author of:
- 'The British Captives in Abyssinia,' published in 1865.
- 'King Theodore and Mr. Rassam,' 1869.
- 'The Idol in Horeb,' 1871.
- 'Jesus the Messiah,' 1872.
- 'Discovery of the true Mount Sinai,'
- 'Mount Sinai a Volcano,' (1873);
and many other sketches, pamphlets, and papers.
[Beke's various works; Summary of Beke's published works, by his Widow, 1876; Annual Register for 1874; Transactions of the Royal Geographical Society; An Enquiry into M. A. d'Abbadie's Journey to Kaffa, 1850; The Idol in Horeb, 1871; Letters on the Commerce of Abyssinia, 1852; Reports of the British Association, 1847; The Sources of the Nile, 1860; Views in Ethnography (new ed.), 1863; Men of the Time, 8th ed.
BEKINSAU, JOHN (1496?–1559), scholar and divine, was born at Broadchalke, in Wiltshire, about 1496. His father, John Bekinsau, of Hartley Wespell, Hampshire, is supposed to have belonged to the Lancashire family of Becconsall (Tanner); but Hoare (Hist. of Wilts, iv. 153) argues that there was a family of the name native in Wiltshire.
Bekinsau was educated at Winchester School, and proceeded to New College, Oxford; he was made fellow of that society in 1520, and took the degree of M.A. in 1526. At Oxford he was, according to Wood, esteemed ‘an admirable Grecian;’ and on proceeding to Paris he read the Greek lecture in the university, probably soon after 1530, the year in which Francis I founded the royal professorships and revived the study of Greek at Paris. Having returned to England, Bekinsau married, and so vacated his fellowship, in 1538.
His only extant work is a treatise ‘De supremo et absoluto Regis imperio’ (London, 1546), republished in Goldast's ‘Monarchia’ in 1611; this work is dedicated to Henry VIII, ‘the head of the church immediately after Christ,’ and affirms the full supremacy of the king against that of the pope. The argument proceeds mainly by quotations from the fathers, of whom Chrysostom seems the favourite. He was a friend of John Leland, who addresses a poem to a forthcoming work of Bekinsau, and refers to the learning and Parisian studies of its author (Leland, Encomia, p. 9). Bale gives a bad account of Bekinsau, alleging that his work on the supremacy was only written for the sake of lucre. The same biographer adds that he returned to the Roman church in 1554, ‘like a dog to his vomit.’ On the accession of Elizabeth, Bekinsau retired to Sherburne, a village in Hampshire, where he died, and was buried on 20 Dec. 1559.
[Wood's Athenæ, i. 129; Tanner's Bibliotheca; Bale; Hoare's Wiltshire.]
BEKYNTON, THOMAS, bishop of Bath and Wells. [See Beckington.]
BELASYSE, ANTHONY, LL.D. (d. 1552), civilian, sometimes called Bellows and Bellowsesse, was a younger son of Thomas Belasyse, Esq., of Henknowle, co. Durham. He proceeded bachelor of the civil law in the university of Cambridge in 1520, and was afterwards created LL.D., but it is supposed that he took that degree in a foreign university. In 1528 he was admitted an advocate. On 4 May 1533 he obtained the rectory of Whickham, co. Durham, being collated to it by Bishop Tunstal, who on 7 June following ordained him priest. In the same year he was presented to the vicarage of St. Oswald in the city of Durham. In 1539 he became vicar of Brancepeth in the same county, and about this time he resigned Whickham. His name is subscribed to the decree of convocation, 9 July 1540, declaring the marriage of Henry VIII with Anne of Cleves to have been invalid. Later in the same year he obtained a prebend in the collegiate church of Auckland and a canonry at Westminster. Bonner, bishop of London, collated him to the archdeaconry of Colchester on 27 April 1543 (Newcourt, Repertorium, i. 91), and it is said that on the same day he obtained a prebend in the church of Ripon. He held also the mastership of the hospital of St. Edmund in Gateshead, and
had a prebend in the collegiate church of
Chester-le-Street. In January 1543-4 he
was installed in the prebend of Heydour-cum-Walton in the church of Lincoln. In
1544 he was appointed a master in chancery, and on 17 Oct. in that year he was commissioned with the master of the rolls, John Tregonwell, and John Oliver, also masters in chancery, to hear causes in the absence of Lord Wriothesley, the lord chancellor. (Rymer, Foedera, ed. 1713, xv. 58).
Dr. Belasyse became master of Sherburne Hospital, co. Durham, in or about 1545, in which year Henry VIII granted to him, William Belasyse, and Margaret Simpson, the site of the priory of Newburgh in the county of York, with the demesne, lands, and other hereditaments; also certain manors in Westmoreland which had pertained to the dissolved monastery of Biland in Yorkshire. In 1546 he was holding the prebend of Timberscomb in the church of Wells, and three years later he was installed prebendary of Knaresborough-cum-Bickhill in the church of York. In January 1551-2 his name was inserted in a commission by which certain
