at length rescued by four constables and conveyed to the Counter in the Poultry, but he was fatally injured about the head and died next morning. He was buried the following day in the new churchyard near Bishopsgate. Upon his person were found a crystal ball and other conjuring implements.
The vengeance meted out to Lambe served to indicate the popular hatred of his patron.
Let Charles and George do what they can,
The duke shall die like Doctor Lambe,
became the common cry of the London mob. Buckingham at once exerted all his influence to discover those who had been guilty of Lambe's murder. On 15 June two days after the event the privy council announced to the lord mayor the king's indignation at the outrage, and directed that the guilty persons should be arrested and treated with the utmost severity. But no one was apprehended on the charge, although many constables and others were committed to prison for neglect of duty in failing to protect the doctor (Overall, Remembrancia, p. 455). The lord mayor was afterwards summoned before the king in council and threatened with the loss of the city's charter. Ultimately the corporation was fined 6,000l., but the amount was soon reduced to fifteen hundred marks.
Buckingham was himself assassinated on 23 Aug., rather more than two months after Lambe's death, and popular sentiment celebrated the occasion in the lines—
The shepheard's struck, the sheepe are fled,
For want of Lambe the Wolfe is dead.
'A Dialogue between the Duke and Dr. Lambe after Death' formed the subject of a contemporary ballad (cf. Randolph, Poems, 1638, p. 53).
[Lambe's career is sketched in a very rare pamphlet, of which two copies are in the British Museum, entitled A Briefe Description of the notorious Life of John Lambe, otherwise called Doctor Lambe, together with his ignominious Death. Printed in Amsterdam 1628. A woodcut on the title-page represents the fatal scuffle in the streets. Poems and Songs relating to George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, and his Assassination, ed. Fairholt (Percy Soc. 1850), contains many references to Lambe. See also Gardiner's Hist. vi. 318–19; Forster's Sir John Eliot, i. 576, ii. 315–17; Court and Times of Charles I, i. 363-5; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1628-9, pp. 94, 169, 172.]
LAMBE, Sir JOHN (1566?–1647), civilian, probably born about 1566, graduated B.A. at St. John's College, Cambridge, in 1586-7, and M.A. in 1590. In the interval he made a pilgrimage to Rome (Coll. Top. et Gen. v. 86). On his return to England he 'taught petties,' i.e. was undermaster in a school, and studied the civil and canon law. In 1600 he purchased the registrarship of the diocese of Ely; in 1602 he was admitted a member of the College of Advocates. About the same time he was appointed co-registrar, and shortly afterwards chancellor of the diocese of Peterborough. Thomas Dove [q. v.], bishop of Peterborough, made him his vicar, official, and commissary general, jointly with Henry Hickman, on 10 June 1615. In the following year he took the degree of LL.D. at Cambridge. In 1617 he was appointed by the dean and chapter of Lincoln commissary of their peculiars in the counties of Northampton, Rutland, Huntingdon, and Leicester. He had now established a certain reputation as an ecclesiastical lawyer, and in 1619 he was consulted by Williams, dean of Salisbury, afterwards archbishop of York, in reference to some delicate cases. A strong supporter of the royal prerogative, he carried matters with a high hand against the puritans in Northamptonshire, compelling them to attend church regularly on the Sunday, to observe holy days, and to contribute to church funds, imposing grievous penances on recusants, and commuting them for fines, and holding courts by preference at inconvenient times and places, in order that he might extort money by fining those who failed to appear. In 1621 the mayor and corporation of Northampton presented a petition to parliament complaining of these grievances, and the speaker issued his warrant for the examination of witnesses. The king, however, intervened to stop the proceedings, and during his progress through Northamptonshire knighted Lambe on 26 July at Castle Ashby. In 1623 Lambe was selected by his old friend Williams, now bishop of Lincoln, to be his commissary in that diocese. Williams's zeal began to cool, and at length in 1626 he refused to sanction some proceedings proposed by Lambe against some Leicestershire conventiclers. Lambe secretly informed the privy council against him. No immediate steps were taken against the bishop, but Lambe's information and the evidence were preserved for possible future use. Lambe was a member of the high commission court from 1629 until its abolition by the Long parliament, and was one of Laud's most active supporters throughout that period. In the autumn of 1633 he succeeded Sir Henry Marten [q. v.] as dean of the arches court of Canterbury. On 25 Feb. 1634–5 he was appointed commissary of the archdeaconries of Leicestershire and Buckinghamshire. In 1637 he was commissioned to exercise eccle-
