Sir John Beaumont, 1st Baronet

Who was Sir John Beaumont, 1st Baronet?

Sir John Beaumont, 1st Baronet was an English poet.

He was born at Grace Dieu Manor, Thringstone in Leicestershire, the second son of the judge, Sir Francis Beaumont and Anne Pierrepont.

The deaths of his father and of his elder brother, Sir Henry Beaumont, made the poet the head of this brilliant family: the dramatist, Francis Beaumont, was his younger brother. John went to University of Oxford, Oxford, Oxfordshire on 4 February 1596/1597, and entered as a gentleman commoner matriculated in Broadgates Hall, later Pembroke College. He was admitted to the Inner Temple in 1598 or 1600, but when his brother Henry died he is thought to have returned to Grace-Dieu to manage the family estates.

He began to write verse early, and in 1602, at the age of nineteen, he published anonymously his Metamorphosis of Tabacco, written in very smooth couplets, in which he addressed Michael Drayton as his loving friend. He lived in Leicestershire for many years as a bachelor, before eventually marrying Elizabeth Fortescue, daughter of John Fortescue and paternal granddaughter of one of the only two married daughters of Sir Geoffrey Pole and Constance Pakenham. The family were Roman Catholics.