Henrietta Tindal

“ In August, 1634, his beloved first wife died; and “the reader who would learn how tender, and yet wise, John Hampden was—affectionate without weakness, and pious without affectation, may turn aside to the sequestered church of Great Hampden, and read the exquisite memorial which describes his wife’s virtues and his own bereavement.” [3]
Many good portraits, that must be marked as unknown, adorn the chambers and passages of this rambling old mansion. They represent fair and dignified women: men evidently prosperous and important in their generation. ”

“ William Norris, came the following day, about two o’clock, p.m. In the course of the afternoon the coffin and its contents were returned to the grave, but in what manner I could not say, as I was not present. . . . . . . The first time I went upstairs, after the exhumation, a portrait, which hung on the best staircase, appeared to be looking at me, and I immediately recognised the face and figure of the man I had seen in the grave in Hampden Church. The sight I shall never forget so long as I live. ”

“ John Hampden succeeded in his infancy to the family estates, for his father died in 1597, when his heir was little more than three years old, and his will directs that his wife, Elizabeth, shall continue to enjoy the use of such apartments as she may choose in Hampden House. She had a long lease of those chambers, in a dwelling often visited by trouble and death; for we learn from the parish register, that she departed this life February 21st, 1664, having lived a widow sixty-seven years, and attained the great age of ninety. ”

“ The parish register also had attractions for us; we would inspect the disputed entry of the patriot’s burial, and learn who were the clergy that officiated at Hampden during the time of its greatest squire. The wall of their churchyard adjoins his garden,—they were certainly his nearest neighbours; if they possessed congenial minds, his friends and companions also. We knew already busy William Spurstow, the chaplain to the Green-Coats; but there must have been another rector during the forty-six years John Hampden owned these estates. ”

“ The present Earl of Buckinghamshire is the representative of John Hampden, through his daughter Mary. His able and accomplished son, Lord Hobart, inherits the literary tastes of his eminent ancestor, “who improved his fine parts by converse with great men and good authors.” ”

“ The London red coats of Hollis, and the blue and purple uniforms of Lords Brook and Say, had appeared among these plains and groves; for the country was sorely rough-ridden then by foe and friend, the cattle were driven by turns for King and Parliament, and the smoke of burning homesteads and villages rose from the fertile fields. Many of the most important parliamentary leaders either belonged to Buckinghamshire, or had extensive family connections among its landed gentry; of this cousinhood were Oliver Cromwell, John Hampden, Sir Hardress Waller, Sir Richard Ingoldsby, Oliver St. ”

“ Germans’ gallery; it realised our ideal of the popular leader; it looked as we thought John Hampden ought to have looked, and we inquired what ground our guide had for stating that this was the portrait of the patriot.
“I know that it is his likeness,” was the answer, very deliberately given, “for I saw him in his coffin, and I afterwards identified this picture in the presence of my master, the Earl of Buckinghamshire.” ”

“ The estates of John Hampden, and his ancient residence, are still possessed by his descendants, through his sixth daughter, Mary, wife of Sir John Hobart, K.B. The late Earl of Buckinghamshire devised this property to his nephew, George Hampden Cameron, younger son of his sister, the Lady Vere Catherine Louisa Hobart and her husband, Donald Cameron, of Lochiel, chief of the clan Cameron, whose ancestors suffered attainder and forfeiture for their fidelity to the House of Stuart ”

“ The exciting engagements of this ardent controvertist at that moment may account for his omitting to record in the parish register the burial of his patron, in an age when such clerical duties were so grossly neglected. The entry now standing is an evident interpolation, in the hand-writing of Robert Lenthall, the succeeding rector, who was inducted in the November of the same year. We copy this often-disputed clause:—“John Hampden, Esq., Lord of Hampden, 25 June, 1643.” ”

“ No chronicler was born among them to collect and record the fleeting interest and associations attached to these relics and portraits of the dead; so every clue by which they could now be identified is buried with the Hampdens and the Trevor-Hampdens in the church and graveyard beside their pleasant garden walks; they might have been strangers who “tarried” there “but a day;” ”

“ Within the space of one century, in 1824, the male line of the Trevors also failed; and as that which came through a woman might not go to a woman, this historic property passed to George Robert Hobart, fifth and late Earl of Buckinghamshire, representative of Mary, sixth daughter of the patriot ”

“ Brown Willis calls Egeon “a famous man,” and in the margin of his MS. he refers to Anthony Wood, who describes this Buckinghamshire rector as “learned indeed beyond his age, and as well read in the Fathers, commentators, and schoolmen as any man of his time in the University of Oxford.” He was a native of Lancashire, and became student of Oxford in 1593, being then about seventeen years of age ”

“ J. B. Marsden. ↑ Mr. J. Robertson is now living at Nocton Hall, near Lincoln, in the service of the Countess Dowager of Ripon, herself a descendant of John Hampden. ↑ Quoted by Lipscomb. ↑ Mr. Forster’s “Memoir of Lord Nugent.” ↑ Mr. Forster’s “Memoir of Lord Nugent.” ↑ Letter of Lord Denman to Lord Nugent.—Forster’s Memoir. ↑ Quoted by Lipscomb, “Ex. Autograph. penes Geo. Rob. Com. Bucks,” and to be seen still at Hampden House. ↑ See Wiffen’s “Historical Memoirs of the House of Russell,” 2 vols. ↑ See “Letters of Rachel, Lady Russell, edited by Lord John Russell. ”