His best-known work is a handbook to the social and political condition of England, with lists of public officers and statistics, entitled Angliæ Notitia, or The Present State of England; the publication was an adaptation of L'Estat Nouveau de la France. The first edition appeared anonymously in 1669, and was dedicated to the Earl of Carlisle. Two other editions, with the author's name, were issued later in the same year. With the fifth edition of 1671 is bound up the first edition of a second part, containing additional information; in the seventh edition of 1673 a portrait of Charles II, by William Faithorne, makes its first appearance; in the ninth edition of 1676 is a new dedication to the Earl of Danby; with the eighteenth edition of 1694 is bound up a new third part, first issued separately in 1683. Thomas Hearne states that Andrew Allam made major contributions, to the sixteenth edition, and that his information was inserted by Chamberlayne without acknowledgment. Chamberlayne issued the twentieth edition in 1702, and after his death his son John continued to edit the publication. The twenty-first edition bears the new title Magnæ Britanniæ Notitia, or the Present State of Great Britain. John Chamberlayne died after the issue of the twenty-second edition in 1723, but fourteen editions were subsequently issued by the booksellers, the last being the thirty-sixth and bearing the date 1755. Charles Henry Hull in his scholarly article 'Petty's Place in the History of Economic Theory' complained that Present State of England "seldom receives nowadays the attention that it deserves". Hull explains that Chamberlayne's book was the direct impulse to the writing of The Political Anatomy of Ireland and Political Arithmetick by William Petty. The Present State of England was plagiarised by Guy Miege, who brought out The New State of England in 1691. Although both Chamberlaynes called attention to Miege's theft, Miege continued his handbook till 1748. A French translation of Chamberlayne's second edition appeared in 1669. Chamberlayne's other books were:
The Present War Parallel'd, or a Brief Relation of the Five Years' Civil Wars of Henry III, King of England.
England's Wants.
The Converted Presbyterian, or the Church of England Justified in Some Practices.
An Academy or College wherein Young Ladies and Gentlemen may at a Very Moderate be Educated in the True Protestant Religion and in All Virtuous Qualities.
A Dialogue between an Englishman and a Dutchman concerning the Late Dutch War.
In 1653 Chamberlayne published a volume of translations from Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese, containing Rise and Fall of Count Olivarez, The Unparallel'd Imposture of Mich. di Molina, an. 1641, and The Right of the Present King of Portugal, Don John the Fourth.
Family
In 1658 Chamberlayne married Susannah, daughter of Richard Clifford, by whom he had nine children. John Chamberlayne was a younger son. Chamberlayne's wife died on 17 December 1703, and was buried beside her husband.
