John Chamberlayne

John Chamberlayne was an English writer, polyglot, translator, and courtier. Born in 1666, the year of the Great Fire of London, he was the son of Dr Edward Chamberlayne LLD, the author of The Present State of England and his wife, Susannah née Clifford.

He had two elder brothers, Capt. Peregrine Clifford Chamberlayne and Thomas Chamberlayne, a sister, Anne Spragge and a younger brother, Edward Chamberlayne. His parents are said to have had nine children in all, but only five are known to have survived to adulthood.

~• evidently he did not marry

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Chamberlayne-164

John was successively Gentleman Usher to Prince George of Denmark, Gentleman of the Privy Chamber[6] first to Queen Anne and then to King George I. He was also secretary to Queen Anne's Bounty Commission[7], and on the commission of the peace for Middlesex. In 1702 Chamberlayne was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.

He spoke Dutch> His father had been sent to Dutch Court & his brother Peregrine was born in The Hague.

Chamberlayne's major work was his translation of Gerard Brandt's History of the Reformation in the Low Countries, 4 vols. 1720–3.
Chamberlayne also continued his father's Present State of England after his death in 1703, and issued five editions.
He also published translations of:

Samuel von Pufendorf's History of Popedom, containing the Rise, Progress, and Decay thereof, 1691[12]
The Lord's Prayer, as Oratio Dominica in diversas omnium fere gentium linguas versa, Amsterdam, 1715[13]
Bernard Nieuwentyt's Religious Philosopher, or the right Use of contemplating the Works of the Creator, 3 vols. 1718
Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle's Lives of the French Philosophers, 1721; [14] and
Jacques Saurin's Dissertations, Historical, Critical, Theological, and Moral, of the most Memorable Events of the Old and New Testaments, 1723.

Society for the Propagation of the Gospel

"In the Sloane Manuscripts there is a collection of letters from Chamberlayne on the affairs of the Royal Society. He was also one of the first members, and a diligent Secretary of the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge, (S.P.C.K), [22][5]and translated for them Jean-Frédéric Osterwald's Arguments of the Book and Chapters of the Old and New Testament, 3 vols. 1716; new ed. 3 vols. 1833.[23]

His correspondence reveals him as a dedicated and hard-working, if slightly pedestrian administrator, coping as best he could with the then novel problem of directing missions from a distance. He certainly meant to be fair, but his zeal for maintaining the standards of the society probably led him to be occasionally unjust to missionaries under accusation. In a letter to John Bartow, minister in Westchester, New York, while admitting that a charge against him has proven unfounded, he refuses to name his accuser and warns him that the society has spies all around him of whom he knows not. The strictness of his moral views is also suggested by a letter resigning his post as justice of the peace in Westminster because his fellow justices were not sufficiently zealous in repressing prostitution. Like Archbishop Tenison, he favoured a conciliatory attitude toward Protestant dissenters, and sometimes rebuked missionaries, such as John Talbot of Burlington, New Jersey and John Thomas of Hempstead, New York, for showing too much zeal for their conversion. Some letters betray the fact that he shared the then widespread English prejudice against the Scotch, though some of the best missionaries were of that nationality. He seems to have had friendlier feelings toward the Welsh. Did he have Welsh connections? The available sources do not say.[24]" (wikitree) Profile manager: Frances Piercy-Reins Profile last modified 27 Jun 2022 | Created 13 Sep 2020