council, as to challenge Prince Rupert, and being himself severely assaulted in the streets by Sir Robert Walsh. He con tinued after the execution of the king to press the acceptance on Charles II. of the Scottish proposals. He was sent to Russia in 165o, where he obtained a loan of 20,000 roubles from the tsar, and, soon after his return, to Holland, to procure military assist ance. By the treaty, agreed to between Cromwell and Mazarin, of Aug. 1654, Colepeper was obliged to leave France, and he appears henceforth to have resided in Flanders. He accompanied Charles II. to the south of France in Sept. 1659, at the time of the treaty of the Pyrenees. At the Restoration he returned to England, but only survived a few weeks, dying on June 11, 1660.
