Arthur Hopton (died 1607)

rdf:langString Arthur Hopton (died 1607)

rdf:langString

rdf:langString Sir Arthur Hopton

rdf:langString Sir Arthur Hopton

rdf:langString Anthony Wingfield

rdf:langString William Humberston

rdf:langString Edmund Bacon

rdf:langString Richard Sone

rdf:langString Robert Coppyn

rdf:langString Sir Clement Heigham

rdf:langString Order of the Bath 1603

rdf:langString Robert Coppyn

rdf:langString Robert Hare

rdf:langString Sir John Heigham

rdf:langString English

rdf:langString Politician and landowner

rdf:langString MP for Dunwich

rdf:langString MP for Suffolk

rdf:langString Sir Owen Hopton; Anne Etchingham

rdf:langString Rachael Hall

rdf:langString Member of Parliament for Dunwich

rdf:langString Member of Parliament for Suffolk

rdf:langString Sir Arthur Hopton (died 20 November 1607), of Witham, Somerset, was an English politician. He was member of parliament for Dunwich in 1571, and for Suffolk in 1589. He was made a Knight of the Bath at the coronation of King James I. Arthur was the first son of Sir Owen Hopton and Anne, elder daughter of Sir Edward Echyngham and Ann Everard. He married Rachel, daughter of Edmund Hall of Greatford, Lincolnshire: the marriage was arranged by May 1566. Rachel was the niece of William Willoughby, 1st Baron Willoughby of Parham, whose sister Dorothy Willoughby was the wife of Sir Ralph Hopton (died 1571). Sir Ralph Hopton, who made himself responsible for Rachel's upbringing, arranged her marriage to Arthur and settled the reversion of most of his lands upon them in tail male, including his estate of Witham Friary in Somerset. Although it has been claimed that Ralph was a half-brother of Sir Owen Hopton's, a suit of 1601 indicates that the marriage of Rachel and Arthur was arranged to ensure that Sir Ralph's estates continued in a family named Hopton, and not through any alliance of consanguinity. Sir Arthur himself was co-executor to his uncle Robert Hopton (died 1590) and guardian of Robert's daughter Dorothy, who married Arthur's son Owen Hopton. His father Sir Owen Hopton having died in 1595, leaving plentiful debts, Sir Arthur Hopton sold away the Hopton family estates around Yoxford and Blythburgh in east Suffolk to Robert Brooke, Alderman of London, in 1597. Brooke apparently bought them in anticipation of the first marriage of his son, also Robert Brooke, which occurred shortly afterwards. In the course of this transaction, Hopton brought a charge of fraud against the Brookes whom he accused of falsely interlineating the conveyance to include the manor of Blythburgh Priory and the Blythburgh rectory (not intended to be conveyed). There was a severe wrangle over the conveyances and payments, during which Sir Arthur was imprisoned by Brooke the elder; by 1601 Brooke the elder was dead and Hopton faced a costly adjustment of his affairs. The estates were settled upon Brooke the younger by 1598, who made his seat at the former Hopton manor of Westwood (Blythburgh) before rebuilding Cockfield Hall at Yoxford, all of which by marriage descended in a later generation to the Blois family. The recognisances and Statutes Staple applicable to the manors were released to Robert Brooke by Sir Arthur's son Robert Hopton in 1613, six years after his father's death.