Bishop John Hooper

After the dissolution of the monasteries he returned to Oxford where, much to the disapproval of the Regius Professor of Divinity, Dr Smith, he became greatly influenced by the extreme Protestant reformers Bullinger and Zwingli. His forthright opinions against the established practice of the church led to a severe admonishment from Bishop Gardiner of Winchester and ultimately caused him to flee to the Continent. Hooper settled in Zurich for two or three years following his marriage to Anne de Tserclas of Antwerp in 1546. They had two children, Rachel and Daniel.

In 1547 Henry VIII died and was succeeded by the nine-year-old Edward V who ruled England under the watchful eye of the Duke of Somerset, Protector of the Realm, and strong advocate of religious reform. On Hooper’s return to his native country he was appointed personal chaplain to the duke and later preached at the royal court. In his first sermon he denounced as blasphemy the Oath of Supremacy that required men to swear by the saints as well as God and also described the sumptuous priestly garments worn at church services as superstitious and anti-Christian. The king was impressed by the preacher and offered him the vacant see of Gloucester. Initially Hooper refused the appointment claiming that there were elements of Popery in the induction ceremony, but after two weeks of contemplation in the Fleet Prison he changed his mind.

He was consecrated Bishop of Gloucester on 8 March 1551. On arrival at the city he made a thorough visitation of his see and examined the clergy in their knowledge of the Ten Commandments, the Apostles’ Creed and the Lord’s Prayer. Of 311 clergy examined, 171 could not repeat the Ten Commandments, 10 were unable to recite the Lord’s Prayer and 27 did not know its author. The minister of Tewkesbury parish church was found to be “a man of remarkable learning” but the vicar of Frampton-on-­Severn was “entirely ignorant”. In order to correct this poor state of affairs the bishop drew up a list of fifty articles to be observed by all the incumbents. The severe disciplinary regime he imposed at Gloucester led to him being called a tyrant and a beast.

Edward VI died on 6 July 1553 and was succeeded by his sister Mary, a devout Catholic who was determined to stamp out Protestantism. During her five years reign she was responsible for the deaths of nearly three hundred ‘heretics’ which earned her the title ‘Bloody Mary’.

Hooper was summoned to appear before the new Queen’s Council to answer a false charge of misappropriation of funds from the Gloucester see. He was sent to the Fleet Prison where he was kept in appalling conditions for over a year. Following further theological inquisition he was moved to Newgate Prison where, in the chapel, he was degraded from the priesthood and informed of his impending execution by fire at Gloucester, the scene of his purported heresy.

Hooper arrived back in the city in the charge of six armed guards on 8 February 1555 and lodged at the house of Robert Ingram in Westgate Street. At nine o’clock the following morning John Hooper was taken to the place of execution just to the east of St Mary de Lode church where a crowd of over seven thousand had assembled. He was bound to the wooden stake by an iron hoop and spent time supervising the placement of the bundles of reeds around his legs. The fire was lit but the reeds merely smouldered. The fire was lit again but it managed only to burn his hair and scorch his skin a little before it was blown out by the wind. Hooper chided his executioners with the words “for the love of God, friends, give me more fire.” Dry wood was brought and heaped around him, and for good measure three bags of gun powder were tied around his body. The fire was lit for the last time and he was engulfed in flames, but the ordeal was to last for three quarters of an hour. The gunpowder had been badly placed and he remained fully conscious.

An eye witness described the final moments of the Protestant martyr:  “... but when he was black in the mouth and his tongue swollen, that he could not speak, yet his lips went till they were shrunk to the gums, and he knocked his breast with his hands until one of his arms fell off, and then knocked still with the other, what time the fat, water and blood, dropped at his finger ends, until by renewing of the fire his strength was gone and his hand did cleave fast in knocking to the iron upon his breast. So, immediately bowing forwards, he yielded up his spirit.”

It is prophetic that when John Hooper was consecrated second Bishop of Gloucester he had chosen for his coat of arms the lamb in the burning bush.