Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol I (1901).djvu/220

 brother, Edmund Beaufort, was styled fourth Duke of Somerset by the Lancastrians. By a mistress named Joan Hill, the third duke left a son Charles, who was given the family name of Somerset, and whose descendants became dukes of Beaufort [see, first ].

[Cal. Rot. Pat.; Rymer's Fœdera; Rotuli Parl.; William of Worcester and Stevenson's Letters (Rolls Ser.); English Chron., ed. Davies, Gregory's Collections, Three English Chron., and Warkworth's Chron. (Camden Soc); Polydore Vergil; Hall's Chronicle; Paston Letters, ed. Gairdner; Fortcseue's Governance of England, ed. Plummer; Arthur de Richemont, Matthieu D'Eseouchy and Chastellain's Chroniques (Soc. de l'Hist. de France); Beaucourt's Charles VII; Stubbs's Const. Hist. vol. iii. passim; Ramsay's Lancaster and York; Doyle's Official Baronage; G. E. C[okayne]'s Complete Peerage.]

 BEAUFORT, JOHN, first and  and of  (1373?–1410), born about 1373, was the eldest son of John of Gaunt [see, 1340–1399], by his mistress, and afterwards his third wife, Catherine Swynford [q. v.] His younger brothers, Henry Beaufort, cardinal and bishop of Winchester [q. v.], and Thomas Beaufort, earl of Dorset [q. v.], are separately noticed, and his sister Joan was married to Ralph Neville, earl of Westmorland [q. v.] Henry IV was his half brother. The Beauforts took their name from John of Gaunt's castle of Beaufort in Anjou, where they were born, and not from Beaufort Castle in Monmouthshire. It was afterwards asserted (, Original Letters, 2nd ser. i. 154) that John Beaufort was in 'double advoutrow goten,' but he was probably born after 1372, when Catherine Swynford's first husband died; by an act of parliament passed on 6 Feb. 1397, shortly after John of Gaunt's marriage to Catherine Swynford, the Beauforts were legitimated. This act, though it did not in terms acknowledge their right of succession to the throne — did not in terms forbid it (, Excerpta Historica, pp. 152 sqq.), but when, in 1407, Henry IV confirmed Richard II's act, he introduced the important reservation 'excepta dignitate regali' (, Const. Hist. iii. 58-9).

John Beaufort's first service was with the English contingent sent on the Duke of Bourbon's expedition against Barbary in 1390. They sailed from Genoa on 15 May of that year, and landed in Africa on 22 July. On 4 Aug. an attack was begun on El Mahadia, but after seven weeks' ineffectual siege, the English force re-embarked, reaching England about the end of September. Beaufort was knighted soon afterwards (Doyle says in 1391), and in 1394 he was serving with the Teutonic knights in Lithuania. Probably, also, he was with Henry of Derby (afterwards Henry IV) at the great battle of Nicopolis in September 1396, when the Turks defeated the Christians, and Henry escaped on board a Venetian galley on the Danube. Returning to England, Beaufort was, a few days after his legitimation, created (10 Feb. 1396-7) Earl of Somerset, with place in parliament between the earl marshal and the Earl of Warwick. He then took part, as one of the appellants, in the revolution of September 1397, which drove Gloucester from power and freed Richard II from all control (, iii. 21). On 29 Sept. he was created Marquis of Dorset, and in the same year was elected K.G., and appointed lieutenant of Aquitaine. His was the second marquisate created in England; the creation is crossed out on the charter roll, and on the same day he was created Marquis of Somerset, but it was as Marquis of Dorset that he was summoned to parliament in 1398 and 1399, and he seems never to have been styled Marquis of Somerset. He remained in England when Richard II banished his half brother Henry of Derby, was appointed admiral of the Irish fleet on 2 Feb. 1397-8, and constable of Dover and warden of the Cinque Ports three days later; on 9 May following he was made admiral of the northern fleet.

He had thus identified himself to some extent with the unconstitutional rule of Richard's last years, and probably it was only his relationship to Henry IV that saved him from ruin on Richard's fall. He was accused for his share in Richard's acts by parliament in October 1399, and pleaded in excuse that he had been taken by surprise and dared not disobey the king's command. He was deprived of his marquisates, and became simply Earl of Somerset, but there was never any doubt of his loyalty to the new king, his half brother. He bore the second sword at the coronation on 13 Oct. 1399, was appointed great chamberlain on 17 Nov., and in January following was, with Sir Thomas Erpingham [q. v.], put in command of four thousand archers sent against the revolted earls. On 8 Nov. 1400 he was granted the estates of the rebel Owen Glendower, but was never able to take possession of them. On 19 March 1401 he appears as a member of the privy council, and four days later was appointed captain of Calais. He was sent on a diplomatic