John Hampden of Buckinghamshire - The Peoples Hero, by Frank Hansford Miller

John Hampden of Buckinghamshire - The Peoples Hero, by Frank Hansford Miller

Booklet published by the John Hampden Society, 48 pages. A5 size paperback (N7671PE)

From the rear side cover: In his own time and throughout subsequent ages, John Hampden was reviled as a traitor or saluted as a patriot and hero according to personal prejudice. Even today more than three hundred and fifty years-after his death from wounds received at the battle of Chalgrove, opinion is hotly divided as to his merit.

Born in 1594, Hampden succeeded to the family estates in Buckinghamshire and other counties at the age of three. He studied at Lord William's School at Thame, Oxford and the Inner Temple. In 1621 he became the Member of Parliament for Grampound and later represented Wendover and Buckinghamshire. This was a time of social change, great intellectual activity, religious turmoil and serious inflation. The King constantly had to ask Parliament for more money, which it was only willing to grant in return for his recognition of its own rights and privileges. Parliament wanted to approve all taxation and not be dissolved without its own consent. Charles I tried to rule without it and attempted to raise Ship Money - a tax he said did not need parliamentary approval. John Hampden made his name by refusing to pay this tax, which he held to be illegal. Later he further angered the King by taking a leading part in Parliament's passing of the Grand Remonstrance, a list of the King's misdeeds from the start of his reign.

Charles came to the Commons to arrest Hampden and four others for treason but they escaped and were sheltered in the City of London. Hampden was held in such esteem that six thousand men from Buckinghamshire marched to London to show their support. By now civil war was inevitable; Hampden raised his famous regiment of Greencoats to fight against the King, but did not survive to see Cromwell's New Model Army finally achieve victory over the Royalists.

The condition of the booklet is generally very good. The covers have one or two minor scuffs but are clean and bright, the spine is intact, and all pages are intact, unblemished and tightly bound. There is an old price printed and a small price sticker, both on the rear side cover.