Hampden

“ To Hampden the spot was a memorable one; it was there, if we trust a Royalist legend, that "he first mustered and drew up men in arms to rebel against the king." But he had little time for memories such as these. His resolve was to hold Rupert by charge after charge till Essex could come up; and the arrival of these troops of horse with some dragoons enabled him to attack. The attack was roughly beaten off, and the assailants thrown into confusion, but Hampden rallied the broken troops and again led them on. Again they were routed, and Rupert drew off across the river without further contest. ”

“ Lord Nugent represents Hampden as present at Lord Saye's occupation of Oxford, and the newspapers and pamphlets of the period relate victories gained by him at Aylesbury and elsewhere which are entirely fictitious. In reality Hampden continued with the main body of Essex's army struggling hard to preserve discipline amongst his unruly soldiers. 'We are perplexed,' he wrote to Essex, 'with the insolence of the soldiers already committed, and with the apprehension of greater. . . If this go on, the army will grow as odious to the country as the cavaliers. ”

“ Hampden again represented Buckinghamshire in the parliaments of 1681 and 1690, and sat for Wendover in those of 1660, 1661, and 1679, and in the Convention parliament of 1G89. His religious views seem to have been strongly presbyterian, and he befriended ejected ministers. During the plague in 1665 Richard Baxter found a refuge at Great Hampden,and describes Richard Hampden, his host, as 'the true heir of his famous father's sincerity, piety, and devotedness to God' (Reliquiæ Baxterianæ, pt. ii. p. 448) . ”

“ December 22nd.—On Sunday to the Temple Church; 110 divine music and a very good preacher—a Mr. Hawes. Monday night I dined with Milman and went to the Westminster Play; pretty well done. The Hampden controversy flares away. Hampden himself has written a long, querulous, ill-composed letter to Lord John Russell, which he had better have let alone; if he did write, he should have written a shorter, more pithy and more dignified letter. Every day makes the fault of having appointed him more apparent. ”

“ A little more time must have placed him at the head of the army, and, with such a right-hand man as Cromwell, must have soon terminated the campaign. His death seemed like a general defeat, and struck the deepest and most lasting sorrow into the public mind. Time has only increased the veneration for the name of John Hampden, which has become the watchword of liberty, and the object of popular appeal in every great crisis of his country's history. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He was about to turn back and leave them in their happiness when his black-eyed boy caught sight of him and ran toward him, shouting for a ride and calling over his shoulder for “Luthy” to “come on too.” As there was no escape, Mr. Hampden went forward and, ignoring the confusion of the mammies at being caught together, took the boy up before him and gave him a ride up and down the meadow. Then nothing else would do for Master Oliver but he “must take Luthy up, too.”
“Perhaps 'Luthy' may be afraid of the horse!” suggested Mr. Hampden with a smile. ”

“ There still remained a rugged and clownish soldier, half fanatic, half buffoon, whose talents, discerned as yet only by one penetrating eye, were equal to all the highest duties of the soldier and the prince. 496But in Hampden, and in Hampden alone, were united all the qualities which, at such a crisis, were necessary to save the state, the valour and energy of Cromwell, the discernment and eloquence of Vane, the humanity and moderation of Manchester, the stern integrity of Hale, the ardent public spirit of Sydney. ”

“ You know there is to be an organization of the new Witenagemote after March 4, so that if we wait for Mr. Russell, we can have no hearing this winter. I know of no objection to Mr. Hampden.”
M. N. TO H., P., & CO.
“I cannot say that it is ‘satisfactory,’ because nothing can be really satisfactory to me but an immediate and pacific settlement of my claims.
“To Mr. Hampden I have no personal objection whatever, but I seem to recollect, when we were all living in Paradise, before the fall, having heard Mr. Hampden spoken of by Mr. Hunt as a paper-manufacturer, with whom you had large dealings. ”

“ The tyrannies of Laud in England, and of Wentworth in Ireland, were now fast driving the more independent and religious people to New England. The trial of John Hampden had now taken place in London, and Wentworth, in the insolence of his success in Ireland, had written to Laud, recommending that the great patriot should be whipped like Prynne and Lilburne. "Sir. Hampden," he wrote, "is a great brother (meaning puritan) , and the very genius of that nation of people leads them always to oppose, both civilly and ecclesiastically, all that ever authority ordains for them. ”

“ HAMPDEN, JOHN (c. 1595-1643) , English statesman, the eldest son of William Hampden, of Great Hampden in Buckinghamshire, a descendant of a very ancient family of that place, said to have been established there before the Conquest, and of Elizabeth, second daughter of Sir Henry Cromwell, and aunt of Oliver, the future protector, was born about the year 1595. By his father’s death, when he was but a child, he became the owner of a good estate and a ward of the crown. He was educated at the grammar school at Thame, and on the 30th of March 1610 became a commoner of Magdalen College at Oxford. ”

“ In the second session of the same parliament he was specially busy on the different committees appointed to deal with questions of church reform or ecclesiastical abuses (ib. p. 144) . In me disorderly scene which closed the parliament of 1629 Hampden took no part himself, but the imprisonment of Eliot for his share in it gave rise to an interesting and characteristic correspondence between the two. From his prison in the Tower Eliot consulted Hampden on all questions of importance, and Hampden was always ready to sympathise with or to assist his imprisoned leader. ”

“ His spirit shines in the lofty teachings of Channing and in the unbending principles of Sumner, in the ripened wisdom of Emerson and in the rhythmical lessons of Longfellow. The courageous John Pym was not more resolute and penetrating in leading the great struggle in the Long Parliament than was George F. Edmunds in the Senate of the United States. And the intrepid and sagacious John Hampden, heroic in battle and supreme in council, wise, steadfast, and true, was but a prototype of Benjamin Harrison. ”

“ In his anticipation of this moment as he had sat almost by the bedside, Hampden had conjectured that the dying man would perhaps lift a hand or move his head uneasily with the first instinct of returning consciousness. ”

“ Young Hampden may talk as much as he pleases, at his Club, about the liberty of the press, and its being as essential as the air he breathes; but, when he returns home, about one in the morning, he is very fain to take his candle, and move up-stairs as quietly as possible, without attempting to enfranchise any incarcerated spirits. ”

“ He kept his promise to Hampden,—raised men of such a spirit that they never turned their backs to the enemy, and disciplined them so that they were an example to all the troops of the Parliament in camp or in battle. ”

“ Hampden's condemnation was absolutely certain, and therefore, by the advice of his friends, 'because it could be prejudicial to no man, there being none alive of those called the Council of Six but the Lord Howard,' he resolved to plead guilty and throw himself on the mercy of the king. Sir John Bramston, who himself thought that Hampden had taken the wisest course, observes : 'The whigs are extreme angry at him . ”

“ In April he took part in the siege of Reading. ‘Your regiment,’ writes Hampden, ‘is of very great reputation amongst us.’ When Hampden received his fatal wound; Goodwin took him to Thame and soothed his last moments. (His letter to his daughter Jane, lady Wharton, upon Hampden's death is among his correspondence in vol. ciii. of the Carte MSS. in the Bodleian Library, and has been printed at p. 109 of Money's Battles of Newbury, 2nd edit.) Goodwin died in the same year, 1643, and was buried at Wooburn, Buckinghamshire (Langley, p. 466) . ”

“ On a beautiful spring morning, about twenty years ago, we started, from some deep rich meadows in the Vale of Aylesbury, to visit the hereditary home of John Hampden. We did not hope to gather any information which had not been laid long since before the reading world, or to be able to point out an uncanvassed probability connected with this great man; but we were anxious to ascertain if his family mansion yet contained a chamber which might have known his presence. ”

“ In this Parliament Hampden took his seat as member for Buckinghamshire, and thenceforward, till the day of his death, gave himself up, with scarcely any intermission, to public affairs. He took lodgings in 462Gray’s Inn Lane, near the house occupied by Pym, with whom he lived in habits of the closest intimacy. He was now decidedly the most popular man in England. The Opposition looked to him as their leader, and the servants of the King treated him with marked respect. ”

“ The burden of decision lay on Hampden alone.
He had already made it. Within an hour he would have pledged the League to a line of policy from which there was no retreat. Before another day had passed the Government could recall the little band of secret service agents and consign their reports to the wastepaper basket. Every one would know everything. Everything? He smiled until the remembrance of that cheap frayed envelope in Mr Tubes's possession drove the smile away. ”

“ Who was he—Sir John Hampden, President of the Unity League? Not in that room! The man who watched by the bedside stood there even as the humblest servant of the Order of St. Martin, pledged while in that service to succour in "trouble, sorrow, need, sickness, or any other adversity."
It did not occur to him to debate the point. His way seemed very straight and clear. His plain duty to the dying man was to try by every means in his power to carry out his one overwhelming desire. ”

“ I am ambitious of my son's honour, which I wish were now conferred upon him that he might not come after so many new creations' (Nugent, Life of Hampden, i. 36) . From the commencement of the reign of Charles I, however, Hampden associated himself with the opposition to the court both in and out of parliament. He seems to have offered some resistance to the privy-seal loan levied in 1625, though he eventually paid 10l. ”

“ In August 1640 Hampden was one of the four commissioners who attended Charles in Scotland, and the king’s conduct there, connected with such events as the “Incident,” must have proved to a man far less sagacious than Hampden that the time for compromise had gone by. He was therefore a warm supporter of the Grand Remonstrance, and was marked out as one of the five impeached members whose attempted arrest brought at last the opposing parties into open collision (see also Pym, Strode, Holles and Lenthall) . ”

“ The trial lasted twelve days. The illegality and injustice of the tax were fully exposed. The people concurred entirely with Hampden, and even some of the judges were convinced. He was called the patriot Hampden, and his name will always be celebrated in English history. The whole discussion, however, though it produced a great effect at the time, would be of no interest now, since it turned mainly on the question what the king's rights actually were, according to the ancient customs and usages of the realm. The question before mankind now is a very different one ”

“ This called up Hampden, an intrepid buffoon, but the great-grandson of the patriot, and 'twenty-fourth hereditary lord of Great Hampden,' who attacked Pitt and his group with rancour. Here, again, we seem to discern traces of Buckinghamshire politics and jealousies. Temple and his belongings had, as we have seen, many enemies in their own county, and Hampden was one of them. Perhaps the Aylesbury affair still rankled. Pitt was visibly angered. Though Pelham warmly defended him, he was not appeased, and the affair would have ended in a duel had not the Speaker's authority intervened. ”

“ Hampden played a very insignificant part in parliament. A brief speech against the sale of Tangiers is the only utterance recorded by Grey (Grey, Debates, vii. 100) . The speeches which seem to be attributed to him in 'An Exact Collection of the Debates of the House of Commons held at Westminster in October 1680,' 1689, and in the parliamentary histories of Chandler and Cobbett should be assigned to his father, Richard Hampden (cf. ib.) John Hampden left England for the sake of his health in October 1680, and remained in France till September 1682. ”

“ Falkland failed to understand, while Hampden understood, the character of the King and the full peril of the situation; that was the real difference between the two men. The political and ecclesiastical ideal of both in all probability was pretty much the same. Mr. Arnold chooses to describe Hampden as "seeking the Lord about militia or ship- money," and he undertakes to represent Jesus as "whispering to him with benign disdain." Sceptics, to disprove the objective reality of the Deity, allege that every man makes God in his own image. ”