Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Stampe, William
STAMPE, WILLIAM (1611–1653?), divine, born in 1611, was son of Timothy Stampe of Bravern Abbey, near Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire. He matriculated at Pembroke College, Oxford, on 20 April 1627, and graduated B.A. on 19 Jan. 1631, M.A. on 24 Oct. 1633, and D.D. on 18 July 1643. In 1640 he was incorporated M.A. at Cambridge. In 1637 he became vicar of St. Aldate's, Oxford, while also holding a fellowship at Pembroke. He was appointed to the vicarage of Stepney on 13 Aug. 1641. In the following July he was committed to the Gatehouse there, being accused of ‘calling some men who had enlisted under the Earl of Essex roundheaded rascals, and procuring a number of sailors to make a contribution in Stepney church,’ presumably to the royalist cause. Next month he vainly petitioned the House of Commons for release (Lysons, Environs of London, iii. 443, from ‘The Perfect Diurnal,’ August 1642). After thirty-four weeks' imprisonment he made shift to get to Oxford during the next year, and his case was laid before the king. Thereupon Falkland was sent to the vice-chancellor with orders to cause the degree of D.D. to be conferred upon him. He was also made chaplain to the Prince of Wales. Meanwhile he had been sequestered by the Westminster assembly from his living of Stepney, where, owing to his zealous loyalism, he had been in danger of his life. He followed the Prince of Wales when he left the country, and also acted as chaplain to Elizabeth, queen of Bohemia. He was a frequent preacher among the protestants at Charenton. Afterwards he removed to The Hague, whence in 1650 he addressed to his old parishioners at Stepney ‘A Treatise of Spiritual Infatuation, being the present visible Disease of the English Nation,’ the substance of several sermons delivered there. Another edition is dated 1653. According to George Morley [q. v.], bishop of Winchester, Stampe died of fever at The Hague, and was buried in the church of Loesdune in the same year.
Stampe published several sermons preached before the king at Oxford. ‘A Vindication of the Liturgy of the Church of England,’ written by him, was not printed.
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss) iii. 347–8; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1500–1714; Macleane's Hist. Pembroke Coll. Oxford (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), p. 244; Brit. Mus. Cat.; Cal. of Clarendon Papers, ii. 336–7, 346, 369.]