The Sun.
London, England, 1863-01-03 00:00:00

JOHN HAMPDEN

Mr William James Smith, in a communication to
Kates and Queries, gives the following account of
the exhumation of a body supposed to be that of
Hampden, in the year 1828 :—" On Saturday the
19th of July, 1828, I left London with Lord Nugent
and Mr. Denman (then Common-Sergeant of Lon-
don, afterwards Lord Denman). We halted at
Chalfont to see the church and the house where
Milton had for a time resided; thence to Amersham
and Aylesbury, where we visited the county gaol ;
and upon that occasion I made my first, and I hope
my last appearance on the treadmill, in company
with the future Lord Chief Justice of England.
We arrived in the evening at Lilies, Lord Nugent's
residence, and on the following Monday morning
started for Great Hampden, where, at the church
door, we were met by the Rev. Mr. Brooks, the
rector; Mr. Grace, Lord Buckingham's land
steward; Mr. C. Moore, the eminent sculptor;
Mr. Coventry, and one or two other gen-
tlemen. After the inscriptions on several coffins
had been examined, one was found about 4t. from
the surface, on the right hand (south ?) side of the
communion table, on,,which no letters were legible,
and as the plate was not much decayed, it seemed
probable that there never had been any inscription
It was immediately determined that this should be
opened. The outer coffin of wood bad been covered
with velvet; the inner coffin was a very thick leaden
one. It was cut open, and the lead rolled back; the
body was laid in a wooden shell, and upon removing
the sawdust, was found to be enveloped in very nu-
merous folds of cerecloth, which would perhaps ac-
count for its remarkable preservation; the flesh
was white and firm, but with no other odour than
that of the surrounding earth, The features were
much compressed by the weight of the bandages.
the eyes were covered with a white film ; the beard
had been shaven, but there appeared a growth of
about a 16th of an inch. The hair was long and
flowing, as represented in the portraits of Hamp-
den ; it had been collected and tied with a black
riband at the back of the head. In colour it corre-
sponds with the description given by Mrs. Grote.
I cut off a lock, which is still in my possession. As
there was no surgeon present Lord Nugent descended
into the grave, and endeavoured to ascertain whe-
ther there was any wound upon or near the left
shoulder, but it being found impossible thus to make
a satisfactory examination, the coffin was raised and
set upon tressels in the middle of the chancel. The
body was placed in a sitting posture, with a shovel
to support the head. The shoulders and arms were
then carefully inspected, and the result proved that
Lord Nugent's " foregone conclusion"—that Hamp-
den's death was caused by a gunshot wound in the
shoulder—was at once dissipated. There did not
appear any discolouration, or the slightest injury to
the shoulders or arms; but, in order to be perfectly
satisfied, Lord Nugent himself, with a small pocket
knife borrowed from me at the instant, made seve-
ral incisions in the parts adjacent to the shoulder
joint, without finding any fracture or displacement
of the bones. Lord Nugent was evidently disap-
pointed; he did not care to establish the fact that
Hampden's death was occasioned in any other man-
ner than by a shot from the King's troops. My
own opinion rather leaned to the tradition related
by Sir Robert Pye (Hampden's son-in-law), that
his right hand was shattered by the bursting of his
pistol, and that death probably ensued from lock-
jaw, arising out of extensive injury to the nervous
system. When I took up the right hand it was con-
tained in a sort of funeral glove, like a pocket. On
raising it I found it was entirely detached from the
arm ; the bones of the wrist and the hand were
much displaced, and had been evidently splintered
bysome violent concussion; onlythe ends of the fingers
were held together by the ligaments. The two bones
of the forearm, for about three inches above the wrist,
were without flesh or skin, but there were no marks
of amputation ; both the bones were perfect. The
left hand was in a similar glove, but it was firmly
attached to the arm, and remained so when the
glove was drawn away. There were slight por-
tions of the flesh upon the hand : the bones were
complete, and still held in their places by the liga-
ments which supported them. This remarkable
difference in the condition of the hands sufficiently
proves the troth of Sir Robert Pyo's relation of the
cause of Hampden's death.