We pick up the story of Loughborough as presented by journalist Edwin Goady, in his serialization in the ‘Loughborough Monitor’ of which he was editor, which ran from 1864 to 1966.
Some of the paragraphs are rather long, so in order to make reading the chapter a little easier, I have added a few spaces and created new paragraphs. I’ve also added some notes at the bottom of the post, which serve to clarify things appearing in the text which might not be terribly clear to us today. Other than that, I’ve changed nothing, so do bear in mind that this text is now about 160 years old, and may no longer be accurate, as there are many more discoveries that have been made that illuminate the history of Loughborough, and some terminology will have changed, so some of the information in this article will be wrong. I have not tried to amend these in any way, so reader, beware!
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THE HISTORY OF LOUGHBOROUGH FROM THE TIME OF THE BRITONS TO THE MIDDLE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
In ‘Loughborough Monitor’ 9 February 1865, pg. 5
CHAPTER VII.
THE HISTORY OF THE BEAUMONTS, MANORIAL LORDS OF LOUGHBOROUGH, CONTINUED [from Chapter 5, Parts 1 and Parts 2]
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Henry, Fifth Lord Beaumont, Knighted—Ceremony—Succeeded by his son John, created Viscount Beaumont—His public offices and services—Second Marriage, etc.—Letters Illustrative of the Age in which he Lived—A Street Affray in Loughborough—Wars of the Roses—Beaumont a Lancastrian—Killed at Northampton—Is succeeded by his son William, who is taken prisoner at Towton, and attainted—the Manor of Loughborough, etc., conferred upon Lord Hastings—Subsequent Career of Beaumont—His Petition, etc.
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UPON the death of John, the famous Lord Beaumont, and the fourth that had borne that title, he was succeeded by his son Henry, then in his sixteenth year. He left, however, two other sons, Thomas and Richard, and it is from Thomas that the Coleorton branch of the Beaumont family is descended. During the minority of Henry, the manor of Loughborough, with its members, was held by Margaret, the widow of the fourth Lord Beaumont.
This Henry, the fifth Lord Beaumont, was one of the forty-six squires who were knighted at the coronation of Henry IV., September 30, 1399. In the orders of chivalry, a man was first a page, then a squire, so called from the word escu, a shield, he having, amongst other offices, to carry the shield of the knight he served, and finally a knight. This last rank was not usually conferred until after the squire had attained his majority, but in the case of Lord Beaumont, his noble birth and the memory of his father enabled him to obtain the honour a year or two earlier.
The Close Rolls [1] of an earlier period furnish us with a list of necessary materials for the ceremony, which is very interesting. The squire was to have a scarlet robe, with a cloak of fine linen, a second robe of green or brown, a saddle, a pair of reins, a sword and scabbard, gilt spurs, a cloak for wet weather, a coach, and a pair of linen sheets. In the present instance, the necessary apparels were furnished from the wardrobe of the king. On the day previous to the coronation, the forty-six squires attended the king from Westminster to the Tower. Here each one was provided with a separate chamber and a bath, and the preparatory rites of confessing, fasting, and prayer were commenced. The older custom of watching all night in the church upon a couch was so far carried out that each squire watched his arms in his own chamber. After mass on the following morning, the Duke of Lancaster created them knights, bestowing upon each a long green coat, whose sleeves were lined with omnever [2], and on the left shoulder had a cord of white silk, from which depended tassels of the same material. The squires each promised to be faithful to the king, to protect ladies and orphans, never to lie nor utter slander, and to live in harmony with his equals, etc., when each one, in turn, received the accolade—a slight blow on the neck with the flat of the sword, whilst the Duke repeated the formula—"I dub thee knight, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Be faithful, bold, and fortunate." The newly-elected knights, in their scarlet robes, afterwards officiated in the ceremony of the coronation.
The only public service this Lord Beaumont appears to have performed was as one of the Commissioners for prolonging the treaty between France and England in the eleventh year of Henry IV.’s reign. From the year 1404, he was frequently summoned to Parliament as a Baron. During his lordship of the Manor of Loughborough some improvements were made both at Beaumanor and Quorndon, and a water-mill was erected at each place for the benefit of the residents there. He died in 1415, leaving his son John, then only three years old, to succeed him. No provision having been made for his support during his minority, his mother, Elizabeth, daughter of William Lord Willoughby D’Eresby, petitioned the king and obtained an assignment of £40 a year for that purpose.
When he had but recently attained his majority, the young king, Henry VI., conferred upon him the title of Earl of Boulogne, by letters patent. This was intended as a resentment against the Duke of Burgundy, who had deserted the English cause. All the military skill of the English had been baffled by the renowned Maid of Orleans [3], and an eternal blot had been affixed to the English name by her cruel immolation. Calais was threatened by the traitor Duke, and Gloucester was sent to its succour. Lord Beaumont, with twenty men-at-arms and eighty archers, was on his way to its relief when the king conferred upon him his new title. It proved to be little more than a title on parchment - the very ghost of an earldom. Four years afterwards, however, he got more substantial honour by his creation as Viscount Beaumont, he being the first who had borne that dignity in England. He had, says an old document, "place in the Parliament howse next after the Earles, and next before Barons; which order, taking the originall from him, is yet observed to this day." In July of the same year the Duke of York was appointed Regent of France for a period of five years, and Viscount Beaumont was chosen as one of three persons who should assist him in his government. By the death of his wife, Lady Elizabeth, daughter of William Phelip, Lord Bardolph, he obtained a grant of the custody of all castles, manors, and lands that came by her decease to his son Henry. The son appears to have soon followed the mother, and both were buried in the church of Donington, as appears by the following old monumental inscription given by Weever:
"Henry de Bello Monte, son and heyre of John Viscount Beaumont, and Elizabeth his wyef, daughter and heyre of William Phelippe, Lord Bardolph, and heyre to the third part of Orpingham. Which dyed, MCCCCXLIL"
In his second marriage he espoused Catherine, the daughter of Lord Neville, the first Earl of Westmoreland. She was then in her second widowhood, having been the Duchess of Norfolk, and then the wife of Thomas Strangeways, Esq. After Lord Beaumont’s death she took Sir John Widville [Woodville] as her fourth husband. Among the Paston Letters [4] there is a letter from her, in 1434, to "our trusty and heartily well beloved John Paston, Esq., in which she informs him of an intended visit, praying that his place there may be ready for them, "for we will send our stuff (beds, bed-hangings, etc.), thither to fore (before) our coming; and such agreement as we took with you for the same, we shall duly perform it with the might of Jesu, who have you in his blessed keeping."
As a further mark of the Royal favour, Viscount Beaumont was made High Constable of England, and subsequently Lord High Chamberlain, in which offices many important and responsible duties devolved upon him; one of these was the arrest and imprisonment of the Duke of Gloucester in 1447, on the charge of having, as Protector of the Realm, put many persons to death in an improper and illegal manner. While in prison the Duke was murdered, and although Beaumont was privy to the conspiracy against him, he yet may have had no share in bringing about its bloody termination.
There are several letters to Beaumont in the Paston collection, but unfortunately we have none from him. One of these letters is from the Duke of Buckingham, thanking him for his "good and gentle letters," and sending an obligation by which Beaumont might obtain part payment of a debt that the Duke frankly owns he has not "stuff of money" to pay him with. From two other letters, one from his son-in-law Lord Lovel, and the other from Eleanor, Duchess of Norfolk, we learn in what a princely style a nobleman’s household was managed and constituted, and that the principal offices were conferred by their own letters patent. From two other letters, exhibiting the lawlessness and insecurity of the age, and probably addressed to him semi-officially, we select the following, which may serve to continue, chronologically, that picture of the condition of Loughborough already given, since not being a corporate town the guarantees of order would not be near so strong as at Coventry:
"To my worshipful and reverend Lord John Viscount Beaumont.
"Right worshipful and my reverend and most special Lord, I recommend me unto your good grace in the most humble and lowly wise that I can or may, desiring to hear of your prosperity and welfare, as to my most singular joy and special comfort.
And if it please your Highness, as touching the sudden adventure that fell lately at Coventry, please it your Lordship to hear, that on Corpus Christi even last passed [5], between eight and nine o'clock at afternoon, Sir Humphrey Stafford had brought my master, Sir James of Ormond, towards his inn from my Lady of Shrewsbury, and returned from him towards his inn, he met with Sir Robert Harcourt coming from his mother’s towards his inn, and passed Sir Humphrey; and Richard his son came somewhat behind, and when they met they fell ‘in hands togyder (together),’ and Sir Robert smote him a ‘grette stroke on the hed’ with his sword, and Richard with his dagger hastily went towards him, and as he stumbled one of Harcourt’s men smote [hit] him on the back with a knife; men wot (know) not who it was readily; his father heard a noise and rode towards them, and his men ran before him thitherward; and in the going down off his horse, one, we wot [know] not who, behind him, smote on the head with an edged tool; men know not with us what weapon, that he fell down, and his son fell down before him as good as dead; and all this was done, as men say, in a Paternoster while [6].
And forthwith Sir Humphrey Stafford's men followed after, and slew two men of Harcourt's, one Swynerton and Bradshawe, and more be hurt, some be gone, and some be in prison in the jail at Coventry.
And before the Coroner of Coventry, upon the sight of the bodies, there be indicted as principals for the death of Richard Stafford, Sir Robert Harcourt and the two men that be dead, and for the two men of Harcourt's that be dead, there be indicted two men of Sir Humphrey's as principals, and as yet there hath been nothing found before the Justice of the Peace of Coventry of this riot, because the Sheriff of Warwickshire is dead, and they may not sit unto the time there be a new Sheriff; and all this mischief fell because of an old debate that was between them for taking of a distress, as it is told.
And Almighty Jesu preserve your high estate, my special Lord, and send you long-life and good health. Written at Coventry on Tuesday next after Corpus Christi Day, etc.,
By your own poor servant, JOHN NORTHWOOD.”
This letter was written sometime between 1440 and 1450, and it is singular that some thirty years after a similar quarrel took place in Loughborough itself. How it originated we do not know, but probably it was a street scuffle arising out a private feud, in which the retainers of the principals took part. The fact was found by Burton [7], recorded in a monument in the church, since destroyed, which set forth that Gilbert Mering, a gentleman of Nottinghamshire, with his two servants, Oliver Farnsworth and John Lilley were slain in the town, in a quarrel, in 1481. His arms were argent [silver], on a chevron, sable, three scallops, or [gold].
The civil war was now waging. The country was divided into two factions, Lancastrians and Yorkists, the former supporting the reigning family, and the latter maintaining the hereditary right of the house of York. War and bloodshed desolated the kingdom, and few men could keep aloof from the struggle. Beaumont was of course a Lancastrian. A somewhat humorous poem in the Archaeologia, entitled “Verses on the State, by a Lancastrian, 1458,” [8] likened the English State to a ship, after the manner of the Grecian Alcmæon [from Greek myth)] and the Roman Horace [a Roman poet], but with more detail. One of the verses thus refers to Beaumont:—
“Thys good shype hath ankers thre,
Of bether mettle ther may non be
To strenthe the shype by londe and se,
When he wolle stop his tyde.
The furst anker, hole and sounde,
He is named the lord Beamond.”
In fact, he proved his metal by his steadfast adherence to the Royal cause and his death on the field of Northampton, in the memorable battle of July, 1460, when “after long fighte,” as Fabyan [9] has it, “the king’s hoost was sparbled (dispersed).”
Beaumont was succeeded by his younger son William, who, coming to both paternal and maternal estates, was called Viscount Beaumont and Baron Bardolph. He married, as his first wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Richard Scrope, and for his second wife Joan, the daughter of Humphrey, Duke of Buckingham. Following the example of his father, he firmly adhered to the White Rose or Lancastrian side. He was taken prisoner at the battle of Towton, on Palm Sunday, in 1461, March 29, and in a Parliament held in November of the same year, Lord Hastings, the future owner of the manor of Loughborough, being one of the nobles present, he was attainted, and all his lands and titles were to be forfeited to the Crown. He then held, scattered over several counties, no less than one hundred valuable manors, with their several members and the advowsons of church appertaining thereto.
A new family now became possessed of the town of Loughborough and the outlying villages—the family of Hastings. Lord Hastings was knighted on the field of Towton, and appears to have received a grant of many of Viscount Beaumont’s Leicestershire lands almost immediately. The reversion of the manor and lordships of Beaumanor, Whitwick, Hugglescote, Donington, and Markfield, held by the Duchess of Norfolk for the term of her natural life, was conferred upon “William Hastings, our Chamberlain,” as the grant says, whilst the manor and lordship of Loughborough, Whittington, and Sheepshed [now Shepshed], all for the sake of honour called “Winchester fee,” [10] with lands, tenements, reversions, &c., which belonged to Beaumont in Barrow, Quorndon, Folkingham, Lavington, &c., and the lordship, manor, and castle of Ashby-de-la-Zouch, were similarly conferred. He was to hold all these of the king by military service. In 1467 another grant was made of the Lordship and manor of Loughborough, etc., in which Hastings was to hold it of the king by homage in lieu of all service.
The attainder of Viscount Beaumont was, to say the least of it, unjust and cruel. His previous fidelity to a king ought certainly to have won for him some better mark of esteem from a generous enemy. If he had served the first ill, there would have been small ground for assuming that he would have served the second better. But such are the fortunes of war. The traitor sometimes gets the glory whilst the steadfast adherent is covered with shame and calumny.
The misfortunes of Beaumont, however, were not ended. Although attainted, he was free to do as he chose. At the disastrous battle of Barnet, in 1471, he took part with John, Earl of Oxford, and fled with him from the field. From Scotland, their first retreat, they went into France. Their restless natures could not long brook this exile. They landed in Cornwall, and with a few men surprised the strong fortress of Saint Michael’s Mount, where they lived for some time by revengefully pillaging the surrounding country. Against them arms were of little avail, but the Sheriff of the county offering a free pardon to all who would forsake them, the garrison became disaffected, and Oxford at last surrendered.
The king was very angry with Beaumont, and at one time, according to one chronicler, refused even to spare his life. However, he seems to have either received the royal clemency, or been sheltered by a powerful friend. Soon after the battle of Bosworth Field, Viscount Beaumont, deeming it perhaps a favourable opportunity, presented a petition to the King and the House of Commons for restoration to his lands. The petition is a curious specimen of the language of the time, and has it has not before been printed entire, even in Nichol’s large county history [11], we make no excuse for transcribing it here.
“To the King our Liege Lord; humbly beseecheth your Noble Grace, your true Subgitt and Liegeman, John Beaumont, eldest son of Henry Beaumont, late of Goodeby (Goadby) in the Shire of Leycestre, Gentilman, which in the service of the most blessed and Christen Prynce Henry VIth, late King of England, upon Palme Sunday, in the Felde, called Saxton Felde, in Battail was slayn; and after, for that cause, was by an Act of Atteyndre, made in the Parliament of Edward IIII, late King of England, holden at Westm’ the IIII day of November, In the first yere of his Raigne, atteynt of High Treason, and by the same Acte, forfeited to the same late King all his Inheritaunce, as in the same Acte is expressed more at large.
Wherfore, it may please your Highnes, of your habundant (sic) grace, by the advis and assent of the Lordes Spirituelx and Temporalx, and the Comens, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the auctorite [authority] of the same, to ordeigne, establish, and enacte, that the said Acte, and all Actes of Atteynder or Forfaiture had or made in the said Parliament, holden at Westm’ the said IIIIth day of Novemb’, ayenst the said Henry Beaumont, late of Godeby, in the Shire of Leycestre, Gent’, his heires, or Feoffees to his use, by whatsoever name or names the said Henry be called or named in the said Acte or Actes, be utterly voide, adnulled, and of no force ne effecte. And also by the said advise and auctorite, to ordeigne, establish, and enacte, that the said John Beaumont, your Suppliaunt, and his heires, enter, have possede, inherit, clayme, and enjoye all Landes, Tenements, Rents, Revercions, Services, Fees, Advowsons, Hereditaments, and Possessions, in like manner and fourme, and in as large and availlable wyse, as your said S. or his heires should or myght have had or done, if the said Acte or Actes, ne eny of them, had never be had ne made; the same Acte and Actes notwithstanding.
And that the same Actes, ne eny of theym, ne eny Letters Patentes made by occasion or reason of the same, be not in eny wyse hurtfull or prejudiciall to your said S., ne to his heires, ne to eny of theyme; ne to the said Feffees, of, in, or for the premisses or eny of theyme. And that your said S., and his heires, have such avauntage in everything, and be in as good case, as if the said Actes, ne any of them, had never been made.
And that the entre, season (seisin), and possession of your said S. into the forsaid Landes, Tenements, and other premises, and every parte thereof, by this Acte, be good, lawfull and effectual to your said S. and his heires, without any other Suyte for the same, or any parcell thereof, to be made out of your handes, by Petition, Livere, or otherwise, after the cours of your Lawes.
And that the same entre, season, and possession in or of the premisses, be to your said S. and to his heires, of as grete force, strength, and effecte in your Lawe, as if your same S., the same Landes, etc., in due fourme had severally sued by Petition, or by due and lawfull Livery, or otherwise out of your handes, according to your Lawes, and as if the same Acte or Actes, ne eny of theym, had never been made ne had.
Howbeit the same Landes etc., or any parcell thereof, were or be holden of You, Soveraigne Lord; or your Noble progenitours Kings of England, in Cheif or otherwise; and as if you Soveraigne Lord, had be answered (paid, or satisfied) for everything to You belonging or pertayning in that behalf. And that no manner of persone, the whiche, after the said IIIIth day of Novemb’, and afore the first day of this present Parliament, had taken any issues, proffits of eny of the said Landes, or any parcell thereof, be in eny wyse sued, vexed, or troubled, for eny such of proffits or intermedlying before the said first day, by your said S. or his heires, or executors, ne eny other to the use of theym or every of theym utterly acquytted and discharged for ever: Savyng to every of your Liegemen and theire heires, and to the heires of every of theym, such accion, right, title, and interesse, as they or eny of theym had in the forsaid Landes etc., the tyme of the said Atteyndre, or eny tyme sith [since], other than by meanes of eny Letters Patentes, Yeftes (gifts), or Grauntes, made sith the tyme of the said Acte or Actes of Atteyndre or Forfaiture made: And he shall ever pray to God for the preservarcione of your most noble and royall estate.”
The answer to the petition is recorded on the margin in the Parliamentary rolls. It is that the Petition having been read and considered, with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, the Commons, and the King of England, in Parliament assembled, answer be given as follows: “Soit fait come il est desire.” [12]
This was in 1485. For a couple of years the reinstated Viscount was summoned to Parliament by writ in the usual way, and enjoyed the estates of which he had been deprived for a quarter of a century. Fresh misfortunes, however, were in store for him. His misfortune and his losses had impaired his reason, and at the expiration of these two short years a bill was passed by which the king and his deputies were “to have the rule” of his estate, he being declared “not of sadness ne discrecion neither to rule and kepe himself nor his said lyvelode.”
Every schoolboy knows how the poet Sophocles [13] did when a similar charge was brought against him by his sons, and how triumphantly he confounded them, but the now weak Viscount does not appear to have had any resource left him, and posterity readily acquiesces in the sentence thus pronounced upon him. In 1496, this measure was confirmed, and whatever grants had been made by the king out of it were also confirmed and established. In a few years the Viscount himself died, and thus closes our account of the Beaumonts as Manorial Lords of Loughborough.
END OF CHAPTER 7
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Notes
[1] Close Rolls is the name given to the parchment documents that began to be saved and maintained by Chancery from 1204. They contained information like land grants by the crown, charitable records, wills, writs etc. all of which were private, although not necessarily royal. Hence rolling them, and sealing them with the royal seal of the time ensured their long-term privacy. Here's some further information.
[2] Apologies, I’ve drawn a complete blank on this one! As it’s used for lining sleeves, perhaps it’s some kind of silk??
[3] Joan of Arc (d.1431), who played such a role in the Siege of France during the Hundred Years’ War, between England and France, that she became the patron saint of France.
[4] The Paston family were gentry from Norfolk, and their correspondence over a period of over 80 years (c.1422-c.1509) has been preserved.
[5] Corpus Christi is a Christian festival that reinforces the truth of transubstantiation of bread and wine into the actual body of Christ, and is usually held on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, which itself is the Sunday following Pentecost, and therefore 8 weeks after Easter Sunday.
6] I always thought a Paternoster was a type of lift, but hey ho, apparently it’s a term that’s no longer used, but which used to mean a short space of time.
[7] Burton, William (1662). ‘Description of Leicestershire; containing matters of antiquity, history, armoury, and genealogy’.
[8] This poem was published in a journal called ‘Archaeologia’, the particular issue being Volume 29, Issue 2, January 1842, the specific poem starting on page 326
[9] Robert Fabyan (died c. 1513), a draper, Sheriff, and alderman in London, wrote a book called ‘Fabyan’s Chronicles’, a collection of accounts of British History from the time of King Brutus to the death of Henry VII.
[10] Possibly something to do with Robert Burnell, archbishop of Bath and Wells for about a year (1278), and advisor to Edward I – but this may be completely wrong!
[11] Nicolls, John (1795-1815). ‘The History and Antiquities of the county of Leicester’.
[12] An historic expression used to indicate royal assent, i.e. signifying that a private act of parliament was approved by the reigning monarch. Translated it means “Let if be as it is desired.”
[13] Ah, not
being a schoolboy, I had to look this up! Apparently, the sons of the Greek
playwright Sophocles tried to have him declared mentally incompetent to manage
his own affairs, so that they might control his estate, and in court, in his
defence he read from his work ‘Oedipus at Colonus’, which rather
impressed the judges as being not something someone with mental health issues
would have been able to write.
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Links to older chapters
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Transcribed and presented here with the kind permission of the British Newspaper Archive. https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/
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Posted by
lynneaboutloughborough
With apologies for
typos which are all mine!
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Dyer, Lynne (2026). Goadby’s History of Loughborough, Chapter 7. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2026/02/goadbys-history-of-loughborough-chapter.html [Accessed 18 February 2026]
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