page_title: John Hampden
section_title: August 1642 to June 1643; War and death
hierarchical_section_title: John Hampden / Career / August 1642 to June 1643; War and death
caption_attribution_description: English: Monument to John Hampden near Chalgrove, Oxfordshire. Hampden was a Parliamentarian army commander who was mortally wounded nearby in 1643 in the English Civil War Battle of Chalgrove Field.
context_page_description: John Hampden was an English landowner and politician whose opposition to arbitrary taxes imposed by Charles I made him a national figure. An ally of Parliamentary leader John Pym, and cousin to Oliver Cromwell, he was one of the Five Members whose attempted arrest in January 1642 sparked the First English Civil War.
  After war began in August 1642, Hampden raised an infantry regiment, and died of wounds received at the Battle of Chalgrove Field on 18 June 1643. His loss was considered a serious blow, largely because he was one of the few Parliamentary leaders able to hold the different factions together.
  His death in 1643 meant he avoided the bitter internal debates later in the war, the execution of Charles I in 1649, and establishment of The Protectorate. As a result, he is considered a less complex figure than either Cromwell, or even Pym; in 1841, his statue was erected in the Palace of Westminster, to represent the Parliamentary cause.
  A reputation for honest, principled, and patriotic opposition to arbitrary rule also made him a popular figure in North America. Prior to the 1774 American Revolution, Franklin and Adams were among those who referenced him to justify their cause.
context_section_description: When war began in August 1642, both sides expected it to be settled by a single, decisive battle; many areas remained neutral, while awaiting the result. Hampden raised a regiment, which acted as baggage escort at Edgehill in October; one of the companies was commanded by his eldest son John, who was killed. After the disastrous Battle of Brentford, he helped rally troops for the defence of London. However, his main contribution was holding the Parliamentary factions together over the first winter, and preparing for a long war by initiating the negotiations that led to the Solemn League and Covenant with the Scots in August 1643.
  When the 1643 campaign began, Hampden was serving with the Earl of Essex, whose lack of aggression was already causing concern. Tasked with taking the Royalist war capital of Oxford, Essex captured Reading on 27 April, where he remained until mid May. On 18 June 1643, Hampden was wounded at the Battle of Chalgrove Field; shot twice in the shoulder, the wound became infected. Later claims these injuries were caused by the explosion of his own pistol have not been substantiated. 
  He died at home six days later, and was buried in Great Hampden church. Unlike Pym, who died of cancer in December, his loss was mourned on both sides of the conflict; his close friend Anthony Nicholl wrote ‘Never Kingdom received a greater loss in one subject, never a man a truer and more faithful friend.’ In 1843, George Nugent-Grenville, a Whig radical politician and author of the hagiographic Memorials of John Hampden, paid for the Hampden Monument, located near the battle site.
caption: Monument to Hampden, near Chalgrove, installed in 1843
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