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
Sir Henry of Grace-Dieu did not long enjoy his title. He died about the
tenth of July 1605, and was buried on the thirteenth. By his will,
witnessed by his brother Francis, and probated February 1606, Sir Henry
left half of his private estate to his sister, Elizabeth "for her
advancement in marriage," and the other half to be divided equally
between John and Francis. He was succeeded as head of the family by
John,[27] who later married a daughter of John Fortescue--also of a
poetic race--and left by her a large family. The sister, Elizabeth
(Mirtilla) probably continued to live at Grace-Dieu until her marriage
to Thomas Seyliard of Kent. And that Francis occasionally came home on
visits from London we have other proof than that afforded by Drayton.
The provision of a competence made by Sir Henry's will leads us to
conjecture that the subsequent dramatic activity of the younger brother
was undertaken for sheer love of the art; and that, while his finances
may have been occasionally at low ebb, the association in Bohemian
_menage_ with John Fletcher, which followed the years of residence at
the Inner Temple, was a matter of choice, not of poverty.
FOOTNOTES:
[15] _Inns of Court and Chancery_ (Lond., 1912), p. 45; W. R.
Douthwaite, _Gray's Inn, its History and Associations_ (Lond., 1886),
pp. 36, 78, 253. For the Beaumonts, and what follows, see, also,
Inderwick, _Inner Temple Records_ (Lond. 1896), I, 421; II, 435;
Introductions, and subjects as indexed.
[16] _Inns of Court, etc._, p. 163.
[17] The Dedication first appears in the folio of 1616.
[18] H. E. Duke, K. C., M. P., _Gray's Inn in Six Lectures on the Inns
of Court and of Chancery_, 1912.
[19] _Early English Classical Tragedies_, Introduction, p. lxxxvi.
[20] Letters and Life of Francis Bacon, I, 342.
[21] Cunliffe, _E. E. Class. Tragedies_, p. lxxxvi.
[22] Reprinted by _Dramaticus, Sh. Soc. Pap._ III, 94 (1847).
[23] _Dramaticus_, (as above).
[24] On these identifications, see Fleay, _Chron. Eng. Dr._, I,
143-145; Elton, _Michael Drayton_, pp. 13, 58; Child, _Michael
Drayton_ (in _Camb. Hist. Lit._, IV, 197, _et seq._).
[25] Gardiner, _Hist. Engl._ 1603-1607, p. 87.
[26] Shaw's _Knights of Engl._, Vol. II, under dates.
[27] Grosart (_D. N. B._ art. _John Beaumont_) says that John had been
admitted to the Inner Temple with Henry. John does not appear in
Inderwick.
CHAPTER IV
THE VAUX COUSINS AND THE GUNPOWDER PLOT