BEAUCHAMP, Sir Thomas

More can be added to the earlier biography.4 The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 156-7. Following his acquittal for complicity in the lollard risings of early 1414 in late October of that year, Beauchamp achieved a rehabilitation remarkable for its speed and completeness. The crucial first step towards this, was Henry V’s expedition to France in 1415, which Sir Thomas joined as part of the retinue of Edward, duke of York. He thus took a part in the noted English victories at Harfleur and Agincourt, which he, unlike his captain, contrived to survive.5 E101/45/2, m. 2; 19, m 2. In the light of his reputation as a veteran of Agincourt it is not surprising to find him heading a list of Somerset gentry deemed to possess martial prowess returned to the King’s council in 1419.6 The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 157. Beauchamp’s rehabilitation appears to have been complete within a short time of the infant Henry VI’s accession. By the autumn of 1425 he was part of the royal household as one of the King’s three henchmen (in company with Sir Edmund Hungerford* and Sir Robert Roos), and within four years he had joined his kinsmen Sir William* and Sir John Beauchamp among the elite group of the knights of the body, and as such was in receipt of robes for the monarch’s coronation.7 E361/6, rots. 17, 18d, 20; E101/408/9.

At the death in 1433 of Elizabeth, widow of Sir Thomas Trivet, one of the knights of Richard II’s chamber, who had died in the autumn of 1388 as a result of a fall from his horse, Beauchamp appears to have laid claim to the Trivet estates, which she had settled on her former husband’s kinsman, John Trivet. A purported arbitration settlement by two of Beauchamp’s associates, under the terms of which Sir Thomas stood to gain half of the Trivet lands, was denounced by John Trivet as having been imposed upon him under duress of imprisonment, while our MP’s attempts to take the lands by force saw him brought to trial before the justices of common pleas at suit of William Stafford* to whom some of the property had passed.8 The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 266; CP40/697, rots. 107, 313; C139/64/35, 137/14, m. 13; CCR, 1419-22, p. 234; VCH Som. vi. 105-7, 137-45, 184-8; viii. 146-60. Similarly, in the summer of 1438 Beauchamp was quarrelling with William Wadham over the title to the manor of South Bradon, which had come to our MP in his second wife’s right: Wadham denied Beauchamp’s title on the grounds that his father-in-law, Roger Silveyn, had granted the manor away as long ago as 1394.9 CP40/713, rot. 136; 714, rot. 535.

By contrast, Beauchamp’s purportedly fraudulent attempt to secure title to the manors of Ninehead Flory and Withiel Flory in fact arose out of his lawful custody of the estates of his son-in-law, John Kendale. Kendale’s father had acquired the reversion of the manors from their previous owner, John Wyke (d.1410) of Ninehead, who had retained a life interest for himself and his first wife, but following a second marriage to the daughter of Sir William Bonville† had made a fresh settlement of the property for the benefit of their male children, thereby depriving the Kendales of their expectations. The squabble between the Wykes and Kendales continued for several generations, complicated further by the successive remarriages of John Kendale’s and John Wyke’s widows (respectively to William Lenthorp and John Wyneford, and to Humphrey Stafford), and its latter stages between Beauchamp as guardian of the Kendale heir and one Robert Wyke as claimant to the Wyke interest were still being fought out in the later 1420s.10 C138/60/59; E159/199, recorda Mich. rot. 6d; brevia Easter rot. 20; M. Cherry, ‘Crown and Political Community, Devon’ (Univ. of Wales, Swansea Ph.D. thesis, 1981), 374. In an additional twist, in 1424 custody of the manors until their lawful ownership had been determined had been granted to Richard Perceval and William Newton†, and they for their part also sought to establish their title at common law.11 The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 837; CP40/663, rot. 140; 664, rot. 340. Under these circumstances it is not surprising that in 1428 Beauchamp and his fellow farmers of the Kendale lands found difficulty in paying John Martyn j.c.p. for an assignment of £100.12 E159/205, recogniciones Mich. rot. 1.

The Staffords, Stawells and Bushes aside, Beauchamp also maintained friendly relations with other leading gentry families in the region such as the Keynes, Gorges, Carents and Chideocks.13 CIPM, xviii. 893, 895; Devon RO, Shelley mss, Z1/4/1, 3, 5a-b; Hants RO, Jervoise mss, 44M69/C/490; Cornw. RO, Arundell mss, AR1/658, 916-18; Som. Archs., Crowcombe Ct. mss, DD/TB/34/61. Indeed, his sister Agnes had married Thomas Gorges alias Russell, and Beauchamp’s fellow MP for Somerset in his final Parliament, Sir Theobald Gorges alias Russell*, was thus his nephew. By her will of 1419, Agnes left her brother a silver cup with a cover sculpted with eagles.14 PCC 47 Marche (PROB11/2B, f. 144). The execution of Beauchamp’s own will was entrusted to his widow, Eleanor, who was to be engaged in protracted litigation over her husband’s last wishes for more than a decade after his death.15 CP40/746, rot. 181d; 778, rot. 303. Beauchamp’s heir, his grand-daughter Alice, went on to marry Henry Hull*, the son of an Exeter merchant, after the early death of her first husband, John Speke of Haywood.16 C139/119/31; CPR, 1441-6, pp. 296-7, 316; The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 157; Som. Feet of Fines (Som. Rec. Soc. xxii), 198-9, 207.

The descent of Beauchamp’s property to his heir was, nevertheless, fraught with difficulty, not least since Sir Thomas himself had taken a dislike to Alice’s first husband. In an exchange reported before the escheator of Somerset and Dorset after his death, Sir Thomas swore that neither John Speke nor his wife should ever gain possession of his manor of Whitelackington. Speke retorted that even if he could get no more, he would at least have the stones from the walls. Beauchamp, determined to make good his threat, settled the manor on one Thomas Thornbury, with successive remainder to his three brothers and their heirs in tail male. To foil any hopes Speke might have of overcoming this obstacle, he appointed as the final remainderman in the entail none other than the young earl of Devon, Thomas Courtenay.17 CIPM, xxvi. 218.