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 BEATRIX

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BEATRIX

Mith the League against Henry IV, and on its dis- solution he -(vas threatened with banishment; but by the intervention of Cardinal Bourbon and Sully and of the king himself, he was allowed to remain in France, where he was regarded with the greatest esteem. Perhaps the most remarkable testimony to the respect felt for his character in Scotland is to be found in the fact that in 1598, nearly forty years after the overthrow of the ancient Church, the archbishop was formally restored, by an act of the Scottish Parliament, to all his "heritages, honours, dignities, and benefices, notwithstanding that he has never acknowledged the religion pro- fessed within the realm". He survived to witness, a month before his death, the union of the English and Scottish crowns under King James. On the 24th of April, 1603, when James was actually on his way to London to take possession of his new kingdom, the archbishop died in Paris, in the eightj- sixth year of his age, and half a century after his episcopal consecration.

Beaton had lived in Paris for forty-three years, and had been Scottish ambassador to five successive kings of France. He was buried in the church of St. John Lateran at Paris, his funeral being attended by a great gathering of prelates, nobles, and common people. The poetical inscription on his tomb eulogizes him, in the exaggerated language of the times, as the greatest bishop and preacher of his age in the whole world. A sounder estimate of his worth is that of his Protestant successor in the See of Glasgow, Spottiswoode, who describes him as "a man honourably disposed, faithful to his queen while she lived and to the king her son; a lover of his country, and liberal to all his countrymen". No breath of scandal, in a scandalous age, ever attached to the honour of his name or the purity of his private life. Beaton left his property, including the archives of the Diocese of Glasgow, and a great mass of important correspondence, to the Scots College in Paris. Some of these documents had already been deposited by him in the Carthusian monastery in the same city. In the stress of the Fr.-neh Rev- olution many of these valuable manuscripts were packed in barrels and sent to St. Omers. These have unfortunately disappeared, but the papers left in the college were afterwards brought safely to Scot- land, and are now preserved at Blairs College, the Catholic seminary near Aberdeen.

Regist. Episc. Glasg., pp. i-ix, liii; Grub, Ecdes. Hist, of Hcotl., II, 31, 155. 279; Chambers, Biagr. Did. of Eminent Scotsmen, I, 108. 109; Acts of Pari, of Scotl.. IV. 169, 170; Reg. Priv. Court. Scott., II, 334; Keith, Cat. of ScoU. Bishops. 153, 154.

D. O. Hdnter-Blair. Beatrix (or Beatrice). — The name Beatrix has been borne by a certain number of holy persons, but no one of them has attained to any very eminent renown of sanctity.

I. Beatrix, S.\int, a Roman virgin and martyr, inscribed in the Roman Martyrologium on 29 July. She is believed to have been the sister of the martyrs Siinplicius and Faustinus whom she buried in the Via Portuensi. The legend says that she was then denounced as a Christian by Lucretius to whom she was betrothed, and w;is strangled by her own serv- ants. Lucretius sliortly afterwards died suddenly by the visitation of God.

II. Beatrix d'Este, Saint, d. 1262. Custom .seems to warrant the giving the title Saint to one of the two holy nuns named Beatrix d'Este. She be- longed to the family of the Norman Dukes of Apulia ana was herself the daughter of the Marquess of P'errara. She was betrothed to Galeazzo Manfredi of Vieenza, but he died of his wounds, after a battle, just before the wedding day, and his bride refused to return home, but attended by some of her maidens, dexotcd herself to the service of God, following the

Benedictine Rule, at San Lazzaro just outside Ferrara. Her cultus was approved by Clement XIV, and Pius VI allowed her festival to be kept on 19 January.

III. Beatrix seems also to have been accepted as the Latin name of a noble lady of Bohemia, called in Bohemian Bozena, who lived at the end of the twelfth century and became a nun. Her brother was the famous St. Hrosnata, one of the patrons of the Kingdom of Bohemia. From the Bollandist life of Hrosnata (Acta SS., 4 July) it would seem that his sister Beatrix was honoured on 13 November.

IV. Be.itrix d'Este, aunt of the saint of that name, who is generally known as Blessed Beatrix, seems to have died in 1226 or perhaps in 1246. She was born in the castle of Este, became a nun in the convent of Santa Margherita at Solarolo, but not finding herself sufficiently secluded from the world, she founded another religious house in a deserted monastery at Gemmola. Her body after death was translated to the church of Santa Sophia at Padua and it was a tradition that when anything important was about to befall the family of Este she turned in her grave so that the noise was audible throughout the church. An account of her is given in the Acta SS. under 10 May.

V. Be.\trix, Blessed, a Cistercian nun, first prioress of the convent called Nazareth near Lier in Brabant; d. 1269. She came of a wealthy family, but wishing to consecrate herself to God, at the age of seven she went to live with the B^gumes. She afterwards joined the Cistercian nuns at Vallis Florida whence she was sent to commence the new founda- tion at Nazareth. She practised very .severe aus- terities, wearing a girdle of thorns and compressing her body with cords. Our Lord is said to have a]3- peared to her and to have pierced her heart with a fiery dart. After Nazareth was abandoned in a time of disturbance, the body of Blessed Beatrix is be- lieved to have been translated by angels to Lier. Her day is 29 July, and a short life of her is included by Heru-iquez in his "Lilia".

VI. Be.\trix of Ornacieux, Blessed, d. about 1306, a Carthusian nun who founded a settlement of the order at Eymieux in the department of Drome. She was specially devout to the Passion of Christ and is said to have driven a nail through her left hand to help herself to realize the sufferings of the Cruci- fi.xion. Her cultus was confirmed by Pius IX in 1869. (See "Anal. jur. pont.", 1869, XI, 264.) There are modern lives by Bellanger and Chapuis and a full account in Lecoulteux, "Ann. Ord. Cath." (V, 5). Her feast is on 13 February.

VII. Beatrix da Silva, Blessed, a Portuguese nun, d. 1 September, 1490. In Portuguese .she is known as Blessed Brites. She was a member of the house of Portalegre and descended from the royal family of Portugal. She accompanied the Portu- guese Princess Isabel to Spain, when she married John II of Castile. There Beatrix seems to have aroused the jealousy of her royal mistress and was imprisoned for tliree days without food. After a vision of Our Blessed Lady, whom she saw attired in the blue mantle and white dress of the Conception Order which she was afterwards to found, Beatrix was allowed to retire to Toledo where she entered the Dominican Order. There she lived forty years, being specially honoured and frequently visited by Queen Isabel the Catholic. The latter aided her to found an order in honour of the Immaculate Con- ception, which adopted the Franci.scan Rule. It was approved by Innocent VIII in 1489 and with some modifications by Julius II in 1511. Beatri.x died ten days before the solemn inauguration of her new order. She is much honoured in Spain, and there is a life of her by Bivar. (See also the "Anal. jur. pont.". Ill, 549.)