Michael Linton's Bayeux Tapestry: 1066 - A Medieval Mosaic and Puzzles

Beaumont :

When William of Normandy, preparing for the invasion of England, summoned his barons to the great council at Lillebonne, "he sent moreover for Roger de Vieilles, who was much honoured and esteemed for his wisdom, and was now of considerable age, having sons who were already noble and brave knights. He was lord of Belmont-le-Rogier, and possessed much land."—Wace. He is usually styled De Beaumont or De Bellomont; and "it is unanimously recorded," says Mr. Planche, "that he was the noblest, the wealthiest, and the most valiant seigneur of Normandy, and the greatest and most trusted friend of the Danish family. Son of Humphrey de Vieilles, and grandson of Thorold de Pont Audemer, he was a descendant of the Kings of Denmark through Bernard the Dane, a companion of the first Norman conqueror, Duke Rollo.^[73] Illustrious as was such an origin in the eyes of his countrymen he considered his alliance with Adelina, Countess of Meulent, sufficiently honourable and important to induce him to adopt the title of her family in preference to his own." He furnished sixty vessels to the Conqueror's fleet, and Wace places him on the roll of the Norman chiefs at Hastings. "Old Rogier de Beaumont attacked the English in the front rank; and was of high service, as is plain by the wealth his heirs enjoy; any one may know that they had good ancestors, standing well with their lords who gave them such honors." But, both William de Poitou and Ordericus state that he remained in Normandy, as president of the council appointed by the Duke to assist his Duchess in the government, "sending his young son Robert to win his spurs at Senlac."^[74] "Though then but a novice in arms," he greatly distinguished himself in the battle, was one of the first to break through the English stockade, and by his courage and conduct won for himself the surname of Prudhomme. "A certain Norman young soldier," writes William of Poitou, "son of Roger de Bellomont, making his first onset in that fight, did what deserves lasting fame, boldly charging and breaking in upon the enemy with the troops he commanded in the right wing of the army." His reward was a great barony of ninety manors, lying in Warwickshire, Leicestershire, Wiltshire, and Northamptonshire. On his mother's death in 1081, he became Count of Meulent, "did homage to Philip I. King of France for the lands to which he succeeded in that kingdom, and in 1082 sat as a peer of France in the parliament held at Poissy."—Planche. His first English peerage was conferred upon him by Henry I., who, soon after his accession, created him Earl of Leicester. He had been one of the hunting party in the New Forest where Rufus lost his life, and had ridden by the new King's side when he hastened away to Winchester to seize the royal treasure and make sure of his succession to the throne. He had remained Henry's "prime counsellor" and trusted friend, and commanded the army that achieved the conquest of Normandy in 1106. "He was in worldly affairs," writes Henry of Huntingdon, "the wisest of all men between England and Jerusalem; eminent for knowledge, plausible of speech, keen and crafty, a subtle genius, of great foresight and prudence, not easily over-reached, profound in counsel and of great wisdom, by which means he acquired vast possessions; honours, cities, castles, towns, and woods. The first of these he held, not only in England, but in Normandy and France, insomuch that he made the Kings of France and England friends or foes to each other at his pleasure. If he was displeased with any man, he forced him to submissive humiliation; if pleased, he advanced him as he chose, by which means he got an incredible proportion of money and jewels. Being urged by his confessor on his death-bed to make restitution of whatsoever he had got by force or fraud from any man, he answered, 'If I do so, what shall I leave my sons?'" This was suggestive, and Orderic tells an ugly story relating to his English Earldom. The town of Leicester had then four masters;—the King, the Bishop of Lincoln, Simon de St. Liz, and Ivo, the son of Hugh de Grentemesnil. "Ivo, having begun a Rebellion in England, wherein he had done much mischief by firing some Houses of his Neighbours; and being, through the King's excessive indignation towards him, fined at a vast sum, made his Addresses to this Earl of Mellent, who was the chief of the King's Council, hoping, by his means, to obtain some favour; who thereupon cunningly advised him to perform a long pilgrimage;^[75] for effecting whereof, he would help him to Five hundred marks of Silver, keeping his Lands in pawn for Fifteen years; with promise, That at the end of that term, they should be wholly restored to his Son; and not only so, but that he would give him his Brother's Daughter (viz. Henry, Earl of Warwick) in marriage. For the performance of which Agreement, this Earl gave his Oath, the King himself likewise assenting thereto. But in this Pilgrimage, Ivo departing the World, his Son neither had the Woman (as was promised) nor any of his Paternal Inheritance." William of Malmesbury, on the other hand, grows eloquent in the great Earl's praise. "He was the supporter of justice, the persuader of peace," though "in war the insurer of victory; his advice was regarded as though an oracle of God had been consulted; and he could speedily bring about whatever he desired by the power of his eloquence." Like the Greek Emperor Alexius, he chose, on the score of health, to break his fast only once in twenty-four hours; and the whole nobility of England was emulous to follow his example. What genius, sage, or philosopher now-a-days could, by his gifts of persuasion, curtail the meals of even a single English man-servant? He had a taste for music, for, in a franchise to the monks of Bec, remitting certain import dues, he made it a condition that the masters of all boats passing the castles of Meulent and Mantes should play on the flageolet as they shot the bridges—an embarrassing moment for the performance!

His end was miserable. Left childless by his first wife, he chose, when he was between fifty and sixty, a new bride in the first bloom of youth, Isabel (or Elizabeth) de Vermandois, and became the happy father of a large family. "But in the height of his glory, another Earl" (William de Warreune) "seduced his wife by every intrigue and artifice;" and she deserted her old husband for his young rival. He never recovered the blow; but retired, "abandoned to sorrow and troubled in mind," to the Abbey of Preaux, where he took the monastic habit shortly before his death in 1118. He was buried among his brethren, but his heart was preserved in salt, and carried to Brackley, a monastery that he had founded in Northamptonshire.

The frail Isabel had borne him three sons, and four, if not five, daughters; of whom the eldest, Isabel, became one of the many mistresses of Henry I., and afterwards married Gilbert Earl of Pembroke. The two first-born sons were twins; Waleran, the elder, succeeded as Earl of Mellent; with all his father's domains in France and Normandy, and Robert, called Le Bossu, was Earl of Leicester. Hugh, the youngest brother, received from King Stephen the Earldom of Bedford, "with the Daughter of Milo de Beauchamp, upon the expulsion of Milo; Being a person remiss and negligent himself, and committing the custody of that Castle to Milo, he fell from the dignity of an Earl, to the state of a Knight; and, in the end to miserable poverty." He was dubbed "the Pauper." Waleran's was a troubled and turbulent life. He rebelled against Henry I., who burnt his towns of Brienne and Pont Audemer, captured both castles—the latter after seven weeks' siege—took him prisoner, and kept him in durance for five years. Then we find him in arms for King Stephen, and betrothed to his little daughter of two years old; next, signed with the cross as a pilgrim to Jerusalem; on his return, out of favour with the King, who fell in dislike with him," and in 1149; "took from him by assault the city of Worcester (which he had given him) and reduced it to ashes." This is the last we hear of him in England.

Robert, second Earl of Leicester, was another powerful and crafty chief, of whom it may be affirmed that his policy was as crooked as his back. It is true that he remained loyal to Henry Beauclerk to the last, and attended his deathbed at Lions; but he played fast and loose with his allegiance during the turmoil of the succeeding reign. He came to England with Stephen in 1137; then fell off to join the Angevins; presently came back, was welcomed with enthusiasm, and received the Castle, town, and (with some exceptions) the entire county of Hereford; "notwithstanding all which," says Dugdale, "in 1151 he was one of those Nobles who met Henry Duke of Normandy, at his first arrival in England, and supplied him with necessaries; and grew in such high esteem with him, after his attaining the Crown of this Realm, that he advanced him to that great Office of Justice of England." He was very liberal to the Church; for besides his benefactions to other religious houses, he founded two Abbeys and a Nunnery in his own co. of Leicester, and a Priory in Northamptonshire. He himself wore the habit of a canon regular of Leicester Abbey for fifteen years before his death in 1167: though, as he continued in secular employments, and was Justiciary at the same time, the strict observance of the rule of the cloister must in his case have been dispensed with. By his wife Amicia, the daughter of Ralph de Waet, Earl of Norfolk, and Emma Fitz Osbern, he had an only son, Robert, surnamed Blanchmaines, who on his uncle's death inherited the great Norman Honour of Breteville, that had been Fitz Osbern's. This white-handed Earl took part with Henry II.'s rebellious son, and landed at Walton in Suffolk with a body of Norman and Flemish mercenaries, but was defeated by the loyal Justiciaries, near St. Edmond'sbury, taken prisoner, and lodged in Falaise Castle with Hugh Earl of Chester, who had also been in revolt. The garrison he had left behind at Leicester gave some trouble; and the unhappy town, as usual, paid the penalty of its master's treason, and was burnt by the King's troops. In 1177 the Earl was pardoned and restored; carried the sword of state at Coeur de Lion's coronation in 1189, and died the year following at Duras in Greece, on his way home from Palestine. He had married a great heiress, Petronill de Grentemesnil (the descendant of the defrauded Ivo), who brought him, with the Honour of Winckley, the Great Stewardship of England. Their son Robert Fitz Parnel, fourth Earl, also made one, if not two, expeditions to the Holy Land, where he is said to have unhorsed and slain the Soldan in a tournament. King John granted to him the whole of Richmondshire, with its appertaining forests and fees, the castles of Richmond and Bowes alone excepted; and his wife Lauretta de Braose was dowered with twenty-five more knight's fees in Devonshire. But she was childless; and at his death in 1204 his great Earldom was divided between his two sisters. Amicia, the elder, married the celebrated Simon de Montfort, who was thereupon created Earl of Leicester; and Margaret was the wife of Saer de Quinci, who shortly afterwards was invested with the Earldom of Winchester.

All authorities are agreed that the subsequent Viscounts Beaumont, first summoned to Parliament by Edward II, had no connection whatever with this house.