Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Beaumont, Louis de
BEAUMONT, LOUIS de (d. 1333) bishop of Durham, is said to have been of royal descent, and related to the kings of France, Sicily, and England. Surtees, in his 'History of Durham,' makes him grandson of John de Brienne, king of Jerusalem (d. 1237), by Berengaria, daughter of Alphonso IX of Leon, and thus son of Louis de Brienne, who married Agnes, Viscountess de Beaumont, about 1252 (Anselme, Hist. Généal. v. 583, 584, vi. 137). Another account, however, makes him grandson of Charles, king of Sicily (see Dugdale, ii. 50, and Surtees, i. xliv). He was certainly akin to Isabella of France and her husband Edward II, for both of these call him 'consanguineus' (cf. Graytstanes, 757, and Rymer, iii. 581 ). According to the inscription on his tomb Louis de Beaumont was born in France. He seems to have come over to England in the reign of Edward I, and was appointed treasurer of Salisbury Cathedral about 1291 (Fasti Eccles. Sariab, 344). In this capacity he seems to have drawn a rebuke on his head for neglecting to repair the church. About the same time he appears to have held the prebend of Auckland (Registr. Palatn. Dunelm. iii. cxvii). On the death of Richard Kellaw, bishop of Durham, in 1316, the king, the queen, the Earl of Lancaster, and the Earl of Hereford had each his own candidate for the vacant office. As the day of election came on, the church was filled with the above-mentioned nobles and their followers, as well as with the retainers of Louis de Beaumont and of his brother Henry. Threats passed freely to slay the elected bishop if the monks should dare to choose one of their own number. They, however, made choice of an outsider, the prior of Finchale, who would have been admitted to the office at once had not the queen with bare knees besought Edward to favour her kinsman Louis. The case was transferred to the pope (John XXII), who consented to quash the election in consideration of a fine so large that we are told it could hardly be paid in fourteen years. Next year John XXII despatched two cardinals to England for the sake of making peace between this country snd Scotland. Louis de Beaumont, who was a man given to much ostentation, determined to take advantage of this visit and be consecrated in their presence on St. Cuthbert's day. As the cardinals were on their road to Durham, accompanied by the Beaumont brothers, Gilbert de Middleton, warden of the Marches, swooped down upon them at the head of certain Northumbrian freebooters or 'savaldores' (1 Sept. 1317). The cardinals were merely stripped of their horses and forced to continue their journey on foot, but the Beaumonts were carried off to Morpeth and Milford respectively, nor were they liberated till a large sum of money had been paid as their ransom. Before the year was out Middleton was hanged, drawn, and quartered at London for his share in this offence, in the presence of the two cardinals whom he had robbed. The consecration of the new bishop took place next year, on 26 March 1318 (Annal Paulin. i. 282). From this time Louis de Beaumont's life seems to have been one of constant bickerings with all he came into contact with. He first quarrelled with the prior of St. Mary's, who had become security for the 3,000l. which the merchants had lent for the bishop's ransom, and so annoyed him with threats of litigation that the prior, who was a peaceable man, resigned his office in 1322. William de Gisburn, who was elected his successor, seems to have been frightened out of accepting a post that would bring him into constant communication with so sturdy a prelate. Next year Louis de Beaumont appears as supporting the claims of the archdeacon of Durham against the prior and chapter of St. Mary's, and threatening to accuse them before the pope of obeying neither their bishop nor archdeacon. Indeed, throughout his whole episcopacy, he seems to have shown a special spite against the monks of his own cathedral. A few years later (1328) he was embroiled with Archbishop Melton of York on similar grounds. Both claimed the right of visitation in Allertonshire — Louis apparently on behalf of St. Mary's chapter, the archbishop on his own. It was to no purpose that the bishop attempted to prevent the prior and chapter from coming to terms with the archbishop. Their love for their immediate spiritual head was hardly sufficient to make them ready at his pleasure to break the arrangement they had already come to with the archbishop, who accordingly made several attempts to enforce his right of visitation. But no sooner did he appear on the borders of Allertonshire than Louis called together a host of armed men from Northumberland and Tynedale — reckless soldiers prepared to take away the archbishop's life at a word from their chief. The bishop was careless how much he spent, whereas the archbishop, though wealthy, was parsimonious. Excommunication was followed by suspension, and these were met on the bishop's part by three appeals to the legates. Finally the question was settled by compromise (1331). At the end of 1332 the archdeacon of Northumbria died, and Louis appointed his nephew — a man who is described as being short and deformed — to the vacant office. A dispute as to visitation rights arose once more, and was again settled by a compromise to last only for the bishop's life. Of the career of Louis de Beaumont outside his diocese little is known. When the northern barons met at Pomfret under the Earl of Lancaster (May 1321), they deemed it right to lay their federation oath before the clergy of the province, who were summoned to meet at Sherburn in Elmet. Louis de Beaumont was present on this occasion, and it cannot be doubted that a man of his high birth and courage had much to do with the decision there arrived at — to render aid against the Scotch invasions, but to hold political matters over till the next parliament. Louis does not seem to have been a very vigorous protector of his palatinate against the Scotch, though this was one of the pleas on which Edward II urged the pope to appoint him; and we have a letter from that king reproaching the bishop for being by no means a 'stone wall' against the enemy. On 24 Sept. 1333 Louis died at Brantingham, and was buried two days later before the great altar in his cathedral church. His character and even his personal appearance have been minutely sketched by his contemporary, Robert Graystanes, sub-prior of St. Mary's and his elected successor. This writer describes the bishop as comely-featured but limping in each foot, over-lavish in expenditure, and, by the number of his retainers, involved in such huge expenses that it was a saying of the time: 'Never was man so greedy to get, and yet so rashly improvident of what he had gotten.' Forgetting all that he owed to the prior of St. Mary's, he bluntly answered his requests by an unvarnished refusal: 'You do nothing for me, and I will do nothing for you. Pray for my death, for while I live you will get nothing.' Nevertheless he was a stern supporter of the rights of his see, whether against archbishop, earl, or baron. He appealed in parliament for his rights over Bernard Castle, Hert, Geyneford, and other forfeited manors of the Bruces and Baliols; and Edward II issued a confirmation of his claims against the Beauchamps (Warwick), Cliffords, and others into whose hands these estates had fallen. Towards the very end of his life Louis was formulating other claims on Norham and Westupsethington (Upsetlington) against the Scotch, who seem to have then secured them. For his unwavering assertion of the rights of his own see his biographer gives him great praise, and adds that though chaste he was unlearned. Indeed, of Latin the bishop knew so little that before his consecration he had to take several days' lessons before he could read his part of the service; and even then, when he came to the word 'Metropoliticæ,' which he could not master, even with the aid of a little prompting behind, after a long pause he had to exclaim, 'Seit pur dite,' 'Let it be taken as said.' The words 'in ænigmate' were a similar stumbling-block, and he could not refrain from whispering to those standing by, 'By St. Louis, the man who wrote that word had no courtesy in him.' Once consecrated he was very masterful in his own diocese, and got two bulls from the pope, one empowering him to appoint any monk he would prior of St. Mary's, and another to hold a third part of the priory's income while the Scotch wars lasted. He was a great builder, and commenced a spacious hall and kitchen with a chapel attached at Middleham. He was buried before the high altar in Durham cathedral in a magnificent tomb, 'wherein he was most excellently and lively pictured as he was accustomed to sing or say mass.' This tomb, which Louis had prepared in his lifetime, is fully described in Davies's 'Durham Cathedral,' and was marked by a Latin epitaph (in hexameters) which claimed for its occupant the character of 'a man of royal birth, lavish, gleeful, and a constant enemy to sadness.'
[Robert de Graystanes ap. Wharton's Anglia Sacra, i. 751-61; Godwin's Præsules, ed. Richardson, 45-6; Raine's Historical Papers from the Northern Registers (Rolls Series), 265-8, &c.; Hardy's Registrum Dunelmense (Ricardi Kellow), ii. 7, iii. &c.; Annales Paulini, &c., in Chronicles and Memorials of Edward I and II, vols. i. and ii.; Rymer, iii. 581, 670, 952, iv. 297, 405, 491; Surtees's History of Durham, i. xxxvii-xlv; Dugdale's Baronage, ii. 50; Davies's Ancient Rites of Durham Cathedral, 24-7; Jones's Fasti Ecclesiæ Sarisburiensis.]