Clement-Jones family 12/22 - Person Sheet
Clement-Jones family 12/22 - Person Sheet
NameJohn HAMPDEN , 465
Birth1594
Death1643
EducationLord William’s Grammar School Thame, Magdalen College Oxford.
FatherWilliam HAMPDEN , 1792 (-1597)
MotherElizabeth CROMWELL , 1793 (-1664)
Spouses
Birth1600
Death1634
FatherEdmund SYMEON , 1791
ChildrenRuth , 464 (1628-1687)
 William , 1797 (1633-1675)
 John , 1798 (?1621-1642)
 Richard , 1799
 Elizabeth , 1948
 Ann , 1949
 Mary , 1950
Notes for John HAMPDEN
Eldest son. Inherited Gt Hampden. Who refused to pay ship money. Known as the “Patriot”.

"One name stands pre-eminently for Buckinhamshire is that of the great Puritan patriot, statesman and soldier, John Hampden, perhaps the most honoured memory left by the Civil War"

John Hampden was the son of William and Elizabeth and was born in 1594. His father died when John was only three. He was educated at the Free Grammar School at Thame and then matriculated from Magdalen College, Oxford in 1610.

In 1613 Hampden became a member of the Inner Temple.

He represented the Borough of Grampound in 1621 at the age of only 28; Wendover in the two Parliaments called in 1626 and 1629 by King Charles I. In 1640 - 1641 he represented Buckinghamshire.
After spending -
"several years in fashionable dissipation he bent his study solely to stop the progress of the wild chimera of King Charles to rule by his own aritrary maxims only - he was the first person who had the courage to stand forth the champion of liberty: this procured him the honourable appelation of The Patriot"
The story of John Hampden's protest in 1635 against the illegal tax imposed by King Charles I - "Ship Money", and his arrest personally by King Charles for treason, is well known to every student of English history. One biography is that by Dr. Frank Hansford - Miller.

There is a large statue of John Hampden in Market Square, Aylesbury, and a monument near the crossroads near Honour End Farm between Hampden and Prestwood, on the road from Chalgrove to Warpsgrove.

Five miles from Chalgrove Field at Clifton Hampden is a "picture-book" inn called "The Plough" which is part 14th century, which has a little dining room called the "John Hampden Room". Hampden is said to have "rested at the "Plough" in the first year of the War between clashes with King Charles' army". The ghost of John Hampden is said to haunt the inn. A former landlady in the 1960's claimed that she "often felt a presence behind her and her husband would hear the bar-door latch go, only to find there was no one there except that a strange blue light going through the closed door. One night a glass of whisky turned completely upside down by itself and emptied the contents on to the counter."

Clifton Hampden was originally part of the Hampden estates but was relinquished during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.

He was a Colonel in Cromwell's army in the Civil War, and he led regiments of Greencoats at Edgehill and Brentford, but rather than waiting for his full regiment of Buckinghamshire infantry Hampden went with a group of his soldiers to Chalgrove Field in South Oxfordshire between Thame and Warpsgrove. At Chalgrove Royalist troops under Prince Rupert were en route to ambush a convoy carrying £21,000 pay for the Parliamentary Army at High Wycombe.

The Parliamentarians fled after a brief skirmish but Hampden was mortally wounded. One version of his death was that he was hit by two Royalist musket balls that shattered his shoulder.
According to Mark Noble:

"He received a mortal wound in a trifling skirmish at Chalgrove Field on June 18th, 1643 and died on the 24th, and was buried on the 25th in the chancel of Great Hampden Church. Echard, in his History of England, says that he was informed on the best authority that the patriot Hampden's death was occasioned by the bursting of a pistol, which belonged to a case that Sir Robert Pye, his son-in-law had presented him with; and when Sir Robert went to pay him a visit on his death bed John said: "Ah Robin, your unhappy present has been my ruin!" THis relation of the Patriot's death seems confirmed for when two of the Harleys and one of the Foley family were at Faringdon House in their way to Hertfordshire Sir Robert Pye, at whose seat it was, gave this relation of the Patriot's death: That Mr. Hampden, at the skirmish at Chalgrove, firing one of the pistols, which Robert had purchased in Paris of an eminent artist, it burst, and shattered his arm in so terrible a manner that he could scarce retire from the battle field; as he was sensible that his death was near, he sent for his son-in-law and acquainted him of the accident: he replied he was extremely hurt for the misfortune, but that it was occasioned by no fault of his, for he himself had proved them; and upon examining the other pistol, it was discovered that it was loaded unto the top of the barrel with supernumerary charges, owing to the ignorance of a country servant whom Mr.Hampden had entrusted with the care of loading them every morning."

John Hampden married twice, firstly Elizabeth, sole daughter of Edmund Symeon of Pyrton in Oxfordshire.

Elizabeth is buried in the chancel of Great Hampden Church, against the south wall is a long plain black stone, at the top of which are the arms of Hampden impaling Symeon, and the following inscription beneath:
 
TO THE ETERNAL MEMORY
OF THE TRUELY
VERTUOUS AND PIUS
ELIZABETH HAMPDEN, WIFE OF JOHN
HAMPDEN, OF GREAT HAMPDEN, ESQUIRE,
SOLE DAUGHTER & HEIRE OF EDMUND
SYMEON, OF PYRTON, IN THE COUNTY
OF OXON, ESQ. THE TENDER MOTHER
OF AN HAPPY OFFSPRING IN 9
HOPEFUL CHILDREN,
In her Pilgrimage
The staie and comfort of her neighbours,
The love and glory of a well-ordered family,
The delight and happiness of tender Parents,
But a Crowne of blessings to a husband.
In a wife, to all an eternal paterne of goodnesse,
and cause of joy whilst shee was.
In her Dissolution
A losse unvalluable to each yet herselfe
bles't and they recumpenc'd in her
Translation from a tabernacle of claye
and Fellowshipp with mortals to a Celestiall
Mansion and Communion with Deity the
20th day of August, 1634.
 
JOHN HAMPDEN, HER SORROWFULL
HUSBAND, IN PERPETUALL TESTIMONY
OF HIS CONJUGALL LOVE HATH
DEDICATED THIS
MONUMENT

Extract from Encyclopedia Britannica

English Parliamentary leader famous for his opposition to King Charles I over ship money, an episode in the controversies that ultimately led to the English Civil Wars.

A first cousin of Oliver Cromwell, Hampden was educated at the University of Oxford and the Inner Temple, London, and entered the House of Commons in 1621. There he quickly became a specialist in matters of taxation and a close friend of Sir John Eliot, a leading Puritan critic of the crown. In 1627 Hampden was imprisoned for nearly a year for refusing to contribute a forced loan demanded by the king. When Eliot died in 1632, after three years in prison, Hampden's ill will for Charles was firmly established.

Hampden resisted on principle the payment of ship money, a levy collected by the king for outfitting his navy. Only Parliament was empowered to levy taxes, however, and Hampden reasoned that, as Parliament could meet only when summoned by the king, Charles was, in effect, eliminating the need to call Parliament if he could impose taxes himself. The king contended, however, that ship money was a type of tax that by custom did not need the approval of Parliament. In 1635 Hampden refused to pay 20 shillings in ship money, and the case went before the 12 judges of the Court of the Exchequer. Although seven of the judges upheld Charles and five sided with Hampden (1638), the narrow majority received by the king may have been a factor that encouraged widespread resistance to the tax.

During the Long Parliament, which convened in November 1640, Hampden became the principal lieutenant of Parliamentary leader John Pym in a vigorous attack on royal policies, and he was one of the five members who successfully evaded arrest by the king in January 1642. After the outbreak of the Civil War between the Parliamentarians and the Royalists in August 1642, Hampden served as a colonel in the Battle of Edgehill, Warwickshire (October), but on June 18, 1643, he was mortally wounded in a skirmish with Royalists at Chalgrove Field, near Thame.
Last Modified 16 Apr 2017Created 4 Mar 2023 using Reunion for Macintosh