Hamon L'Estrange was an English writer on history, theology and liturgy, of Calvinist views, loyal both to Charles I and the Church of England. Along with Edward Stephens, he contributed to the seventeenth-century revival of interest in ancient liturgies; with John Cosin and Anthony Sparrow he began the genre of commentary on the Book of Common Prayer. He has been confused at times with his father, son and grandson of the same name.
God's Sabbath before and under the Law and under thee Gospel, briefly vindicated from novell and heterodox assertions, Cambridge, 1641; an attempt to prove the Sabbath a divine and immutable institution, dedicated both to the parliament and to his father, Sir Hamon L'Estrange.
An Answer to the Marquis of Worcester's last Paper to the late King, representing in true posture and discussing briefly the main Controversies between the English and Romish Church, together with some considerations upon Dr. Bayly's parenthetical interlocution relating to the church's power in deciding controversies of scripture, in which L'Estrange responds to a work of Thomas Bayly, and argues against the claim of the Catholic Church to be the sole judge of the meaning of scripture in controversies.
Smectymnuo-mastix, or Short Animadversions upon Smectymnuus their Answer and Vindication of that Answer to the humble remonstrance in the cause of Liturgie, London, 1651, London, 1655; 2nd edit,, London, 1656, revised and somewhat enlarged, 'with a reply to some late observations upon that History.' This work, which Thomas Fuller praised, ends with the execution of Strafford. Peter Heylyn attacked it in Observations on the History of King Charles, 1656. In
The Observator observed, or Animadversions upon the Observations on the History of King Charles, wherein that History is vindicated, partly illustrated, and several others things tending to the rectification of public mistakes are inserted, London, 1656. A reply to Heylyn, and Heylyn wrote in answer the Observator's Rejoinder and Extraneus Vapulans, 1656. In the latter he characterised L'Estrange as 'stiffly principled in the Puritan tenets, a semi-presbiterian at least in the form of church government, a nonconformist in the matter of ceremony, and a rigid sabbatarian in point of doctrine.' In his Alliance L'Estrange supplied the translation of Extraneus Vapulans as 'L'Estrange is beaten'.
The Alliance of Divine Office was his major work, in which L'Estrange replied to Heylyn on liturgical matters.
Family
He was brother of Sir Nicholas L'Estrange, the first baronet, and Roger L'Estrange. The father was author of a work often erroneously attributed to his son. He married, first, Dorothy, daughter and coheiress of Edmund Laverick of Upwell, Norfolk; secondly, Judith, daughter of Bagnall of London and had issue five sons and five daughters. His eldest son, Hamon, who died 4 May 1717, married three times, and left a large family. His father's works have occasionally been assigned to him in error.
