tionately. On 3 March he managed to elude the vigilance of his gaolers, and before the alarm was raised was on his way to France. Notice was sent to all the ports to stay his flight; a proclamation was issued for his apprehension, and he was expelled from his seat in parliament (ib. i. 536). On 15 March the commons sent up to the lords a full account of his offences, and on the 27th the lord chief justice pronounced sentence upon him in the House of Lords, to which the commons were specially invited for the occasion (Lords' Journals, i. 72 &). He was to be degraded from the order of knighthood, to be conducted along the Strand with his face to the horse's tail, to pay a fine of ten thousand pounds, to be imprisoned for life, and to be for ever held an infamous person (Rushworth, Hist. Coll. i. 27; D'Ewes, Diary, i. 176). On 30 March a printed proclamation added, not quite logically, perpetual banishment to his punishment.
A rare illustrated tract, entitled 'The Description of Giles Mompesson, late Knight, censured by Parliament the 17th [i.e. the 27th] of March A 1620[-1],' compared him to Sir Richard Empson [q. v.], the extortionate minister of Henry VII, and credited him with having filled his coffers with his ill-gotten gains. The indictment against Empson had been examined by the lords when they were proceeding against him, and a popular anagram on his name was 'No Empsons' (Cal. State Papers, 1619-23, p. 238). It is probable that Sir Giles Overreach ('a cruel extortioner'), the leading character in Massinger's ' New Way to Pay Old Debts,' was intended as a portrait of Mompesson. The play was written soon after his flight.
Lady Mompesson remained in England, and her friends made every effort to secure provision for her out of her husband's estate. On 7 July 1621 the fine of 10,000l. due from Mompesson was assigned to his father-in-law, Sir John St. John, and Edward Hungerford, together with all his goods and chattels, saving the annuity of 200l. allowed him by the New River Company. That asset was reserved for Lady Mompesson and her child (ib. p. 273). In the same year Mompesson petitioned Charles I to recall him so that he might answer the charges alleged against him, and he bitterly complained of the comparison made between him and Dudley or Empson (Clarendon State Papers Cal. i. 25). On 17 Feb. 1622-3 Lady Mompesson presented a similar petition, on the ground that his presence in England was necessary to settle his estate, most of which was illegally detained by his brother Thomas (Cal. State Papers, 1619-23, p. 419). Next day this application was granted for a term of three months, on the understanding that Mompesson should not appear at court and should confine himself to his private business (ib.) Later in the year (1623) Mompesson was not only in England, but was, according to Chamberlain, putting his patent for ale-houses into execution on the ground that it had not been technically abrogated by parliament (ib. 1623-5, p. 13). On 10 Aug. 1623 a new warrant gave him permission to remain in England three months longer on the old understanding that he should solely devote himself to his private affairs (ib. p. 52). On 8 Feb. 1623-4 he was ordered to quit the country within five days (ib. p. 165). If he did so, he was soon back again. He lived till his death in retirement among his kinsfolk in Wiltshire. On 4 Feb. 1629-30 he acted with his brother Thomas as overseer of the will of his maternal cousin, Edward Estcourt of New Sarum (Crisp, Somersetshire Wills, 6th ser. p. 7), and he is mentioned in his brother Thomas's will, which was proved in 1640 (ib. 4th ser. p. 28). With Sir Edward Hyde, afterwards the great Earl of Clarendon, he seems to have been long on friendly terms. He employed Hyde in a lawsuit in 1640, and lent him 104l. in September 1643 (Clarendon State Papers Cal. i. 209, 211, 217, 244). Although a non-combatant he was a royalist, and in April 1647 went to the king's quarters at Hereford. His property was sequestrated by the parliament, and on 1 May 1647 he was fined 561l 9s. (Cal. of Proc. for Compounding, pp. 77, 1738). The parliamentary committee for the advance of money assessed him at 800l. on 26 Dec. 1645 (ib. p. 666) and at 200l. on 2 Sept. 1651 (ib. p. 1388).
He is not heard of at a later date. He bequeathed 1l. 6s. 8d. to Tisbury parish wherewith to buy canvas for the poor (Hoare, Wiltshire—Parish of Dunworth—iv. 152).
[Gardiner's Hist, of England, vol. iv.; Spedding's Life of Bacon, vol. vii.; Wilson's Hist, of James I; Lords' Debates, 1621 (Camd. Soc.); Cat. of Satiric Prints in Brit. Mus. i. 55; Journals of Lords, i. 72 sq. and Commons, i. 530-75; Nichols's Progresses of James I, iii. 660.]
MOMPESSON, WILLIAM (1639–1709), hero of the 'plague at Eyam,' may be identified with the William Mompesson who in 1662 graduated M.A. from Peterhouse, Cambridge (Cat. Cambr. Grad.); the son and grandson mentioned below were educated at the same college. Becoming chaplain to Sir George Savile, lord Halifax, he was presented by his patron in 1664 to the rectory of Eyam, Derbyshire, then a flourishing centre of the lead-mining industry. To this village the infection of the great plague was conveyed
