DA
316
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مات
DISCOURSE
ΟΝ
THE CHARACTER AND SERVICES
OF
JOHN HAMPDEN,
AND THE GREAT STRUGGLE FOR
POPULAR AND CONSTITUTIONAL LIBERTY
IN HIS TIME.
BY W. C. RIVES, ESQ.
DELIVERED BEFORE THE TRUSTEES, FACULTY AND STUDENTS OF
HAMPDEN SYDNEY COLLEGE, THE 12th November, 1845.
RICHMOND:
PRINTED BY SHEPHERD AND COLIN.
1845.
CORRESPONDENCE.
DEAR SIR,
I take pleasure as the organ of the Trustees of Hampden
Sydney College, in communicating to you their grateful acknowledg-
ments for the very instructive and able Address delivered by you yes-
terday. That the gratification which they received in hearing it may
be measurably extended to other citizens of the Commonwealth and the
Union, and that the attention of the youth of our country may be
drawn to its most interesting subject, they solicit a copy for publi-
cation.
I remain,
HAMPDEN SYDNEY COLLEGE, 13th Nov. 1845.
Hon. MR. RIVES.
Dear sir,
Very respectfully yours,
F. N. WATKINS,
Sec. to the Trustees.
PRINCE EDWARD Co. Nov. 13th, 1845.
DEAR SIR,
I have just had the honour to receive your note of this date.
I derive much pleasure from the very kind and favourable accep-
tance which my attempt to do justice to a great subject, has met from
those at whose instance the task was undertaken. The sense I feel of
the surpassing importance (to us especially) of that portion of the an-
nals of our British ancestors which the occasion necessarily brought
under review, with the hope that what was essayed, however imper-
fectly executed, may yet serve to invite other minds to the contempla-
tion and study of the noble lessons and examples in which the history
DA
396
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of that period so richly abounds, far more than any feeling of compla-
cency in regard to the performance which the Trustees of the College
have been pleased, through you, to honour with their approbation, im-
pels me to yield obedience to their wishes, and to place the Address at
their disposal, for whatever good end it may seem to them calculated
to promote.
Begging to renew to them and yourself my most cordial and re-
spectful salutations,
I remain,
F. N. WATKINS, Esq.
Very truly and faithfully,
Yours,
Secretary to the Trustees of H. S. College.
W. C. RIVES.
Libr.
Bork Ear
9-17-42
46315
♫
**
•
in
v
DISCOURSE.
MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN :
The Board of Trustees, charged with the
management of this ancient Institution, were pleased
to do me the honour to invite me to take part with
them in the proceedings of this day; and my young
friends, the Students of the College, in a very flatter-
ing manner, added the expression of their wishes to
those of the corporation. So honourable a call,
coming to me from so high and respected a source,
and so persuasively enforced, I have not been able to
resist, however unequal I feel myself to the perform-
ance of the duty which has been assigned me, in a
manner to justify your selection, or worthy of the oc-
casion.
An occasion of more interest and dignity rarely
occurs in the course of human affairs. We are met
to receive, publicly and solemnly, the silent yet elo-
quent memorials achieved by grateful art, of the per-
son and virtues of one of the illustrious patriots of
the land of our forefathers, whose name this Institu-
tion is proud to bear-the immortal champion of ci-
vil and religious freedom, John Hampden. These
دا
6
memorials are now before you. The one is a medal-
lion portrait of that great man, executed in the noble
simplicity and purity of his own character, the other,
a copy in marble of the monument erected to his me-
mory by the gratitude of his countrymen on the field,
in which he gloriously fell in defence of the liberties
of his country and of mankind. The monument
stands in Chalgrove Field, Oxfordshire, and was
erected there on the 18th day of June 1843, being
the two hundredth anniversary of the day of the glo-
rious martyrdom which it commemorates. It tells its
own story in a noble and eloquent inscription far
more impressive than any words I can use, and I beg
leave, therefore, to read so much of it as is essential
to the merits of its object:
"Here in this Field of Chalgrove, John Hampden,
after an able and strenuous, but unsuccessful resist-
ance, in Parliament and before the Judges of the
land, to the measures of an arbitrary court, first took
arms, assembling the levies of the associated counties
of Buckingham and Oxford in 1642; and here, with-
in a few paces of this spot, he received the wound of
which he died, while fighting in defence of the an-
cient liberties of England, June the 18th, 1643. In
the two hundredth year from that day, this stone was
raised in reverence to his memory."
It could not fail to be gratifying to every lover of
liberty to read over the list of proud and lofty names,
the most elevated in rank and the most dignified by
station, which concurred in this warm and approving
verdict of a distant posterity upon the principles and
actions of one of the stanchest advocates which the
7
cause of popular freedom ever had. But I must con-
tent myself here with merely stating that the family of
Hampden in England, learning with pride that an In-
stitution existed in this country, bearing the name of
their honoured ancestor, and dedicated to the cause
of sound learning, and to the promotion of those prin-
ciples of civil and religious liberty for which that an-
cestor had freely offered up his life, eagerly sought
the occasion to present to it the interesting memorials
which are now before us. So graceful an act of in-
ternational courtesy, drawing together distant people
by the kindly offices of mutual sympathy and recog-
nition, deserves to be acknowledged, to be apprecia-
ted, to be imitated. It is an offering which does ho-
nour to the high character of those from whom it pro-
ceeds, and which this Institution, by many titles, is
worthy to receive.
An Institution which started into existence under
the fresh impulse of our own great contest for free-
dom-whose first session was opened on the first day
of that year which ushered in the Declaration of
American Independence-whose patriotic founders
significantly proclaimed to the world the lofty princi-
ples with which, at that soul-stirring period, their own
bosoms were animated, by assuming for their symbols
the names of Hampden and of Sydney-an Institu-
tion, in short, which boasts at the head of its first
Board of Trustees the name of Patrick Henry, a
name to liberty and to eloquence ever dear, cannot be
an unfit depository of those memorials of the model
statesman and patriot of England, which are now
committed to its keeping. These are glorious recol-
1
8
lections for you, gentlemen, upon whom the govern-
ment of this Institution has descended-instructive
and inspiring for the generous youth who are now
forming themselves for virtue and usefulness, under
your charge. I heartily join with you in the feelings
they are so well fitted to awaken; and my earnest
prayer is that the kindred spirits of Hampden and of
Henry, united in immortal fellowship here, may ever
continue to shed the holy influence of patriotism and
of virtue, of liberty and religion, within and around
these halls.
To comprehend properly the great lessons of wis-
dom and virtue involved in the career and example
of Hampden, we must go back to the times in which
he lived; and surely no period in the history of man
deserves to be more profoundly studied by the free ci-
tizens of America. It carries us into the midst of the
most august and eventful scenes, and into the presence
of the most renowned actors that have ever appeared
upon the theatre of human affairs. On the continent
of Europe, as in England, it was the period signalized
by the struggles of liberty against despotism, of the
heroic resistance of the people against their oppres-
sors. It was the period which witnessed the long pro-
tracted and bitter agony of a seventy years sangui-
nary conflict, through which the United Provinces of
the Netherlands, the infant Republic of Holland, by
prodigies of valour, of patriotism and of enterprise,
nobly won their independence from the cruel and un-
relenting despotism of Spain. A nobler struggle for
freedom, richer in great deeds of civic virtue or mili-
tary prowess, is not recorded in the annals of human
9
kind, and challenges with peculiar force the sympathy
and admiration of an American bosom, from the stri-
king parallel, if not model, it furnished in so many
particulars, to our own glorious contest for indepen-
dence and self-government.
At the same epoch, all Europe was convulsed by
the thirty years war in Germany, a war waged in de-
fence of civil and religious liberty against the tyranny
and bigotry of Ferdinand of Austria, and forever con-
secrated to the sympathies of mankind by the roman-
tic chivalry, the christian heroism and miraculous
achievements of Gustavus Adolphus, who, when lying
prostrate amid the heaps of slain which surrounded
and almost covered him on the field of Lutzen, being
asked who he was, replied, "I am the King of Swe-
den; and seal with my blood the protestant religion
and liberties of Germany." And such, indeed, was
the precious purchase of his blood; for his brave and
devoted countrymen, animated by his example and
his dying words, and led by the firm and sagacious
councils of his surviving minister and friend, Oxen-
stiern, never relaxed in the sacred cause which was
bequeathed to them, till, aided by the then rapidly cul-
minating power of France under the bold and steady
impulse of the genius of Richelieu in the cabinet, and
of Turenne and the great Condé in the field, they se-
cured its final triumph at the Peace of Westphalia.
France herself had just passed through the bloody
fratricidal conflict of her civil and religious wars,
of which her Montmorencys, her Colignys, and her
Guises were successively and alternately the heroes.
and the victims. Her wounds had been temporarily
GR
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10
healed by the first great act of religious toleration,
the Edict of Nantz, and she stood upon her feet again
under the paternal sway of Henry the IVth and the
wise and beneficent administration of Sully. But the
still struggling aspirations of a higher and a better
liberty which from time to time animated her, for the
want of an enlightened and independent body of Com-
mons speaking and acting through an organized re-
presentative assembly, were doomed as yet to exhaust
themselves in the fitful and tumultuous efforts of the
Barricades and the Fronde.
England was happier. She had, at length a people
in the true sense of that word, with all the attributes
of a moral existence, and that people had now their
representative organ in an independent House of
Commons. It is at this period, the beginning of the
seventeenth century, coincident with the close of the
Tudor line of Princes and the accession of the Stu-
arts, that a new order of things had evidently arisen
among our English ancestors. The revival of letters,
the art of printing, the extension of commerce re-
sulting from the discovery of America and of the pas-
sage to India by the Cape of Good Hope, and finally
the emancipation of the human mind by the Reforma-
tion, had been, most of them, in operation, and si-
lently and gradually producing their benign effects,
for more than a century. Their matured fruits were
now visible in England, in nothing more than in the
marked improvement and elevation of the condition
of the mass of the nation. The simultaneous increase
and diffusion among all classes of society, of property
and knowledge, the two great elements of power in
sigla
11
every civilized community, raised the people to the
level of their new destinies. Nothing more strikingly
illustrates the new-born thirst for knowledge, as well
as spirit of national improvement which had taken
possession, at this time, of the great body of the peo-
ple in England, than the fact stated by Dr. Johnson
in his introduction to the Harleian Miscellany. "The
Treatises on Husbandry and Agriculture," he says,
"which were published during the reign of James the
First, were so numerous that it can scarcely be ima-
gined by whom they were written or to whom they
were sold."*
A similar illustration of the general acquisition and
increase of property, which had taken place in the
mass of the nation, is furnished in the fact mentioned
by Historians, that, when the Parliament which passed
the memorable Petition of Right assembled in 1628,
the aggregate property of the members of the House
of Commons was computed to surpass three times that
of the House of Peers. A people, thus possessed of
intelligence and of independent livelihoods derived
from their own industry, could not but feel and assert
their rights. A new power, unknown to the former
struggles for English liberty, had arisen in the State.
To haughty and steel-clad Barons leading bands of
submissive vassals to wrest from their sovereign, by
the sword, the precarious boon of extorted, and yet
partial concessions, or the mockery of feeble and ser-
G
* Dugald Stewart, remarking on this fact, observes, that "at all times
and in every country, the extensive sale of books on agriculture may be
regarded as one of the most pleasing symptoms of mental cultivation
in the great body of the people." See his Dissertation on the progress
of Philosophy since the Revival of Letters in Europe.
12
vile parliaments more fitted to be the tools of tyranny
than the guardians of freedom, had succeeded the
majestic spectacle of a people prepared to vindicate
and maintain their inherent liberties in their own right,
by the safe and salutary agency of their freely chosen
representatives in a virtuous and independent House
of Commons. Westminster and St. Stephen's had
taken the place of Runnymede, not in form only but
in spirit and in truth, and the people were hencefor-
ward to battle for their liberties in a free Parliament
inspired by the new genius and wants of the age, and
unawed and unseduced by power.
Such was the sublime mission of the Commons of
England at the commencement of the seventeenth
century. They had to re-construct the edifice of pub-
lic liberty from its foundations; for however glorious
and animating, as historical recollections, were the
Great Charter of King John, or the subsequent con-
firmations and extensions of that charter in the time
of the earlier Henrys and Edwards, yet as muniments
of British freedom, they had long ceased to be heeded
or regarded in the practical administration of the go-
vernment. The Crown claimed and exercised the
power of dispensing with the laws of the land at its
own will-of putting its arbitrary proclamations in
the place and upon the footing of legislative enact-
ments of levying taxes upon the people without
their consent of imprisoning obnoxious individuals,
even such as were protected by privilege of parlia-
ment, at pleasure—and finally of interposing between
man and his maker, and prescribing to every one,
under the pains and penalties of temporal power, the
13
form in which he should render his worship to God.
Surely a government in which such vast and fearful
powers were exercised by a single will over the lives,
liberties, properties and consciences of men, could
have no sound claim to be considered a system of
freedom. And yet
And yet these powers had been practically
exercised by the Kings of England for more than a
century, at the time of which we are speaking. How-
ever differing, therefore, with Hume upon other ques-
tions connected with the history of these eventful
times, I cannot but feel there is much foundation for
the strong remark made by him in the Memoir of his
own life, where he says, "it is ridiculous to consider
the English constitution, as it existed at this period, a
regular plan of liberty."
It was the task of the noble race of patriots and
statesmen who now appeared upon the stage to restore
this boasted constitution to its primitive freedom-to
realise the picture which had been drawn of it by its
earlier oracles and expounders—to wipe out the abu-
sive precedents which had marred and defaced it-
and to provide new and lasting securities to protect it
from similar inroads in future. Never was a set of
men better qualified and furnished for their task.
Among them, besides Hampden, who became so pro-
minent in the later stages of the contest, were the
great names of Coke, Selden, Sandys, Eliot, Pym,
Seymour, Philips, St. John and Vane. These were
all men profoundly versed in the history and laws of
their own country, initiated from early youth in the
study of the literature and political institutions of the
free states of antiquity, with whose spirit they were
-
14
་
largely imbued, and coming into active life at a time
when the gravest questions, which can affect the feel-
ings and interests of man in society, had arisen for
decision, they had trained themselves to the duties of
the highest practical statesmanship. They well merit
the eulogy pronounced upon them by a celebrated
English Divine, Bishop Warburton, who after refer-
ring to the period of which we are speaking as that
at which "the spirit of liberty was at its height in
England," adds, "and its interests were conducted
and supported by a set of the greatest geniuses for
government that the world ever saw embarked toge-
ther in one common cause.
99
Such a period in the history of the Land of our
Fore-fathers, from which we have derived the model
and the spirit of so many of our free institutions,
must, on every account, attract the earnest attention
of Americans. But it is commended to our special
sympathy and regard from the fact that, it was pre-
cisely at this epoch, that our own country was settled
from England. From this time, the histories of Eng-
land and of America become tied and dove-tailed
into one another, and so continued for near two cen-
turies. Then began that series of action and reac-
tion between the old and new world which may be
considered as the great connecting link of modern
civilization, and which has exerted and will continue
to exert so important an influence upon the destinies
of the human race. Our ancestors, the first emigrants
to America, left their native shores at a period when,
as we have just seen, the spirit of liberty there was at
its height. That spirit has been cherished by their
15
descendants here with a faithful and steady devotion,
and the sacred flame, kept alive by the recollections
of the past as well as the hopes of the future, will yet,
we may trust, light the world to freedom through the
paths of peace.
Virginians especially must ever warmly remember
that it was to the zealous patronage and spirited pro-
tection of the band of patriots, who were at this time
struggling for the ancient liberties of England, that
the early colonists of our own state were indebted for
the vindication and establishment of their franchises.
It was mainly through the generous exertions of one
among that noble band, whose name I have already
mentioned, Sir Edwin Sandys, (who was for a time
Treasurer to the Virginia company in England, and
always the gallant and faithful friend of the colony,)
that it was rescued from the brutal tyranny of Argall
and placed under the safeguard of a representative
assembly of its own choice. The questions of liberty,
in the affairs of the colony and in the administration
of the government in England, indeed, became so in-
timately blended that the meetings of the Virginia
Company, numbering among its members some of
the most distinguished public men of the day, became
a forum in which the political principles of the two
adverse parties were freely and openly debated; and
the Spanish minister, Gondomar, advised King James
to annul the charter of the company, because its
meetings were, as he said, "but a seminary to a se-
ditious parliament."
No sooner had James the First succeeded to the
Crown of England, than it became apparent that a
16
great and deadly struggle between the claims of royal
prerogative on the one hand and the new-born and
sturdy spirit of popular independence on the other,
was imminent and inevitable. In the Proclamation
he issued on ascending the throne, he announced his
favourite dogmas of the divine and indefeasible right
of Kings, and the duty of subjects to render absolute
and implicit obedience, in terms the most unmitigated
and revolting. Incidents occurred on his journey
from Edinburgh to London, in the very honey-moon
of his English Royalty, which sufficiently evinced that
these extravagant pretensions were not the mere idle
and absurd pedantry of his boasted King-craft, as too
many historians have been wont to represent them.
A
poor
wretch who had been detected in some petit
larceny, he ordered to be hanged without any form of
trial-ten of the Reverend Clergy who presented to
him the Millenary Petition, so called from the thou-
sand ministers who were said to have signed it, were
committed to prison by his command for a modest and
respectful exercise of the humblest right of the sub-
ject—and the crowds of persons of every rank, who
were drawn together by loyalty and curiosity, to greet
the arrival of their new sovereign, were rudely re-
pelled and dispersed by a Proclamation forbidding
"this resort of people." This début of the King, it
must be admitted, was a most unpromising, as well as
ungracious, beginning of a new reign.
It was not long, however, before his innate hostility
to the liberties of the people was demonstrated by acts
of a more dangerous and wide reaching character.
A Parliament was to be assembled. In the proclama-
-
17
tion of the King summoning this assembly, he autho-
ritatively prescribed to the people the sort of persons
they should choose for their Representatives, and de-
clared that if any person should presume to take upon
him the place of Knight, Citizen or Burgess, contrary
to the purport and effect of that proclamation, every
such
person should be fined and imprisoned for his of-
fence. This bold interference with the freedom of
elections, the most delicate as well as fundamental
privilege of the nation, was followed in a few days by
a daring attack upon the vital principle of Parliament
as an independent representative body. One of the
King's privy counsellors had been a candidate for the
county of Buckingham, which, nevertheless, preferred
and returned for its representative Sir Francis Good-
win, a person of more congenial popular sympathies
and principles. The Lord Chancellor, the King's
chief officer and keeper of his conscience, disregarding
the inherent right of every Representative Body to be
the sole judge of the returns and qualifications of its
members, undertook to vacate the election of Sir
Francis Goodwin, as being contrary to the late Pro-
clamation of the King, and issued a writ for a new
election, upon which the court candidate was return-
ed. Immediately after the meeting of Parliament,
this matter was brought up for the consideration of
the House of Commons, who, after a debate charac-
terised by high resolve and that noble spirit of liberty
which then prevailed, reversed the proceedings of
the chancellor as an infringement upon the funda-
mental privileges and rights of the Commons, and
3
18
determined that Sir Francis Goodwin was lawfully
entitled to his seat.
A long and vehement controversy ensued with the
King, in the course of which he ordered the Com-
mons to hold a conference with the Judges, which he
said he commanded as an absolute King, and plainly
told them that all their privileges were derived from
his grant, and consequently, as he would have them
to understand, revocable at his pleasure. The contest
was conducted with great judgment and temper, as
well as decision on the part of the Commons, and
ended by placing their exclusive right to judge of the
elections and returns of their members on a ground,
where it has never since been questioned or assailed.
It is not a little remarkable that it was in the person
of a Representative of Buckinghamshire that was
committed the first of that long series of violations of
the public liberty which so fatally distinguished the
rule of the two first Stuarts, and which it was reserved
for another representative of the same great county
at a later period—for the virtues and talents of Hamp-
den-to redress in their increasing and cumulative
enormity.
In tracing the progress of this great contest for li-
berty in the land of our ancestors, we come now to
that vital struggle, in regard to the constitutional
power of taxation, which gave birth alike to Ameri-
can and to British freedom. The people of England
claimed it as a part of their ancient liberties not to be
subject to any taxes or impositions upon their lands,
goods or merchandise, save only by common consent
19
in Parliament. King James, unwilling to rely upon
Parliament for supplies, which, in the now awakened
jealousy of public liberty, were to be purchased only
by the redress of grievances, resorted to various irre-
gular expedients for the purpose of filling his Exche-
quer; and at length under colour of a decision ob-
tained from servile and dependent Judges, he caused
to be published of his own authority a Book of Rates
imposing new and heavy duties upon all merchandise
brought into the kingdom. As soon as Parliament
was again assembled, the Commons entered upon an
earnest examination of this alarming assumption of
the power of taxation by the King, and after an ela-
borate and protracted debate, in which the learning
and ability exhibited by some of the popular members
were equalled only by the firm and undaunted spirit
of patriotism displayed by them all, a bill was brought
in to abolish the illegal impositions. The King, in
an arrogant tone of despotic authority, commanded
the Commons not to proceed with a question which
touched his prerogative. The Commons, in a noble
Remonstrance, vindicated their right freely to discuss
all matters which concerned the interests of the na-
tion; and pronouncing the prerogative of imposition,
claimed by the King, to be one which "extended to
the utter ruin of the ancient liberty of the kingdom
and of the subjects' right of property in their lands
and goods," proceeded, in despite of the royal prohi-
bition, to pass the bill which had been brought in for
the abolition of the new imposts. The Lords, as was
to be anticipated, withheld their concurrence in this
vigorous measure; and James, deeply offended at
20
the patriotic firmness of the Commons, and rebuking
them for their seditious and even blasphemous pre-
sumption in disputing, to use his own language, "what
a King may do in the height of his power," indig-
nantly dissolved a Parliament which had opposed so
steady and valiant a resistance to his encroachments.
Four years now elapsed before another Parliament
was convened.
In this interval, the spirit of liberty
which animated the nation instead of suffering any
abatement, had, if possible, acquired greater strength.
The new Parliament instantly resumed the subject of
the King's illegal impositions, in spite of every arti-
fice employed to obtain from them first, additional
supplies to meet the growing profusion of the court.
Nothing marks more strikingly the rapid advance of
the nation in intelligence and freedom than the fact
that the Commons now passed an unanimous vote
against the right of imposition claimed by the King,
and proceeded immediately to demand a conference
with the House of Lords, which, in the last Parlia-
ment, had refused their concurrence in establishing
this great principle of English liberty. The King, in-
censed and alarmed at the increasing energy of the
Commons, precipitately dissolved the Parliament, be-
fore they had passed a single bill, and superadded
the outrage of imprisoning several of the members,
who had incurred his displeasure by the freedom and
boldness of their debates.
An interval of more than six years now occurred
before the assembling of another Parliament. During
this period, events of the most important character
had taken place on the continent of Europe, which
21
strongly appealed to the sympathies, and deeply en-
listed the feelings and sentiments of the English na-
tion. The thirty years war had broken out in Ger-
many, provoked by the persecutions and oppressions
of the Emperor Ferdinand directed against the Pro-
testant States of the Empire. Among those states,
driven to raise the standard of a brave and bloody re-
sistance, was Bohemia, which had conferred her sove-
reignty on Frederic, the Elector Palatine, who was
married to the daughter of King James. Frederic
was soon overwhelmed by the immense power of the
House of Austria, and he was not only forced to flee
from his new kingdom, but his hereditary dominion,
the Palatinate, was overrun in every direction by the
Spanish forces under Spinola. The progress of the
combined arms of Spain and the Emperor was every
where signalized by cruelties and rigors of the most
revolting character exercised against the professors of
the Reformed religion. The people of England, now
cherishing the blessings of civil and religious liberty
above all price, saw with generous and indignant
sympathy the brave and unequal struggle of their pro-
testant brethren on the continent. The principles of
national honour and of national interest, as they con-
ceived, alike required of them the vigorous support of
the Palatine and his allies against their haughty and
powerful oppressors.
G
James had embraced far different councils. His
repugnance to appear, under any circumstances, to
patronise the revolt of subjects against their sovereign,
steeled his breast to the pleadings of nature for his
son-in-law. His grand scheme of State policy was
22
to cultivate, above all other connexions, the alliance
and friendship of Spain-a policy to which he had
but a short time before basely sacrificed the life of
Raleigh-and his heart was now wholly intent on
cementing this alliance by the marriage of Prince
Charles to a daughter of the Spanish King.
In this state of things, the third Parliament of King
James was assembled. Its first session was rendered
forever memorable by the impeachment and disgrace
of the greatest genius of that age, if not of all time,
who had tarnished the high office of Lord Chancellor
which he then held, and his own still higher name, by
yielding to the prevailing official corruption of the
times, and receiving bribes from suitors in his court.
In the melancholy record of the frailties of human
nature, the fall of Bacon is the example most fitted
of all others to impress a lesson of deep humility.
Here was a character ennobled by the highest wis-
dom, the profoundest learning, the brightest parts, the
most persuasive eloquence, and yet not proof against
temptation of the lowest and most sordid kind. The
contrite and humbled spirit with which he confessed
his guilt before the House of Lords, "beseeching
their Lordships to be merciful to a broken reed," and
the affecting allusion to his weakness in one of the
greatest of his works, where he says that born for
science, he knows not by what evil destiny he could
have been cast upon the stormy pursuits of public
life, for which he was unfit,* disarm the judgment of
*"Ad literas potius quam ad aliud quicquam natus, et ad res geren-
das nescio quo fato contra genium suum abreptus."
De augmentis Scientiarum Lib. VIII. c. 3.
23
posterity of any sterner feeling than one of commise-
ration, heightened by a painful sense of human in-
firmity in beholding so signal a defection from inte-
grity and honour in one of such eminent gifts and un-
rivalled powers. Let him who in a vain reliance on
his own strength, "thinketh he standeth, take heed
lest he fall."
After this painful episode of the impeachment and
conviction of Lord Bacon, the Commons entered
upon the subject which, at that time, most deeply ex-
cited the feelings of the whole nation. While the vic-
torious legions of Spain and the Emperor were ad-
vancing from conquest to conquest in Germany, and
threatened the Protestant States, as well as the Pala-
tinate, with total subjugation, the Representatives of
the nation could not but see with the deepest concern
the inactivity and timid neutrality of the King, and his
bigotted attachment to the Spanish interest. Under
the influence of these feelings, they framed a Remon-
strance to be presented to the King, in which, after
representing the danger to the liberties of Europe
from the enormous growth of the Austrian power, and
the tone of confidence and encouragement which had
been assumed by the papists in England from witness-
ing the prostration of the Protestant States of Ger-
many and the prospect of a closer alliance with Spain
by the projected marriage of Prince Charles to the In-
fanta, they entreated His Majesty to undertake the de-
fence of the Palatine, to direct his efforts against
Spain, whose armies and treasures were the chief sup-
port of the Catholic Interest in Europe, and to enter
into no negociation for the marriage of his son but
with a protestant princess.
24
As soon as the King heard of the intended Remon-
strance, he was filled with indignation at what he con-
sidered a daring invasion of his prerogative, peremp-
torily forbade the House to interfere with mysteries of
State too deep for their comprehension, and threat-
ened with chastisement the insolence of any member
who should disregard his mandate. This led to an
animated defence by the Commons of their right to
treat, and express their opinions on, all matters of go-
vernment in which the interests of the Kingdom were
concerned, and to entire freedom of speech, and im-
munity from all external responsibility and control in
their debates in Parliament. The controversy was
kept up with increasing heats on both sides till the
Commons entered upon their Journal a solemn protes-
tation, called by Selden the second Magna Carta, in
which, after setting forth the constitutional powers
and privileges of Parliament to discuss and consider
all matters touching the interests of the realm, and in
doing so to enjoy freedom of speech and exemption
from all impeachment or molestation elsewhere, they
declare these privileges and franchises to be the "an-
cient and undoubted birthright and inheritance" of
the people of England. The King sent for the Jour-
nals of the House, and, with his own hand, tore out
the protestation. The Parliament was dissolved im-
mediately after, and the dissolution followed up by the
imprisonment of Sir Edward Coke, Sir Robert Phi-
lips, Selden, Pym, and other prominent members
whom the King singled out as the victims of his threat-
ened vengeance. Sir Edwin Sandys had previously
fallen under the displeasure of the King and was al-
ready committed to prison.
/
25
Amid these exciting scenes, so critical and impor-
tant in the annals of British freedom, John Hampden
made his first appearance upon the stage of public
life. He was a member of this memorable Parlia-
ment, and though at that time a young man of twenty-
seven years only, he was admitted to an intimate share
in the councils of the veteran statesmen, who then
conducted the great parliamentary contest for the li-
berties of the nation. No man could have been bet-
ter suited to the crisis in which he was destined to act
so momentous a part, or have possessed higher quali-
fications for the advanced post of danger and respon-
sibility which he was soon to occupy. Of an ancient
and most influential family, holding large landed es-
tates in Buckinghamshire, he received the advantages
of a finished education in the University of Oxford,
and afterwards pursued the study of the law at the In-
ner Temple, though he never followed it as a profes-
sion. Marrying at the age of twenty-five, he retired
to his paternal estate in Buckingham, where he en-
gaged with spirit and zeal in the independent pursuits
of a country-gentleman, never losing sight, however,
of the liberal studies for which he had contracted an
early taste, and which now, with domestic sympathies,
formed the ornament and the charm of his retire-
ment, while they trained him for a wider sphere of
usefulness, when his country should demand his ser-
vices.
A better type of the enlightened and independent
Commons of England could not be seen than John
Hampden now presented. With a mind enlarged and
4
26
liberalized by study and observation, he could not but
partake of the free spirit which characterised the age;
and having seen one of the most vital franchises of
the people wantonly violated in the person of a Re-
presentative of his own county, he naturally entered
upon public life with a jealousy of power quickened
by a nearer view of its abuses. The operation of this
feeling, however, never disturbed the balance of his
well-poised character. He was calm, self-collected
and prudent, at the same time that he was sagacious,
resolute, persevering and courageous. His character
has been drawn, with great minuteness of detail, by
two of his most distinguished contemporaries, of the
party opposed to him; and in following them, there
can be but little danger of exhibiting too flattering a
portrait. He is described by both of these authorities
as a man of the highest order of wisdom and abilities,
set off by an affability of manners and modesty of de-
portment which enabled him to win the hearts, while
he convinced the understandings, of his hearers and
associates. Lord Clarendon says, "he was, indeed, a
very wise man and of great parts, and possessed with
the most absolute spirit of popularity, that is, the most
absolute faculties to govern the people, of any man I
ever saw." Sir Philip Warwick, who like Clarendon,
was a member of Parliament at the same time with
Hampden, and like Clarendon also strongly opposed
to Hampden's political principles and views, says of
him, speaking more particularly in reference to the
period of the Long Parliament, "He was certainly a
person of the greatest abilities of any of his party, and
27
had a great knowledge both in scholarship and the
law."
Lord Clarendon has furnished the clue to the extra-
ordinary "spirit of popularity" he ascribes to Hamp-
den, in a trait of his character which deserves to be
specially remembered. Besides that "flowing cour-
tesy to all men" which he describes as the distinguish-
ing and graceful attribute of his manners, he says,
"He was a supreme governor over all his passions
and affections, and had thereby a great power over
other men's." He farther describes him as possessed
"of an industry and vigilance not to be tired out or
wearied by the most laborious; of parts not to be im-
posed upon by the most subtle or sharp; and of a per-
sonal courage equal to his best parts."
We are naturally curious to learn what were the
qualities as a speaker of one who acquired such abso-
lute influence and ascendancy in the parliamentary as-
semblies of his country-the great arena of intellec-
tual digladiation and public debate. And here again
we see him painted to the life by one or two vivid
touches of the pencil from the same contemporary lim-
ners. "He was not a man of many words," says
Clarendon, “but a very weighty speaker." Sir Phi-
lip Warwick writes, "He was of a concise and signi-
ficant language, and the mildest yet subtillest speaker
of any man in the House." The Bacons, the Cokes,
the Seldens, the Hampdens of that age did not, more
than the Franklins, the Washingtons, the Jeffersons,
the Adamses of our own great Revolutionary æra, con-
sider "vain repetitions" and "much speaking" the
28
essentials of parliamentary eloquence or political wis-
dom.*
We shall see all these rare and extraordinary quali-
ties, which combined to form the character of Hamp-
den, strikingly exemplified in the high career of patri-
otism and virtue he was about to run through twenty
years of the most troubled and trying scenes of his
country's history.
Another Parliament intervened, and the ignomini-
ous and arbitrary reign of James the First was closed
by the death of that unhappy Prince. His character
and conduct as a sovereign have been far too leniently
dealt with by the larger number of the Historians of
that period. The ridicule and contempt he incurred
as a pedant and a buffoon seem to have redeemed him
from the sterner condemnation due to him as a tyrant
and a profligate. It was the lofty pretensions of mo-
narchical power so pompously asserted by him, his fre-
quent and offensive denial, as well as invasion, of the
inherent privileges of the People and their Represen-
tatives, and the shameless profligacy and corruption of
both principle and morals he encouraged in his court
* The celebrated Ben Johnson has described Lord Bacon's style of
speaking in terms so graphic and striking and conveying such a picture
of graceful and effective eloquence, that the introduction of the passage
here will be readily excused. "There happened," says he, “in my
time one noble speaker, who was full of gravity in his speaking. No
man ever spoke more neatly, more pressly, more weightily, or suffered
less emptiness, less idleness in what he uttered. No member of his
speech but consisted of its own graces. His hearers could not cough
or look aside from him without loss. He commanded where he spoke,
and had his judges angry and pleased at his devotion. The fear of
every man that heard him was that he should make an end.”
29
and dependants, which opened the source of all those
bitter waters that, for so long and dismal a period,
overrun and desolated the country.
His son, who now succeeded him, inherited all the
father's absurd and antiquated notions of the divine
right and absolute authority of Kings. With a perso-
nal character of infinitely more respectability, he was
imbued with the same fatal maxims of government-
instilled into him by the assiduous indoctrination as
well as example of his father—and what was, perhaps,
a still greater misfortune, he inherited with the public
principles and policy of his father, his father's odious
favourite and minister, the vain, the light, the reckless,
the imperious Buckingham. Circumstances like these
were but little favourable to mutual confidence and
cordiality between the new King and his Parliament.
Charles was exceedingly dissatisfied with the scanty
supplies granted him by the Parliament, which he
called together immediately on his accession; and the
Parliament, on the other hand, warned by the en-
croachments of the late reign, and seeing the same
pernicious influence and doctrines predominant in the
councils of the new King, determined to grant no far-
ther supplies till they had obtained some substantial
guarantee for the public liberty. In this state of mu-
tual disgust and alienation, the King dissolved his first
Parliament.
Another was assembled in the following year, and
the King renewed, with increased urgency, his de-
mand for larger supplies. The Commons, adopting
a preliminary vote in favour of a more liberal supply,
reserved the passing of that vote into a law till the
30
end of the session, and proceeded, in the mean time,
to an examination of public grievances, and, in the
course of the session, framed regular articles of im-
peachment against the Duke of Buckingham. The
King, by the Lord Keeper, expressly commanded the
Commons not to meddle with his Minister and Ser-
vant, and as if to exhibit his contempt for the House,
he caused Buckingham, by an open exertion of the
interest of the Court, to be chosen Chancellor of the
University of Cambridge while lying under an actual
impeachment of the Commons. At the same time
and by the same message, the House was ordered to
finish, without delay, the Bill which they had begun
for the subsidies and to make a farther addition to
them; and they were told that, if they did not do so,
they must not expect to sit any longer. and that the
King would henceforward resort to new counsels, or,
in other words, raise supplies from the people by his
own authority, without the consent of Parliament. To
fill the measure of insult and provocation offered to
the Commons, the King threw into prison two of the
leading members of the House, Sir John Eliot and
Sir Dudley Digges, who had acted as managers of
the Impeachment against the Duke of Buckingham.
The excitements, occasioned by these wanton and
lawless acts of the King, now ran so high, and threat-
ened to recoil with such accumulated weight on Buck-
ingham, whom it was the object of the King to pro-
tect at all hazards, that he determined instantly to dis-
solve the Parliament without giving them time to finish
any measure they had begun; and when the House of
Lords interceded and petitioned him to allow the Par-
-
-
31
liament to sit some time longer, he exclaimed with
violence not a moment longer. From that ill-fated
moment, Charles commenced a systematic warfare
upon the liberties of the nation. He proceeded im-
mediately to carry into execution those threatened new
counsels, by which he was to raise money from the
people, without the instrumentality of Parliament.
He obtained pecuniary compositions from the Catho-
lics by arbitrarily dispensing with the laws of the land
which imposed restraints upon the public exercise of
their religion-he exacted money from individuals un-
der the fraudulent name of loans and benevolences-
he billeted soldiers upon the people; but finding that
these methods of detail brought in money too slowly
for his necessities, he determined at last upon the
sweeping scheme of a general forced loan, under
which every person was required to pay the same
amount he would have been assessed with, if the bill
of subsidies brought in during the late session of Par-
liament had passed into a law; and this arbitrary at-
tempt to tax the goods and property of the people,
by the mere authority of the King, was to be enforced
by asserting his absolute power over their personal
liberty.
Those who refused to pay their proportions of the
exaction under this Royal Edict were immediately
committed to prison by the Orders of the King.
Among the noble spirits who resolved to withstand
this double attack upon the personal liberty and the
property of the people, Hampden stood in the front
rank, as he was ever wont to do, when the fundamen-
tal privileges of the nation required a calm and vali-
32
ant defender. Being asked why, out of his abundant
means, he would not contribute to the necessities of
the King, he made this memorable reply, which so
admirably records his sacred devotion to the constitu-
tional freedom of his country-"That he could be
content to lend as well as others, but he feared to
draw upon himself that curse in Magna Carta which
should be read twice a year against those who infringe
it"-referring doubtless, in this allusion, to a law
passed in the time of Edward the First for the con-
firmation of the Great Charter,* which directed that
it should be publicly read in all the Churches twice a
year, and that the Archbishops and Bishops, at each
reading, should denounce sentences of excommunica-
tion against all who should violate its provisions. For
this patriotic and manly resistance he was committed
to a rigorous imprisonment in the Gate-House; and
being subsequently brought before the Privy Council
and persisting in his refusal, he was remanded into
custody.
The infatuated tyranny of Charles on this occasion
gave rise to another memorable instance of resistance,
so intimately connected with the history of English
liberty, that it is impossible to pass it by without a
momentary notice. Five gentlemen, who had been
imprisoned for refusing to pay the contributions as-
sessed upon them under the Royal Loan-and their
names deserve to be remembered by posterity, Sir
Thomas Darnell, Sir John Corbet, Sir Walter Earl,
Sir John Heveningham and Sir Edmund Hampden-
resolved to try before the courts of the country, at
* See Stat. 25 Edw. I. commonly called Confirmatio Chartarum.
33
I
their own hazard and expense, the legality of the
power of arbitrary imprisonment now claimed and
exercised by the King. They sued out a Habeas Cor-
pus
from the Court of King's Bench, upon the return
of which it appeared that their imprisonment was
simply by the command of the King, without the spe-
cification of any charge whatever against them. If
a power like this could be upheld in England, then it
were worse than idle to talk of the immunities of
English freemen. Englishmen were no longer free-
men, but slaves. Well, therefore, has it been said
that the issue of this great cause was of more vital
consequence than "the event of many battles." And
yet, as might have been expected from Judges, them-
selves enslaved by the tenure of their offices at the
pleasure of the tyrant, this monstrous tyranny was vir-
tually sustained by the decision of the Court, and the
illustrious victims of arbitrary power returned to their
prisons.
But a spirit of liberty was now abroad, in the hearts
of the people, too strong to be broken by the King or
his Courts. The payment of the Loan was still re-
fused, in almost every portion of the Kingdom, and
many of the leading men of the country, distinguished
by their rank, property and talents, freely encountered
the gloom and rigors of a prison rather than incur the
curse, which Hampden dreaded, of being accessary,
by a tame submission, to the violation of the Great
Charter of the public liberties. Charles, finding at
last but a scanty return to his coffers from all the ille-
gal resources of his new counsels, was compelled,
5
34
however reluctantly, again to try the old and lawful
way of parliamentary supply.
He convened, therefore, his third Parliament. Ne-
ver before had the representatives of the English peo-
ple been assembled under circumstances of deeper
injury and excitement-never did they exhibit more
calmness, self-possession, energy and wisdom. The
serene, determined, and self-balanced spirit of Hamp-
den, who was now associated with Coke, Selden, Pym,
St. John, on all the great Committees of the House,
though he rarely took part in the public debates, was
evidently impressed upon the movement and action of
the whole body. The first great object of these pa-
triot statesmen was to entrench the public liberty,
which had been lately assailed in so many vital points
by the arbitrary conduct of the King, behind some
new and solid rampart, resting upon the united sanc-
tion of all the estates of the realm in a solemn legis-
lative compact. With this view the great Petition of
Right, containing a formal and explicit re-enactment
of all the fundamental principles of English liberty,
was directed to be drawn up by Sir Edward Coke and
Mr. Selden; and by a masterly display of talents, wis-
dom, courage, perseverance and statesmanship it was
carried in triumph over the multiplied obstructions and
evasions which beset its progress at every step, and
became the declared law of the land by the recorded
legislative assent of King, Lords and Commons.
Having achieved this great work, which, if any
thing could, seemed to promise some security in fu-
ture to the liberties of the nation, the Commons made
a liberal grant of supplies to the King, and then re-
35
sumed their enquiries into the abuses of the Govern-
ment. In the course of these investigations, they re-
newed their censures and complaints of Buckingham,
and animadverted upon the levying of tonnage and
poundage, without consent of Parliament, as a viola-
tion of the ancient liberties of the people, and mani-
festly contrary to the solemn provisions of the Petition
of Right, to which the King had so lately plighted his
faith. Charles, offended at these proceedings, deter-
mined to arrest the farther prosecution of them, and
for that purpose, abruptly prorogued the Parliament.
During the recess, Buckingham had fallen by the
knife of Felton; and when the Parliament re-assem-
bled, they entered at once upon the unfinished ques-
tion of tonnage and poundage, and insisted that the
King should desist from levying these duties, until
they had been formally granted by Parliament. They
called before them the officers of the customs who
had been employed in the collection of the duties,
and demanded of them by what authority they had
seized the goods of merchants, and one of them a
member of that House, who had refused to pay these
illegal imposts.* Charles supported his officers, and
from day to day, the controversy became more and
more embittered.
* No class of men were more distinguished for their gallant and
patriotic sacrifices and exertions in defence of the public liberty at this
period, than the merchants. The names of Chambers, Rolls and Vassall
will go down to the remotest posterity in honourable association with
the bravest patriots of the times. The last named of these, Samuel
Vassall, one of the merchants whose goods were seized on the occasion
referred to in the text, and his person imprisoned for his indomitable
resistance to the unconstitutional levying of tonnage and poundage, was
one of the original proprietors of the lands of this country; and a beau-
36
In this state of things, Sir John Eliot presented to
the House a remonstrance he had drawn against the
levying of these duties, without consent of Parliament.
The speaker refused to put the question upon the Re-
monstrance; and pleading that he had received the
commands of the King not to put the question, but to
adjourn the House, he immediately left the chair. A
scene of extraordinary excitement and confusion en-
sued, in which the speaker was forced back to the
chair and detained there by two of the members, while
the Remonstrance was read and passed by acclama-
tion. The Usher of the Black Rod, who had been
sent by the King, then entered the House, and re-
moved the mace from the table, which put an end to
their proceedings. These events were followed by a
speedy dissolution of the Parliament, and by the arbi-
trary and vindictive punishment of several leading
members of the House of Commons, who, by a shame-
less prostitution of judicial proceedings commanded
by the King and in utter contempt of the privileges of
tiful monument to his memory stands in a church in Boston, (Massa-
chusetts,) still known by its ancient ante-revolutionary name of King's
Chapel. The monument was caused to be erected there in the year
1766, (the year succeeding the imposition of the stamp tax on the Ame-
rican colonies) by his great-grandson, Florentius Vassall, then residing in
England, but whose heart, we may suppose from the reverence he
manifested for the free principles of his ancestor, as well as from the
region he selected for this enduring exhibition of his filial piety, was
with the colonies, in their determined resistance to unconstitutional tax-
ation. It is a curious and not unmeaning coincidence, it is to be hoped,
that Virginia and Massachusetts, the two leading states in the contest
for American independence, should now be the chosen depositories of
the monuments of two of the noblest and most gallant champions of
British freedom, to whose high example, and the principles so bravely
asserted by them, the liberties of America owe their origin and estab-
lishment.
37
Parliament were fined and imprisoned-some of them
held in durance for long periods of time, and one of
them, Sir John Eliot, the bosom friend of Hampden
and the eloquent and dauntless apostle of British free-
dom, dying in prison, a martyr to his principles, and
the victim of the long and rigorous confinement to
which he was subjected.
The King now resolved to govern without the in-
cumbrance of Parliaments and to assume all authority
into his own hands. To supply the place of Bucking-
ham, he took into his councils and confidence two
men of the loftiest ambition and of the sternest and
most unrelenting tempers-Laud and Strafford. Un-
der their guidance and by their assistance, he orga-
nized a system of proscriptive tyranny and persecution
to break down the spirit of liberty in the nation by ap-
pliances the most frightful and the most revolting.
The pillory, loss of ears, ruinous fines, and imprison-
ments for life, became familiar remedies, administered
by the atrocious barbarity of the Star Chamber, and
applied, with unsparing severity, to every rank and
condition in society-the highest as well as the lowest.
All the arbitrary and illegal methods of levying money
from the people, which had been so loudly complained
of by the nation and lately renounced by the King in
his assent to the Petition of Right, were still put in
practice; and to them was now added the ever me-
morable device of ship-money, by which, in a time of
profound peace and under the fraudulent pretext of
chastising pirates and sea-robbers, the King by his writ
required each county in the Kingdom, inland as well
as maritime, to furnish a certain number of ships of
38
•
war, completely armed, manned and provisioned, or in
default thereof, to pay into the treasury a certain sum
of money to be assessed upon the inhabitants accord-
ing to their goods and estates. The pecuniary requi-
sition, to fill the coffers of the King, was plainly the
substance and meaning of the whole of this elaborately
contrived process, and whether considered in refer-
ence to its principle or the arbitrary machinery for the
assessment and collection of the tax, was the most for-
midable attack that had yet been made upon those
fundamental rights of property, which it is one of the
chief objects of civil society to guard and protect.
A period of seven years had now elapsed since the
dissolution of the last Parliament. Hampden had re-
mained in retirement upon his estate in Bucking-
hamshire, contemplating, with an afflicted spirit, the
mournful progress of tyranny and oppression, and seek-
ing in the wise lessons of the past, (for history seems
to have been his favourite study,) and pondering, in his
own bosom, some hope of remedy for the wrongs of
his country. With a firm religious trust in the ways
of Providence to man, he never despaired; and ac-
customed (to use his own language) "to take his re-
solutions from counsel with the Highest Wisdom,'
he anxiously watched for some occasion when, by sea-
sonable and judicious action, he might become an in-
strument to rally the drooping spirits of the nation.
He seems to have entertained the same feeling in re-
gard to himself, that he so beautifully expressed, re-
specting a son of his friend Sir John Eliot, in a letter
addressed by him to that illustrious and persecuted pa-
*Letter to Sir John Eliot dated 11th May 1631.
39
triot, not long before this time. "God," he says,
"who only knows the periods of life and opportunities
to come, hath designed him, I hope, for his own ser-
vice betime, and stirred up your providence to hus-
band him so early for great affairs."
Hampden, thus husbanding himself for a great and
proper occasion to interpose, and if need be, offer
himself a sacrifice for the country, determined, as soon
as the gigantic project of ship-money was announced,
to resist in his own person this arbitrary and destruc-
tive invasion of the public liberty. He well knew the
hazards of the attempt. Without the prospect of
countenance or support from a Parliament, for Charles
had shewn an inflexible purpose to have no more Par-
liaments, and with the bloody terrors of the Star-
Chamber full in his view, he exposed himself calmly
and resolutely, for the public cause, to the worst ven-
geance of a lawless and irritated court. The share of
the general assessment demanded of him, on account
of one of his estates in Buckinghamshire, was but
twenty shillings. But "the payment of half twenty
shillings, on the principle it was demanded," as was
so strikingly said by one of the greatest orators and
statesmen of England,* near a century and a half
after, on the occasion of our own spirited resistance as
colonies to the three-pence tea-duty, "would have
made Hampden a slave." This he knew and felt; and
to avert the doom of slavery from his country, he deter-
mined to set the example of a firm and virtuous resis-
tance. The example of such a man could not fail to
have many followers. But he alone was the selected
* Edmund Burke.
-
40
and "shining mark" against which the whole power
and influence of the King and his ministers were now
directed. Process was ordered to bring him before
the King's Court of Exchequer to answer for his refu-
sal. The vast importance of the issue to the country
caused the case to be adjourned into the Exchequer
Chamber for the solemn deliberation and decision of
all the twelve Judges. It was argued with the highest
ability and by the most distinguished counsel on both
sides, from time to time, for the space of six weeks,
and the Judges were employed through three succes-
sive terms, embracing a period of six months, in pre-
paring and delivering one after another their several
opinions.
During this long protracted trial, the feelings of the
whole kingdom were held in anxious and painful sus-
pense. All eyes were turned upon Hampden, who
stood forth, with modest and serene firmness, the Re-
presentative, in his own person, of a nation's liberties
and rights. And never did a man better act his part
under circumstances so trying and difficult. From
the moment he entered upon this unequal and momen-
tous contest, Lord Clarendon tells us, and it must be
recollected, that I am citing the words of one who
was a decided enemy, "he grew the argument of all
tongues, every man enquiring who and what he was
that durst, at his own charge, support the liberty and
property of the kingdom, and rescue his country, as
he thought, from being made a prey to the court."
I cannot refrain from adding the testimony which the
same celebrated writer, against the well known bias
of his feelings, is compelled to render to the conduct
41
of Hampden, in this great scene of his eventful life.
“His carriage throughout this agitation,” says Claren-
don, "was with that rare temper and modesty that
they who watched him narrowly to find some advan-
tage against his person, to make him less resolute in
his cause, were compelled to give him a just testi-
mony. And the judgment that was given against
him, infinitely more advanced him than the service for
which it was given."
The judgment of the court, as there was too much
reason to apprehend, was rendered against Hampden,
but not without division. Four of the Judges dis-
sented from their brethren, and had the fortitude to
pronounce opinions in defence of the great princi-
ples of British freedom. For this cheering exhibi-
tion of judicial independence, so rare in that age, the
obligation was due in part, we are informed by a con-
temporary historian,* to the pure and virtuous influ-
ence of that sex, which God, in his gracious provi-
dence, has given to be the guardian angels of men-
their pride and joy in prosperity, their solace in trou-
ble, their best counsellors in perplexity and trial. Sir
George Croke, one of the dissenting Judges, fearing
the displeasure of the King and its probable conse-
quences in the ruin of himself and his family, wavered
in following the convictions of his judgment. Lady
Croke, perceiving his hesitation and the cause of it,
inspired him with fortitude and courage by assuring
him that "she would be content to suffer want or any
misery with him, rather than be the occasion for him
to do or say any thing against his judgment and con-
* Whitelocke.
-
6
42
science." Strengthened by the noble magnanimity
of his wife, he remained true to himself and his coun-
try. In the expressive language, so happily used by
another,* "she threw the shield of her feminine virtue
over his failing courage, and defended by it, he stood
firm."
Though the judgment of the court was against
Hampden, the effect of the trial, of the division of
the court, of the powerful and able arguments, both
by Hampden's counsel and the dissenting Judges, in
support of the fundamental franchises and liberties of
the people, and still more, the arbitrary and extrava-
gant grounds on which the legality of ship-money was
attempted to be defended by the King's counsel and
some of the Judges-"a logic," says Clarendon,
“which left no man any thing that he might call his
own"-the effect of all these attendant circumstances
was to rouse and re-animate, with new vigour, the
spirit of liberty in the nation. Men of high character
in every part of the kingdom, and some of them men
distinguished by the moderation of their principles,
but alarmed at the slavish doctrines inculcated by a
majority of the Judges, now followed the example of
Hampden, and refused the payment of ship-money, in
defiance of the judgment of the court. The sheriffs
charged with the collection of the tax, in several in-
stances, admitted the excuses put forward by their
counties for declining a compliance with the King's
requisition; and in one remarkable and most honour-
able instance, the grand-jury of the county of North-
* Lord Nugent, at the dedication of Hampden's monument in Chal-
grove Field.
43
ampton made a formal presentment of ship-money as
a grievance and offence against the fundamental laws
of the land. Such were the high moral effects, upon
the public spirit, of the noble stand made by Hamp-
den, though the judgment of the court was rendered
against him.
An extraordinary error has prevailed, and been
handed down from one historian to another till it had
passed into almost universal belief, that Hampden
about this time had made up his mind to abandon in
despair his native country and the great struggle for
liberty in which he was engaged. The statement
which has been thus accredited by Hume and a host
of historical writers of the highest name, is, that there
were eight ships lying in the Thames, ready to sail
with a large number of passengers to America, when
they were suddenly arrested by an order in council
prohibiting their departure, and that in these vessels
were actually embarked John Hampden, Sir Arthur
Hazelrig, Pym, and Oliver Cromwell. Each histo-
rian, in relating the circumstance, has made upon it
some ingenious and pregnant reflections, according
to the particular bent of his humour and opinions.
It was reserved for the industry and sagacity of a dis-
tinguished female writer of our own day, who has gi-
ven to the world several volumes of most interesting
and instructive memoirs of those times,* to shew, by
a careful investigation of original documents, that the
circumstance itself is imaginary, and that the order
in council, which momentarily detained these vessels,
was revoked almost as soon as it was made; so that
* Miss Aikin.
44
Hampden, and those mentioned as his companions, if
they had really embarked on board to leave their
country and come to America, had nothing to prevent
them from the execution of their purpose. That
Hampden had, at a previous period, together with
some of the bravest and noblest patriots of England
looked to America as an ultimate asylum for them-
selves and the cause of liberty, if their native land
should be enslaved, and had at one time even acquired
a proprietary interest in American soil, there is abun-
dant and indisputable testimony. But he had now
engaged in a direct and personal contest with arbi-
trary power for the liberties of the country, in which
the eyes and the hopes of the nation were centred
upon him as their Pater patriæ (so expressly called by
Clarendon); and in the spirit of his chosen motto,
vestigia nulla retrorsum, he never could have thought
of retreat from such a position, till the contest had
closed in final and irremediable overthrow.*
* Precise dates become important in their relation to the story of
Hampden's embarkation and intended departure for America, which
strange to say, is acquiesced in and repeated by Lord Nugent, the bi-
ographer of Hampden, as well as by the great historical critics, Hallam
and Macauley. It is first necessary to fix the date of the proceedings in
the ship-money case, and of the judgment against Hampden; and on
this point, the most unsatisfactory confusion has prevailed. By most of
the historical writers of England, the judgment against Hampden is re-
ferred to the year 1637. To reduce the matter to absolute certainty, and
disentangle it from the contradictory and delusive statements, due in
part to the old mode of computing the year, (which was not changed in
England till 24 George II. that is in 1751,) I have had recourse to the
Record itself, as given in the State Trials. From that it appears that the
original writ directed to the sheriff of Buckingham for levying ship-
money, bore date the 4th of August 1635. Sir Richard Hutton, one of
the judges, in delivering his opinion in the Exchequer Chamber, says
it was a year and a half after the assessment under this writ and Hamp-
45
How much the spirits of the nation had been lifted
up and re-invigorated by Hampden's resistance to
ship-money, we have just seen. Events were now in
progress in the sister kingdom of Scotland, which
were destined to exert a most important influence
upon the struggle for liberty in England. The odi-
ous and despotic attempt in which Charles was en-
gaged by the counsels of Laud to force the Liturgy
and forms of the English Church upon the people of
Scotland, roused a feeling of enthusiastic opposition
in that Kingdom, which broke out in open insurrec-
tion, and finally terminated in a mutual appeal to
den's refusal to pay, that a certiorari was issued to the sheriff of Buck-
ingham, requiring him to certify into the Court of Chancery the return
of Hampden's default. Accordingly, the writ of certiorari set forth in
the Record, bears date the 9th of March 1637. Upon the return of the
certiorari, the Court of Chancery by a writ of mittimus, bearing date the
5th of May 1637, sent the original ship-money writ with the proceed-
ings upon it and the certiorari, into the Court of Exchequer, by which,
on the 22nd of May 1637, a scire facias was issued against Hampden, re-
quiring him to shew cause why he should not be held to pay his assess-
ment of the tax. The case was then adjourned into the Exchequer
Chamber for the consideration of all the twelve Judges. It was argued
before them from time to time, during the months of November and De-
cember 1637. The Judges at Hilary, Easter and Trinity Terms, in the
following year, severally and successively delivered their opinions; and
on the 12th day of June 1638, final judgment was rendered in the Court
of Exchequer against Hampden. As the order in council which pro-
hibited the sailing of the eight vessels in the Thames was dated the
1st of May 1638, (see Rushworth's Collections,) the effect of the story re-
ferred to in the text is to impute to Hampden the purpose of abandon-
ing his country and retreating from the great contest in which he was
engaged on behalf of the liberties of the nation, while the legal contro-
versy to which he was a party was still pending and undetermined, and
six weeks, as appears from the above comparison of dates, before the
final decision of the Court was pronounced in the case-a hypothesis
to which the whole tenor of Hampden's life and character stands in con-
tradiction.
46
arms. The advance`corps of Charles's army having
made a disgraceful retreat, and his coffers being
wholly unfurnished with the means of an effective
prosecution of the war, he was compelled to conclude
a truce with his revolted subjects, and recur again,
after an intermission of eleven years, and with a re-
pugnance which he hardly attempted to disguise, to
the hated expedient of another convention of Parlia-
ment. The champions of liberty in England had long
looked forward to this event (which they hoped the
necessities of the King would sooner or later impose
upon him), as affording the only means of constitu-
tional redress for the many and crying grievances un-
der which the nation groaned. All felt the deep im-
portance of the crisis, and men of the highest reputa-
tion for wisdom, firmness and patriotism were returned
to the Parliament. Hampden and his friend Arthur
Goodwin, were elected knights of the shire for the
great county of Buckingham. He was then, by uni-
versal consent, the most popular man in England, and
he was placed by the House upon every committee of
interest" nothing," as we are told by his noble bio-
grapher,* "being too minute for his indefatigable in-
dustry, nothing too great for his capacity and cou-
rage." Pym, who was ten years his senior and had
had a longer experience in Parliament and cultivated
more the habit of public speaking, was the leader of
the patriotic party on the floor-a post for which he
possessed the high qualifications of a bold and ner-
vous eloquence, a keen and quick sagacity, a resolute
and vigorous spirit-and upon him now devolved the
* Lord Nugent.
wha
47
duty of opening the deliberations of Parliament;
which he did in an elaborate speech on the grievances
of the nation, distinguished alike by its power, its dig-
nity and its wisdom.
But the redress of national grievances was not the
object for which Charles had called the Parliament to-
gether. He wanted supplies, and he continued to
press his demands most importunately upon the Com-
mons. At length he sent a message to the House
proposing if they would grant him twelve subsidies
without delay, he would relinquish his right to levy
ship-money. The suggestion of a pecuniary bargain
for the relinquishment of an odious and illegal claim of
power, no less than the extravagance of the amount
required by the King, startled the Commons. An
animated debate took place on the King's message,
which not promising the termination he wished, he
determined at once, with that spirit of infatuation and
violence, which so strangely characterized his coun-
cils, to dissolve the Parliament, before it had been
three weeks in session; and the dissolution, as usual,
was followed by a wanton violation of the privileges
of Parliament in the arrest and imprisonment of
members and the seizure of their papers. The King-
dom stood indignant and amazed at the Royal arro-
gance and madness. This was the fourth Parlia-
ment which Charles had assembled, and the fourth
which he had abruptly and violently dissolved. In
the language of an eloquent and renowned English
statesman,* writing of these events, "the vessel was
now full, and this last drop made the waters of bitter-
ness overflow."
* Bolingbroke.
48
Charles again put himself at the head of an army,
recruited by such means as his illegal exactions or the
contributions of his courtiers supplied, to subdue his
rebel subjects in Scotland. Again defeat and disaster
met him at every step. His troops were driven back
by the rapid and victorious onset of the Scots, and
panic and disaffection took possession of his whole
army. Paralyzed at the same time by the total ex-
haustion of his coffers, difficulties and embarrassments
beset him on every hand; and the loud and united
voice of the nation concurring with the stern exi-
gency of his affairs, he was reduced to the humiliating
necessity of calling another Parliament, within less
than half a year from the dissolution of the last, and
of submitting to their arbitrament the quarrel between
him and his Scottish subjects, together with all those
great questions of public liberty which had been so
long in contest and which were now rapidly hastening
to a final and eventful solution. That solution was to
be in the hands of the approaching Parliament, and
both parties, the court and the popular leaders, sensi-
ble of the magnitude of the issue, exerted all their en-
ergies to secure the election of members favourable to
their respective pretensions.
C
On the third day of November 1640, was convened
the assembly on whose deliberations hung suspended
the destinies of British freedom. A greater array of
profound capacity, of masterly statesmanship, of reso-
lute and intrepid purpose, of comprehensive and far-
reaching sagacity, was never seen comprised in any
assembly. Hampden, "the pilot," as Clarendon calls
him, "that must steer the vessel through the tempest
49
and rocks which threatened it," was there, with Pym
and Selden and St. John and Hollis and Vane (the
younger) to second his vigilance and coöperate in
the execution of their common councils. With them
were associated the noble and illustrious names of
Bedford, of Essex, of Kimbolton, of Northumberland,
of Brook and of Say; and in their earlier and more
important labours for the reformation of the State, the
virtuous and accomplished Falkland, with the gallant
and chivalrous Grenvill, stood side by side with them
in patriotic fellowship. Such a band of patriots and
statesmen was worthy of the great mission to which
they were now called of building up from its ruins the
citadel of English liberty, and surrounding it with new
and lasting defences. They entered upon their task
with a wisdom, firmness and energy which shewed
they knew their errand, and came with hearts and
minds equal to it. After the impeachment and arrest
of Strafford and Laud, the bold and reckless counsel-
lors and agents of the King in all his invasions of the
public liberty and the prime conspirators against the
laws and constitution of the country, they proceeded
to review in detail the long list of national grievances
and oppressions, and to apply to each an appropriate
and effectual remedy.
The imposition of ship-money they solemnly de-
clared to be against the laws and statutes of the realm,
the right of property and the liberty of the subject,
and passed an act of Parliament directing all pro-
ceedings in virtue of writs for levying ship-money,
and particularly the judgment of the court in the case
of Hampden, to be formally vacated and cancelled.
7
50
They put an end to all equivocation respecting the
King's claim to levy tonnage and poundage, which
had been so long in controversy, by another act de-
claring in explicit terms that no subsidy, custom, im-
post or any charge whatsoever shall be imposed or
laid on any merchandise, imported or exported by
subjects, denizens or aliens, without common consent
in Parliament. After providing these fundamental
barriers for the protection of the people against arbi-
trary taxation—barriers so effectual that there has ne-
ver been any attempt since to overleap them in the
domestic administration of England-this enlightened
and never to be forgotten Parliament proceeded to
provide a security (even more necessary and indis-
pensable) for the protection of personal liberty against
the power of arbitrary imprisonment, which we have
seen so frequently and wantonly exercised by the King
in this reign and so shamelessly sustained by the deci-
sion of his Judges. In an act passed by them for the
abolition of the hateful and iniquitous tribunal of the
Star-Chamber, it was specially enacted as a sacred
principle of English liberty that if any person be com-
mitted by the privy council or any of them, or by the
King's special command, he shall have his writ of Ha-
beas Corpus, in the return to which the officer, in
whose custody he is, shall certify the true cause of his
commitment, and the court from whence the writ is-
sued shall, within three days thereafter, determine
whether the cause so certified is a legal and sufficient
ground to warrant the detention of the prisoner, and
discharge or remand him accordingly. So important
a safeguard was this for the liberty of the people, that
51
a statute founded upon it and adding only a few sup-
plemental details respecting its execution, which
passed in the reign of Charles II. has been styled by
a learned commentator* on the Laws of England, the
bulwark of the Constitution.
A melancholy and disgraceful experience having
shewn what servile tools of tyranny, Judges who held
their offices at the pleasure of the King were prone
to become, Charles was prevailed upon by the earnest
representations of this Parliament to give all the
Judges patents during good behaviour, instead of pa-
tents during pleasure. Thus another great principle,
which more than half a century afterwards was incor-
porated into the Act of Settlement as a fundamental
security of the public liberty, owes its practical asser-
tion at this early period to the wise and vigilant states-
men who now ruled the parliamentary councils of
England. Seeing in the long and frequent disuse of
Parliaments during this reign the prolific source of
national calamities and oppression as well as a flagrant
violation of the vital principle of a free constitution,
they provided another security for public liberty, (at
that time of the highest importance,) in the act for
Triennial Parliaments, by which the Chancellor or
keeper of the great seal was required, under heavy
penalties, to issue writs for a new Parliament within
three years from the termination of the last, and in
case of his failure, the Peers were enjoined to do so,
and if they failed, then the sheriffs, and in their de-
fault, then the electors themselves were authorized to
hold elections; and it was farther enacted, that no fu-
* Blackstone.
52
ture Parliament should be dissolved or adjourned with-
out their own consent, in less than fifty days from the
opening of the session. The nation shewed its sense
of the value of this acquisition by celebrating its
achievement with bonfires and every demonstration
of public joy.
By these fundamental acts, with others of a subsi-
diary character, which were consummated, through a
throng of opposing difficulties, within nine months af-
ter the opening of this memorable Parliament, the fa-
bric of British liberty rose again in lofty and majestic
proportions. With effectual securities provided against
arbitrary taxation and for the protection of personal
liberty-the redress of private wrongs confided to a
Judiciary to be henceforward independent, and the
correction of public abuses ensured by frequent and
regular conventions of a free Parliament-nothing
seemed wanting to the integrity of the ancient and
prescriptive rights of English freemen. For the pre-
servation of these invaluable privileges, when they
were exposed to their greatest peril, the English peo-
ple and all who have inherited any portion of their
free institutions, must forever stand indebted to the
master-spirits who presided over the arduous labours
of the first session of the Long Parliament, and to
their illustrious predecessors, the brave and wise and
noble patriots who had valiantly sustained the same
struggle through forty years of incessant conflict.
With the irrefutable testimony of history before his
eyes, proving beyond controversy that this succession
of great men and patriots were the true saviours
and restorers of British freedom, and the real authors
53
of some of the very constitutional provisions he most
exalts, is it not marvellous that the learned but court-
ly Commentator on the Laws of England, whom I
have just quoted, should refer "the complete resti-
tution of English liberty," not to the era of the
glorious struggle we have been reviewing, but to
the profligate and corrupt times of Charles II.* I
am happy to be able to set off against so imposing
an authority that of a most accurate, judicious and
discriminating writer on the Constitutional History of
England,† who, though far from approving the sub-
sequent proceedings of this Parliament, yet declares
that its earlier acts "have given it a higher claim to
the gratitude of the nation, and effected more for
English liberty than any which had gone before or has
followed it," and that it is from this "æra of 1640-1,
rather than from the Revolution of 1688, or any other
epoch, we must date the full legal establishment of the
liberties of England.
"
These great measures having been carried, and ar-
ticles of pacification concluded with the Scots, the
Parliament after an uninterrupted session of nine
months filled with labours and cares of the most mo-
mentous character determined to take a short recess,
while the King was making a journey into Scotland
to conciliate more effectually the discontented spirits
of his native country. The Parliament appointed a
committee, consisting of two or three members of
each House, to accompany him, for the alleged pur-
pose of seeing the articles of pacification executed
* Commentaries on the Laws of England, last chapter of 4th volume.
+ Hallam.
54
by the Scots, but more probably, from a jealousy of
the King's designs, whose route lay through both the
English and Scottish armies, which were then disband-
ing. For this jealousy some foundation had been af-
forded by the revelation of circumstances, a short time
before, which seemed to implicate the King in a plot
to bring the army up to London to awe or dissolve the
Parliament. Hampden and Sir Philip Stapleton were
the members of the committee on the part of the
House of Commons, and actually accompanied the
King. During the time of the King's visit to Scot-
land, an insurrection of the Roman Catholic popula-
tion of Ireland took place, marked by massacres and
butcheries of the helpless Protestants more horrible
and appalling than any recorded in history. Though
there never has been any sufficient evidence that these
shocking scenes of carnage were instigated by the
King, yet it was known that the insurgents pretended
authority, and some of them boasted actual commis-
sions, from him, and it is not to be wondered at, there-
fore, that suspicions were entertained by many, at that
time, that he was not wholly unconnected with those
dreadful occurrences.
Other circumstances combined with these to in-
flame the prevailing distrust of the King's purposes;
and when the Parliament re-assembled, a temper of
less calmness and sobriety was observed among the
members. One of the first proceedings of this ses-
sion was the presentation by a committee of what
has been called the Grand Remonstrance, a paper ela-
borately prepared, containing a vivid and animated
summary of all the grievances and misgovernment
55
which had afflicted the country since the accession of
the King, and evidently intended as a signal to the na-
tion that the danger was not yet over. About this time,
a division of opinion, honest and conscientious on
both sides, took place in the patriot party. Some,
satisfied with what had been already achieved for the
security of public liberty, were willing to trust to the
future for preserving what had been gained rather
than incur the hazards of civil strife. Others, satis-
fied also with what had been achieved if it could be
maintained, yet believed there was no reasonable
prospect of its maintenance, unless they should go
farther and disarm the King of his remaining power.
This division was now plainly manifested in the ques-
tion upon the adoption of the Remonstrance, which,
after a protracted debate continuing from nine o'clock
in the morning to twelve o'clock at night, was carried
by a majority of only nine votes, in a House of more
than three hundred members.* The extraordinary
excitements attending this debate gave occasion for
Hampden to display those rare powers of equanimity,
self-possessed calmness and commanding influence
with which he was endowed, above all the men of his
time. Sir Philip Warwick, who was a member of the
House and eye-witness of these scenes, says "We
had sheathed our swords in each others' bosoms, had
not the sagacity and great calmness of Mr. Hampden
prevented it and led us to defer our angry debate until
the next morning."
Scarcely had the excitement of this conflict of par-
ties in Parliament subsided, before the King was be-
* Clarendon.
56
trayed into an act of violence and outrage which kin-
dled a new flame in the Kingdom, and must be con-
sidered as the immediate provocation of the unhappy
and bloody contest which was now approaching.
Having framed an accusation of high treason against
Lord Kimbolton of the House of Lords, and Pym,
Hampden, Hollis, Sir Arthur Hazelrig and Strode of
the House of Commons, upon grounds and allega-
tions of criminality which involved in one common
guilt all the members of the patriot party, he sent a
serjeant-at-arms to demand of the House the accused
members; and upon his return without a positive an-
swer, the King, the next day, proceeded in person to
the House, accompanied by a retinue of more than
two hundred men, armed with halberts and walking-
swords, and leaving them at the door, entered the
Hall himself and demanded the five accused members.
Not finding them there, he declared his determination
to have them at all hazards. Such an unwonted and
violent irruption threw the House into confusion, and
when he retired from the Hall, the cry of privilege!
privilege! resounded in his ears. Nor was it there
only that the cry was heard. It was re-echoed by the
whole Kingdom. London was in violent commotion,
and its excited population, a few days afterwards, es-
corted in triumph to their seats the members, now en-
deared more than ever to the public affection, in whose
persons so bold and wanton a violation of the privi-
leges of Parliament had been attempted. The flame
rapidly spread to the country, and, in a few days, four
thousand freeholders of the county of Buckingham
rode up to London in a body, each wearing in his hat
57
a copy
of the Protestation for the defence of the power
and privileges of Parliament, which had been recom-
mended by the two Houses to be taken by the people,
and they presented at the bar of the House of Com-
mons a petition, in which was expressed with equal
earnestness their faithful attachment to the person of
their Representative, and their zeal for the privileges
of Parliament, "in the just defence of which as es-
sential to the very being of Parliaments, they declared
themselves resolved to live and die.”
This violent and lawless procedure of the King,
notwithstanding the apologies and offers of reparation
he afterwards made for it, produced a profound and
lasting impression upon the public judgment, as well
as upon the feelings of Parliament. From that mo-
ment, the apprehension became stronger and the con-
viction more general that there was no solid security
for the public liberty, while the power of the sword
remained in the hands of the King. The Parliament
proceeded, without delay, to perfect the measure
which had been for some time under consideration for
placing the militia of the several counties under the
command of Commissioners to be named by them-
selves, in the Bill which should be passed for the pur-
pose, instead of (as heretofore) Lords Lieutenants ap-
pointed by and holding their offices at the pleasure of
the King. The measure was an innovation upon the
principles of the British Constitution as hitherto under-
stood, but was believed to be justified by the necessi-
ties of the times and the imminent dangers of the pub-
lic liberty. The unhappy progression of events now
making it every day more and more evident that the
8
58
long struggle between the King and the Representa-
tives of the people, was at last to be determined by
the sword, each party was unwilling to relinquish the
possession of that potent instrument to the other.
Charles persisted in refusing his assent to the Bill
which was presented to him for the new organization
of the militia, and the two Houses finally enacted it
as an Ordinance, in despite of the Royal negative.
The Parliament subsequently submitted to the King
nineteen propositions (including the militia ordi-
nance) as the basis of a peaceable settlement, but they
were hardly expected to lead to any satisfactory re-
sult, as both parties still stood inflexible upon the issues
already joined. The King shortly afterwards erected
his standard at Nottingham, and the fearful appeal was
made to the God of Battles.
Hampden now devoted all the deep and mighty en-
ergies of his mind and character to the service of his
country in the field, as he had hitherto done in Parlia-
ment and upon the other scenes of the great civil con-
troversy through which the nation had passed. He
was a sincere lover of the blessings of peace and li-
berty conjoined; but they were now to be sought
through the rude encounter of hostile arms. From
the moment the conflict began, his object was to bring
it to the speediest close by bold, prompt, vigorous and
decisive action. He was convinced that no terms of
peace, consistent with the safety of the national free-
dom, were now to be had until a strong impression
had been made upon the King and his advisers by
some signal advantage in arms. To the attainment
of an early, safe and durable accommodation, by this
59
now only effectual road, as he believed, every effort of
his mind and body was henceforward earnestly and
incessantly directed. Contributing largely of his pe-
cuniary means to the support of the Parliamentary
cause, he, at the same time, put himself at the head
of a Regiment of infantry, which he raised among his
gallant and devoted countymen of Buckinghamshire,
and which was the first in the field to answer the call
of the country. He passed rapidly from point to point
to animate and organise the energies of the nation;
and wherever an advantage was to be gained by
promptitude and vigor, which might hasten that con-
summation to which he steadily looked, of an early
and solid re-establishment of the peace and liberties
of the Kingdom, he was the first to perceive and the
bravest to pursue it. In contemplating his career at
this time, we are seized with wonder that a man who
had known nothing of war, who had been bred in
"the modest stillness and humility" of peace, who
"never set a squadron in the field," should, all at once,
when the new exigencies of his country's service re-
quired such qualities, start up into a consummate ge-
neral and exhibit the highest talents for military com-
mand.
The Earl of Essex had been placed in chief com-
mand of the Parliamentary army. He had served
with reputation in the wars of Germany and Holland,
and his military experience concurred with his high
birth to recommend him for the post to which he was
appointed. He was a technical soldier and a brave
man. But his system of operations was wholly un-
suited to the intestine war in which the nation was
60
now plunged. He was dilatory in his movements, he-
sitating and undetermined in his plans, and seemed,
as has been said, to avoid a victory full as much as a
defeat. Hampden early saw these errors of the com-
manding general, and did whatever he could, consis-
tent with the duty of military subordination, from
which he never departed, to remedy and repair them.
Wherever he held an independent command and had
the opportunity of acting upon his own counsels, ce-
lerity, decision, never-ceasing activity, combined with
the clearest judgment and the quickest intuition,
marked his operations, and in almost every instance
crowned them with brilliant success. This continued
exhibition of rare military virtues and talents, con-
trasted with the faults and blunders of Essex, drew
the eyes of the army,
of the army, the Parliament and the nation
more and more upon Hampden, as the destined leader
under whom their banner was to be borne in triumph.
He was, in many quarters, already impatiently desig-
nated for the supreme command, and the hopes and
affections of all were centred in his person, when one
of those mysterious providences, which so often dis-
appoint the fondest calculations of man, closed hip ca-
hiş
reer. In an encounter with the troops of Prince'Ru-
pert, whom his gallantry and sleepless vigilance for
the protection of the country engaged him in an at-
tempt to check with an unequal force, till the army of
Essex should come to his support, he received a wound
which, a few days afterwards, terminated in his death.
Thus fell the great and virtuous champion of Bri-
tish freedom, in the fiftieth year of his age and just
ten months after the rearing of the King's standard at
61
Nottingham-the signal of the bloody and unhappy
civil war in which his country was involved. That
country to which his whole life had been devoted was
still uppermost in his thoughts and prayers, to the mo-
ment of his expiring struggle. "O Lord! save my
bleeding country," was the last audible invocation ad-
dressed to Heaven by his parting breath.
The death of Hampden, we are told by Clarendon,
brought as great a consternation to the popular party,
as if their whole army had been cut off. And well
might it produce that effect, for no man now remained,
who possessed that rare union of seemingly irreconci-
lable virtues, or who enjoyed that universal confidence
in the integrity of his aims, which was necessary to
conduct the contest in which they were engaged, to a
safe and happy issue. His great rival and enemy,
whom I have just quoted, with every disposition to
malign his motives and principles of action is yet com-
pelled to say, “his reputation of honesty was univer-
sal, and his affections seemed so publicly guided that
no corrupt or private ends could bias them." But we
are enabled to add even higher testimony-that of the
pious, learned and eloquent Baxter, who also lived
in these troubled times and was a profound observer
of the conduct and character of those who were then
actors upon the mighty scene of the public convul-
That great Divine, such was the elevated and
acknowledged purity of Hampden's character, confi-
dently assigned him a place in the celestial society of
his Saint's Rest. Speaking of him, he says, "Mr.
John Hampden was one that friends and enemies ac-
knowledged to be most eminent for prudence, piety
sions.
:
62
and peaceable counsels, having the most universal
praise of any gentleman that I remember of that age."
He adds, "I remember a moderate, prudent, aged gen-
tleman, far from him but acquainted with him, whom
I have heard saying that if he might choose what per-
son he would then be in the world, he would be John
Hampden."
A man endowed with so many and such lofty vir-
tues and the object of universal confidence, if his life
had been spared to guide the further progress of the
great intestine conflict in which the nation was en-
gaged, would have been the Washington of his coun-
try. In the presence of his sublime and heroic pa-
triotism, the guilty ambition of Cromwell would have
stood palsied and rebuked. Under the powerful as-
cendant of his high moral influence, the jarring and
discordant factions which arose in the bosom of the
popular party would have been harmonized and com-
posed, and their divided energies been made to co-
alesce for the advancement of the one great and only
cause of civil and religious freedom. Placed as he
would have been at the head of the army, virtue like
his never could have been tempted to turn against the
liberty of his country the sword he had been entrusted
with for its defence. His moderation and wisdom
would have taught his countrymen the most difficult
and the most important of all lessons for free states-
to know when and where to pause, and to guard li-
berty from the danger of those excesses by which the
best things may become the worst—a lesson, the ig-
norance or disregard of which cost England, after the
death of Hampden, long added years of bloody civil
!
63
war, the iron rule of military ursurpation, and finally
a vindictive and profligate Restoration which brought
back, for a season, some of the worst abuses which
had been condemned and discarded by the voice and
the arm of the nation.
But the cause of virtuous liberty had now taken
root in the hearts of the people, and it was never
more to be eradicated, however overborne by adverse
circumstances for a time. The noble struggles of
Hampden and his illustrious associates had endeared
it to the public affection and forever fixed its princi-
ples in the public mind.
•
In tracing the progress of this great contest, I have
abstained from any special reference to the ecclesias-
tical controversies of the times. Hume and other
writers of the same school have sedulously laboured
to prove that these controversies formed the real
ground of conflict in the struggle of contending par-
ties, and that "the grievances which tended chiefly to
inflame the Parliament and the nation were the sur-
plice, the rails placed about the altar, the bows ex-
acted on approaching it" and other ceremonies of re-
ligious worship.* I have thought there could be no
better mode of refuting this narrow and prejudiced
representation of a noble contest for the great funda-
mental principles of civil and religious freedom, than
laying out of view for the moment these ecclesiasti-
cal disputes, to shew what ample cause was still left
in the numerous and daring invasions of public liberty,
for all the resistance that was offered by the patriots of
that day to the encroachments of arbitrary power.
*History of England, chap. 54.
64
The persecuting and ambitious spirit of Bancroft, of
Laud, and their instruments, furnished but too abun-
dant cause to rouse a deep feeling of dissatisfaction
in regard to the conduct of religious concerns in the
kingdom. All who were thus aggrieved naturally ral-
lied to the support of public liberty-the standard first
raised in defence of the constitutional franchises of
the people and the just privileges of Parliament, but
which extended its protecting folds alike over the in-
alienable rights of person, property and conscience.
Such was the true character of the struggle for En-
glish liberty, of which Hampden became the master spi-
rit, and which, while it remained under his guidance,
stood without just reproach in the eyes of the world.
Its principles are of all time, and applicable to every
people, who cherish the cause of constitutional free-
dom. The liberty which Hampden and the great men
who coöperated with him sought to establish for their
country, was not a liberty unregulated by law and ri-
oting in freedom from restraint. In the only reported
speech of his now extant, made towards the close of
his life and upon an occasion most deeply interesting
to his character and feelings, he makes a scrupulous
observance of "the ancient and fundamental laws of
the land," the touchstone of civic duty and political
trust. We have already seen, in a memorable occur-
rence of his life, what sacred reverence he professed
for Magna Carta as the law of the land and the obli-
gatory rule of his conduct.
No where in the records of eloquence or philosophy
is to be found a nobler conception, more nobly ex-
pressed, of the majesty and transcendant functions of
ܝ
-
65
Law, as the rightful mistress of human conduct, than
in the great speech of Pym, on closing the impeach-
ment of the Earl of Strafford.
" If you take away
the Law," he says, "all things
will fall into a confusion. Every man will become a
law to himself, which, in the depraved condition of
human nature, must needs produce many great enor-
mities. Lust will become a law, and envy will be-
come a law, covetousness and ambition will become
laws; and what dictates and decisions such laws will
produce, may easily be discovered in the late govern-
ment of Ireland."
He proceeds then to speak of law as "the boun-
dary and measure" between prerogative on the one
side and liberty on the other, and points out the
equal
danger, in departing from it on either hand, "that
prerogative will be turned into tyranny or liberty grow
into anarchy." But the whole speech is worthy to be
studied as a rich repository of profound reflections and
maxims, applied to the practical administration of af-
fairs.
It was from this school of political wisdom that the
great men, who laid the foundations of our own fabric
of free government, drew their instruction in the
principles of liberty. This was the pure and copious
fountain at which they all drank. It is impossible to
read any of those noble state-papers put forth in de-
fence of American rights at the æra of our glorious
contest for independence-papers which by their dig-
nity, firmness and wisdom, Lord Chatham declared
placed the young people of America and their Legis-
lative Bodies on a level with the Master-States of the
9
66
*
world—without perceiving how deeply they were im-
bued with the spirit and principles which animated
Hampden and his colleagues in their great struggle for
British freedom.
But there are other considerations which equally
recommend the history of that ever-memorable period
to our careful meditation and study. The age of
Hampden was the age of private, as well as public
virtue. We are told by a writer, distinguished for his
searching and philosophical investigations of the past
that it was “an age more eminent for steady and
scrupulous conscientiousness in private life than any,
perhaps, that has gone before, or has followed."* Un-
der the control of this high tone of national morals,
the part which the middle and more numerous classes
of society acted, in the busy and troubled drama of
the times, was the result of sober and honest convic-
tion-not the suggestion of heedless impulse, of
pas-
sion, or of personal interest.
The age of Hampden, too, was an age of extraor-
dinary intellectual development and of the general
spread of knowledge. Never before had the national
literature shone forth with such sudden and amazing
splendor. Bacon, Raleigh, Milton, lighted it up with
the blaze of their immortal genius. The English
language itself, employed now as the instrument of
grand Parliamentary debates and of appeals to the
nation on the mightiest questions which can agitate
the minds of men, became instinct with the new spi-
rit of liberty, and throwing off the pedantry and jar-
gon of the schools, exhibited a flexibility, compass
* Hallam's Const. Hist. ch. 9.-Also, Hume's Hist. England, ch. 55.
<<
67
and force which it had never before discovered. The
general improvement of the popular mind kept pace
with the advance of Literature and Science; and the
great body of the Commons of England were trained
to the comprehension and enlightened decision of the
momentous issues then for the first time submitted to
their arbitrament. The wise men and patriots of that
day knew and felt the vital connection between po-
pular liberty and popular intelligence, and the hazards
which must ever attend their unnatural separation.
Let us not be unmindful of their wise instruction.
Let us be profoundly thankful that by the virtuous
struggles of our glorious ancestors we are now in the
peaceful enjoyment of the blessings of free govern-
ment, without having to seek them, as they did,
through the bloody scenes of civil strife. War, whe-
ther foreign or domestic, or for whatever cause under-
taken, is the saddest ordeal through which human na-
ture can pass, and but rarely repays in its results,
(however successful) the havoc, calamities and crimes
which mark its dreary footsteps. A gracious Provi-
dence has set before us a happier and a nobler destiny.
"Peace hath her victories, no less renowned than
war." To these lofty and enduring triumphs let us
address ourselves, treasuring up in our hearts the les-
son so impressively taught by the inspired genius
whose words I have just cited, himself a Republican,
who had traversed the scenes of the mighty conflict
for British freedom, and who had learned, by fearful
experience, to distinguish true liberty from false. In
the degeneracy of that great conflict, when the prin-
ciples which Hampden had impressed upon it were
lost sight of, the sublime poet and republican patriot
}
of England* wrote these lines of pregnant admoni-
tion:
✰
*
+
License they mean when they cry liberty;
For who loves that must first be wise and good.
:,
Let us cherish this great lesson. Let us ever remem-
ber that a people, to be truly free, must first be wise
and good, and that License is not Liberty; and let
the "renowned victory of Peace" we all seek to
achieve for our country be the blended triumph of
Virtue, Knowledge, Liberty and Law.
* Milton.