John Hopton (died 1558) was the last Roman Catholic

Bishop of Norwich The Bishop of Norwich is the Ordinary (Catholic Church), ordinary of the Church of England Anglican Diocese of Norwich, Diocese of Norwich in the Province of Canterbury. The diocese covers most of the county of Norfolk and part of Suffolk. Th ...

. He was a member of the

Dominican Order The Order of Preachers (, abbreviated OP), commonly known as the Dominican Order, is a Catholic Church, Catholic mendicant order of pontifical right that was founded in France by a Castilians, Castilian priest named Saint Dominic, Dominic de Gu ...

by 1516, in Oxford. He was educated at the

University of Bologna The University of Bologna (, abbreviated Unibo) is a Public university, public research university in Bologna, Italy. Teaching began around 1088, with the university becoming organised as guilds of students () by the late 12th century. It is the ...

in Italy, where he took a

doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''doctor'', meaning "teacher") or doctoral degree is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism '' licentia docendi'' ("licence to teach ...

in theology. During the reign of

Edward VI Edward VI (12 October 1537 – 6 July 1553) was King of England and King of Ireland, Ireland from 28 January 1547 until his death in 1553. He was crowned on 20 February 1547 at the age of nine. The only surviving son of Henry VIII by his thi ...

, Hopton was chaplain to the Lady Mary, later Queen Mary I, and was summoned before the privy council in 1549 and ordered to stop celebrating the Catholic Mass. When Mary acceded to the throne, Hopton was appointed Bishop of Norwich, and was consecrated on 28 October 1554.

John Foxe John Foxe (1516/1517 – 18 April 1587) was an English clergyman, theologian, and historian, notable for his martyrology '' Foxe's Book of Martyrs'', telling of Christian martyrs throughout Western history, but particularly the sufferings of En ...

, in his ''Acts and Monuments'' described him, with Michael Dunning, the "bloody chancellor" of Norwich, as a ruthless persecutor of Protestants, "in such sort, that many of them he perverted, and brought quite from the truth, and some from their wits also". Hopton was mainly responsible for the burning of over thirty Protestants in Norwich during his tenure. Hopton died in December 1558, and he is buried in Norwich Cathedral.

References

1558 deaths Bishops of Norwich 16th-century English Roman Catholic bishops English chaplains Catholic chaplains Year of birth unknown Burials at Norwich Cathedral {{UK-RC-bishop-stub