and his close friend William Waller were among those who escorted the Royal couple to safety, the Queen reportedly riding on his horse. They finally reached safety in the Dutch Republic in early 1621. Hopton returned to London in February, and elected Member of Parliament, or MP, for Shaftesbury, a constituency controlled by the Earl of Pembroke, a connection of his mother, Jane. Parliament's fury at James' lack of support for his sister, and the Protestant cause in general, found an outlet in charges against an elderly Catholic lawyer, Edward Floyd, accused of insulting Frederick. Despite his personal anti-Catholicism, Hopton argued Floyd should not be condemned without a proper hearing; he was ultimately released, after James intervened. When Parliament adjourned in June, he enlisted in Sir Charles Rich's Regiment of Foot, serving in the Palatinate campaign against the Catholic League. It appears likely he was among the English garrison of Frankenthal, which was ordered by James to surrender in March 1623. Back in England, he married Elizabeth Capell, five years his senior, and widow of Justinian Lewin, a Privy Councillor; while childless, their marriage was apparently happy. Invited to stand as MP for Somerset in 1624, he declined, instead joining an English force recruited by Mansfeld to relieve Breda, then besieged by the Spanish. They arrived in the Dutch Republic in February 1625, reportedly in an 'appalling state;' the expedition collapsed, Breda surrendered, and Hopton returned home in July. In his absence, Hopton was appointed MP for Bath in place of Nicholas Hyde, who switched to Bristol; Hyde was the uncle of Edward Hyde, future Earl of Clarendon. Their connection links Hopton with the constitutional monarchists, those who opposed attempts by Charles I to rule without Parliament, but ultimately supported him in 1642. During the 1625 to 1630 Anglo-Spanish War, Hopton refused to take part in the Cádiz expedition, accurately predicting its failure due to lack of funding. He was made a Knight of the Bath in February 1626, and MP for Wells in 1628. The following year, Charles dissolved Parliament, and did not recall it until 1640. Appointed Deputy lieutenant of Somerset, and a Justice of the Peace, Hopton inherited his father's estates in 1638. He avoided involvement in the political debates of the 1630s, but supported the levying of Ship money, and in 1639, raised a troop of cavalry to fight in the first of the 1639 and