Hopkins, Ezekiel (1634–90), Church of Ireland bishop of Derry, was born 3 December 1634 at Crediton in Devon, second of three sons of John Hopkins, curate at a chapel of ease in Crediton and later rector of Pinhoe in the same county. He was educated at the Merchant Taylors’ school, 1646–8, and was a chorister at Magdalen College, Oxford, 1648–53, where he matriculated, 1650, and graduated BA, 1653, and MA, 1656. He was usher of the college school, 1655, and college chaplain, 1656.
He was said to have been educated under presbyterian and independent discipline, and about 1660 became curate to the minister of Hackney, Dr William Spurstow, a distinguished puritan divine (who resigned in 1662 when the Act of Uniformity came into force). The bishop of London, Gilbert Sheldon, was said to have vetoed the election of Hopkins as preacher to another parish because he was a popular preacher among the ‘fanatics’, but he was rector of St Mary Woolnoth in London, 1661–6, and then went to Exeter, where he was rector of St Mary Arches, 1666–9. There he became known to John Robartes, Baron Robartes of Truro (qv), who brought him to Ireland as his chaplain in 1669.
Although he was publicly critical of Robartes's leniency towards nonconformists, swift preferment followed: he was treasurer of Waterford, 1669–70, prebendary of Rathmichael in St Patrick's cathedral, 1669, and dean of Raphoe, 1670–71. In 1671 he became bishop of Raphoe, where he remained for ten years. He was translated to the diocese of Derry on the recommendation of the lord lieutenant, the duke of Ormond (qv), in 1681. In his early years in Derry he busied himself with rooting out alleged seditious conspiracies of Scots presbyterians. The prolonged dispute between the see of Derry and the Irish Society, over fishing and other property rights, which had been settled under Bishop Robert Mossom (qv), was renewed in 1683 when Hopkins went to law. He obtained a favourable judgment in 1687, but the Irish Society appealed into England and the case remained unresolved at the bishop's death.
Hopkins's alleged conduct in Derry in 1688 gave rise to criticism in many protestant and whig accounts of the siege. In these versions the bishop, motivated by a belief in the passive obedience due to James II (qv), tried to prevent the apprentice boys from closing the gates. J. B. Leslie (qv) notes, however, that Hopkins's views in favour of submission to the Jacobite forces were shared, for pragmatic reasons, by other influential figures in Derry who subsequently remained during the siege. In any event the bishop left the city, and went to London where in September 1689 he was elected by the parishioners of St Mary Aldermanbury in London as their minister.
Hopkins apparently did not wish to return to Derry, nor to resign his see. King William (qv) wished to appoint as bishop the Rev. George Walker (qv), the protestant hero of the siege of Derry. During negotiations in January 1690 involving the archbishop of Tuam, John Vesey (qv), and the secretary of state, Lord Nottingham, generous terms were contemplated: Hopkins would resign from Derry in return for the archbishopric of Cashel, whose income would be made equal to Derry out of forfeited lands.
No deal was made, however, and he died 19 June 1690 in London, and was buried at St Mary Aldermanbury. He had married first Alice Moore (d. 1681), only daughter of Samuel Moore of London, and secondly (in 1685) Araminta Robartes, daughter of Lord Robartes. He was survived by four children, including two sons who achieved distinction. Charles (c.1671–1700?), was born in Exeter and educated at TCD, and Queens’ College, Cambridge, where he graduated BA in 1688. He probably returned to Ireland to serve during the wars, but the assertion by some authorities that he did so in the service of James II is dubious. On returning to England he had a career as a poet and dramatist. Another son, John (b. 1675?) was also a published poet.
Though Bishop Hopkins published only a handful of sermons during his lifetime, more extensive writings appeared after his death, and editions of these long continued to be published. An edition of 1701 contains an engraved portrait.