Ralph Hopton, Baron HoptonArticle Free Pass Ralph Hopton, Baron
Hopton, (born 1596, Witham, Somerset, Eng.—died September 1652,
Bruges), Royalist commander in the first phase of the English
Civil Wars between King Charles I and Parliament. One of the
most talented of the king’s generals, he secured southwestern
England for the Royalist cause. After studying at Oxford
University and the Middle Temple, London, Hopton served in the
army of the Elector Palatine in the early campaigns of the
Thirty Years’ War (1618–48), and in 1624 he entered the House of
Commons. As a Puritan, he initially supported Parliament in its
conflict with the king. But when Parliament went so far as to
claim control over the armed forces (1642), Hopton changed sides
and became an ardent Royalist. With the outbreak of the Civil
War, the king made him a lieutenant general for western England.
Hopton won a brilliant victory at Stratton, Cornwall, in May
1643, and in June he overran the neighbouring county of Devon.
He was badly wounded, how