Doctor Lambe and the Witches

Anon. (1634)

Historical Records

Sir Henry Herbert's "Office Book"

A record of the play's licensing survives in Malone’s transcript of Herbert’s now missing "office book":

An ould play, with some new scenes, Doctor Lambe and the Witches, to Salisbury Courte, the 16th August, 1634, — £1

(cited by Bawcutt in Control and Censorship, 189).

A month earlier (on 20 July), members of the King’s Men had petitioned the Master of the Revels to prohibit an unnamed company’s:

intermingleing some passages of witches in old playes to y^e p^riudice of their designed Comedy of the Lancashire witches

(NA LC5/183/148, cited by Bawcutt, 189)

Theatrical Provenance

The revised version of this play was licensed for the King's Revels Company at the Salisbury Court Theatre. The provenance of the older version of the play is not known.

Probable Genre(s)

Topical (Harbage), Tragedy (?)

Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues

The biographical pamphlet A briefe description of the notorious life of Iohn Lambe (1628) EEBO testifies to the real-life London celebrity of "Doctor Lambe," a figure "whose Scandalous life hath beene a long subiect of discourse in this Kingdome, and whose tragicall and vnexpected death of late happening, hath giuen cause of a sadde Example to all such wicked persons." (1) The same text likely recounts the sensational events adapted by the play that bore his name.

After an early career tutoring children in gentle households, Lambe turned to medicine and astrology, unabashedly styling himself “Doctor” despite his lack of university training. According to A briefe description:

He began within short time after he professed Physick in the Country, to fall to other mysteries, as telling of Fortunes, helping of diuerse to lost goods, shew[ing] to young people the faces of their Husban[d]s or Wiues that should be in a Christall glasse: reuealing to wiues the escapes and faults of their Husbands, and to husbands of their wiues. (2)

In 1608, authorities in Tardebigge, Worcestershire found him guilty of witchcraft, specifically of attempting to “disable, make infirme, and consume the body and strength” of Thomas, sixth Lord Windsor. Lambe confessed to using a crystal to summon four evil spirits (including one called “Benias”) and in the days following his trial a number of local authorities and jury members suspiciously died, probably of fever (A briefe description, 4-12).

For the next fifteen years, Lambe was confined to two rooms in King’s Bench prison in London where his entourage included a female servant, Becke, and several other women assigned to accommodate him. In 1623, Lambe allegedly raped eleven-year-old Joan Seager as she delivered a basket of herbs to his chamber. At his trial, he claimed the legal action was provoked by his attempt to recover money owed by the girl’s father. A jury found Lambe guilty and sentenced him to hang but his political connections at the Stuart court secured his timely pardon and release from prison the next year (A briefe description, 15-20).

For the next four years, Lambe, now in his seventies, remained a notorious presence in London, his name popularly linked to both black magic and the circle of his patron, the Duke of Buckingham. London gossip credited him with conjuring a great mist over the Thames near Buckingham’s residence, preparing love charms used by the Duke to corrupt young women, and foretelling the Duke’s death by way of an image in his glass of a heavy man holding a dagger.

Lambe’s association with Buckingham likely precipitated his grim end. After recognizing “Buckingham’s wizard” in the audience at the Fortune playhouse in June 1628, a group of sailors pursued him through the streets of London and fatally bludgeoned him with clubs and stones outside the house of a lawyer in Old Jewry.

According to John Rushworth’s Historical Collections (1659) EEBO :

At this very time being Iune 18. 1628, Doctor Lamb, so called, having been at a Play-house, came through the City of London and, being a person very notorious, the Boys gathered thick about him, which increased by the access of ordinary People and the Rabble; they presently reviled him with words, calling him a Witch, a Devil, the Duke's Conjurer, &c. he took Sanctuary in the Wind-mill Tavern at the lower end of the Old Jury, where he remained a little space; but there being two Doors opening to several Streets out of the said House, the Rout discovering the same, made sure both Doors lest he should escape, and pressed so hard upon the Vintner to enter the House, that he for fear the House should be pulled down, and the Wines in his Cellar spoiled and destroyed, thrust the imaginary Devil out of his House, whereupon the tumult carried him in a croud among them, howting and showting, crying a witch, a Devil and when they saw a Guard coming by order of the Lord Mayor for the rescue of him, they fell upon the Doctor, beat him and bruised him, and left him for dead; With much ado the Officers that rescued him got him alive to the Counter, where he remained some few houres, and died that night; The City of London endeavoured to find out the most active persons in this Riot, but could not finde any that either could, or if they could, were willing to witnesse against any person in that businesse. This happened to be in Parliament time, and at that instant of time when they were about the Remonstrance against the Duke. (630)

A woodcut depicting the attack illustrates the frontispiece of A briefe description and was copied several times thereafter. The written account in A brief description is even more vivid, adding that Lambe's "skull was broken, one of his eyes hung out of his head, and all partes of his body bruised and wounded so much that no part was left to receiue a wound" (21).

A 1628 ballad by Martin Parker entitled The Tragedy of Doctor Lambe frames the event within the genre of moralizing de casibus tragedy. The woodcut of a conjurer adorning this broadside is identical to that illustrating the 1616 quarto of Doctor Faustus .

At the time of his death, Lambe was reportedly carrying a crystal ball, a collection of knives, a picture of the Countess of Somerset’s jailor, a nightcap of gold thread, and forty shillings (Goldstein, "The Life and Death of John Lambe," 26-27). For the few months remaining in Buckingham’s life, the popular refrain circulated throughout London: “Let Charles and George do what they can, / The Duke shall die like Doctor Lamb.” (Historical Collections, 630).

References to the Play

An allusion to an earlier version of this play may occur in Jonson's The Staple of News (acted 1625). During a facetious exchange between gossips, one claims to know "which Boy rode vpon Doctor Lambe, in the likenesse of a roaring Lyon, that runne away with him in his teeth, and ha's not deuour'd him yet" (49).

The poet Thomas Randolph, who wrote at least two plays for the Salisbury Court in the early 1630s, may also allude to the stage Lambe in a light-hearted verse on his failure to predict the sex of an aunt's new child:

Is Friar Bacon nothing but a name?

Or is all witchcraft braind with Doctor Lambe?

(Poems, 53)

Critical Commentary

Bentley argues that fresh witch scenes were wedged into the revived play to capitalize upon the same Pendle witch scare that inspired Heywood and Brome to write The Late Lancashire Witches for the King's Men in 1634 (The Jacobean and Caroline Stage, 3: 73-76, 5: 1455).

For What It's Worth

Lambe's legendary exploits suggest numerous opportunities for stage juggling and spectacle. Contemporary anecdotes describe his invocation of devils, his conjuring "a little boy in greene" to fly from Worcestershire to London for wine, his compelling an unwitting woman to lift her skirts in public, his raising a tree out of the ground, and his shaking a house. One might conjecture that the "witches" of the title refers to "Becke" and Lambe's other female associates in King's Bench prison. For seasoned playgoers, the old sorcerer's violent death at the hands of a mob perhaps echoed the final act of Doctor Faustus.

Works Cited

Anon. A briefe description of the notorious life of Iohn Lambe otherwise called Doctor Lambe. Together with his ignominious death. Amsterdam, 1628. EEBO

Bawcutt, N.W. The Control and Censorship of Caroline Drama. Oxford, 1996.

Bentley, G. E. The Jacobean and Caroline Stage. 7 vols. Oxford, 1956.

Goldstein, Leba M. “The Life and Death of John Lambe.” Guildhall Studies in London History 4 (1979): 19-32.

Jonson, Ben. Bartholmew fayre : a comedie, acted in the yeare, 1614 by the Lady Elizabeths seruants, and then dedicated to King Iames, of most blessed memorie ; The diuell is an asse : a comedie acted in the yeare, 1616, by His Maiesties seruants ; The staple of newes : a comedie acted in the yeare, 1625, by His Maiesties seruants by the author, Beniamin Iohnson. London, 1631. EEBO

McConnell, Anita. “Lambe, John (1545/6 – 1628).” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004. Web. ODNB

Parker, Martin. The Tragedy of Doctor Lambe. London, 1628. UCSB English Broadside Ballad Archive

Randolph, Thomas. Poems with the Muses looking-glasse: and Amyntas. Oxford, 1638. EEBO

Rushworth, John. Historical collections of private passages of state Weighty matters in law. Remarkable proceedings in five Parliaments. Beginning the sixteenth year of King James, anno 1618. And ending the fifth year of King Charls, anno 1629. London, 1659. EEBO

Site created and maintained by Christopher Matusiak, updated 19 May 2010.