John Lambert

John Lambert

John Lambert was born in autumn 1619, Calton, West Riding, Yorkshire and he dies on March 1684, at St. Nicholas Isle, off Plymouth, Cornwall.  A leading parliamentary general during the English Civil War (1642-51) and the principal architect of the protectorate, the form of republican government existing in England from 1653 to 1660.  Coming from a well-to-do family of gentry, Lambert joined the parliamentary army as a captain at the outbreak of the Civil War between King Charles I and Parliament.  He first distinguished himself in encounters with the Royalists at Bradford, Yorkshire, in March 1644, and he fought bravely in the major parliamentary victory at Marston Moor, Yorkshire in July 1644.  A major general at the age of 28, he helped Henry Ireton draw up the “Heads of Proposals,” a draft constitution aimed at reconciling the  conflicting interests of the army, Parliament, and the King.

At the beginning of the second phase of the Civil War in 1648, Lambert was commander of the troops of northern England.  He and Oliver Cromwell routed the Scottish Royalist invaders at Preston, Lancashire, in August 1648, and on March 22, 1649, Lambert captured Pontefract, Yorkshire, the last Royalist stronghold in England.

Second in command under Cromwell during the campaigns against the Royalists in Scotland in 1650 and 1651, Lambert and Cromwell, on September 3, 1651, decisively defeated Charles I’s son, Charles II, at Worcester in the final battle of the Civil War.

In succeeding years Lambert played a key role in Cromwell’s experimental governments.  He persuaded Cromwell to dissolve the “Rump” Parliament in 1653, putting the army firmly in control of the government, and was responsible for drawing up the Instruments of Government under which Cromwell assumed dictatorial powers as Lord Protector of the commonwealth in 1653.  Lambert served on the Council of State and was Cromwell’s right-hand man until, in 1657, he outspokenly opposed the proposal that Cromwell be made king.  When he refused to swear allegiance to the Protector, Cromwell deprived him of his offices but granted him a substantial annual pension.

After Cromwell’s death (September 1658), Lambert gradually returned to politics.  He did not openly cooperate with the army officers who deposed Cromwell’s son and successor, Richard, in May 1659, but he was one of the most powerful figures in the ensuing power struggle.  Although he helped restore the “Rimp” Parliament in May 1659, he soon broke with it and dissolved it by force.  Shortly thereafter, his army was defeated by the forces of Gen. George Monck, who marched from Scotland to reinstate parliament.  Monck proceeded to restore King Charles I to power (1660), and in June 1662 Lambert was sentenced to death for his part in the Civil War, Granted a reprieve, he spent the rest of his life in prison.

Robert Adam (6 of 6)

By 1780 Robert Adam’s popularity was beginning to decline, and Horace Walpole, after visiting the architect Henry Holland’s new Carlton House, wrote, “How sick one shall be, after this caste palace, of Mr. Adam’s gingerbread and sippets of embroidery.”

Robert Adam designed and built a number of romantic Neo-Gothic castles, mostly dating from the 1780s, in Scotland.  The most important of the castles is Culzean, Ayrshire, for the earls of Cassilis (1777-90).  Another important work in the Gothic style was the interior at Alnwick Castle, Northumberland (c. 1770-80; destroyed in the 19^th century).

Toward the end of his life, Robert built the Register House, Edinburgh (1772-92), in which he at last realized the conception of a monumental domed hall within a square, envisaged at Syon some years earlier;  and in 1789 designed the University of Edinburgh, whose entrance front is perhaps his most successful exterior.  At Fitzroy Square, London (1790), and Charlotte Square, Edinburgh (1791), he experimented for the last time with the introduction of movement into street architecture.

As a designer of furniture, Adam played a leading role.  The furniture style he evolved, popularized by the cabinetmaker George Hepplewhite, was always meant to harmonize with the rest of the interiors.  In this field, too, he was prolific, turning his hand to everything from organ cases and sedan chairs to saltcellars and door fittings.  It is one of the outstanding features of an Adam interior that everything, even the smallest detail, was part to the unified scheme created by the architect.

Robert Adam died on March 3,1792, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.  The bulk of the nearly 9,000 drawings he left were purchased by the architect Sir John Soane in 1833 and are now in the Soane Museum, London. (S.Mi.)

Robert Adam (1 of 6)

One of the greatest British architects of the 18^th century and the originator of the delicate neoclassical Adam style of decoration, Robert Adam was born at Kirkcaldy, Fifeshire, Scotland, on July 3, 1728, the second son of William Adam, the foremost Scottish architect of his time.  William, who as Master Mason to the Ordnance in North Britain supervised the design of military buildings, also ladian style—the modified classic Roman style that was originally developed by the 16^th-century architect Andrea Palladio.

The Adam children grew up in the cultured atmosphere of a propertied and well-connected 18^th-century family.  Shortly after Robert’s birth, the family moved to Edinburgh, where, at the age of six, he entered the Edinburgh High School.  In 1743 he enrolled at Edinburgh College (now University of Edinburgh), but in 1745 he abandoned his studies and the following year entered his father’s office as an apprentice and assistant.

William Adam died in 1748, and his post as Master Mason to the Board of Ordance passed to his eldest son, John, who took Robert into partnershi0p; and in the succeeding few years both benefitted from the lucrative contracts that resulted from the appointment.  Besides building Ft.George in the Moray Firth near Inverness, the Adam brothers were also engaged on another important assignment—the completion of the interior of the Earl of Hopetoun’s house.  In their interiors, the brothers introduced into Scotland a new, lighter, almost Rococo, style of decoration.  The other important private commission of these years was Dumfries House, Ayrshire, for Lord Dumfries.

In 1754 Robert, who by then considered himself to be worth £5,000, was invited to accompany the Honorable Charles Hope, the Earl’s younger brother, to Italy.  He thus had the opportunity to realize the dream he had been saving for since his father’s death, and just as important, he had the social advantages of travelling the brother of an earl.  He was as much concerned with meeting young noblemen abroad as with acquiring more architectural knowledge from a study of the monuments of Roman antiquity.  The letters he wrote to his family during his years abroad give a picture of Robert as a madly ambitious young man, an arrogant social climber, and yet still a dedicated artist.  (S.Mi.)

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