ious to secure the chief command himself, intrigued against Hopton, refused to obey the council, and succeeded in preventing either from exercising any control over his army (ib. ix. 20, 83). After Goring's retirement to France, Hopton was appointed commander-in-chief of the ‘dissolute, undisciplined, wicked, beaten army’ he left behind him. Other men would have refused the hopeless task. Hopton, however, generously agreed to accept the post, although certain to ‘lose his honour’ (ib. ix. 135, 136). On 16 Feb. 1646 Fairfax routed Hopton at Torrington in North Devon, with the loss of the greater part of his foot. Hopton, who was ‘hurt in the face with a pike, and had his horse killed under him,’ strove to make a stand at Bodmin, but the advance of Fairfax and the insubordination of his own troops compelled him to capitulate at Truro, 14 March 1646 (ib. ix. 150; Sprigge, Anglia Rediviva, ed. 1854, p. 229. His own account of this campaign is printed by Carte, Original Letters, 1739, i. 109–126). He then accompanied Prince Charles, first to Scilly and then to Jersey. While at Jersey he signed the agreement with Hyde, Capel, and Carteret for the defence of that island against Lord Jermyn's supposed design of selling it to France (Clarendon State Papers, ii. 279). In July 1648, when a part of the parliamentary fleet revolted, and placed itself under the command of Prince Charles, Hopton accompanied the prince to sea. He was the only one of the prince's councillors in that expedition ‘of whom nobody spoke ill, nor laid anything to his charge.’ Nevertheless the hostility of Prince Rupert and the intrigues of the court lords led even Prince Charles ‘to have a less esteem of him than his singular virtue and fidelity did deserve’ (Clarendon, xi. 32, 84). One reason for this was doubtless Hopton's opposition to the policy of concession to catholics and presbyterians, in order to secure their help against the independents. He formed one of the little body of church and constitution royalists of which Hyde was the spokesman. When the treaty took place at Breda in 1650 between Charles II and the Scots, Hopton and Nicholas were excluded from the king's council on account of their opposition (Nicholas Papers, i. 173, 186; Carte, Original Letters, i. 379). While Charles II was in Scotland, Hopton, ‘finding himself neglected and unacceptable, partly upon discontent, and partly to live cheaper, retired to Wesel’ (ib. p. 414). After the battle of Worcester, at the suggestion of Lord Colepeper, he endeavoured to compound for his estate, but the parliament, which had excepted him from pardon both in the treaties of Uxbridge and Newport, refused this favour (Nicholas Papers, i. 241, 268, 297). He therefore remained in exile, and died at Bruges in September 1652, at the age of fifty-four (ib. i. 311; Dugdale, ii. 469).
Hopton married in 1623 Elizabeth, widow of Sir Justinian Lewyn, knight, and daughter of Arthur Capel of Hadham, Hertfordshire (Blore, p. 133; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1619–23, p. 492). In 1644 she was captured by Sir William Balfour at Newbury, on her way to Oxford (Rushworth, v. 655). She died early in 1646 (Cal. Clarendon Papers, i. 306; Funerall Obsequies to the Lady Elizabeth Hopton, by Edward Whatman, 4to, 1647; Notes and Queries, 6th ser. xii. 294). In 1650 Hopton contemplated marriage with a daughter of Lady Morton; but in spite of Hyde's good offices the match fell through (ib. ii. 65, 98, 176). As neither Lord Hopton nor Sir Arthur Hopton left issue the Hopton peerage became extinct.
In a letter written immediately after Hopton's death, Hyde terms him ‘as faultless a person, as full of courage, industry, integrity, and religion as I ever knew man’ (Clarendon State Papers, iii. 108). As a general and as a councillor he admits that his friend had faults. ‘In the debates concerning the war he was longer in resolving, and more apt to change his mind after he had resolved, than is agreeable to the office of a commander-in-chief, which rendered him rather fit for the second than for the supreme command in an army’ (Rebellion, viii. 31). Hopton was distinguished among the royalist commanders for the good order which he maintained among his soldiers. Under his command the Cornish army was so disciplined ‘as the fame of their religion and devotion was no less than their courage’ (ib. vi. 248, vii. 98). He was remarkable also for the rare self-abnegation and fidelity with which he sacrificed his own claims and his own wishes to the good of the king's cause (ib. vii. 148). No royalist leader was so much respected by his opponents. ‘My affections to you are so unchangeable,’ wrote Waller, ‘that hostility itself cannot violate my friendship to your person’ (Clarendon State Papers, ii. 155). ‘For yourself,’ wrote Fairfax, when he offered terms to Hopton's army, ‘you may be assured of such mediation to the parliament on your behalf as for one whom (for personal worth and many virtues, but especially for your care of and moderation toward the country) we honour and esteem above any other of your party, whose error (supposing you more swayed with principles of honour and conscience than others) we most pity, and whose happiness (so far as consistent with the public
