LAMBERT, THE "ARCH-REBELL."
Mr. Hallam (Const. Hist., vol. ii. p. 26. ed. 1850), after some remarks on the execution of Vane, who was brought to trial together with Lambert in 1661, asserts that the latter, "whose submissive behaviour had furnished a contrast with that of Vane, was sent to Guernsey, and remained a prisoner for thirty years." Mr. Hallam does not quote his authority for this statement, which I also find in the older biographical dictionaries. There exists, however, in the library of the Plymouth Athenæum, a MS. record which apparently contradicts it. This is a volume called Plimmouth Memoirs, collected by James Yonge, 1684. It contains "a Catalogue of all the Mayors, together with the memorable occurrences in their respective years," beginning in 1440. Yonge himself lived in Plymouth, and the later entries are therefore made from his own knowledge. There are two concerning Lambert:
"1667. Lambert, the arch-rebell, brought prisoner to this Iland."
[The Island of St. Nicholas at the entrance of the harbour, fortified from a very early period.]
"1683, Easter day. My Lord Dartmouth arrived in Plimmo. from Tangier. In March, Sir G. Jeffry, the famously [Query, infamously] loyal Lord Chief Justice, came hither from Launceston assize: lay at the Mayor's: viewed ye citadells, Mt. Edgecumbe, &c.
"The winter of this yeare proved very seveare. East wind, frost, and snow, continued three moneths: so that ships were starved in the mouth of the channell, and almost all the cattel famisht. Ye fish left ye coast almost 5 moneths. All provisions excessive deare; and had we not had a frequent supply from ye East, corne would have been at 30s. per bushell,—above 130,000 bushells being imported hither, besides what went to Dartmo., Fowy, &c.
"The Thames was frozen up some moneths, so that it became a small citty, with boothes, coffee houses, taverns, glasse houses, printing, bull-baiting, shops of all sorts, and whole streetes made on it. The birdes of the aire died numerously. Lambert, that olde rebell, dyed this winter on Plimmo. Island, where he had been prisoner 15 years and mo."
The trial of Lambert took place in 1661. He may have been sent at first to Guernsey, but could only have remained there until removed in 1667 to Plymouth. His imprisonment altogether lasted twenty-one years.
Lambert's removal to Plymouth has, I believe, been hitherto unnoticed. Probably it was thought a safer (and certainly, if he were confined in the little island of St. Nicholas, it was a severer) prison than Guernsey.
RICHARD JOHN KING.