DELAMAINE, ALEXANDER (fl. 1654–1683), Muggletonian, was probably originally a baptist; his brother Edward was, in 1668, a baptist preacher at Marlborough, Wiltshire. In 1654 he was a quaker, as appears from his letter of 27 June in that year. He first appears as a Muggletonian in 1671, and it is probable that he attached himself to the following of Lodowicke Muggleton [q. v.] about the time when Muggleton obtained complete control over his sect by putting down ‘the rebellion against the nine assertions,’ which began in 1670. At this period Delamaine was a London tobacconist, carrying on business ‘at the sign of the three tobacco pipes’ on Bread Street Hill. He became a very staunch disciple of Muggleton, collecting money and receiving letters for him during his troubles with the authorities. After the release of Muggleton from Newgate on 19 July 1677, Delamaine composed a ‘song,’ dealing with the circumstances of his trial before Chief-justice Rainsford in the previous January. This was first printed in ‘Divine Songs of the Muggletonians,’ 1829, 12mo, p. 267. In 1682 he finished transcribing into a folio volume the letters of Muggleton (with a few by John Reeve [q. v.]), addressed to various persons, from 1653 onward. On 19 April 1682 he began a second volume of additional letters ‘that would not goe into my grate Book.’ Both these manuscript volumes are preserved among the Muggletonian archives. Their contents have been edited in ‘A Volume of Spiritual Epistles,’ &c., 1755, 4to; 2nd edit. 1820, 4to.
Delamaine died between 25 June 1683 and 26 Dec. 1687. His second wife, who survived him, was Anne Lowe, first married to William Hall. By his first wife he had a son, Alexander, and several daughters, of whom the last survivor was Sarah, married to Robert Delamaine. All were zealous Muggletonians.
[Letters of Early Friends, 1841, p. 5; Supplement to the Book of Letters (Muggletonian), 1831; works cited above.]
DELAMAINE, RICHARD, the elder (fl. 1631), mathematician, speaks of himself in his earliest published work, 'Grammelogia,' as a 'teacher and student of the mathematics,' and dedicates the book to King Charles. It was attacked in Oughtred's 'Circles of Proportion' (1631). The date of this publication is 1631, and we may infer that it procured him royal favour and the appointment of tutor to the king in mathematics and quartermaster-general. It is in these terms that his widow describes him in 1645, when she petitioned the House of Lords for relief (Lords' Journals). He left ten children at his decease, one of whom bore his name, but the exact date of his death has not been ascertained.
He wrote: 1. 'Grammelogia or the Mathematicall Ring, extracted from the Logarythmes and projected Circular,' 8vo, 1631. (He explains that his title, intended to express 'the speech of lines,' has been taken in imitation of Lord Napier's 'Rabdologia,' to which he is indebted for the system set forth.) 2. 'The Making, Description, and Use of a small portable Instrument called a Horizontall Quadrant,' 1631, 12mo. A 'ring-sundial of silver,' made upon the plan here described, was sent by Charles I just before his death to his son, the Duke of York (Wood, Athenae, iv. 34).
[Robinson's Reg. of Merchant Taylors' School, i. 152; Hist. Rec. Comm. Rep.]
DELAMAINE, RICHARD, the younger (fl. 1654), mathematician, perhaps eldest son of Richard Delamaine the elder [q. v.], seems to have held some position in the customs (‘sate at the receipt of customs,’ Impostor Magnus, 1654), and in 1641 published a folio sheet dedicated to the House of Peers containing ‘A Table shewing instantly by the eye the number of Acres belonging to any summe of money, according to the rate settled by Parliament upon any of the lands within the Foure Provinces of Ireland,’ &c. He took the side of the parliament in the great constitutional struggle, and in 1648 was an active preacher in the county of Hereford and a trooper and paymaster of the militia. He seems to have combined these offices successfully for a while, occupying the pulpit in Hereford Cathedral and taking a prominent part in the defence of the city. In 1654 he was superseded (State Papers, Dom. Ser. 27 June), and whatever could be said to his discredit was collected by an anonymous writer and published under the title ‘Impostor Magnus: the legerdemain of Richard Delamaine, now Preacher in the city of Hereford. Being a narrative of his life and doctrine since his first coming into that country,’ 1654, 4to.
[Biographical particulars in Impostor Magnus.]
DELAMER, Lord. [See Booth, George, d. 1684.]
DE LA MARE, Sir PETER (fl. 1370), speaker of the House of Commons, was mesne lord of the manor of Yatton in Herefordshire, and was seneschal of the Earl of March, who held the manor in capite. He was elected knight of the shire for his county in the parliament which met in April 1376, and which, from the popularity acquired by its attempts to reform abuses, went by the
