Ralph Hopton

Ralph Hopton, 1st Baron Hopton DL (March 1596 – September 1652) was a Royalist commander in the English Civil War, appointed lieutenant-general under the Marquess of Hertford in the west at the beginning of the conflict.

Hopton was the son of Robert Hopton of Witham Somerset. He was apparently educated at Lincoln College, Oxford and served in the army of Frederick V, Elector Palatine in the early campaigns of the Thirty Years' War. In 1624, he was lieutenant-colonel of a regiment raised in England to serve in Mansfeld's army. King Charles I, at his coronation, made Hopton a Knight of the Bath (Order of the Bath).

In the political troubles which preceded the outbreak of the English Civil War, Hopton, as member of parliament successively for Bath, Somerset and Wells, at first opposed the royal policy, but after Strafford's attainder (for which he voted) he gradually became an ardent supporter of Charles, and at the beginning of the conflict he was made lieutenant-general under the marquess of Hertford in the west.

His first achievement was to rally Cornwall to the royal cause by indicting the enemy before the grand jury of the county as disturbers of the peace, and had the posse comitatus called out to expel them. Next, he carried the war into Devon. In May 1643, he defeated the Parliamentarian forces in the West Country at Stratton, enabling him to overrun Devon and link up with reinforcements under Prince Maurice. On 5 July, their combined forces clashed indecisively with Sir William Waller at Lansdowne. Hopton was severely wounded there by the explosion of a powder-wagon. Soon afterwards, he was besieged in Devizes by Waller; he defended himself until he was relieved by the Royalist victory at Roundway Down on 13 July. He was soon made Baron Hopton of Stratton.

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