Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 24.djvu/273

Hampden the valley of the shadow of death; for we, like Joab's and Abner's young men, had catch't at each others locks, and sheathed our swords in each others bowels, had not the sagacity and great, calmness of Mr. Hampden by a short speech prevented it' (Memoirs, p. 202;, x. 77).

On 3 Jan. 1642 the king, instigated by the news that the parliamentary leaders were about to impeach the queen, sent the attorney-general to the House of Lords to impeach Hampden and others, and a sergeant-at-arms to the House of Commons to arrest them (the instructions to Sir E. Herbert are given in the Nicholas Papers, p. 62; the articles of impeachment are in, iv. 473). They were charged with aspersing the king and his government, encouraging the Scots to invade England, raising tumults to coerce parliament, levying war against the king, and, like Strafford, endeavouring to subvert the fundamental laws and government of the kingdom. The commons replied by voting the seizure of the papers of their members a breach of privilege, authorised them to resist arrest, and refused to give them up; but ordered them to attend in their places daily to answer any legal charge brought against them (Commons' Journals, ii. 367). Nalson prints a speech said to have been delivered by Hampden on 4 Jan., which is reproduced by Forster in his 'Arrest of the Five Members' (p. 166); Mr. Gardiner points out that it is a palpable forgery (History of England, x. 135). On the afternoon of 4 Jan. the king came personally to arrest the members, but they, having been warned in time, escaped by water into the city, and a week later they were brought back in triumph to Westminster. When the news of Hampden's impeachment reached his constituents, some four thousand gentlemen and freeholders of Buckinghamshire rode up to London to support and vindicate their member. They presented one petition to parliament, promising to defend its rights with their lives, and another to the king, declaring that they had ever had good cause to confide in Hampden's loyalty, and attributing the charges against him to the malice which his zeal for the service of the king and the state had excited in the king's enemies (, iv. 487). On 6 Feb. the king announced his intention of dropping the impeachment, but that was no longer sufficient to satisfy either the accused members or the kingdom. Clarendon observes that after the impeachment Hampden 'was much altered, his nature and carriage seeming much fiercer than it did before' (Rebellion, vii. 84). One sign of this was his resolution to obtain securities for the parliament's future safety. On 20 Jan., when the answer to a conciliatory message from the king was read in the commons, Hampden moved an addition to desire the king to put the Tower of London, and other forts of the kingdom with the militia thereof, into such hands as parliament could confide in (Commons' Journals, ii. 389;, p. 475). The king's refusal to grant these demands made war inevitable, and on 4 July the two houses appointed a committee of safety, of which Hampden was from the first a leading member. He undertook to raise a regiment of foot for the parliament, and his 'green coats' were soon one of the best regiments in their service. Tradition represents him as first mustering his men on Chalgrove Field, where he afterwards received his death-wound (Mercurius Aulicus, 24 June 1643).

Hampden as a deputy-lieutenant of Buckinghamshire actively executed the militia ordinance there, and his first exploit was the seizure of the Earl of Berkshire and the king's commissioners of array at Sir Robert Dormer's house at Ascot on 16 Aug. (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1641-3, p. 382;, p. 519). Sending his prisoners up to London, he then marched to take part in the relief of Coventry, which was effected on 23 Aug. (Lords' Journals, v. 321). Lord Nugent represents Hampden as present at Lord Saye's occupation of Oxford, and the newspapers and pamphlets of the period relate victories gained by him at Aylesbury and elsewhere which are entirely fictitious. In reality Hampden continued with the main body of Essex's army struggling hard to preserve discipline amongst his unruly soldiers. 'We are perplexed,' he wrote to Essex, 'with the insolence of the soldiers already committed, and with the apprehension of greater. . . If this go on, the army will grow as odious to the country as the cavaliers. . . . Without martial law to extend to the soldiers only it may prove a ruin as likely as a remedy to this distracted kingdom' (Tanner MSS. lxiii. 153, lxii. 115, 63153, 62115). The celebrated conversation between Cromwell and Hampden on the possibility of raising 'such men as had the fear of God before them,' probably took place about this time (September 1642;, Cromwell, speech xi.)

At the battle of Edgehill Hampden was not present, having been charged with the duty of escorting the artillery train from Worcester. He joined Essex after the battle was over, condemned his retreat to Warwick, and urged a renewed attack on the king's forces. At Brentford also Hampden eagerly advocated an attack on the returning 