EPONYMOUS FAMILIES OF DORSET. 131 



metal upon a metal ! As Dogberry might say, "This is flat 

 perjury." 



BARET, OF LIDLINCH BARET. 



We have very few records of this family ; and such as there 

 are already inscribed in Hutchins' History of Dorset. The 

 family seem to have been small landowners and manorial lords 

 for about 200 years. 



They first appear in Dorset about 1280, and a few years after 

 are found as part owners of one knight's fee in Bere Racket, 

 which had recently belonged to Robt. de Compton and Henry 

 de Bere. A John Baret in 1487 witnessed a charter relating 

 to the refounding of almshouses at Sherborne, and appears 

 again in the same capacity in relation to another deed in 

 1489. 



Coker (p. 94) says that Perry (? Barry) Court at Sturminster 

 was once the seat of William Barrett, of Lidlinch. 



BEAUMONT, OF BEAUMONT'S LANDS. 



The family of Beaumont, owners of the Manor of Little 

 Puddle, to part of which the name of " Beaumont's Lands " was 

 afterwards given, has some points of special interest ; being of 

 somewhat different character to those hitherto mentioned, 

 in that it starts into history fully equipped with baronial 

 honours. 



The name is often Latinised as De Bellomonte, but the family 

 now under our notice should not be confounded with the earlier 

 one of Bellomont, Earls of Leicester and Mellent, which died 

 out in the person of Robert fitz Parnell de Bellomont in 1204; 

 whereas the eponymous family now in view owe their origin to a 

 certain Henry Beaumont, who first appears in 1307, when he is 

 styled the " Blood relation of the King," and is summoned to 

 Parliament by writ from 1309 to 1339, by which summons the 

 Barony of Beaumont, still extant, was created. . His origin is, 

 perhaps, sufficiently indicated, in heraldic cryptogram, by his 

 bearing the first quarter of the Royal Arms of England, charged 

 with a lion rampant and abated with a baton. 



