The Earl of Buckinghamshire at the Society's 20th anniversary service in Great Hampden Church

The Ship Money monument at Prestwood

The Palace of Westminster in the 17th century

Pyrton Manor, home of John Hampden's first wife

The former Lord Williams's Grammar School, Thame

The Earl of Buckinghamshire at the 350th anniversary ceremony in Thame

St Mary Magdalene church, Great Hampden

Charles I tries to arrest the Five Members in the House of Commons

John Hampden's funeral in 1643

Arthur Goodwin, Hampden's lifelong friend
Devonshire Collection, Chatsworth. Reproduced by permission of Chatsworth Settlement Trustees.

The Great Hall at Hampden House

St Mary Magdalene church and Hampden House

Hampden's regiment marching through Thame

The Statesman

Part II – The Statesman

The Ship Money memorial near Great Hampden
The Ship Money memorial near Great Hampden

Hampden himself was imprisoned in 1626 for refusing to subscribe to a forced loan, but it was in 1635, when the Ship Money tax was extended to the inland counties, that he made his great stand against tyranny. Despite being one of the wealthiest landowners in the county, he refused to pay the levy, and was summoned for the assessment of 20 shillings on his Stoke Mandeville lands.

The case aroused great public interest and, although the verdict went against Hampden by the narrowest of margins (7-5), it was a great moral victory. The decision, wrote the historian Clarendon (a contemporary of Hampden), “proved of more advantage and credit to the gentleman condemned than to the King’s service” and the reasoning of the judges “left no man anything he could call his own”.

The impressive statue of Hampden in the Central Lobby of the House of Commons
The impressive statue of Hampden in the Central Lobby of the House of Commons

John Hampden now had a national reputation, and occupied a similar position in the eyes of many, as that of his descendant Winston Churchill exactly 3 centuries later. Because of Hampden’s stand, the King was unable to collect most of the Ship Money tax, and was forced to recall Parliament in 1640, after an interval of 11 years.

“When this parliament began”, wrote Clarendon, “the eyes of all men were turned on him as their Patriae Pater, and the pilot that must steer their vessel through the tempest and rocks which threatened it”. It was from this event that John Hampden received the title by which he has ever since been known – ‘The Patriot‘.

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Earl of Strafford

Hampden was a tireless worker, sitting on numerous parliamentary committees, and he played an important part in the impeachment by the House of Commons of the King’s Chief Minister, the Earl of Strafford, for high treason. His greatest skill, however, lay in his ability as a tactician and in his persuasiveness. When, in the Short Parliament of 1640, the King demanded twelve subsidies in return for abolishing Ship Money, Hampden proposed “That the question might be put whether the House would consent to the proposition made by the King as it was contained in the message”, to which the answer “No” was inevitable.

cromwll
Oliver Cromwell

Similarly, when a quarrel broke out in the House in the early hours of the morning over the printing of the Grand Remonstrance, Hampden averted bloodshed by “a short speech of great sagacity and calmness”. He was also a shrewd judge of character, recognising the potential of his cousin Oliver Cromwell when the future Lord Protector was still a humble back-bencher.

As one of the Five Members, Hampden narrowly escaped arrest by the King on a charge of high treason in January 1642. The incident appears to have strengthened his militancy, for it was he who proposed that the King place the Tower, the Militia, and the principal forts in Parliament’s hands. When Charles’s refusal made war inevitable, Hampden was appointed to the Committee of Safety – the Parliamentary War Cabinet.

Charles I attempts to arrest the Five Members in the House of Commons
Charles I attempts to arrest the Five Members in the House of Commons Speaker William Lenthall


Part III – The Soldier