EFL - Enciclopedia delle Famiglie Lombarde

'''Sir [John] Bernard Burke, ''A genealogical history of the Dormant , Abeyant, Forfeited, and Extinct Peerages of the British Empire'', Lo ndon, 1866, p. 36:''' "The original descent of this noble family doe s not appear to have been clearly ascertained. Some authorities deduc e it from Lewis, son of Charles, Earl of Anjou, a younger son of Lewi s VIII, king of France; some from Lewis de Brienne, 2nd son of John d e Brienne, the last king of Jerusalem; and some from the Viscounts Bea umont, of Normandy. Certain it is, however, that in the reign of Edwar d I, mention is made of Isabel de Beaumont, wife of John de Vesci; o f Lewis, who, in 1294, was treasurer of the church of Salisbury, and a fterwards Bishop of Durham; of Lewis who, in 1294, was treasurer of th e church of Salisbury and afterwards Bishop of Durham; and of Henry d e Beaumont, who attending the king, 30th Edward I (1301-2) in his expe dition against the Scots, obtained a precept to the collectors of th e fifteenth in Yorkshire for 200 marks towards his support in those wa rs. In the first year of Edward II [1307] this Henry had a grant in fe e of the manors of Folkynham, Edenham and Barton-upon-Humber, and of a ll the knight's fees belonging to Gilbert de Gant, which Laura de Gant , his widow, held in dower, and in three years afterwards had a furthe r grant of the Isle of Man, to hold for life, by the services which th e lords thereof had usually performed to the kings of Scotland.In th e preceding year he had been constituted governor of Roxburgh Castle , and deputed, with Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford, and Robert d e Clifford, to guard the marches. About this period he spoused Alice , daughter and eventually heiress of Alexander Cumyn, Earl of Boghan , constable of Scotland, and, doing his homage, in the 6th of Edward I I (1312-13), had livery of her lands. In the 10th of the same monarch , Lord Beaumont (he had been previously styled “consanguineous regis ", says Nicolas, and summoned to parliament as a Baron on 4 March, 130 9), being then the king's lieutenant in the north, accompanying thithe r two cardinals who had come from Rome, partly to reconcile the king t o the Earl of Lancaster, and partly to inthronize his lordship's broth er, Lewis de Beaumont, in the bishoprie of Durham, was attacked, nea r Darlington, by a band of robbers, headed by Gìlbert de Middleton, a nd despoiled of all his treasure, horses, and everything else of value , as were likewise his companions. His lordship and his brother were a lso made prisoners, the former being conveyed to the castle of Mitford , and the latter to that of Durham, there to remain until ransomed. Fr om this period the baron continued to bask in the sunshine of royal fa vour, and to receive from the crown further augmentations to his terri torial possessions, until the 16th of Edward II [1323], when, being re quired to give his advice in council, regarding a truce then meditate d with the Scots, he declined, contemptuously observing, “that he wo uld give none therein”, which so irritated the king, that his lordsh ip was ordered to depart the council, and he retired, saying, “he ha d rather begone than stay". He was in consequence committed, with th e consent of the lords present, to prison, but soon after released upo n the bail of Henry de Perci, and Ralph de Nevile. He seems within a s hort time, however, again to enjoy the king's favour, for we find hi m in two years constituted one of the plenipotentiaries to treat of pe ace with France, and in two years subsequently nominated guardian to D avid, son and heir of David de Strabolgi, Earl of Athol, deceased, i n consideration of the sum of £1,000. His lordship after this time, e ntirely deserting his royal master, sided with the queen consort Isabe lla, and was the very person to deliver up, the unhappy monarch to hi s enemies, upon his abortive attempt to fly beyond the sea. The king t hereupon was committed close prisoner to Berkeley Castle, where he wa s inhumanly murdered in 1327. For this act of treachery Lord Beaumon t received a grant of the manor of Loughborough, part of the possessio ns of Hugh le Despenser, the attainted Earl of Winchester, and was sum moned to parliament on 22 January, 1334, 7th Edward III, as Earl or Bo ghan. His lordship, during the reign of Edward III, had many high an d confidential employments, and took a prominent part in the affairs o f Scotland being at one time sent as constable of the king's army int o that country for defence of the realm. The earl d. in 1340, leavin g by Alice Cumyn, of Buchan, his wife, four sons and six daus, viz. Jo hn, his heir; Richard; John; Thomas, of Bolton Percy; Alice; Elizabeth , m. to Nicholas de Audley; Joan, m. to Fulk, Lord FitzWarine; Isabel , m. to Henry Plantagenet, Duke of Lancaster; Beatrice, m. to the Coun t de Dammartin; and Catherine, m. to David, Earl of Athole. His lordsh ip inherited, upon the decease of his sister, Isabel, wife of John d e Vesci, of Alnwick, in Northumberland (one of the most powerful baron s of the North), a lady of great eminence in her time, without issue , large possessions in the co. Lincoln, which, added to his own acquir ements, placed him amongst the most wealthy nobles in the kingdom at t he period of his death." '''From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia''' : Henry de Beaumont, jure uxoris Earl of Buchan and suo jure 1st Baro n Beaumont (died March 10, 1340) was a key figure in the Anglo-Scots w ars of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, known as the Wars of S cottish Independence. He was a veteran campaigner who participated i n every major engagement, from the Battle of Falkirk in 1298 to the Ba ttle of Halidon Hill in 1333. Although not now a widely-known figure , he was, nevertheless, of considerable military and political importa nce. His long experience of the Scottish wars led him to develop a bat tle technique later used to great effect at Crécy and Agincourt. As o ne of a group of Anglo-Scots nobles known as the 'disinherited' – th ose who had fought against Robert Bruce – he was to do much to overt urn the peace between England and Scotland established by the Treaty o f Northampton and bring about a Second War of Scottish Independence. B y his marriage shortly before July 14, 1310 to Alice Comyn (died Jul y 3, 1349), the niece and heir of John Comyn, Earl of Buchan, he was r ecognised as Earl in right of his wife. '''Family''' Henry de Beaumo nt was the eldest son of Sir Louis de Brienne, Knt., (d. after Septemb er 1, 1297) who was in right of his wife Agnés de Beaumont, Vicomte o f Beaumont in Maine and Seigneur of Beaumont-le-Vicomte (alias Beaumon t-sur-Sarthe), Sainte-Suzanne, la Fleche, Fresnay, le Lude, etc. He wa s the grandson of John of Brienne, King of Jerusalem. The children o f Henry and his wife Alice Comyn, (granddaughter of Alexander Comyn, E arl of Buchan) Lord High Constable of Scotland include: Elizabeth Bea umont c1320-1400 who married Nicholas Audley, 3rd Baron Audley 1328-13 91[1]. John de Beaumont c1318, 2nd Lord Beaumont who married Eleano r Plantagenet, great granddaughter of King Henry III[1]. Isabel de Be aumont, married Henry of Grosmont, 1st Duke of Lancaster. They were an cestors of England's Royal House of Lancaster, with King Henry IV of E ngland being the couple's grandson. '''First campaigns''' He first t ook up military service with Edward I while he was campaigning in Flan ders in 1297 against Philip IV of France. When Edward returned to Engl and the following year to deal with the after effects of the defeat o f his northern army by the Scots at the Battle of Stirling Bridge, h e was accompanied by Beaumont. In the ensuing battle of Falkirk, Beaum ont was one of the young knights who had his horse killed from under h im by the spears of William Wallace's schiltrons. Beaumont again atten ded Edward I in the Scottish wars in 1302. '''Landed estates''' Beau mont obtained large grants of manors and lands, including Folkingham , Barton-upon-Humber, and Heckington, Lincolnshire, from King Edward I I. He was summoned to parliament from March 4, 1309, to October 20, 13 32, by Writs directed to Henrico de Bellomonte, whereby he is held t o have become Lord Beaumont. He was again summoned to the English parl iament from January 22, 1334 through to November 16, 1339 as Earl of B uchan. He sat in the Scottish parliament of Edward Balliol on Februar y 10, 1334, as Earl of Buchan. He had a grant of the Lordship of th e Isle of Man in 1310. The next year he and his sister, Isabel de Vesc i, were banished from Court, but soon returned. In 1313 he and his sis ter acquired the reversion of the manors of Seacourt, Berkshire, and T ackley, Oxfordshire, which, upon her death without issue in 1334, fel l to him. Between 1317 and 1321 his wife succeeded to the English esta tes of her sister, Margery Comyn, wife successively of Sir John Ross a nd Sir William de Lindsay. He purchased the Lordship of Ditchburn, Nor thumberland, in 1320. '''Bannockburn''' At Bannockburn in 1314, he f ought on the English side, both the first and second day of the battle , and was one of those who accompanied Edward II in his flight from th e field, and was subsequently deprived of his Scottish Earldom of Buch an by King Robert The Bruce. '''The Disinherited''' In the Novembe r after Bannockburn Beaumont was one of those affected by the sentenc e of forfeiture passed by the Scottish parliament against all those wi th land and title in Scotland who continued to fight with the English . Thus was created that class of nobility known as the disinherited. A lthough this also included men of greater standing like David III Stra thbogie, titular Earl of Atholl, Beaumont was to prove by far the mos t determined in the pursuit of his lost honours. He fought on the sid e of Edward II at the Battle of Boroughbridge in 1322. However, when E dward II entered into truce negotiations with the Scots in May 1323, B eaumont, hitherto a close associate of the king, argued against any ag reement which disregarded the claims of the disinherited, for whom h e had become the leading spokesman. Edward overruled Beaumont and th e two quarreled. Beaumont was briefly imprisoned for contempt and diso bedience at the Privy Council (of which he was a member), after whic h he retired from Court to continue his intrigues in exile, eventuall y joining forces with Edward's estranged wife, Queen Isabella, and he r lover Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March. His cause, however, was no t furthered by the coup of 1327, in which Isabella and Mortimer depose d the king and replaced him with his under-age son, Edward III. Anxio us to break the deadlock in the north Isabella and Mortimer persuade d Parliament to accept the terms of the Treaty of Northampton, which i gnored, once again, the claims of the disinherited. Many of the senio r nobility were ashamed of what they considered to be a shameful peace ; and when Henry, 3rd Earl of Lancaster rose in revolt in late 1328 h e was joined by Henry Beaumont, Thomas Wake, Henry Ferrers, Thomas Ros selin and David de Strathbogie, the latter now married to Beaumont's d aughter, Katherine. This was the nucleus of the party soon to be promi nent supporters of Edward Balliol, the son of the former King John Bal liol. The rising was short-lived; and when Lancaster submitted in Janu ary 1329, Wake and Strathbogie also made their peace. Not so Henry Bea umont, who was specifically excluded from pardon, going in to exile t o plot Mortimer's downfall. When the Edmund of Woodstock, 1st Earl o f Kent was arrested in March 1330 and charged with conspiring to resto re Edward II, whom he had been deluded into believing was still alive , he alleged at his trial that Beaumont had met him in Paris and tol d him that his plot would be supported from Scotland by the armed inte rvention of Donald Earl of Mar, a personal friend of the ex-king. Ken t was executed and Beaumont would never be allowed to return to Englan d while Mortimer and Isabella held on to power. '''Edward de Balliol' '' The peace of Northampton seemed to end forever the hopes of the di sinherited. Two things changed this: the death of King Robert Bruce i n 1329, followed in 1330 by a palace coup in England, which saw the ov erthrow of Roger Mortimer and the assumption of full powers by King Ed ward III. In Scotland, Robert's infant son, David II was king, bringin g the inevitable tensions that follow from a royal minority. Edward, f or the time being at least, maintained the peace with Scotland, but h e was known to share the views of many of his countrymen that Northamp tion was a turpis pax-a shameful peace. In 1330 Edward III would mak e a formal request to the Scottish Crown to restore the lands of Beaum ont's earldom to him, which request was refused. From near extinction , the cause of the disinherited was now revived; but it needed directi on and focus. Above all, it needed a cause, something greater than fru strated ambition. By the early 1330s the cause had become Edward Balli ol, in the judgement of some the righful King of Scotland. Edward Bal liol is clearly an important figure; but it is difficult to decide i f he was the author of his own ambitions or a lever for the designs o f others. He took no part in the first war, and it is doubtful if he h ad any military experience before he came to Scotland in 1332. The dri ving force, as always, was Henry Beaumont, the arch conspirator of th e disinherited. It was he who formed the 'party' of the disinherited i n the period after the peace of Northampton: he who encouraged Balliol , with Edward III's approval, to leave his French estates and come t o England. He was a seasoned campaigner, who had been present both a t Bannockburn and the Battle of Boroughbridge, and learned much from b oth encounters. It is almost certain that he was the architect of Ball iol's victory at the Battle of Dupplin Moor where he fought; and he i s likely to have advised Edward on the tactics that brought him the fi rst great military success of his career at the Battle of Halidon Hill , the exact foretaste of the later triumph at Crécy. Beaumont, moreov er, provided much of the financial support that allowed the impecuniou s Balliol to descend on Scotland at the head of an army of freebooters . But his principal loyalty was to himself and then to Edward III; for , as time would show, Edward Balliol was a hook on which he hung the c loak of his ambitions. '''War by Other Means''' In assuming power Ed ward would have been mindful of the support he had received from Beaum ont. He would also have been aware that while the restless earl wa s a useful friend he was also a dangerous enemy. Beaumont's shifting l oyalties since 1323 had all been dictated by his overriding desire t o recover the earldom of Buchan. But Edward embraced the cause of th e disinherited for reasons more subtle than simple gratitude: for Beau mont's tireless plotting eventually provided the occasion to set asid e the peace of 1328. Before the end of 1330 Edward started to make st rong diplomatic representations on behalf of Beaumont and Thomas Wake , the claimant to the Lordship of Liddesdale, the only two noblemen t o be officially recognised as disinherited by the English and Scottis h governments. He wrote to King David in December, requesting restorat ion of the lands of the 'Earl of Buchan' and the 'Lord of Liddesdale' . But Edward must have realised that there was little chance of the Sc ots accepting Beaumont and Wake in their midst. It would make little s ense to hand over important lands in the west march and the north-eas t of Scotland to men whose personal and political loyalties lay wit h a potential enemy, and who were widely known to be vehement opponent s of the Treat of Northampton. David's guardian Thomas Randolph, Ear l of Moray, was obviously conscious of this, and Edward's request wa s effectively ignored. Beaumont now began to seek restitution by othe r means. Sometime between 1330 and 1331 Beaumont conceived a plan t o invade Scotland at the head of a private army, headed by himself an d Edward Balliol. The first contacts between Balliol and Beaumont ha d been in 1330. In 1331 these approaches became more serious. In Jun e both he and Strathbogie crossed the Channel to visit the exile in Pi cardy. Beaumont returned in August and again in November, when he wa s accompanied by Walter Comyn. The Brut Chronicle contains a colourfu l story, not repeated in any other source, that Balliol had incurred t he displeasure of the King of France, and had to be rescued from impri sonment by Beaumont's special pleadings. What is certain is that he wa s finally persuaded to leave France and come to England in the winte r of 1331. He was settled in the manor of Standal in Yorkshire, a prop erty belonging to Beaumont's sister, the Lady Vesci. Beaumont then vis ited King Edward and obtained an important concession: he would not al low the disinherited to cross the border in open breach of the Treat y of Northampton, but he would not stop them sailing from English port s. By the summer of 1332 all was ready and a small army of archers an d men-at-arms sailed from various ports in Yorkshire, landing on the c oast of Fife in August. '''Battles and Crowns''' Soon after landin g the army, under the skillful command of Beaumont, confronted and def eated a much larger Scottish force at the Battle of Dupplin Moor in Au gust 1332, using an effective, and murderous, combination of infantr y and archers. Building on this victory, the army advanced on Scone, w here Edward Balliol was crowned King of Scots on 24 September. The cor onation was a tense and unhappy occasion, for the new king and his sma ll army were isolated in a sullen and hostile country. At the banque t after the coronation ceremony it is said that the guests remained fu lly armed, save for their helmets. There was good reason for this; fo r it is also said that the local people attached themselves to Ballio l more from fear than love. The terror of the new regime soon spread , and the priors of St. Andrews wrote of the lordship of Edward Ballio l and Henry Beaumont, and their inability to collect the dues from the ir church at Fordun 'for fear of the said Lord Henry.' It was clear t hat, in the absence of widespread native support, the adventure coul d only prosper with the open support of King Edward. As bait Balliol w rote to him offering to cede all of south-east Scotland to England. Th is proposal was carried south by Henry Beaumont and David de Strathbog ie, who came to attend the meeting of Parliament at York. Before the y could return Balliol and what was left of his army was surprised b y a party of Bruce loyalists at Annan and chased out of the country. A ll of the expense and effort of the past years had come to nothing. ' ''Castles of Sand''' In January 1333 Edward finally dropped the prete nce of neutrality: Edward Balliol was formally recognised as King of S cotland and promised military aid. Subsidies were now paid to Beaumon t and the others, to help prepare for a fresh invasion. In July a fres h Scots army was cut to pieces at Halidon Hill, just outside Berwick-u pon-Tweed, using the same battle tactics as Dupplin Moor. Once again t he disinherited advanced into Scotland. Henry Beaumont was able to ret urn to Buchan where, according to Andrew Wyntoun, he repaired the ol d Comyn stronghold of Dundarg on the Aberdeenshire coast in 1333/4, wh ich had been destroyed by Robert The Bruce in 1308: The Beaumont wen t intil Buchan; And there, Dundarg of lime and stane He made stoutly , and therin lay. Even so, the hold of the disinherited lords was n o more certain than before. By September 1334 Edward Balliol, faced wi th a full-scale revolt, sent urgent appeals to England for yet more as sistance. To make matters even worse his followers, who had been broug ht together by greed for land, were driven apart by the very same gree d. In a dispute over the estates of Alexander de Mowbray, killed at An nan in 1332, Balliol was unwise enough to quarrel with Beaumont who, i n the fashion of Achillies, withdrew from Court in a fit of picque, t o Dundarg. Balliol's regime collapsed, and for the second time in hi s career he fled across the border. Beaumont, in the meantime, was bes ieged in Dundarg by Andrew de Moray, the new Guardian of Scotland. Und er continual attack, and running short of supplies, he was compelled t o surrender on December 23, 1334. After a brief imprisonment he was ra nsomed and returned to England in time for the summer campaign of 1335 . While he came back to Scotland it is uncertain if he ever saw Bucha n again. Dundarg was destroyed for the second and last time in its his tory. '''Twilight''' Beaumont was an active participant in Edward' s invasion of Scotland in 1335, the largest he ever mounted on behal f of his hapless protege; but the results were no more lasting than be fore. In November the uncertain gains of the summer were wiped out b y Moray's victory over Strathbogie at the Battle of Culblean. After C ulblean Balliol's shadowy kingdom virtually disappeared. Perth was ret aken. Only Cupar Castle in Fife and remote Lochindorb kept his cause a live. In Lochindorb the widow of Strathbogie, Kathrine Beaumont, daugh ter of Henry Beaumont, had been under siege by Moray since late 1335 . The rescue of Kathrine Beaumont was to allow Edward III to drape a c loak of high chivalry over one of his most destructive military advent ures. English action took the form of a large-scale punitive raid, int ended to knock out Scots resistance and, at the same time, forestal l a possible French landing in the north-east. Edward initially gave c ommand to Henry of Lancaster, Beaumont's son-in-law; although he event ually decided to take charge in person. Edward advanced into Aberdeens hire in the summer of 1336. Beaumont came with him , as did Edward Bal liol, surely a more persistent student of spiders than Robert Bruce ha d ever been. Kathrine was duly rescued, while the north-east was subje ct to widespread destruction. It was in this season that Henry Beaumo nt embarked on his last actions in Scotland, by seeking vengeance agai nst those whom he held responsible for the death of his son-in-law. Th e Pluscarden Chronicle describes his actions thus; Henry Beaumont, t o avenge his son-in-law, the Earl of Atholl, who was slain at Culblean , either cast into prison or put to cruel death all who had taken par t in the engagement in which he was slain; whereby much innocent bloo d was shed. In 1337 Edward III, in beginning the opening rounds of wh at was to become the Hundred Years War, virtually lost all interest i n the future well-being of Balliol and his hopeless cause. Even Henr y Beaumont, the most determined of the disinherited, had had enough. R ather than return to Scotland with Balliol the old warrior accompanie d King Edward to the Low Countries, from whence he had come with his r oyal grandfather in 1298, where he died in March 1340, his long strugg le incomplete. His son, John, never claimed the lost earldom of Buchan . When Beaumont's wife, Alice, died in 1349 the Comyn line of Buchan , which stretched back to the early thirteenth century, finally came t o an end. '''References''' PRIMARY Brut, or the Chronicles of Engla nd, ed. F. W. D. Brie, 1906. Pluscarden, the Book of, ed. F. J. H. Ske ne 1880. Wyntoun, Andrew, The Original Chronicle of Scotland, ed. N. D enholm Young, 1957. SECONDARY Balfour-Melville, E. W. M., Edward II I and David II, 1954. Campbell, T., England, Scotland and the Hundre d Years War, in Europe in the late Middle Ages, ed. R. Highfield et al ., 1970. Nicolson, R., Edward III and the Scots, 1965. Brown, C. "Th e Second Scottish War of Independence", 2001. Ramsay, J. H., The Gene sis of Lancaster,1307-99, 1913. Ridpath, G., The Border History of En gland and Scotland, 1810. Webster, B., Scotland Without a King, 1329- 1341, in Medieval Scotland: Crown, Lordship and Community, ed. A. Gran t and K' J. Stringer, 1993. Richardson, Douglas, Plantagenet Ancestry , Baltimore, Md., 2004,p.83-4, ISBN 0-8063-1750-7 Scott, W. W. C, Ban nockburn Revealed, 2003. link to book Scott, W. W. C, Bannockburn Pro ved, 2006. link to book '''References''' ^ a b [1] Madeley village hi story '''External links''' Henry, Viscount Beaumont @ FMG Henry d e Beaumont, Earl of Buchan @ The Peerage.com Retrieved from "http://e n.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_de_Beaumont"