Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 04.djvu/211

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Benazech
207
Benbow

issued by Bishop Ben from Inchmuriah (now Smiddy Green, a few miles south of St. Andrew's on Pitmillyburn), where the bishops then had their residence, against the carrying away of stones from the rock next the sea on the north side of the cathedral church. In this document the bishop's name occurs as Sir James de Bane. Soon after the coronation of David he was made chamberlain of Scotland; but on its invasion by Edward Baliol and the disinherited barons be fled to Bruges in Flanders, where he died 22 Sept. 1332. He was buried in the abbey of the canons regular of Eokchot or Akewood, where a tomb was erected to him with the following inscription: 'Ilic jacet bonæ memoriæ Jacobus dominus de Biurt, episcopus Sti Andreæ in Scotia, nostre religionis, qui obiit anno Domini millesimo tricentesimo trigesimo secundo, vigesimo secundo die Septembris. Orate pro eo.'

[Fordun's Scotichron.; Theiner's Vet. Mon. Hib. et Scot. pp. 244, 245; Mem. Scot. Coll. Paris; Crawford's Lives of the Officers of State in Scotland. i. 286; Bishop Gordon's Ecclesiastical Chronical of Scotland, I 189-95,]

BENAZECH, CHARLES (1767?–1794), portrait and historical painter, the son of Peter Paul Benazech [q. v.], was born in London about 1767. In 1782, at the age of fifteen, he went to Rome, and on his way home stayed for a time in Paris, where he studied under Greuze, and witnessed the Outbreak of the French Revolution. This eventful period furnished him with the subjects of four pictures by which he became known: 'The Address of Louis XVI at the Bar of the National Convention.' 'The Separation of Louis XVI from his Family,' 'The Last Interview between Louis XVI and his Family,' and 'Louis XVI ascending the Scaffold.' These have been engraved by Luigi Schiavonetti. He (minted also 'The Last Interview between Charles I and his Children,' engraved by T. Gaugein, as well as some subjects from the poets and several good portraits. He was a member of the Florentine Academy, and exhibited at the Royal Academy in London in the years 1790 and 1791. He likewise engraved a few plates in aquatint, including the 'Couronnement de la Rosière,' in which he attempted to imitate the manner of Debucourt;, and also some portraits after himself, as well as two of Henry IV, king of France, and Sully, after Pourbus, which are signed with the fictitious name of Frieselheim. He died in London in the summer of 1794, in the twenty-seventh year of his age.

[Redgrave's Dictionary of Artists, 1878; Meyer's Allgemaines Künstler-Lexikon, 1872, &c., iii. 501; Portalis and Béraldi's Graveure du Dix-huitième Siècle. 1880-2, i. 158.]

R. E. G.

BENAZECH, PETER PAUL (1744?–1783?), line-engraver, is said to have been born in England about the year 1744. He was a pupil of Francis Vivarès, and worked as a draughtsman and engraver both in London and in Paris, His engravings are tastefully executed, and consist chiefly of landscapes and marine subjects, the best being those after Dietrich and Joseph Vernet. He engraved also a series of anatomical plates, a set of seven scenes from the Seven Years' War, and, in conjunction with Canot, four plates of engagements between the English and French fleets, after Francis Swaine. Besides these he engraved 'Peasants playing at Bowls,' after Adriaan van Oslade, and views in England after Chatelain and Brooks. The year of his death is not known, but his latest dated plate is 'The Tomb of Virgil,' after Hugh Dean, engraved in 1783.

[Redgrave's Dictionary of Artists, 1878; Mayer's Allgemaines Künstler-Lexikon, 1872, &c, iii, 500-1; Portalis and Béraldi's Graveure du Dix-huitième Siècle, 1880-2, i. 157.]

R. E. G.

BENBOW, JOHN (1653–1702), vice-admiral, was the son of William Benbow, a tanner of Shrewsbury, and nephew of that Captain John Benbow who, having served with some distinction in the parliamentary army, went over to the royalists after the death of the king, and, being taken prisoner at the battle of Worcester, was tried by court-martial and shot, 16 Oct. 1651 (Owen and Blakeway's Hist. of Shrewsbury, i. 489; ii. 39); Cal. of S. P. Dom. 1651, pp. 421-2, 457). The exact date of his birth has been recorded by Partridge, the astrologer as noon, on 10 March 1052-3 (Egerton MS. 2378, f, 295).

Of Benbow's early youth there are no authentic accounts, but the fact of his father having been a tanner gives credit to the local tradition that he was apprenticed to a butcher, from whose shop he ran away to sea. On 30 April 1678, he entered as a master's mate on board the Rupert, fitting out at Portsmouth under the command of Captain Herbert, afterwards Earl of Torrington. In the Rupert he went out to the Mediterranean, was engaged in some smart actions with Algerine corsairs, and so far won on the good will of Captain Herbert, the second in command of the squadron, that he obtained from him his promotion as master of the Nonsuch, 16 June 1079 (Paybooks of Rupert and Non-