LAMBARDE, WILLIAM, an eminent lawyer and antiquary, the son of John Lambarde, an alderman of London, was born October 18, 1536. Of his early years we know nothing, till in 1556 he entered at Lincoln's Inn as a student. Here he studied under Lawrence Newel (the brother of Dean Newel), a person eminent for his knowledge of antiquities and of the Anglo-Saxon tongue, from whom Lambarde imbibed the notion that an acquaintance with the customs and juris prudence of the Saxon times would be useful to him in his profeasipu. The first fruits of his studies appeared in a collection and translation of the Saxon laws, under the title of APXAIONOMIA, sivo de Pliscis Anglornm Legibus Libri,' 4to, 1568, afterwards republished in 1014 by Abraham Wheloc, with Bede's 'Ecclesiastical History.' In 1570 we find him residing ut Weetcombe, near Greenwich iu Kent, of the manor of which he was possessed, and where, without giving up his profession of the law, he devoted much of his labours to the service of the county. His 'Perambulation of Kent,' finished in 1570, was pub lished in a small quarto volume in 1576. lu 1574 he founded an hospital for poor persona at East Greenwich in Kent, said to have been the first founded by a Protestant. In 157th he was admitted a beadier of Lincoln's Inn, and in 1579 was appointed a justice of the peace for the county of Kent, an office which ho not only performed with diligence and integrity, but endeavoured to explain and illustrate for the benefit of other magistrates iu his Eirenarcha, or the Office of the Justices of the Peace,' in four books, 4to, 1581 ; between which year and 1619 it was reprinted eleven times. lie also published a
small treatise on ' The Duties of Constables,' &c., 8vo, 1f.82, which was reprinted six times. In 1592 he was appointed a master in chancery by Sir John Puckering, lord-keeper ; in 1597 keeper of the rolls and house of rolls in Chancery-lane, by Sir Thomas Egerton, lord-keeper, and in 1600 keeper of the records in. the Tower. He died at his house at Westcornbe, August 19, 1601, and was buried in the parish church of East Greenwich. The monument placed over hint, upon the rebuilding of that church, was removed to the parish church of Sevenoaka in Kent, where is still the seat and burying-place of Ins family. Lambarde's 'Archeion, or a Discourse upon the High Courts of Justice iu England,' was nut published till 1635 by his grandson Thomas Lambarde: another work, originally intended as a general account of Groat Britain, he relinquished upon finding that Camden was engaged upon the same project. The materials which he had collected for it wore published in 1730, in 4to, under the title of ' Dictionarium Anglia) Topographicum et llistoricum.' Lambarde was ono of the most accurate antiquaries of his day, and in all respects a man of learning and worth.