Owen Hopton

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.

[11] Hopton owed his position at the Tower of London (which he was found to discharge efficiently) to the "good meanes and favour" of William Cecil (who became Lord Burghley in 1571), and received a salary of £200 per annum.

[16] As one of the high commissioners for causes ecclesiastical, in 1582 he was signatory to a directive from the Privy Council for public readings of Christopher Ocland's Anglorum Praelia.

[17] During the 1580s he fell into controversy with the Lord Mayor and Citizenry of London by his refusal of their writs of Habeas Corpus issued against the officers and attendants of the Tower, disputing with the City the jurisdiction of the "Queen's Verge".

[21] In a letter to Burghley of 1588 he describes his conduct of the office during more than 18 years, and the discipline and liberality which he has brought to the organization and duties of the Yeoman Warders, including the uses of the livery.

[23] By Indenture of 1585, with Owen Tasburgh (his wife's kinsman), he levied a fine on his manors of Blythburgh, Westwood, Walberswick, Hinton, Westhall and Thorington, with appurtenant lands also in Westleton, Darsham, Wenhaston and elsewhere, granting seisin thereof to Edmund Hall and William Roberts, for the sole use and benefit of his son and heir Arthur Hopton of Charterhouse, Somerset.

Sir Owen was remembered favourably by the people of Walberswick in later times, when the Brooke family deprived them of their rights over the common and at Paulsfen.