Hampden
JOHN, a celebrated English statesman; born in London, Eng- HAMPSTEAD land, in 1594. He was cousin-german by the mother's side to Oliver Cromwell. In 1609 he was entered a gentleman commoner at Magdalen College, Oxford. He began the study of law in the Inner Temple, but inheriting a fortune on his father's death he lived the usual life of a country gentleman. He entered Parliament in the beginning of Charles I.'s reign as member for Grampound, and continued to sit in the House of Commons three times as member for Wendover, and finally for Bucks. Though for years opposing arbitrary practices in Church and State, it was not till 1636 that his resistance to Charles' demand for ship-money made him the argument of all tongues. Though the decision in the Court of Exchequer was given against him by seven voices to five, the victory, as far as regarded public opinion, was his. In the following year (1637) he was one of those who meditated emigration to America, which they were prevented from carrying out by an order in council detaining them. Henceforward he took a prominent part in the great contest between the crown and the Parliament, and was one of the five members whom the king, in 1642, so imprudently attempted, in person, to seize in the House of Commons. When the appeal was made to the sword, Hampden accepted the command of a regiment in the parliamentary parliamentary army under the Earl of Essex, and was fatally wounded on Chalgrove Field, June 24, 1643.