(born 1594, London, Eng.—died June 24, 1643, Thame, Oxfordshire, Eng.) English Parliamentary leader. In 1635 he refused to pay 20 shillings in ship money, a levy by Charles I for outfitting his navy, on the ground that only Parliament was empowered to levy taxes.
Though the court ruled in favour of Charles, resistance to the tax became widespread. In the Long Parliament (1640), Hampden attacked royal policies and was one of the five members who evaded arrest by the king in 1642. The ship-money episode was one of the controversies that led to the English Civil Wars, in which Hampden was mortally wounded.
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