Francis Beaumont: Dramatist: A Portrait, with Some Account of His Circle, Elizabethan and Jacobean,; And of His Association with John Fletcher — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Francis Beaumont: Dramatist: A Portrait, with Some Account of His Circle, Elizabethan and Jacobean,; And of His Association with John Fletcher
John Stuart Mill · en
Soon afterwards and before 1623, John Beaumont's _Shepherdesse_, spoken
of above, was written. Beside the Nymph, the Marchioness of Buckingham,
those whom the poem describes as living in "our dales,"--and welcoming
Elizabeth Beaumont,--are the father of the Marchioness, the Earl of
Rutland, "his lady," Cicely (Tufton), the stepmother of Katharine
Manners,--and
Another lady, in whose brest
True wisdom hath with bounty equal place,
As modesty with beauty in her face:
She found me singing Flora's native dowres
And made me sing before the heavenly pow'rs,
For which great favour, till my voice be done,
I sing of her, and her thrice noble son.
This other lady, so wise, and bounteous to John Beaumont, is the
Countess of Buckingham, who when John and our Francis were boys, was
poor cousin Maria of the Coleorton Beaumonts. To the Marquis of
Buckingham, "her thrice-noble sonne," John writes many poetic addresses
in later years: of the birth of a daughter, Mall, "this sweete
armefull"; of the birth and death of his first son; of how in his
"greatnesse," George Villiers did not forget him:
You, onely you, have pow'r to make me dwell
In sight of men, drawne from my silent cell;
and of how Villiers had won him the recognition of the King:
Your favour first th' anointed head inclines
To heare my rurall songs, and read my lines.
George Villiers, is "his patron and his friend." In writing to the great
Marquis and Duke, John Beaumont never recalls the kinship; but in
writing to the less distinguished brother, the Viscount Purbeck, he
delicately alludes to it.
In the fortunes of the Vauxes of Harrowden, the Beaumonts would
naturally have continued their interest. Anne, imprisoned after the
Gunpowder Plot, was released at the end of six months. The family
persisted in its adherence to the Catholic faith and politics. As late
as Feb. 26, 1612, "Mrs. Vaux, Lord (Edward) Vaux's mother, is condemned
to perpetual imprisonment, for refusing to take the Oath of Allegiance";
and we observe that on March 21, of the same year, "Lord Vaux is
committed to the Fleet" for a like refusal.[104] Young Lord Vaux got out
of the Fleet, in time married, and lived till 1661.