John Beaumont, 4th Baron Beaumont

John Beaumont, 4th Baron Beaumont KG (1361–1396) served in the Hundred Years' War against the partisans of Pope Clement VII.

Origins

Arms of Sir John Beaumont, 4th Baron Beaumont, KG

Beaumont was born in 1361^[1] in the Duchy of Brabant, the only son of Henry Beaumont, 3rd Baron Beaumont (1340–1369) by his wife Margaret de Vere, daughter of John de Vere, 7th Earl of Oxford by his wife Maud de Badlesmere. His paternal grandparents were John Beaumont, 2nd Baron Beaumont (aft. 1317–1342) and Eleanor of Lancaster (1318–1372), the fifth daughter of Henry, 3rd Earl of Lancaster (c.1281–1345).

Career

He was knighted by King Edward III, and was in 1389 briefly Warden of the West March, Admiral of the North (sea), and in 1392 was appointed Constable of Dover Castle and Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports. He was created a Knight of the Garter and was one of the Embassy to France to demand Princess Isabel in marriage for the King.

Marriage

Effigy presumed that of Elizabeth Beaumont, daughter of John Beaumont, 4th Baron Beaumont. She became the 1st wife of William de Botreaux, 3rd Baron Botreaux. North Cadbury Church, Somerset

Arms of Beaumont: Azure semé of fleurs-de-lis, a lion rampant or ^[2]

Heraldic escutcheon incised on tombstone of Reginald de Botreaux (d.1420), died young, whose mother was Elizabeth Beaumont, daughter of John Beaumont, 4th Baron Beaumont. Aller Church, Somerset. It shows the impaled arms of his parents: Baron: Argent, a griffin segreant gules armed azure (Botreaux); Femme: Azure seme of fleurs-de-lis a lion rampant or (Beaumont)

In 1389 he married Catherine Everingham (1367–1426/8), daughter and heiress of Sir Thomas Everingham of Laxton, Nottinghamshire.^[3] They had the following progeny:^[4]

• Henry Beaumont, 5th Baron Beaumont (d.1413), eldest son and heir, who married Elizabeth Willoughby, daughter of William Willoughby, 5th Baron Willoughby de Eresby (c.1370–1409), by whom he had issue John Beaumont, 1st Viscount Beaumont KG, the first ever viscount created in England.
• Richard Beaumont, 2nd son.
• Sir Thomas Beaumont, Lord of Bacqueville in France, 3rd son, who married Philippa Marward, daughter of Thomas Marward of Quartermarshe, Leicestershire. From this union descended the Beaumonts of Gracedieu in Leicestershire, the Beaumonts of Gittisham, near Honiton in Devon (inherited "for the sake of the name"^[5] from the also ancient but unrelated family of Beaumont of Shirwell in North Devon) and the Beaumonts of Coleorton in Leicestershire, which latter were the ancestors of the Beaumont baronets.
• Eleanora Beaumont, a nun at Amesbury Abbey.
• Elizabeth (or Cecilia^[6]) Beaumont, married, as his first wife, William de Botreaux, 3rd Baron Botreaux(1389–1462), whose sole heiress was his daughter Margaret Botreaux who married Robert Hungerford, 2nd Baron Hungerford.

References

1. Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, 1st series, Vol. 12, No. 321, page 291 records that on 3 August 1369 the jurors at an inquisition held at Whitwick, Leicestershire into his father's estates testified that John, the son and heir, was aged 8 years in the previous March.
2. Debrett's Peerage, 1968, Beaumont baronets, p.59
3. Vivian, Visitation of Devon, 1895, p.63
4. Vivian, Visitation of Devon, 1895, p.63
5. Tristram Risdon, Survey of Devon
6. Vivian, Visitation of Devon, 1895, p.63