John Hampton

Date of Brass:

c.1515

Place:

Minchinhampton

County:

Gloucestershire

Country:

Number:

Style:

London F

Description

March 2026

The remaining pre-Reformation brasses of the church of the Holy Trinity at Michinhampton are set together on the north wall as you walk into the church from the west door; on the opposite wall are a larger number of later brasses, perhaps originally from the churchyard where a large number of others remain. On its original Purbeck marble slab are the effigies of John Hampton, gentleman, and his family. John and his wife Elyn are shown in their shrouds but their children, six sons and three daughters, are not. The son and daughter shown most prominently are dressed as a monk and, at first sight, a nun. The inscription reads:

    Of yo^r charite pray for the soules of Johñ hampton gentilman Elyn his wyf

    + all their children specially for the soule of dame Alice hampton his dough

    ter whiche was right beneficiall to this church + prssh whiche Johñ decessed

    in the yere of o^r lord m^oCCCCClvj on whose soules jhū have mercy amen

The date has been altered: there were originally four Cs, with the rest of the year presumably left blank. It seems that Dame Alice, or more likely, her executors, did not know the exact year of her father’s death at the time the brass was ordered but someone was to ask later for it to be inserted. The date on the brass now reads 1556 but during Hilary term (between Christmas and Easter) 1460 Ellen Hampton, widow of John Hampton, brought an appeal in the court of the King’s Bench against William Hervy, a London yeoman, for homicide and another against John Avenell of Michinhampton, yeoman, his wife Joan, Thomas Avenell, Joan’s servant, also of Minchinhampton, and Robert Lawys alias Dokket of Strode, chaplain, as accessories to homicide. The victim was Ellen’s late husband, John Hampton. It was probably not a coincidence in view of what happened later that William Avenell, gentleman, in custody at the Marshalsea, was the defendant in a debt action during the same term brought by John’s brother, the London fishmonger William Hampton, alleging he owed £200. In Hilary term 1462, an action was brought in the same court in the king’s name against William Hervy and his sureties after Hervy failed to uphold the peace against Ellen Hampton. What form Hervy’s actions took is as yet unknown. In Hilary term 1462, William Hervy was indicted for felony and murder, as he was again in Hilary term 1463, when the same indictment was brought against William Avenell of Michinhampton, gentleman. The indictments do not specify who the victims were.

Sir William Hampton, as he became when Edward IV knighted several aldermen for their defence of London, prepared a roll of deeds relating to possessions in Minchinhampton, Bisley and Stroud Water for the use of his heir John Hampton. The latter had evidently died by the time of Sir William’s own death in 1483, when these possessions came into the hands of Dame Alice Hampton as both her father’s and uncle’s heir.

Dame Alice wrote her will in 1514 and it was proved in 1516 after her death on 27 September; a bell in Minchinhampton with her name on it has the date 1515. Her story, as a vowess from 1484 or earlier, has been told elsewhere, not least in the Transactions of the Monumental Brass Society 23 (2022), Laura M. Richmond,‘A Survey of Monumental Brasses of Late Medieval Vowesses’ but it is interesting to speculate on the effects that the murder of her father had on her life choices. The relevant documents from the King’s Bench Plea Rolls (TNA KB 27) for Hilary term 1460-63 have recently been indexed by the indefatigable Vance Mead for the Anglo-American Legal Tradition website aalt.law.uh.edu but there will undoubtedly be further details as yet unindexed in the plea rolls for the other law terms of the period 1460-1463 and the other rolls (KB 9 & KB 29) of the same court for this period.

Copyright: Jon Bayliss (text and photos)