
Susanna Hopton

Susanna Hopton née Harvey (1627–1709) was an English devotional writer.
Life.
Largely self-educated, she married Richard Hopton of Kington, Herefordshire, a barrister, and judge. In the early 1650s she became a Catholic convert through the influence of Father Henry Turberville.
Later Hopton's husband brought her back to the Church of England after theological study in William Laud, Thomas Morton, and William Chillingworth. There were no children of the marriage, and her husband died in 1696, leaving her in comfortable circumstances. She continued to live at Kington. Two close friends among the nonjuring clergy were George Hickes and Nathaniel Spinckes, both of whom published accounts of her life.
Before her last illness Hopton moved from Kington to Hereford, where she died of a fever on 12 July 1709, aged 81. She was buried at Bishops-Frome, near her husband.
Works.
Hopton's works were all of a devotional character, and were for the most part published anonymously. They drew on unpublished work of Thomas Traherne; Hopton may have known him, given that her niece Susanna Blount married Philip Traherne, and the Hoptons lived for some time at Gattertop, Hope under Dinmore, not far from Credenhill. They include:
Hopton left poems in manuscript.