CAMPION, Henry (c.1586-1653), of Putney, Surr., and Newton Valence, Hants.

Originating from Campion’s Hall, Essex, this Member’s family became established in the London merchant community in the sixteenth century. His grandfather, Henry Campion (d. 1588), was a prominent citizen.14Harl. 1397, f. 186; Vis. Surr. 202-3; Comber, Suss. Genealogies Lewes, 33-4; Misc. Gen. et Her. 4th ser. ii. 261-2; E. Suss. RO, Danny mss 1576-81. Among the latter’s sons, William settled at Wombwell, Kent, where his son, Sir William Campion was a prominent royalist during the civil war; Henry, a surveyor of crown lands in Hampshire, acquired an estate in that county; and Abraham, the MP’s father, an affluent Clothworker, added to it by the purchase of the manors of Old and New Lymington.15Lansd. 171, f. 397v; VCH Hants, iii. 27; iv. 646.

Admitted to the Middle Temple in 1605, the future MP apparently spent many years studying law, sharing a chamber with Lawrence Hyde I† until 1613, but he did not proceed to the bar.16MTR ii. 453, 456, 530, 560. His father, whose staunch Calvinist will expressed confidence that he was one of ‘the elected company appointed to be saved’, died in March 1611, leaving his heir substantial properties in three counties.17PROB11/117/308; PROB11/120/368. However, accompanying responsibility to discharge legacies and obligations only increased in subsequent years.

As lord of the manor of Lymington, in 1621 Campion had little difficulty in obtaining one of the borough seats in Parliament.18Hants RO, 27M74A/DBC1, p. 123; 27M74/DBC2, ff. 4, 10, 12, 13; HP Commons 1604-1629. Thereafter, however, financial problems stemming from prolonged litigation over his sisters’ marriage portions and debts owed to the Corporation of London by one of his brothers threatened to overwhelm him.19CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 106 From 1624 until 1632 much of his Hampshire estate was assigned to trustees for the payment of money owed by his brother Abraham, apparently reducing Campion to penury and leading him to reside at his property in Putney.20CLRO, Common Serjeant’s Bk. I, f. 423; Rep. 38, ff. 78v, 139v, 179v, 188v-90, 201; Rep. 43, f. 292v; Rep. 44, ff. 65; Rep. 47, ff. 33v-35v; St Mary, Putney, par. reg. Although this may have encouraged him to seek re-election to Parliament, and the protection from creditors that came with it, he was unable to wield the necessary influence.21Hants RO, 27M74A/DBC1, pp. 135, 137; HP Commons 1604-1629. By 1632, however, a settlement was reached with the Corporation of London, which noted the ‘great poverty and miserable condition of the said Henry Campion, who, for his brother’s debts, is deprived and bereft of his whole patrimony and means of maintenance of himself, his wife, and many children’, and Campion recovered control of at least part of the estates.22CLRO, Rep. 47, ff. 33v-35v. By the mid-1630s his financial and legal battles appear to have been resolved, although Lymington records indicate that he may not have gained full control of his lands until 1643.23C78/366/7; Hants RO, 27M74/DBC2, ff. 40, 41v, 42, 44, 47, 49, 50.

On 16 October 1640 Campion was made a freeman of the borough, and four days later was returned to Parliament as one of its MPs.24Hants RO, 27M74/DBC2, ff. 35r-v. He was not visibly active at Westminster, and the only occasion on which he is mentioned in the Journal before the outbreak of civil war was on 3 May 1641, when he took the Protestation.25CJ ii. 133b. In 1642 he subscribed to provide a horse for the parliamentarian cause.26PJ iii. 476. He was present to take the formal tests of loyalty – the covenant of 6 June 1643 and the Solemn League and Covenant on 3 October.27CJ iii. 118a, 262a. However, his sole recorded committee nomination was on 9 May 1644, to consider the pay of the major garrisons in Hampshire.28CJ iii. 486a. This appointment reflected his much more visible service in Hampshire and Surrey, where he was named to a number of local commissions.29A. and O. As a member of the Hampshire county committee meeting at Winchester in November 1645, he was included among elders of the first Hampshire Presbyterian classis.

Campion was evidently still in attendance at Westminster in June 1645 when he was granted the weekly allowance of £4, and he collected a quarter’s payment at Michaelmas that year, so he must have been a more regular presence than appears in the record. 30CJ iv. 141a, 161a; Add. 18780, f. 29; E404/517, unfol. Despite his Hampshire responsibilities, he was described as ‘of Putney’ when his eldest surviving son Richard was admitted in October 1648 to the Middle Temple.31MTR ii. 968. He appears on a contemporary list as having been secluded from the Commons on 6 December, and his name is absent from local commissions from that time.32A List of the Imprisoned and Secluded Members (1648, 669.f.13.62). Although the precise date is unknown, Campion died intestate before 12 May 1653, when Richard Campion, in selling his interest in the Lymington salterns, anticipated by four weeks receipt of the administration of the estate.33PROB6/30, f. 178; King, Bor. and Par. Lymington, 243; C9/12/67.

The MP is not to be confused with one Henry Champion or Campion, a household servant of Algernon Percy†, 4th earl of Northumberland. In August 1646 this man was appointed the earl’s receiver-general in Somerset, Dorset, Carmarthen, Pembroke, and other parts of south Wales, and was living at Petworth in 1650, when he was admitted to the Inner Temple.34Alnwick, O.I.1(g); Alnwick, U.I.6; W. Suss. RO, PHA, 1164; I. Temple database. Subsequently styled ‘solicitor’ to Northumberland, this man died at Isleworth in 1679.35W. Suss. RO, PHA, 1004, 5832, 5841, 5850, 5858, 5867, 5879, 5888, 5898, 5908, 5936, 5945, 5757, 5767, 5780, 5793, 5806, 5819, 7373-7378; Alnwick, O.I.2(k); PROB11/360/479.