Family and Education

1st s. of Nicholas Beaumont by Anne, da. of William Saunders of Welford, Northants. educ. St. John’s, Camb. 1560; L. Inn 1566. m. Elizabeth, da. of John Lovis or Lewis of London, h. of her bro. Humphrey. At least 1s. Thomas. suc. fa. 1585. Kntd. 1603.

Offices Held

J.p. Leics. from 1584, q. from 1594, sheriff 1594-5, custos rot. c.1605.

Biography

Beaumont’s father was a knight of the shire for Leicestershire in two early Elizabethan Parliaments, and in 1588, when Francis Hastings I had moved to Somerset, and no other relative of the 3rd Earl of Huntingdon apparently sought election, the county returned Henry Beaumont and his relative by marriage, William Turpin. In his first Parliament, Beaumont might have served on the subsidy committee (11 Feb. 1589), to which the first knight for every shire was appointed. On 27 Feb. he was named to a conference with the Lords to discuss the Queen’s dislike of the bill about purveyors.

In addition to his Coleorton estate, Beaumont owned land at Overton and Worthington, and leased houses and ground in Leicester. A letter from him to the mayor, dated 12 Dec. 1600, refers to his property of the Newarke as ‘a liberty I have taken and hold from her Majesty by a lease before you granted’.

In April 1603 Beaumont was one of the gentlemen of the county who met James I on his journey south, and the new King knighted him at Worksop. He later received royal grants of land in Leicestershire and Derbyshire, but James refused his petition for the title of Viscount Beaumont, forfeited by the attainder of an ancestor in 1461, and eventually granted to his son Thomas. He died 31 Mar. 1607, and was buried at Coleorton, where effigies were erected to him and his wife, who died a year later. His will, drawn up in 1598, contained a bequest of £10 to the church, and a similar sum to the poor of Coleorton.

Nichols, Leics. ii. 735, 858; iii. 744; PCC 36 Brudenell, 55 Hudleston; Lansd. 53, f. 189; CJ, i. 516; D’Ewes, 431, 440; Leicester Recs. iii. 423.

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: J.C.H.

Notes

• 1. Did not serve for the full duration of the Parliament.