HAMPDEN. 514 HAMPDEN. ■was admitted to the Inner Temple, where he made oonsideial)le progress in the study of law. On January 30, 1621, he first entered the House of Commons as a member for Grampound. He attaolied himself to the party of Saint John, S'Iden, Coke, Pym, and those who opposed the arbitrary encroachments of the Crown; but at first took no very forward part in public busi- ness, 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 imprisoned in Hampshire .'or nearly a year. His uncle, Sir Edmund Hampden, with whom he is sometimes confused, was one of the five knights who sued for liberty on a writ of habeas corpus in the fa- mous Five Ivnights case. The prisoners were all set free -when Charles found it necessar}' to sum- mon his third Parliament. Hampden's industry in Parliament now rendered him one of its lead- ing and most useful members ; he was 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 country sports and occupations. In 1634 Charles had recourse to the impost of ship money, claiming that it was not a tax. but a commutation for the military .service, which everv one owed. .t first limited to London and the maritime towns, and levied only in time of war. it was in 1635 extended to inland counties in time of peace, when Hampden resolutely refused to pay it. and his example was followed by nearly the whole County of Bucking- ham. In 1637 he was prosecuted liefore the Court of Exchequer for non-payment, when a majority of the judges gave a verdict against him. The moral victor^', however, was clearly with Hamp- den. In the Short Parliament of 1640 Hampden took a prominent part in the great contest be- tween the Crown and the House of Commons. To the Long Parliament he was returned for both ^^'endover and the County of Buckingham, and made his election for the latter. For his resist- ance to the King's proceedings, he was one of the five members whom Charles, on .January 4, 1642, rashly attempted in person to seize in the House of Commons. On the breaking out of the Civil War he raised and became colonel of a regiment in the Parliamentary Army under the Earl of Essex. He was also a member of the Committee of Public Safety. He was an excellent soldier, and constantly urged Essex to a more energetic conduct of the campaign. Some of his reputed victories over the Royalists, however, as at Aylesbury and Reading, are unhistorical. Prince Rupert having attacked a Parliamentary force at Chinnor. near Thame. Hampden joined a small body of cavalry that was 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 later, on .Tune 24. 1643. See .Anthony it Wood. Athence Oxonienses. vol. iii. (Oxford. '1813-20) ; Clarendon's Historii of the RchdUnn (6 vols.. Oxford. 1888); Lord Nugent, Memorials of John Hampden (2 vols., London. 1832), with letters; Macaulay's essay on Lord Xngent^s Memorwls of Hampden (New York. IRfil); .John Forster. TAfe. in "Eminent .English Statesmen." vol. iii. (London. 1S371 ; id.. Arrrst of the Fire Members (London. 1860) ; n., Debates on the Grand Remonstrance (London. 1860) ; id., iSiV John Eliot (2 vols., London, 1864) : S. K. (lardincr. History of England. 1603- .',:i (10 vols., London and New York, 1883-84); and his Ureat Viril ir«r (4 vols., London and New York, 1803). HAMPDEN, .ToiiN (c.1656-96). An English ])oliti(ian. grandson anil luimesake of the famous statesman. By 1679 he represented his native county, Buckingham, in Parliament, but made no great sensation there, and became known more as a partisan than as a debater^ while his long sojourns in France developed free-thinking ten- dencies. On suspicion of being implicated in the Rye House Plot, he was imprisoned in the Tower ( 1683 I . tried and condenuied to death, but saved himself by ap])ealing to the King's mercy and revealing even more tlian he knew. He thus lost caste with his own party, and when it gained the ascendency at the accession of William III. Hampden did not receive the honors nor the posi- tion he expected. He was defeated when he ran for Parliament, and turning despondent, com- mitted suicide. HAMPDEN, Renn Dickson (1793-1868). Bishop of Hereford. He was born in Barbadoes, iLarch 29, 1793. and educated at Oxford. Hav- ing left the university in 1816. he held dilTerent curacies, and in 1827 published An Essay on the Philosophical Evidence of Christianity, followed by a volume of Parochial Sermons Illustrative of the Importance of the Revelation of God in Jesns Christ. In 1829 he returned to Oxford and was tutor at Oriel (1832), after having twice acted as public examiner in classics. He was selected to preach the Bampton Lectures in 1832, when he chose for his subject The Scholastic Phi- losophii Considered, in Its Relation to Chri.^tian Theology (London. 1833). Notwithstanding a charge of .Arianism, he became principal of Saint JIary's Hall (1833). and professor of moral phi- losophy (1834). and in 1836 regius professor of divinity. There resulted a widespread and vio- lent, though ephemeral, controversy, his oppo- nents objecting to certain of his views placing the authority of the Scriptures higher than that of the Cliurch. Later he published a Lecture on Tradition (1839; .5th ed. 1842). and a lecture on The Thirty-nine .Articles of the Church of Eng- land (1842). His nomination by Lord .John Russell to the vacant See of Hereford, in Decem- ber. 1847. was again the signal for a violent and organized opposition, and his consecration in March, 1848. took place in spite of a remon- strance by many of the bishops and the resistance of Dr. Jlerewether. the Dean of Hereford. Among the more important of his later writings were the articles on "Aristotle," "Plato." and "Socrates." contributed to the eighth edition of the Enct/clo- pcedia Britannica. and afterwards reprinted with additions imder the title of The Fathers of Greek Philosophii (Edinburgh. 1862). He died in Lon- don. April 23. 1868. Consult his life by his daughter (London. 1871). HAMPDEN, Richard (1631-9,5). An Eng- lish statesman. He was the second son of the famous .Tohn Hampden (q.v. ). and at the age of twenty-five entered political life as member for Buckinghamshire. As an ardent supporter of Cromwell Hampden had a seat in Parliament imtil the end of the Protectorate, and afterwards durinsr a considerable part of the reigns of Charles II. and .Tames II. Inheriting the politi-
