COPE, ALAN (d. 1578), catholic divine, was a native of the city of London. He was educated at Oxford, and after taking the degree of B.A. was made perpetual fellow of Magdalen College in 1549. He graduated M.A. in 1552, being that year senior of the act celebrated on 18 July. In 1558 he was unanimously chosen senior proctor of the university. He studied civil law for five years, and supplicated for the degree of B.C.L. on 17 Dec. 1558, and again on 30 April 1560 (Boase, Register of the University of Oxford, i. 218). In the latter year, when he saw that the Roman catholic religion would be silenced in England, he obtained leave of absence from his college and withdrew to the continent. After staying some time in Flanders he went to Rome, where, applying himself to the study of canon law and divinity, he became doctor in those faculties (Dodd, Church Hist. ii. 62). The pope made him a canon of St. Peter's, thus providing for him an honourable and a plentiful subsistence. He died at Rome in September or October 1578, and was buried in the church belonging to the English college (Diaries of the English College, Douay, p. 145; Pits, De Angliæ Scriptoribus, p. 772), ‘leaving behind him a most admirable exemplar of virtue, which many did endeavour to follow, but could not accomplish their desires’ (Wood, Athenæ Oxon., ed. Bliss, i. 456).
His works are: 1. ‘Syntaxis Historiæ Evangelicæ,’ Louvain, 1572, 4to; Douay, 1603, 4to (Duthillœul, Bibliographie Douaisienne, p. 56). 2. ‘Dialogi sex contra Summi Pontificatus, Monasticæ Vitæ, Sanctorum, Sacrarum Imaginum Oppugnatores, et Pseudo-martyres; in quibus explicantur Centurionum etiam Magdeburgensium, auctorum Apologiæ Anglicanæ, Pseudo-martyrologorum nostri temporis, maxime vero Joannis Foxi mendacia deteguntur,’ Antwerp, 1566, 4to, illustrated with a plate of the miraculous cross, found in an ash tree at St. Donat's, Glamorganshire, shortly after the accession of Elizabeth (Gillow, Bibl. Dict. of the English Catholics, i. 561). Although this work appeared under Cope's name, it was really written by Dr. Nicholas Harpsfield during his imprisonment in the Tower. Harpsfield entrusted its publication to Cope, who, to avoid the aggravation of his friend's hardships, put his own name to the book, concealing the name of the author under the letters A. H. L. N. H. E. V. E. A. C., that is, ‘Auctor hujus libri, Nicolaus Harpsfeldus. Eum vero edidit Alanus Copus’ (Reynold, Conference with Harte, p. 36). 3. ‘Carminum diversorum lib. i.’ (Tanner). Cope was not, as Fuller states, the author of the ‘Ecclesiastical History of England’ which goes under the name of Nicholas Harpsfield.
[Authorities cited above; Boase's Register of the Univ. of Oxford, 300; Lowndes's Bibl. Man. (Bohn), Suppl. p. 233; Fuller's Church Hist. (Brewer), ii. 358, 466, iv. 456; Cat. of Printed Books in Brit. Mus.]
COPE, Sir ANTHONY (d. 1551), author, second son of William Cope of Hanwell, Oxfordshire, cofferer to Henry VII, by his second wife Joan, daughter of John Spencer of Hodnell, Warwickshire, was a member of Oriel College, Oxford, but does not appear to have graduated. After leaving Oxford, he travelled in France, Germany, and Italy, visiting various universities, and became ‘an accomplished gentleman,’ writing ‘several things beyond the seas,’ which, Wood says, are spoken of in an epigram made by Spagnoli, or, as he was called, Johannes Baptista Mantuanus. This epigram was seen by Bale, but appears now to be lost. At the age of twenty-six he succeeded to his father's estates, inheriting an old manor house near Banbury called Hardwick, and the mansion of Hanwell left incomplete by his father, which he finished, and which is described by Leland as ‘a very pleasant and gallant house.’ In 1536 he had a grant of Brook Priory in Rutlandshire, which he afterwards sold, and bought considerable property in Oxfordshire. He was engaged in a dispute with the vicar of Banbury in 1540, and received the commendation of the council for his conduct. He was first vice-chamberlain, and then principal chamberlain to Catherine Parr, and was knighted by Edward VI on 24 Nov. 1547, being appointed in the same year one of the royal visitors of Canterbury and other dioceses. In 1548 he served as sheriff of Oxfordshire and Berkshire. He died at Hanwell on 5 Jan. 1551, and was buried in the chancel of the parish church. He married Jane, daughter of Matthew Crews, or Cruwys, of Pynne in Stoke English, Devonshire, and by her had a son Edward (who married Elizabeth, daughter of Walter Mohun of Wollaston, Northamptonshire, and had two sons, Anthony and Walter [q. v.]), and a daughter Anne, wife of Kenelm Digby of Drystoke, Rutlandshire. He wrote: 1. ‘The Historie of the two moste noble Capitaines in the Worlde, Anniball and Scipio … gathered and translated into Englishe out of T. Livius and other authorities’ (black letter), T. Berthelet, London, 1544, 4to, also in 8vo 1561, 4to 1568 with date of colophon 1548, 8vo 1590 (all in the British Museum), with three stanzas prefixed by Berthelet, and dedicatory preface to the king, in which reference is made to ‘youre most famous subduynge of the Romayne monster Hydra.’ 2. ‘A Godly Meditacion upon XX. select and
