Owen Hopton

Sir Owen Hopton (c. 1519 – 1595) was an English provincial landowner, administrator and MP, and was Lieutenant of the Tower of London from c. 1570 to 1590. Early career Owen Hopton was the eldest son and heir of Sir Arthur Hopton of Cockfield Hall, Yoxford, Suffolk, and his wife Anne, daughter of Sir David Owen of Cowdray House at Midhurst in West Sussex (uncle to King Henry VII). The manor of Blythburgh was confirmed to him by royal grant at the time of his father's death in 1555. He first became Member of Parliament for Suffolk in 1559: he was dubbed Knight Bachelor at Smallbridge Hall, (Sir) William Waldgrave's house in Suffolk, in 1561. He was Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk for 1564. Lady Katherine Grey Sir Owen Hopton's kindly treatment of Lady Katherine Grey, when she was by command of Queen Elizabeth, 2 October 1567, kept prisoner at Cockfield Hall during the last months of her life, probably won him the trust afterwards reposed in him by that often untrusting sovereign. After two years in the Tower of London (where as Countess of Hertford she bore two sons), Lady Katherine had since August 1563 been successively in the custody of Sir John Grey of Pirgo (her uncle), Sir William Petre, and Sir John Wentworth of Gosfield Hall when (both Grey and Wentworth having died) Hopton brought her with her small company of servants to Yoxford on 20-21 October 1567.