Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Chamberlayne, James
CHAMBERLAYNE, Sir JAMES (d. 1699), third baronet, poet, was the second son of Thomas Chamberlayne of Wickham, Oxfordshire, who was created a baronet in consideration of his royalist sympathies by Charles 1, 4 Feb. 1642-3, and died, while high sheriff of Oxfordshire, 6 Oct. 1648 (Dugdale, Diary, p. 55; Davenport, High Sheriffs of Oxfordshire, p. 47). His grandfather was Thomas Chamberlayne or Chamberlain [q. v.], judge in the court of king's bench. On the death, without male issue, of his elder brother, Sir Thomas, Chamberlayne succeeded late in life to the baronetcy. He died in October 1609. By his wife, Margaret Goodwin, he had three sons (James, Henry, and Thomas) and a daughter. James, the heir and fourth baronet, was appointed lieutenant-colonel of the horse guards blue in December 1750, and died in December 1767.
Sir James was the author of two volumes of sacred verse, now rarely met with:
- 'A Sacred Poem,' in rhyming couplets, detailing the life of Jesus Christ, and a paraphrase of eighteen of David's psalms, London, 1680; and
- 'Manuductio ad Cœlum, in two parts, I. Of Joy and Sadness … II. Of Patience … ' London, 1681, a yerse translation of Cardinal Bona's 'Manuductio ad Coelum, medullam continens sanctorum et yeterum philosophorum.' Sir R. L'Estrange brought out another translation of the same work in 1672, which became highly popular.
[Wotton's Baronetage, ed. Kimber and Johnson, i. 494; Corser's Collectanea Anglo-Poetica, iii. 266-70; Brit. Mus. Cat. s. vv. 'Chamberlain' and 'Chamberlayne.']