LAMPEN, John (1604-61), of Padreda, Linkinhorne, Cornw.

The Lampens had held land in Cornwall since the late fifteenth or early sixteenth centuries, and by the early seventeenth century had secured marriage alliances with many other minor gentry families in the east of the county, including the Harrises of Lanrest, the Lowers of St Winnow and the Cloberys of Saltash. John Lampen himself married into the Landreys of Wilcomb, while his sister married Nicholas Trefusis* of Landew.14Vivian, Vis. Cornw. 274, 299, 567. Lampen’s education was suitable for a young man of his status. He matriculated at Oxford in 1623, and probably attended the Middle Temple shortly afterwards – although his name does not appear in the admission records for the latter, he was clearly a member of the inn, as he stood surety for the admission of his eldest son in 1647.15Al. Ox.; MTR ii. 949. When his father died in 1634, Lampen inherited a fairly extensive estate in Cornwall, centred on the barton of Padreda in Linkinhorne parish, and including various leases in the same parish and neighbouring North Hill held from the duchy of Cornwall.16PROB11/166/523; Parl. Surv. Duchy Cornw. i. 24, 26, 30, 122-3, 125. The family lands had been extended, only a year before, when Lampen had purchased part of the manor of Rillaton Peverley, in Linkinhorne parish, from Joseph Bastard.17Plymouth and West Devon RO, 74/309/13.

Nothing is known of Lampen’s stance during the first civil war, but by the late 1640s he was clearly regarded as a man loyal to Parliament. In April 1648 he was serving as treasurer of the Cornwall county committee; from December 1649 he was included in a number of local assessment commissions; and in January 1650 he was appointed sheriff of Cornwall, an office which he held until November of that year.18FSL, X.d.483 (12); A. and O.; List of Sheriffs, 23. Having been added to the commission of peace for Cornwall by February 1651, he had been omitted from the magistracy by the autumn of 1653.19C231/6, p. 205; C193/13/4, f. 14. Lampen’s parliamentarian credentials did not prevent him from associating with royalist neighbours, and in 1655 he was happy to witness a lease made by the widow of William Coryton* and his son, John Coryton.20Cornw. RO, CY/2345. It was probably in the same year that Lampen secured a prestigious match for his eldest son, with a daughter of Anthony Rous* of Wotton, and under the marriage settlement he passed all his estates to this son, on condition that he surrender back the Bastard lands and other properties to provide for the younger sons and unmarried daughters after Lampen senior’s death.21C10/64/51. It was perhaps with Rous’s backing that Lampen was chosen as MP for St Mawes in an election held on 8 January 1659, although there is no evidence that he was active at Westminster in the months that followed.22C219/46/26. Lampen was certainly no radical, and in December 1659 he joined the other Cornish gentry in signing a declaration calling for a ‘free Parliament’ and publicly opposing the chaos created by military rule.23Publick Intelligencer no. 210 (2-9 Jan. 1660), 998 (E.773.41).

Lampen’s health may have been in decline when he wrote his will in April 1660, leaving complicated arrangements for his younger sons and unmarried daughters, involving land grants as well as monetary bequests.24PROB11/304/311, 322. On his death, early in 1661, Lampen was succeeded by his eldest son, also John, but the transition was anything but smooth, and the heir soon faced a suit in chancery, brought by his widowed mother and her other children, who claimed that he had not honoured the terms of the will or of the earlier land settlement.25C5/38/22; C5/40/42; C10/64/51. Apart from the complexities and ambiguities of the original will, the root of the trouble appears to have been a further dispute, between Lampen junior and his father-in-law, Anthony Rous, who had refused to pay the full marriage portion as he considered the dower lands to be insufficient, and this matter itself led to chancery proceedings in 1672.26C10/175/96. The outcome of the two disputes is unknown, but they seem to have seriously weakened the family’s finances, and Lampen’s grandson was forced to sell off the Padreda estate to Sir James Tillie in 1685.27Parochial Hist. Cornw. iii. 130; Vivian, Vis. Cornw. 274. No further member of the family sat in Parliament.