LAMBERT, JOHN, was born September 7, 1619, in the parish of Kirkby-Malhamdale, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, at Calton Hall, the seat of a family of which he was the representative, and which traced its descent from a daughter of the Conqueror. That his father died when he was thirteen years of age, that he married, when in his twenty first year, a daughter of Sir William Lister, his neighbour, and that he studied the law in an inn of court, but never pursued it as a profession, is all that we find recorded of his early years. When the civil war broke out, he commenced his military career as captain in the parliamentary forces under Fairfax. In the following year we find him bearing the rank of colonel; and the earliest exploits in which he is known to have distinguished himself were—a sally from Hull on the 11th of October 1643, by which he obliged Lord Newcastle to raise the siege; an engagement at Bradford on the 5th of March 1644, wherein he defeated Colonel Bellasis; and the pursuit of this officer and his troops to Selby, which, being joined by Lord Fairfax, he stormed and took on the 11th of April. The siege of York by the combined forces of Lords Fairfax, Manchester, and Leven ensued; and on the 2d of July, the eventful fight of Marston Moor, in which, along with Sir Thomas Fairfax, he had command of the parliamentary cavalry. The siege of York was recommenced by the victorious army, and Lambert was sent in to a parley with the governor, which ended in the surrender of that city. In January 1645, he was appointed commissary-
Lambert, John. general of the northern army; twice in that year beat the royalists at Keighley and Ferrybridge; and the garrisons of Scarborough, Pomfret, Sandall, Sherborne, Bolton, and Skipton, surrendered to the parliament. In the commencement of 1646 we find him engaged under Fairfax in the west, in subduing the last remnants of the royalist forces in that quarter: we find him at the sieges of Dartmouth, of Truro, and of Exeter, which surrendered, the first on the 20th of January, the second on the 14th of March, and the last on the 9th of April; after which he marched with the army to the siege of Oxford, and was one of the commissioners who negotiated the surrender of that important city, of which he was appointed governor. He was afterwards made one of a select council of five (his colleagues being Cromwell, Ireton, Fleetwood, and Whitelocke), to consult on the disposal of the parliamentary forces for the reduction of the few garrisons which still maintained the authority of the king.
In the struggles for ascendancy between the parliament and the army, in 1647, Lambert brought his legal knowledge and training to bear in advocating the cause of the latter. He was one of the commissioners who, on the 2d of July, attended at High Wycombe, to treat with commissioners from the parliament, and prepared the proposals for the settlement of the kingdom, which they submitted to the parliamentary commissioners at Colbrook, on the 3d of August. After delivering these proposals, Lambert was sent into Yorkshire as major-general of the four northern counties. In 1648 he defeated Langdale and Musgrave near Carlisle; and afterwards, along with Cromwell, the combined Scottish and royalist troops, numerically more than twice as powerful as the parliamentary forces. He then followed Cromwell into Scotland, and after a short stay at Edinburgh marched back into England to reduce Pomfret, a strong fortress which the royalists had seized anew. Before this place he arrived in December 1648, and here he remained till after the trial and execution of Charles; events in which he bore no part, and of which we have no evidence of his having approved. Pomfret surrendered soon afterwards; and the parliament, on receiving this intelligence in March 1649, voted thanks to him, and a grant of lands out of the demesnes of Pomfret, of the value of £300 a-year. When Cromwell became generalissimo of the parliamentary forces Lambert was at the same time made second in command; and the two generals, in June 1650, marched towards Scotland, where Charles II., who had been acknowledged in that portion of his dominions, was at the head of a large army. In a gallant but indecisive action near Musselburgh he was wounded, his horse killed, and himself for a while in the hands of the enemy, but was rescued by his troops. At the battle of Dunbar he led the van, and in the July of 1651 defeated above 4000 of the king's troops at North Ferry, and obtained minor successes in the course of the same month at Inchgarvey and Burntisland. When Charles, after these actions, embraced the bold resolution of marching upon London, Lambert hastened in pursuit, engaged the royal army at Warrington, joined Cromwell at Warwick, and, on the 3d September, took part in the battle of Worcester, where the hopes of the royalists were for a time completely overthrown. After the engagement, parliament voted "that lands of inheritance in Scotland, to the yearly value of £1000 sterling, be settled upon Major-general Lambert and his heirs, for his great and eminent services for this commonwealth." In the winter of this year, he was made a commissioner, together with Monk, Vane, St John, and four others, for the settlement of affairs in Scotland, where he remained a very short time, being, on the death of Ireton, appointed by the parliament, in January 1652, to succeed him as lord-deputy of Ireland. But the term of this office was limited to six months, and Lambert, filled with displeasure against the parliament, declined the proffered post.
In the events which led to the assumption of the supreme power by Cromwell as lord-protector, he took a leading part; and in the new parliament, taking his seat as member for the West Riding of Yorkshire, consistently carried out his political views. He vehemently opposed the idea of investing Cromwell with the title of king; and though the offer of that title was carried in parliament, his opposition, and the murmurs of the army, with which he had much influence, induced Cromwell to decline it. When the lord-protector accepted all the other attributes of royalty, on his second inauguration, May 12, 1657, Lambert, in disgust, refused to take the oath of fidelity to the protector; gave up his commissions, which brought him a yearly income of £6000, and retired on a pension of £2000. On the accession of Richard Cromwell, and the meeting of a new parliament in January 1659, he was elected for Aldborough and Pomfret, and took his seat for the latter. The next twenty months were the most active period of his life. He became the life of the extreme republican and independent party, known as the "Fifth Monarchy men;" and it was chiefly by his efforts that Richard Cromwell was deposed. But his party felt that it was dangerous to attempt to govern without some semblance of civil administration; so the members of the long parliament, excluded by Cromwell in 1653, were invited to assemble; and this remnant, ridiculed under the name of "the Rump," met as a parliament on the 7th of May. Order was for a while restored; but the royalists were encouraged, by the state of the country, to make a bold effort for the restoration of Charles. Lambert was commissioned to suppress the insurrection, which he did easily and effectually at Nantwich. His influence with the army now made him an object of dread and suspicion to the parliament. On a rash motion of Hazlerig, that he should be sent to the Tower, he instantly dissolved the house, as Cromwell had done before; and the chief power again reverted to the small but formidable faction of which Lambert was the soul. Meanwhile, Monk commenced his celebrated march from Scotland, with the intention of restoring the power of the parliament. Lambert set out to meet him at the head of 7000 men, but in his absence the power of his party began to crumble away; the Rump resumed its authority, and one of its first acts was to disband Lambert's forces, and order him to return to his own house. Desertion had thinned his ranks; to resist was useless; he obeyed, and being thought too dangerous and powerful to remain at liberty, was soon afterwards committed to the Tower. In April, when Monk had almost withdrawn the mask, and appeared as the restorer of monarchy, the republicans again turned their eyes towards Lambert. Apprized of their wishes, he escaped from the Tower, and hastened into Warwickshire, where, on the 13th of April, he placed himself at the head of six troops of horse, and several companies of foot. He was met near Daventry, on the 21st, by an equal force, under the command of Ingoldsby. His soldiers refused to fight; and he was captured and again committed to prison.
After the restoration of Charles II., Lambert, though not a regicide, was excepted out of the bill of indemnity. He was tried along with Sir Harry Vane, found guilty, and condemned to death; but his punishment was commuted to imprisonment for life in the island of Guernsey. He remained in that island till his death, which occurred about thirty years afterwards. The favourite pursuits of his later years were botany and painting. It does not appear that he devoted any part of it to literature, or left any record of the great events in which he had been engaged.
(See Whittaker's History of Craven; May's History of the Parliament; Whitelock's Memorials; Ludlow's Memoirs; Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, and Life of Himself; Rushworth's Collections; State Trials.) (T. M. L.)