HAMPDEN, William (1633-76), of Great Hampden, Bucks.

Despite being a younger son of John Hampden, much about William Hampden’s life remains obscure. He was first mentioned in the spring of 1643 when a scurrilous newsbook report described him and his brother Richard* as ‘a cripple’ and ‘a lunatic’, although it is not clear which was meant to be which.5Mercurius Aulicus no. 15 (9-15 Apr. 1643), 192 (E.99.22). As William never attended university or an inn of court, a disability cannot be completely ruled out, although Richard, who also lacked an academic or legal education, went on to have a full and successful public career. No doubt because of their father’s posthumous fame, William was sufficiently well-known by January 1657 that the Dorset MP in the 1656 Parliament, John Fitzjames*, could boast to his colleagues that he had convinced Anthony Rous* that he, Fitzjames, together with Hampden and Baynham Throckmorton*, had been knighted by the lord protector.6Burton’s Diary, i. 321. The joke presumably was that the three of them were, in some undefined way, particularly unsuitable candidates for such an honour. However, as he was one of Oliver Cromwell’s cousins once removed, the reason could not be obscurity.

The next thing that can be said with certainty is that he was present in Dublin in September 1658 and signed the proclamation issued by the Irish privy council on 10 September proclaiming Richard Cromwell* as the new lord protector.7TSP vii. 383-4. He is also said to have carried the letter written by the lord deputy, Henry Cromwell*, to Richard on receiving the news of their father’s death.8Lipscombe, Buckingham, ii. 260. This does not mean that Hampden was a member of the Irish privy council, but it does suggest that he held some sort of government position in Ireland. He may therefore have been the ‘Mr Hambden’ to whom the clerk of the Irish privy council, Thomas Herbert, had written in April 1656 advising that a prominent young Irish gentleman, Dudley Bagenal, be apprenticed in London in order to separate him from his Catholic relatives.9Ire. under the Commonwealth, ii. 592. The Hampdens had existing Irish connections in that John Hampden had strongly supported the Irish Adventure and his shareholding had since passed to William’s elder brother, Richard. William’s kinship with the Cromwells may also have helped secure him a position in the Irish bureaucracy.

His election as MP for Wendover in late December 1658 was a reflection of the importance of the Hampdens in the area. His father had been elected there on six separate occasions. The lord of the manor was John Baldwin*, his father’s former servant and a loyal friend of the family. However, probably William stood only because his elder brother had already been summoned to sit in this Parliament as a peer in the Other House. This makes it especially significant that what little work William is known to have undertaken as an MP was mostly connected with the controversy over the status of the Other House. In two divisions, on 7 and 28 March 1658, he was a teller for those who opposed attempts to delay debate on that subject.10CJ vii. 611b, 621b; Burton’s Diary, iv. 75, 286. Although the significance of such procedural divisions can be difficult to assess, Hampden was probably supporting the existence of the Other House. He also got into a brief spat with John Okey* on 14 February during the debate on recognising Richard Cromwell as lord protector, with one accusing the other of betraying their former principles.11Burton’s Diary, iii. 277. Hampden was presumably defending the protectorate. On 5 April he was one of two MPs whom Matthew Alured* accused of uttering ‘very uncivil words’ while Sir Henry Vane II* was speaking against the proposed declaration for a public fast.12Burton’s Diary, iv. 544.

Having held no local offices during the 1650s, Hampden was added to the Buckinghamshire commission of the peace in March 1660, although, like his brother, he had been dropped from the bench before the end of that year. It was his brother, not William, who sat for Wendover in the 1660 and 1661 Parliaments. Although his previous connections with Ireland might suggest he was the William Hampden (or Hamlin) commissioned as a lieutenant in one of Irish guards regiments, the army officer still held that position as late as 1678.13CSP Ire. 1660-9, p. 531; Irish Army Lists, 1661-1685 ed. C. Dalton (1907), 28, 53, 79, 99, 111, 124, 125. By then William was dead, with his funeral having taken place at Great Hampden two years previously.14Lipscombe, Buckingham, ii. 260. A bachelor, he left no descendants.