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
By will, probably September 3, 1599, William's son, Henry, left all his
"manners, lands, tenements, and hereditaments, in the countie of Kent or
else where within the realme of England, unto Jane my lovinge wief in
fee simple, viz{^t} to her and her heires for ever, to the end and purpose
that she maye doe sell or otherwise dispose at her discretion the same,
or such parte or soe much thereof as to her shall seeme fitt, for the
payement of all my just and true debts ... and also for the bringing up
and preferment in marriage of Ursula and Una, the two daughters or
children of her the said Jane, my lovinge wief." That the children were
not, however, stepdaughters of Henry, is pointed out by Dyce, who quotes
the manuscript of Vincent's _Leicester_, 1619: "Ursula, the daughter and
coheir [evidently with Una] of Henry Isley."[109] In fact, Henry had
named Ursula after his mother, the daughter of Nicholas Clifford.
It will be remembered that Beaumont's sister Elizabeth became the wife
of a Thomas Seyliard of Kent. The Seyliards were one of the oldest
families in the vicinity of Sundridge; and Thomas would be of Brasted,
which adjoins Sundridge westward, a quarter of a mile from Sundridge
Place and near the river Darenth; or of Delaware at the south of the
parish; or of Gabriels about a mile from there and seven miles south of
Sundridge; or of Chidingstone close by; or Boxley.[110] If Elizabeth was
married before 1613, it is easy to surmise that during some visit to
her, Beaumont was brought acquainted with Ursula Isley of Sundridge
Place. If not, we may refer the acquaintance to sojournings with his
friend, Fletcher, at Cranbrook or at the Kentish homes of Fletcher's
stepsisters, or with their cousins, the Sackvilles.
We have no proof that Francis Beaumont wrote more than one drama after
the Whitehall festivities of February 1613. Two plays in which he is
supposed by some to have had a hand with Fletcher, _The Captaine_ and
_The Honest Man's Fortune_, were acted during that year; but I find no
trace of Francis in the latter and but slight possibility of it in the
former. We must conclude that from 1613 he lived as a country gentleman.
He would be much more likely to take up his abode at Sundridge, which,
as we have seen, belonged to his wife and her sister, than at Grace-Dieu
Manor; for that was occupied by John Beaumont who had four sons to
provide for. It is, of course, barely possible that one of his father's
properties in Leicestershire or Derby may have fallen to him,--Cottons,
for instance, in the latter county, or that "Manner House of Normanton,
and a close ther called the Parke" mentioned in the Judge's will and in
which house-room was given by him to a "servaunte ... for the tearme of
eleaven yeares" beginning 1598. But the probabilities all point to the
manor house in Kent as the scene of Beaumont's closing years.[111]