Our Lady, which was built by his executors under his will.
We have not related all the deeds of this hero of chivalry. The most characteristic were collected a generation later by John Rous, chaplain of the chantry founded by this earl at Guy's Cliff in Warwickshire, and illustrated by pencil drawings of high artistic merit. The manuscript containing them is still preserved in the Cottonian Library; the drawings have been engraved by Strutt (Manners and Customs vol. ii. pl. vii-lix), and the narrative they illustrate has been embodied in Dugdale's notice of this earl. It is to be regretted that the drawings and the narrative have never been published together. They are certainly a most interesting product of the art and literature of the middle ages, exhibiting our earl as the mirror of courtesy and refinement in many things of which we have not taken notice; among others, his declining to be the bearer of the Emperor Sigismund's precious gift to Henry V — the heart of St. George — when he knew that the emperor intended to come to England himself, suggesting that it would be more acceptable to his master if presented by the emperor in person.
Besides the manuscript just referred to and the chapel built by his executors, there is one other memorial of this earl still abiding in the curious stone image of Guy of Warwick exhibited to visitors to Guy's Cliff. It was executed and placed there by his orders. It certainly does not suggest that he was a very discriminating patron of art: of which, indeed, there is little appearance otherwise; for it was his father that built Guy's Tower in Warwick Castle, and his executors that built the chapel at Warwick in which his bones repose.
The earl was twice married. His first wife was Elizabeth, daughter and heir of Thomas, Lord Berkley, by whom he had three daughters. His second, whom he married by papal dispensation, was Isabella, widow of his cousin, Richard Beauchamp, earl of Worcester, who was slain at Meaux in 1422. It was by this second marriage that he had his son and heir, Henry [see Beauchamp, Henry de].
[Dugdale's Baronage; Dugdale's Warwickshire, i. 408-11; Cotton MS. Julius, E iv.; Walsingham's Historia Anglicana and Ypodigma Neustriæ; Fabyan; Hall; Gregory, in Gairdner's Historical Collections of a London Citizen; Leland's Itinerary, vi. 89; Paston Letters, No. 18; Rymer, ix.-x.]
BEAUCHAMP, RICHARD de (1430?–1481), bishop of Salisbury and chancellor of
the order of the Garter, was the son of Sir
Walter Beauchamp [q. v.] and brother of
William Beauchamp, Lord St. Amand. Of
the date of his birth there is no record, but
it was probably about the year 1430. For his
elder brother, Lord St. Amand, first received
summons to parliament in 1449 by reason of
his marriage with the heiress of the old barons
of St. Amand; and as early marriages were
the rule in those days, he was probably not
much over one-and-twenty when he took his
seat in the House of Lords. Nothing, however, is known about Richard Beauchamp
previous to the year 1448, when, being at
that time archdeacon of Suffolk, he was
nominated bishop of Hereford by Pope
Nicolas V on 4 Dec. His consecration took
place on 9 Feb. following. But he had only
remained in this see a year and a half when
he was translated by papal bull, dated
14 Aug. 1450, to Salisbury, and received
restitution of the temporalities on 1 Oct.
In 1452 his name appears for the first time
in the register of the Garter as performing
divine service at a chapter of the order at
Windsor, which he did also in 1457 and 1459.
It would thus appear that he acted occasionally as chaplain to the order long before he
became their chancellor; for, as Anstis observes, he could not have claimed to officiate
at Windsor as diocesan, the college being
exempt from his jurisdiction. On 10 Oct.
1475 he was appointed chancellor of the
order by patent of King Edward IV, the
office being created in order to provide a
more convenient custodian for the common
seal of the brotherhood, which by the statutes
was to be kept only by one of its members,
who should be in attendance upon the king's
person. From this time till his death he was
present at most, if not all, the chapters of
the Garter; and in 1478 the deanery of
Windsor was given him, to hold along with
his bishopric. He was installed on 4 March.
He moreover procured the incorporation of
the dean and canons of St. George's Chapel,
Windsor, which was granted by patent of
6 Dec. 19 Edw. IV (1479). He died on
16 Oct. 1481, of what illness does not appear,
and is said to be buried at Windsor. His
will was proved on 8 Feb. 1482.
[Godwin; Le Neve's Fasti; Anstis's Register of the Order of the Garter; Ashmole's History of the Garter, 89.]
BEAUCHAMP, ROBERT de (d. 1252), judge, was a minor at the death of his father, Robert de Beauchamp, lord of Hatch, Somerset, in 1211-12. Adhering to
John, he was appointed constable of Oxford
and sheriff of the county towards the close
