Page 23 - Hampdens Monument Unveiled

HAMPDEN lost his life by a shot in the shoulder. "Memoirs of
Edmund Ludlow, Esquire. Lieutenant-General, &C. &c
..John Hampden was the head and representative of an ancient
and opulent family, which had received the lands of Hampden in
Buckinghamshire from Edward the Confessor, and boasted to have
transmitted its wealth, honours, and influence, unimpaired and
increasing, in direct male succession down to this the most
illustrious of the house. The date of his birth is 1595 ; the
place of it is generally believed to have been London. Under
four years of age, he came, by the death of his father, into
possession of the family estates, which, besides the ancient
seat and extensive domain in Buckinghamshire, comprehended
large possessions in Essex, Oxfordshire, and Berkshire. Our
knowledge of his early life may be summed in a few facts and
dates.
..He was brought up at the free -school of Thame, in
Oxfordshire; entered as a commoner at Magdalen College, Oxford
in 1609 ; and was admitted student of the Inner Temple in 1613,
where he made considerable progress in the knowledge of common
law. His classical attainments also seem to have been
respectable, since he was associated, oddly enough, with Laud,
then master of St. John's in writing the Oxford gratulatory
poems on the marriage of the Elector Palatine and the Princess
Elizabeth; from which sprung Prince Rupert, who led the
Royalist troops when Hampden received his death -wound. In 1619
he married his first wife, Elizabeth Symeon. Inheriting a noble
property, he devoted himself, without suffering his literary
habits to fall into desuetude, principally to the business and
amusements of a country life, having, says Lord Clarendon, "on
a sudden retired from a life of a great pleasure and licence,
to extraordinary sobriety and strictness, and yet retained his
usual cheerfulness and affability." His first entrance into
public life was in January 1620-1, when he took his seat in the
Parliament then convened, for Grampound, at that time a borough
of wealth and importance: a prevalent error, that he sat for
the first time in the first parliament summoned by Charles I.
in 1625,is corrected by Lord Nugent, who in his Memorials of
Hampden has shown that he sat in the Parliaments of 1621 and
1624; that he was active and diligent in his attendance, and
intimately connected himself with Selden, Pym, St John, and
other leaders of the Popular Party; and that, though he seldom
spoke, his capacity for business was known and respected, as
appears from the employments in committees and conferences,
imposed on him by the House.

In the first Parliament of Charles I, Hampden sat for
Wendover, an ancient borough of Buckinghamshire, which with two
others had lately regained their dormant privilege of returning
members, chiefly by his exertions, and at his expense. In this
and in the following Parliament, summoned in February, 1627,
Hampden still appears to have taken no leading part. After the
dissolution of the latter, he was called upon to contribute to