Confinement to his house by order of the Council proved equally ineffectual, and it was not until he had spent some weeks in the Fleet prison that the "father of nonconformity" consented to conform, and Hooper submitted to consecration with the legal ceremonies (8 March 1551). Though Hooper had a low view of the role of bishops in the church, he soon set about a visitation of his diocese, which revealed a condition of almost incredible ignorance among his clergy. Following examinations of 311 clerics, 168 were not able to repeat the Ten Commandments, and 31 were unable to state in what part of the Scriptures they were to be found; there were 40 who could not tell where the Lord’s Prayer was written, and 31 were ignorant of who authored it. Hooper issued an injunction to his clergy, stressing in Article 9 that they "were to teach the Parishioners the Ten Commandments, the Creed, and the Lord's Prayer...word for word as they be written there..." and in Article 10, "that every parson... teach the Ten Commandments out of the twentieth chapter of Exodus, as they stand there, and no otherwise, not taking one word, letter or syllable from them..." Apparently this standard was enforced through much of the visitation. Less than a year after Hooper had been installed in Gloucester, his bishopric was reduced to an archdeaconry and added to Worcester, of which Hooper was made bishop in succession to Nicholas Heath. Hooper believed a bishop should observe a vow of poverty but resigned the profits of the See of Gloucester to the Crown. As bishop, Hooper was also notable for his sense of social justice, and spoke eloquently of the distress caused by the economic crisis of the early 1550s. He wrote to William Cecil pleading for the Council to take action on the price of essential goods, for "all things here be so dear that the most part of the people lack ... their little livings and poor cottages decay daily." Upon Edward VI's death, Northumberland tried to supplant the legitimate heiress, Mary Tudor, with his own daughter-in-law, Jane Grey. Hooper opposed this plot but this did not improve his situation once Mary had become Queen. As a representative of the radical wing of Protestantism, Hooper was the first bishop to be attacked. He was given sanctuary at Sutton Court, before being sent to the Fleet Prison on 1 September, first on a charge of debt.