Thomas Hampden

“ 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. ”

“ And following the example of DeNortier, he resumed his reclining position upon the couch.
"And now, my Lord," the adventurer continued, "how long since is it that thy noble uncle died, and thou didst come into the possession of the title and estate?"
"Only a bare two months ago," answered Hampden, with a growl. "I thought the old fool would never die. He hung on to the estates and title as though he thought that he could carry them in his doublet with him, when he passed out of this world. ”

“ Let us suppose that he had exhibited to us the wise and lofty self-government of Hampden, leading while he seemed to follow, and propounding unanswerable arguments in the strongest forms with the modest air of an inquirer anxious for information; the delusions which misled the noble spirit of Vane; the coarse fanaticism which concealed the yet loftier genius of Cromwell, destined to control a mutinous army and a factious people, to abase the flag of Holland, to arrest the victorious arms of Sweden, and to hold the balance firm between the rival monarchies of France and Spain. ”

“ It was proved that the unfortunate Duke of Monmouth had borne similar testimony to Halifax's good nature. One hostile witness indeed was produced, John Hampden, whose mean supplications and enormous bribes had saved his neck from the halter. He was now a powerful and prosperous man: he was a leader of the dominant party in the House of Commons; and yet he was one of the most unhappy beings on the face of the earth. ”

“ A remarkable change, however, passed on his character. “On a sudden,” says Clarendon, “from a life of great pleasure and licence, he retired to extraordinary sobriety and strictness, to a more reserved and melancholy society.” It is probable that this change took place when Hampden was about twenty-five years old. At that age he was united to a woman whom he loved and esteemed. At that age he entered into political life. A mind so happily constituted as his would naturally, under such circumstances, relinquish the pleasures of dissipation for domestic enjoyments and public duties. ”

“ He made a truce with the Scots, and summoned a Parliament.
The leaders of the popular party had, after the late dissolution, remained in London for the purpose of organizing a scheme of opposition to the court. They now exerted themselves to the utmost. Hampden, in particular, rode from county to county, exhorting the electors to give their votes to men worthy of their confidence. The great majority of the returns was on the side 467of the Opposition. Hampden was himself chosen member both for Wendover and Buckinghamshire. ”

“ He boasted of the exertions and sacrifices made by his family in the cause of Charles the First, and proved Rumsey, the witness who had murdered Russell by telling one story and Cornish by telling another, to be utterly undeserving of credit. The jury, with some hesitation, found a verdict of Guilty. After long imprisonment Gerard was suffered to redeem himself. [38] Hampden had inherited the political opinions and a large share of the abilities of his grandfather, but had degenerated from the uprightness and the courage by which his grandfather had been distinguished. ”

“ Hampden's elder brother Thomas succeeded as twenty-second Baron Dacre, but died without issue in 1890, when the barony of Dacre devolved upon Viscount Hampden.
Brand was educated at Eton, where in 1829 he was in the lower division of the fifth form (Stapylton, Eton School Lists, p. 139) . He did not proceed to any university, and on 16 April 1838, when twenty-three years of age, married Eliza, daughter of General Robert Ellice (1784-1856) and his wife Eliza Courtenay. His first political employment began in 1846, when he became private secretary to Sir George Grey [q. v.] ”

“ Even at this day the haughty earl overawes posterity as he overawed his contemporaries, and excites the same interest when arraigned before the tribunal of history which he excited at the bar of the House of Lords. In spite of ourselves, we sometimes feel towards his memory a certain relenting similar to that relenting which his defence, as Sir John Denham tells us, produced in Westminster Hall.
This great, brave, bad man entered the House of Commons at the same time with Hampden, and took the same side with Hampden. Both were among the richest and most powerful commoners in the kingdom. ”

“ Hampden, John, his conduct in tlie ship-money attender approved by the Royalists, effect of his loss on the Parliamentary cause, 496 ; review of Lord Nugent's Memorial of him, 427 ; his public and private character, 428 429 Baxtor's testimony to his excellence, his origin and early history, 431 ; took his seat in the House of Commons, 432 ; joined the opposition to the Court; his first appearance as a public man, 441 ; his first stand for the fundamentals of the Constitution, 444 ; committed to prison. 444 ; set at liberty, and reelected for Wendover, 445 ; his retirement, 445 ”

“ 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. ”

“ But beneath the outer grace of Hampden's demeanour lay a soul of steel. Buried as he seemed in the affections of his home, the great patriot waited patiently for the hour of freedom that he knew must come. Around him gathered the men that were to stand by his side in the future struggle. He had been the bosom friend of Eliot till the victim of the king's resentment lay dead in the Tower. He was now the bosom-friend of Pym. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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) . ”

“ The Duke of Beaufort told Bessborough so very seriously, and Lady Jersey told me the same thing, and that George Bentinck had promised her son Francis a place at the India Board! These things are hardly credible, but they are nevertheless true.
THE HAMPDEN CONTROVERSY.
The Hampden war has been turning greatly to the advantage of the Doctor; his enemies have exposed themselves in the most flagrant manner, and Archdeacon Hare has written a very able pamphlet also exposing the rascality (for that is the proper word) of his accusers, and affording his own valuable testimony to Hampden's orthodoxy ”

“ 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. ”

“ Meanwhile White's knowledge of the catholic church made him interesting to the rising party. He was officiating as a clergyman, and preached to the university. He explained the use of the breviary to Pusey and Froude (Life, i. 439) . His knowledge of the scholastic philosophy, then hardly known at Oxford, interested his friends. When Hampden preached the Bampton lectures of 1832 upon the corruptions of the true faith introduced by the schoolmen, he was thought to have been inspired by Blanco White. ”

“ 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 . ”

“ Here is an old distich which my dry diplomatist came out with yesterday at dinner, on the ancestor of Hampden. The remains of the Hampden estate are in this neighbourhood, and as we were speaking of our wish to see the place in which the patriot lived, Mr. Hales observed that it is curious how the spirit of dislike to kings had run in the blood of the Hampdens some centuries before Charles' time: they lost three manors in this county, forfeit for a Hampden having struck the Black Prince. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Those Puritans had a grim humour. One of the condemned man’s executioners, before turning him off, turned his face, bound with a handkerchief, to the sign, with the words: “Nay, sir, you must speak one word with the King before you go. You are blindfold, and he cannot see, and by and by you shall both come down together.” And then he was hoisted up.
There is another historic house at Thame, for it was into the yard of the “Greyhound” in that town that John Hampden came, lying mortally wounded upon the neck of his horse, from the skirmish of Chalgrove Field, on June 18th, 1643. ”

“ An ingrained perverseness which prevented his son from ever willingly following the advice or example of his parents, had preserved John Hampden in the Anglican faith, but he had portraits of Laud and Strafford over his mantelpiece, and embossed in golden letters on a purple ground the magical word “THOROUGH.” His library chiefly consisted of the “Tracts for the Times,” and a colossal edition of the Fathers gorgeously bound. He was a very clever fellow, this young Thornberry, a natural orator, and was leader of the High Church party in the Oxford Union. ”

“ He had, however, in parliament borne a decided share in the determined opposition to the king's proceedings, along with Selden, Elliot, Pyra, St. John, Croke, and others. After the defection of Wentworth, Noye, Finch, and others, Hampden became still more prominent in his public support of the patriotic opposition. Amid the fierce bigotry of those dauntless but intolerant men, he was almost the only one who had arrived at the true idea of Christianity, that it was a tolerant and forbearing religion, allowing to others the destruction. ”

“ 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. ”