John Chamber

Topic: John Chamber

1. Verified Sourced Facts

• Neville’s letter to Thomas Windebank dated 1599-02-17 lists John Chamber among the men Neville wanted inserted by name in his passport for France:

“John Chambers clerk and fellow of Æton college”

• The local EEBO/TCP XML witness A18368 identifies John Chamber as author of:

“A treatise against iudicial astrologie”

• The same title page identifies him as:

“Iohn Chamber, one of the prebendaries of her Maiesties free Chappell of VVindsor, and fellow of Eaton College.”

• The same XML witness gives:

STC 4941

ESTC S107654

1601

• The same image witness includes the lines:

“Musa dedit varias artes, dedit ore rotundo

Fundere quæ velles, culta Thalia tibi.”

• The same image witness also includes the lines:

“Nec ... cineremque sepultum

Barlaami Monachi sollicitare soles.”

• A fresh source-hardening check of A18368 confirms that the local TCP/XML text stream does not recover the Neville dedication heading (Henricum Nevillum, Galliarum Regem legatum) or the quoted dedication-poem lines. The only searchable Thalia hit in the XML is an internal prose reference to Herodotus in Thalia, not the Latin dedication poem.

• The Dudley Digges discovery note states:

“Thomas Digges served on a 1583 commission with Henry Savile and John Chamber regarding calendar reform.”

• Robert Goulding notes that MS Savile 30, catalogued as part of Savile's lectures, is actually by Savile's student John Chamber. Goulding also uses Savile's Euclid and Chamber's Euclid to show informal mathematical education at Merton.

• The same note states:

“Chamber traveled with Neville to France in 1599.”

• The working transcription of Chamber’s will states:

“Item whereas I have made Bookes of divers argumentes ... concerninge these my will is that so many of them as shall happen to be unprinted at the daye of my deathe shalbe then printed by my Executors ...”

• The same working transcription preserves a partially secured George Carleton clause:

“...[desyre] that that booke be printed together wth [one]

of the same arguments ... [I desire] that the aforesaid Mr Carleton ...”

• The same will transcription names Chamber’s executors as:

“The Right worshippfull Sr Henry Nevile knight and Mr Henry

Savile Provost of Eaton Colledge”

• The same will gives remembrance gifts to Henry and Anne Neville:

“Item I geve and bequeathe to Sr Henrye Nevile knight a standing silver Bowle of Twentye poundes price double gylte ...”

“Item I geve to the most vertuous Ladye the ladye Anne Nevile fower angells to make hir a Rynge”

• Source-hardening check of PROB-11-104-339-John-chamber-will.pdf found that automated text extraction returns only National Archives metadata/copyright text, not the will body. The will claims in this packet therefore rest on the working transcription plus probate-image witness, not on machine-extracted PDF text.

2. Ken Feinstein Twitter and Blog Information

• A local image witness preserved in the tweet-media archive shows a Latin dedication poem addressed:

“AD ILLVSTRISS. VIRVM DOMINVM HENRICVM NE-

uillum Sereniss. Reginæ Elizabethæ ad

Galliarum Regem legatum.”

3. Quoted Source Text

Neville to Thomas Windebank, 1599-02-17

• “Sir.JonathanTrelawny”
• “HarbertMorleyesquire”
• “RichardCarewesquire”
• “ThomasMoonegent”
• “JohnChambersclerkandfellowofÆtoncollege”

EEBO/TCP title-page witness: A18368

• “A treatise against iudicial astrologie”
• “VVritten by Iohn Chamber”
• “one of the prebendaries of her Maiesties free Chappell of VVindsor, and fellow of Eaton College.”
• STC 4941
• ESTC S107654

Dedication-poem image witness

• “AD ILLVSTRISS. VIRVM DOMINVM HENRICVM NE-

uillum Sereniss. Reginæ Elizabethæ ad Galliarum Regem legatum.”

• “Musa dedit varias artes, dedit ore rotundo

Fundere quæ velles, culta Thalia tibi.”

• “Nec ... cineremque sepultum

Barlaami Monachi sollicitare soles.”

John Chamber will transcription

• “Item whereas I have made Bookes of divers argumentes ... concerninge these my will is that so many of them as shall happen to be unprinted at the daye of my deathe shalbe then printed by my Executors ...”
• “...[desyre] that that booke be printed together wth [one]

of the same arguments ... [I desire] that the aforesaid Mr Carleton ...”

• “Executors of this my Will The Right worshippfull Sr Henry Nevile knight and Mr Henry

Savile Provost of Eaton Colledge ...”

• “Item I geve and bequeathe to Sr Henrye Nevile knight a standing silver Bowle of Twentye poundes price double gylte ...”
• “Item I geve to the most vertuous Ladye the ladye Anne Nevile fower angells to make hir a Rynge”

4. Citations

• Neville, Henry. Letter to Thomas Windebank, 17 Feb. 1598[/9]. Neville_Letters_Corpus_v8.xml, letter_126.
• Chamber, John. A treatise against iudicial astrologie. London, by John Harison, 1601. STC 4941. ESTC S107654. TCP A18368. Local EEBO/TCP witness: Chamber_Treatise_Against_Judicial_Astrology_A18368_earlyprint.xml.
• PDF copy of Chamber’s treatise
• Dedication-poem image witness for John Chamber’s book, tweet archive image: 1182168780253696000-EGfoPQ3UcAArYAS.jpg
• Chamber, John. Will proved 10 Aug. 1604. Prerogative Court of Canterbury, PROB 11/104/339. Working transcription: john_chamber_will_transcription.md. Local PDF witness: PROB-11-104-339-John-chamber-will.pdf.
• Dudley Digges discovery note
• Goulding, Robert. “Henry Savile Reads His Euclid.” Staged PDF: Goulding-HenrySavileReadsHisEuclid-2016.pdf.
• Convivium Philosophicum topic note preserving the Thalia point
• Henry Savile topic note preserving the Barlaam claim

5. Notes on Access

• The Chamber treatise is the strongest direct witness in this packet because it gives Chamber’s identity, Windsor connection, and bibliographic identifiers directly on the title page.
• The 1599 France-travel point is now anchored by the Neville letter naming “John Chambers clerk and fellow of Æton college” among the men to be inserted in Neville’s France passport.
• The dedication-poem image witness is direct visual evidence for a John Chamber poem addressed to Henry Neville as Elizabeth’s ambassador to France. I checked the local A18368 XML and local PDF text stream for Henric, Nevill/Neuill, Galliar, legat, Thalia, and Barlaam; the title-page and internal Thalia/Barlaam references are recoverable, but the Neville dedication poem is not currently recoverable from that XML/text stream. Its bibliographic identification therefore remains image-witness-based until a cleaner preliminaries transcription is produced.
• Source-hardening update, 2026-04-28: the Thalia hit in the XML is not the dedication poem; it is an internal Herodotus reference. Do not cite the TCP/XML witness as support for the Neville dedication poem until a preliminaries witness containing that poem is extracted. For now the poem is supported by the tweet-media image witness plus the book's broader bibliographic identity.
• Local project notes also preserve further Chamber leads, including a 1583 calendar-reform commission and the Chamber/Barlaam/Thalia linkage, but those are not treated as direct witness facts in this packet until they are separately extracted.
• Goulding strengthens Chamber's connection to Savile's mathematical teaching world. This is Savile/Chamber evidence, not direct Neville evidence, but it helps explain why Chamber fits naturally in Neville's 1599 France-travel entourage.
• The 1604 will side is now anchored directly in the working transcription and local probate images. The general printing clause, the executor clause, and the Neville gift clauses are secure; the George Carleton clause is present but not yet secure enough for an unqualified full-sentence quotation.
• Source-hardening result, 2026-04-27: the probate PDF is an image witness. Do not cite it as searchable/transcribed text until OCR or manual transcription is checked against the images.
• The embedded image above comes from /Users/kenf/Neville Book/_ocrwork/pdf_fallback3/Chamber_Treatise_Against_Judicial_Astrology.pdf_p1.png.