HAMPDEN, JOHN, a celebrated English patriot, said to have been born in London in 1594, was the son of William Hampden of Hampden, Buckinghamshire, and Elizabeth, daughter of sir Henry Cromwell of Hinchingbrooke, Huntingdonshire, aunt of Oliver Cromwell. His father died in 1597, when he was only three years old. In 1609 he was entered a gentleman commoner at Magdalen college, Oxford, and in 1613 was admitted. to the Inner Temple, where he made considerable progress in the study of law. On Jan. 30, 1621, he first entered the house of commons as member for the now disfran chised borough of Grampouncl. He attached himself to the party of St. John, Seidel). Coke, Pym, and those who opposed the arbitrary encroachments of the crown, but at first took no very forward part in public business, and spoke but seldom. In the first three parliaments of Charles I., he sat for Wendover. In 1627, for refusing to pay his proportion of the general loan which the king attempted to raise on his own authority, Hampden was committed to close imprisonment in the Gatehouse. Subsequently, he was removed to Hampshire, hut, with seventy-six others, unconditionally liberated by an order of council. His activity and industry in parliament .now rendered him one of its leading and most useful inembeiSiflieVaS on most of its committees; but after the dissolution of the parliament of 1628-29, he retired to his estate, and devoted himself to study and to country sports and occupations. Claiming the power to tax the country in any way he thought proper, in 1634, Charles had recourse to the impost of ship money. At first, limited to London and the maritime towns, and levied only in time of war, it was, in 1636, extended to inland places in time of peace, when Hampden reso lutely refused to pay it, and his example was followed by nearly the whole county of Buckingham. In 1637 he was prosecuted before the court of exchequer for non-pay
ment, when a majority of the judges gave a verdict against him. In the short parlia ment of 1640 Hampden took a prominent part in the great contest between the crown and the house of commons. To the long parliament he was returned both for Wendover and the county of Buckingham, and made his election for the latter. For his resistance to the king's proceedings, he was one of the five members whom Charles, on ,Jan. 4, 1642, rashly attempted in person to seize in the house of commons; and on the breaking out of the civil war, he raised and became col. of a regiment in the parliamentary army under the earl of Essex. He was also a member of the committee of public safety, and in the prosecution of the war, constantly advised prompt and energetic measures. Ile was present at the repulse of the royalists at Southam, at their defeat near Ayles bury, at the fight at Edgehill, and at the assault and capture of Reading. Prince Rupert having attacked a parliamentary force at Chinnor, near Thame, Hampden put himself at the head of a few cavalry that were rallied in haste to oppose him, and in the fight that ensued at Chalgrove Field, received in the first charge a wound of which he died six days after, on June 24, 1643. He was twice married, and by his first wife had three sons and six daughters.