1640 Bishops Wars. Charles refused to seek financing from Parliament, and the result was chaos; although he assembled 15,000 men at York, the vast majority were untrained, unfed, unpaid and mutinous conscripts from the Northern trained bands, armed with bows and arrows. He was obliged to agree the Treaty of Berwick, leaving the Covenanters in control of Scotland. Seeking funds for another attempt, in early 1640 Charles called what became known as the Short Parliament; Hopton was selected for Somerset, but the house refused to provide taxes without concessions, and was dissolved after three weeks. Hopton took no part in the 1640 war, another humiliating defeat; he was MP for Wells in the Long Parliament, this time called to raise the money to pay the Scots to return large parts of Northern England. Along with Edward Hyde and other moderates, he voted for the execution of Charles' chief advisor, the Earl of Strafford; unlike them, he also backed the strongly anti-Catholic Grand Remonstrance in late 1641. A committed supporter of the Church of England, the arrest of Archbishop Laud and exclusion of bishops from the Lords seems to have been the point when he changed sides. He defended the attempt to arrest the Five Members in January 1642, and in early March, was held in the Tower of London for two weeks for objecting to Parliament censuring the king. 1642 to 1646 After his release in March, Hopton was appointed Royalist Commissioner of Array for Somerset, placing him in command of the local trained bands. Despite Hopton's connections, the county was dominated by Parliament, forcing him to withdraw to Sherborne, in Dorset; the First English Civil War began on 22 August, when Charles raised his standard at Nottingham. Charles named the Marquess of Hertford as his Lieutenant General in the West. Threatened by a larger Parliamentary army under the Earl of Bedford, the Royalists retreated from Wells to Minehead, where Hopton advised Hertford to take the infantry and artillery across the water to South Wales. Accompanied by a small force of cavalry, Hopton joined Sir Bevil Grenville and other supporters in Cornwall. Under his command, the Royalists won victories at Braddock Down in January 1643, then Stratton in May. After the inconclusive Battle of Lansdowne on 5 July, he linked up with Hertford and Prince Maurice; their combined force destroyed William Waller's Western Association army at Roundway Down on 13