John Hooker (English Constitutionalist)

John Hooker (English Constitutionalist)

John Hooker, John Hoker or John Vowell (c. 1527–1601) was an English writer, solicitor, antiquary, civic administrator and advocate of republican government. He wrote an eye-witness account of the siege of Exeter that took place during the Prayer Book Rebellion in 1549. From 1555 to his death he was chamberlain of that city, though he spent several years in Ireland as legal adviser to Sir Peter Carew during his claim to lands there. He was, for short periods, a member of both the Irish and English parliaments and wrote an influential treatise on parliamentary procedure. He was one of the editors of the second edition of Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles, published in 1587. His last, unpublished and probably uncompleted work was the first topographical description of the county of Devon.