HAMPDEN, John I

More may be added to the earlier biography. The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 279-81.

It is likely that Hampden, a j.p. for over quarter of a century, during which he saw some 20 years of service as a member of the quorum, was a lawyer. If so, he may have been the John Hampden who entered Lincoln’s Inn before 1420, the ‘Hampden’ who was a governor of that society in 1425-6 and the John Hampden who features in its Black Books under the year 1432-3, apparently while governor. L. Inn Adm. i. 2; L. Inn Black Bks. i. 2, 4. The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 280; iv. 422, assumes that the Lincoln’s Inn man was his kinsman, John Hampden II* of Great Hampden, even though this namesake never served as a j.p. and was born into a substantial inheritance. The Kimble John Hampden, a lesser landowner of lesser status than his relatives of Great Hampden, makes a much more likely lawyer. Although never as prominent as his relatives from the Great Hampden branch of the Hampden family, his friendly association with them gave him a link with the upper gentry of the Thames valley. Similarly, his brother-in-law, John Brecknock, from 1447 bailiff of the royal lordship of Princes Risborough, immediately to the south of Great Kimble, was another useful connexion since he was an officer of the royal household.

A now lost monumental inscription in the parish church at Great Kimble recorded that Hampden died on 2 Aug. 1460. J.H. Baker, Men of Ct. (Selden Soc. supp. ser. xviii), i. 811.