JOHN HAMPDEN AND THE BATTLE OF CHALGROVE: The Political and Military Life of Hampden and his Legacy

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On June 16, 1643, Prince Rupert slipped out of Royalist Oxford with the intention of beating up Parliamentary quarters and hoping to capture a Parliamentarian convoy carrying some 21,000 pounds in coin. Having failed to intercept the convoy, the Royalists headed back to Oxford. A Parliamentarian cavalry column caught up with the Prince and his troops outside the small Oxfordshire village of Chalgrove, early in the morning of the 18th of June. During the short engagement noted Parliamentarian Colonel John Hampden was wounded, and although he was able to leave the field, he was to die six days later of his wounds. Includes 9 b/w illustrations, 1 b/w photo, and 9 maps.
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His opposition to the King's attempts to impose taxation prior to the war had made him a national figure. His trial for non-payment of the Ship Money Tax turned him into a celebrity. He was one of the five MP's that the King attempted to arrest in January 1642. His was a grievous loss to the Parliamentarian cause. Hampden's mortal wounding at Chalgrove in June 1643 remains a matter of controversy due to the reliance of existing accounts upon tainted evidence, originating from the account of The Earl of Clarendon in the 17th century, through the partisan interpretations in the 18th century, continued into the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The author's research in the Bodleian Library uncovered the contemporary account used by Clarendon, revealing that the accepted version of the Battle of Chalgrove, published in his celebrated History of the Rebellion (London 1702), bore little relation to the original text.