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
There is nothing, indeed, in the career of Beaumont's brother, John, as
commonly recorded, or in the temper of his poetry to indicate a refusal
on his part to disavow the supremacy of Rome in ecclesiastical affairs,
or to attend regularly the services of the Protestant Church. His
writings speak both loyalty and Protestant Christianity. But it is to be
noted that not only many of his kinsmen but his wife, as well, belonged
to families affiliated with Roman Catholicism, and that his eulogistic
poems addressed to James are all of later years,--after his kinsman,
Buckingham, had "drawn him from his silent cell," and "first inclined
the anointed head to hear his rural songs, and read his lines"; also
that it is only under James's successor that he is honoured by a
baronetcy. It is, therefore, not at all impossible that, because of some
careless or over-frank utterance of fellow-feeling for his Catholic
connections, or of repugnance for the unusually savage measures adopted
after the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot, he may have been accused of
recusancy, deprived of part of his estate, and driven into the seclusion
which he maintained at Grace-Dieu till 1616 or thereabout.
FOOTNOTES:
[28] John Morris, _Life of Father John Gerard_, p. 311, _et seq._
[29] Morris, _op. cit._, p. 113. See below, Appendix, Table D.
[30] Gardiner, _Hist. Engl._ 1603-1642, I, 234.
[31] Morris, p. 360. See also, below, Appendix, Table D.
[32] Fletcher's connections, also, the Bakers, Lennards, and
Sackvilles were interested in the fortunes of Francis Tresham; for he
had married Anne Tufton of Hothfield, Kent, granddaughter of Mary
Baker who was sister of Sir Richard of Sissinghurst and of Cicely,
first Countess of Dorset.--Collins, III, 489; Hasted, VII, 518. See
below, Appendix, Tables D, E.
[33] The facts as here presented are drawn from the _Calendar of State
Papers (Domestic)_, the _Gunpowder Plot Book_, and Father Gerard's
_Narrative_ (in Morris), in the order of dates as indicated.
[34] Nov. 5-8.
[35] Morris, _Life of Father Gerard_, p. 385.
[36] Morris, pp. 413-414.
CHAPTER V
FLETCHER'S FAMILY, AND HIS YOUTH