John Chamberlain (1553–1628) was the author of a series of letters written in England from 1597 to 1626, notable for their historical value and their literary qualities.Thomson, vii. In the view of historian Wallace Notestein, Chamberlain's letters "constitute the first considerable body of letters in English history and literature that the modern reader can easily follow".Notestein, 29. They are an essential source for scholars who study the period.Thomson, vii, xi.• "It is, in fact, just about impossible to write about any aspect of the Jacobean period without quoting Chamberlain at least once." Lee, 3.
Life Chamberlain's father Richard was a successful ironmonger, also Sheriff of London and twice Master of the Worshipful Company of Ironmongers, who left his son enough money to live on for the rest of his life without needing to earn a living. His mother, Anne, was the daughter of Robert Downe, an ironmonger and alderman.Notestein, 34–35. Though unambitious for himself, Chamberlain used his network of friends in high places to assist the career of Dudley Carleton, who rose from a minor position in the diplomatic service to become Secretary of State shortly after Chamberlain's death. Carleton preserved the long correspondence between himself and Chamberlain, which contains the majority of Chamberlain's surviving letters. Chamberlain maintained a similar correspondence with Sir Ralph Winwood, for many years ambassador at The Hague, and he presumably sent many other letters to his friends.Thomson, 44.
Chamberlain wrote at least one long letter a week. His purpose was more than social; it was to provide his friends, posted abroad in foreign embassies and out of touch with the London scene, with useful and reliable information about the events and issues of the day. Chamberlain would walk daily to St Paul's Cathedral to gather the latest news on the London grapevine and then report it to his correspondents as accurately and objectively as possible, including public and private opinion on the value of the information. Chamberlain is a particularly valuable source for contemporary opinion on King James I, for information about the royal family and the court, and for details of English trading activities in the earliest days of empire.Thomson, xi.
Chamberlain is valued not just as a commentator but as a writer. Historian A. L. Rowse has called him "the best letter writer of his time".Lee, 3. Chamberlain takes care to observe without intruding his own opinions; though his disapproval of the laxity of the day is apparent, he does not waste words on moral indignation.Notestein, 113. He entertains his correspondents by leavening factual information with humour and vivid details, and includes lighter topics and anecdotes to keep the reader's interest. In the view of scholar Maurice Lee, Jr., the letters that passed between John Chamberlain and Dudley Carleton are "the most interesting private correspondence of Jacobean England".Lee, 4.
Character
Chamberlain's letters provide a portrait of a typical London gentleman of late Elizabethan and Jacobean times, moderate in politics and religion.Chamberlain was a Protestant but distrusted religiosity and intolerance, whether Puritan or Catholic. He was pessimistic when Prince Charles ventured to Spain in 1622 to woo the Spanish Infanta, Maria, and relieved when the mission failed. Notestein, 96–97. In politics, Chamberlain came gradually to sense evil days ahead. He saw the king losing ground for lack of officers in parliament and noted in 1624 that constituents had begun to choose their own representatives rather than accept the government placemen. Notestein, 100–101. Chamberlain emerges from his letters as a kind man and a considerate friend, who preferred a peaceful life and commented on the contemporary world as an onlooker. Though he willingly sought career openings for his friends, he was uninterested in office or financial gain for himself and lived the life of a quiet, even timid bachelor. As he once wrote: "I am past all ambition, and wish nor seek nothing but how to live suaviter and in plenty".Thomson, viii. This detached approach lends an objective quality to Chamberlain's letters. As a conscientious correspondent, he took pains to get his facts right. He saw through pretence and delusions but was never cynical or indignant. His generosity as a man is reflected in the fairness of outlook that pervades his letters. Just as his friends confided and trusted in him, often with important secrets, historians have trusted his information and insights into the Jacobean scene.Thomson, viii. Historian Alan Stewart calls Chamberlain, "a notable barometer of public opinion".Stewart 204.
Chamberlain certainly had personal shortcomings, of which he was fully aware, but they are not such as to affect the quality of his letters. He was naturally inquisitive and a gossip, qualities that served as an asset to him as a letter writer. He had been a sickly and delicate child; and although he attended both Cambridge University and the Inns of Court, he never took his degree or qualified as a lawyer.Thomson, x. Wallace Notestein, who included a long essay on Chamberlain in his Four Worthies (1956), described him as "wanting in initiative".Notestein, 55. He always lived in the households of friends and relatives; on the one occasion he attempted to run his own establishment, it proved too much for him. He was also timid in love; and though hints that he considered marriage creep into his letters now and then,Chamberlain's friends were still trying to marry him off at the age of fifty. Sir Rowland Lytton wrote to him in 1605: "I am not satisfied with your answer about the widow...Repent in time and forsake the solitary eagle's life, go pair with the dove, and send me a new pair of gloves, and if, upon a twelve month's trial you disallow my counsel I will fetch for you ten flitches of bacon from Dunmow". Notestein, 53. nothing came of these opportunities. Editor Norman McClure suggests that Chamberlain may at one time have considered marrying Dudley Carleton's sister Alice.Notestein, 51. In his will, among many generous gifts to his friends, he made a sizeable bequest to Alice,He left her a lump sum of £600, plus £80 per annum. Notestein, 56. explaining: "This I do, in regard of the sincere goodwill and honest affection I bear her, and of the true and long-continued friendship between us, and for a testimony of that further good I had intended her, if God had given me means".Thomson, x.
Friends
Chamberlain acquired an interesting group of friends, mainly drawn from the middle ranks of society, with a background either in business or in the lesser country gentry.Thomson, ix. These included Ralph Winwood and Dudley Carleton, who both rose to become secretaries of state, the latter after Chamberlain's death. Such men saw themselves as members of a professional civil-servant class rather than as courtiers. Winwood, like Carleton, began as a diplomat, and Chamberlain's letters regularly report on his chances of becoming secretary of state, to which office Winwood was finally appointed in March 1614. Chamberlain remained close friends with Winwood during his secretaryship and often stayed at Winwood's country seat, Ditton Park: the information he retails in his letters clearly owes much to this friendship.Winwood speaks in a letter of Chamberlain "whom I do freely communicate all I know of worth and importance". Notestein, 84.
Other notable friends of Chamberlain were Henry Wotton, himself an important letter writer;Wotton made the famous remark that an ambassador is an honest man sent to lie abroad for the good of his country. Chamberlain codenamed him "Signor Fabritio". Notestein, 87. Thomas Bodley, who founded the Bodleian Library in Oxford; the bishop and scholar Lancelot Andrewes; and the historian William Camden. Chamberlain was constantly in demand as a house guest.Notestein, 58. In the summer, he would leave London, "this misty and unsavoury town", and embark on what he called his merry "progresses", staying at various country houses, for example with the Fanshawes at Ware, the Wallops at Farleigh, or the Lyttons at Knebworth.Notestein, 56–60, 105. For a time, Chamberlain lodged in the household of the natural philosopher and physician William Gilbert, whom he may have met at Cambridge University.Thomson, ix.
Such a combination of friends and contacts enabled Chamberlain to report the main events of the day and to catch the mood of the hour. Drawing on these personal sources of information, as well as his contacts at St Paul's, Chamberlain provided his correspondents with information about key figures in England, including Walter Raleigh; the chancellor Robert Cecil; the chancellor and philosopher Francis Bacon; the king's favourite Robert Carr, and his notorious wife Frances. Chamberlain knew many people, and those he did not know, friends and contacts could tell him about. Chamberlain's letters shed light on the main events affecting the country during his adult life: the rebellion of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex; the accession of King James; the Gunpowder Plot; the Thomas Overbury case; the rise of King James's final favourite George Villiers; and the Spanish Match.Thomson, ix. Chamberlain also wrote about some of the leading artists and writers of the day, including the poet and clergyman John Donne, the architect and designer of masques Inigo Jones, and the playwright and poet Ben Jonson.Notestein, 30. If he knew William Shakespeare, however, he never mentioned himNotestein, 38n.—he does not appear to have been a theatregoer. In 1614, he wrote of the new Globe Theatre: "I hear much speech of this new playhouse, which is said to be the fairest that ever was in England, so that if I live but seven years longer I may chance make a journey to see it".Letter of 30 June 1614. Thomson, 157.
Dudley Carleton
Chamberlain's major correspondent was Dudley Carleton, whose mother's sister was the wife of Chamberlain's nephew Thomas Stukely. When the correspondence began in the mid-1570s, Carleton was a young man, about twenty years younger than Chamberlain, urgently seeking a career. Chamberlain, through his friendship with Winwood, helped Carleton secure his first job, in the English embassy in Paris.Notestein, 44. By the time of Chamberlain's death, the upwardly mobile Carleton was a highly placed diplomat, on the brink of becoming secretary of state. However, he himself had only four years to live. Scholars have Carleton, who was "a magpie about his papers", to thank for the legacy of his vast correspondence, which provides a key resource for the period.The letters are held in the British National Archives. Lee, 4. On occasion, he confided diplomatic secrets to Chamberlain, safe in the knowledge of his friend's discretion.Notestein, 46–47.