DICTIONARY
of
NATIONAL BIOGRAPHY
CHAMBER, JOHN a, or CHAMBERLAYNE (d. 1489), rebel, a knight of great influence in the north, excited the people to join the rebellion headed by Sir John Egremond in Northumberland and Durham against the heavy subsidy of 1489. Henry, earl of Northumberland, who had orders to enforce the tax, endeavoured to persuade him to cease his agitation. Chamber would not hear him, and on 20 April the earl was slain by the rebels at Cock Lodge, near Thirsk. Then Thomas, earl of Surrey, was sent to put down the insurrection. He took Chamber and utterly routed the rebels. Chamber was executed at York 'in great state,' being hanged on 'a gibbet set on a square pair of gallows 'with his chief accomplices hanging 'upon the lower story round about him.'
[Fabyan's Chronicle, 683 (ed. 1811); Grafton's Chronicle, ii. 176-7 (ed. 1809); Bacon's Henry VII, 355-6 (ed. Bohn); Stow's Annals, 474 (ed. 1614).]
CHAMBER, JOHN (1470–1549), physician. [See Chambre.]
CHAMBER, JOHN (1546–1604), canon of Windsor and writer on astronomy, born at Swillington, Yorkshire, in May 1546, was educated at Merton College, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. in 1569 (Oxf. Univ, Reg. Oxf. Hist. Soc., i. 272). He was elected a fellow in the same year, being 'chosen purely for his merits.' He was well versed in Greek, and after taking the M.A. degree turned his attention to medicine, astronomy, and astrology. He lectured in the university on the Ptolemaic system, and applied to the authorities to be permitted to lecture on Hippocrates. Chamber was in holy orders from 1582, became fellow of Eton College, and in 1601 canon of Windsor. He died at Windsor on 1 Aug. 1604, and was buried at the entrance to the choir of St. George's Chapel. He left Merton College 1,000l. to buy lands in Yorkshire for the maintenance of two postmasterships for Eton scholars, to be called by his name.
Chamber's works are: 1. 'Scholia ad Barlaami Monachi Logisticam Astronomiam,' 1600, 4to. 2. 'Treatise against Judicial Astrology' (Lond. 1601, 4to), to which Sir Christopher Heydon replied in his 'Defence of Judicial Astrology' (Camb. 1603). 3. To Heydon's reply Chamber wrote an answer entitled ' A Confutation of Astrological Dæmonology in the Devil's School,' which was never printed, and is extant among the Savile MSS. at the Bodleian Library. The dedication to James I is dated 2 Feb. 1603-4. 4. 'Astronomical Encomium,' Chamber's Oxford lectures on Ptolemy in Latin and English, Lond. 1601. Chamber was a friend of George Carleton, bishop of Chichester [q. v.], who defended him from Heydon's attack in his 'Madnesse of Astrologes,' 1624.
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon., ed. Bliss, i. 744; Fasti Oxon. ed. Bliss, i. 181, 193; Brodrick's Memories of Merton College, p. 269; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
CHAMBERLAIN. [See also Chamberlaine, Chamberlane, Chamberlayne, Chamberlen, and Chamberlin.]
CHAMBERLAIN or CHAMBERLAYNE, GEORGE, D.D. (1576–1634), bishop of Ypres, was the second son of George Chamberlain, and grandson of Sir Leonard Chamberlain or Chamberlayne [q. v.] He was born in 1576 at Ghent, where his father, a catholic exile, had settled. In 1599 he was admitted into the English college at Rome, where he was ordained priest. He became canon, archdeacon, and dean of St. Bavon in Ghent, and in 1626 succeeded, on the death of
