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 BEAUFORT

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BEAUNE

\ fuller notice of all the above will be found in Dunbar. IHcliorwry of Saintly Wmruni tLondon, 1904), I 107-110. Several of them also are noticed with more or less fullness in the Acta SS. on their respective days. Cf. Chevalier, Bep. lies sources hut., Bio-BM. C2d ed., 1905).

Herbert Thurston. Beaufort, Lady JL\rg.\ret, Countess of Rich- mond and Derby, b. 1441; d, 1509, daughter and heiress of Jolm Beaufort, first Duke of Somerset. Her father, the grandson of John of Gaunt. Duke of Lancaster, and g'reat -grandson of Edward HL having died when she was tlirce years old, she was brought up by lier mother with the greatest care and devo- tion." Married while a mere child to John de la Pole, son of the Duke of Suffolk, whose ward she was, she refusetl to ratify the union on attaining the years of discretion and was then given in marriage to Edmund ap Meredith ap Tudor, Earl of Richmond and brother of Henry VL of whom, with his brother Jasper, she became the ward on Suffolk's attainder. Eilmund died (1456) a few months after the marriage, his posthumous son Henry, Earl of Richmond (afterwards Henry VII). being born 28 January, 1456. In 1459 Margaret married Lord Henry Staf- ford, her cousin on both her father's and mother's side, who traced his descent from Henrj' III. He died in 1482. Her third husband was Thomas, Lord Stanley, afterwards created Earl of Derby. She was instrumental in bringing to an end the disastrous Wars of the Roses; her son, the head of the Lancastrian t^arty, who, as a result of the victory of Bosworth (14S5) "became King Henry VII, took in marriage Elizabeth of York, daughter of Ed- ward IV.

Lady Margaret Beaufort was an exceedingly religious woman — "to God and to the Churche full obedient and tractable sechyng his honour and plesure full besyly" (Mornynge Remembraunce). — and a model of piety and devotion. Blessed John Fisher, who became her chaplain in 1502 and who had singular opportunities of understanding the nobleness of her character both as her spiritual director and as the instrument of her princely bene- factions, bears testimony to her \-irtues and good works in the funeral oration preached at her Month's Mind. All England, he says, had cause to mourn her death. The poor would "miss her boimteous alms: the students of both i;ni versifies, "to whom she was as a moder", and the learned her patronage. The \-irtuous and devout lost in her a loving sister; religious and priests and clerks a powerful defender. Di\-ine ser\-ice "dayly was kept in her chappel mth grate nombre of preests clerckes and children to her grate charge and cost". She was used to recite the Divine Office, as well as the Office of Our Lady, and to assist at many Masses daily. She made a public vow of chastity "before Fisher and was enrolled as a "sister" in many monastic houses, among others in those of the Charterhouse, Croyland, Durham, and Westminster. In her o^-n establishment she pro- \-ided for the education of numbers of young men at her own cost, for many of whom she used her in- fluence with great wisdom and discernment in the matter of ecclesiastical preferment.

Besides her private works of charity and of benevo- lence, and her benefactions to religious houses, she was a munificent patron of learning, estabfisliing Reader- ships (now Professorships) in Divinity at Oxford and Cambridge (Royal Licenses, 1496, 1497: Char- ters, 8 September, "l503); and, in 1504, she made pro\nsion for a preacher to deliver si.x yearly sermons "to the praise and honour of the Holy Name of Jesus and the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary". By her Hberality God's House at Cam- bridge was refounded as Christ's College (Royal License, 1,505) for a master, twelve fellows, and forty- seven scholars. St. John's College, Cambridge, was also established, in the place of the ancient founda-

tion of St. John's Hospital, by provision made in her will, in a codicil to which she states her intention of founding and suitably endowing a college for a master and fifty scholars. She had a tender devo- tion to the Real Presence and translated into Enghsh and caused to be printed the fourth book of the "Imitation of Christ", which treats of the Blessed Sacrament. The "Momj-nge Remembraunce'' re- fers to the burning faith vvith which she received the Body of the Lord upon her death-bed. She also her- self translated " The Mirroure of Golde for the sinful soule". Historians agree in extolUng her many signal quahties and \-irtues, criticizing, if an\-thing the "devotion those davs afforded", the "errors of the age she lived in". The Catholic sees the impor- tant part she played in the ci\-il and pohtical historj- of her time, but perceives in her as well a singularly high example of a Christian hfe, in which a robust and sturdy faith bore its natural and wholesome fruits in deeds of liberaUty and benevolence.

Fisher The Funeral Sermon of Margaret, Countess of Richmond and Derby (ed. T. Baker; 2d ed. Htmers, London, 1840V Cooper. Memoir of Margaret, Countess of Richmond and Derby (London, 1874); Halsted, Life of Margaret Beau- fort. Countess of Riehmond and Derby (London, 1839); Dublin Review, VIII. p. 134: Bridgett, Life of Blessed John Fisher (London); Baker, History of the College of SI. John the Eran- gelist; Lodge. lUustrious personages of Great Britain.

Fr-WJcis Aveling.

Beaulieu Abbey (abbatia qvcc vocitalur Bellus Locus) was a Cistercian house in Hampshire, one of the three monasteries founded by King John (c. 1204) and peopled by thirty monks from Citeaux. The founder granted it a "rich, if miscellaneous, endow- ment, including land in the New Forest, corn, money, one hundred and twenty cows, twelve bulls, a golden chalice, and an annual tun of wine. The buildings were dedicated in 1246, in the presence of Henrj' III and his queen, Richard Earl of Cornwall, and many prelates and nobles. Pope Innocent III constituted Beaulieu an "exempt abbey", with the right of sanctuary; and this was sought in 1471 by Ann Ne- \-ille, wife of Warwick the King-maker, the day be- fore the battle of Barnet. Twenty-sLx years later Perkin Warbeck fled to Beaulieu from the pursuing armies of Henry VII. Shortly before the suppression of the monastery in 1539, the Visitors' report men- tioned that "thirty-two sanctuary-men, who were here for debt, felony, or miu-der", were living \\-ithiu the monastic precincts with their wives and families.

The first Abbot of Beaulieu was Hugh, and the last Thomas Stephens, elected in 1535. In the fol- lowing year the abbey, with its annual revenue of £326, was granted to Thomas Wriothesley, after- wards Earl of Southampton. It passed later through the Dukes of Montagu to the Dukes of Buccleuch; and Lord Montagu of Beaidieu, the Duke of Buc- cleuch's nephew, now (1907) owns it. He resides in the old gatehouse of the abbey, which has been care- fully restored. Little else remains of the domestic buildings, except the fine early English refectory, used as the parish church. The cloisters are in niins, but the guest-house dormitory still exists, and has been restored. Not a stone is left of the beautiful church, 335 feet long, with a nave of nine bays transepts, tower, and double-aisled choir with cir- cular apse, of a pvu-ely Continental type most imusual in England. The late Duke of Buccleuch had the foundations of the church, with e\-ery column and buttress, carefully traced out and marked in .sand. Netley Abbey, on the other side of Southampton Water, was "founded from Beaulieu in 1239, by Henry III.

Dugdale, Monast. Anglic.. V, 680 sqq.; Registr. Cart. Mon. de Bella Loco (Cott. MSS., Brit. Mus., Nero, .\. xu, 1); Tanner, Xotilia Monastiea (Hampshire. \i); Hampshire and the Isle of Wight (Victoria Countv Historie-'s), II. 140-140. :

D. O. Hunter-Bl.\ir. I Beaune, Renaud de, a French Bishop, b. in 1527;;