B E A 



104 



15 r. \ 



Muffed with straw, and accompanied with line*, indicates 



j>rrior diligence or good fortune of the ship-master. 



Besides the men-hauls who frequent the fair, the business 



done, and tin- vast concourse of people draw a number of 



other persons: there are notaries and legal gentlemen. 



r.iembcrs of the medical profession to attmd to rases of 



'.cut, and undertakers to bury the dead. A 



small rh.ipi-1 occupies the extremity of the plain where the 



h.;t - ninl tent* niv creeled : in this mass is said ; and as the 



prcis cannot be all contained in the chapel, they kneel 



in the meadow with their faces turned tow ards the altar. A 



ureat number of rosaries are sold here. 



Restaurateurs, cafes, billiard-tables, and places for danc- 

 ing offer their attractions; jugglers, showmen with wild 

 beasts, and rope-dancers, seek to profit by the opportunity ; 

 and gaming and debauchery are prevalent. Pickpockets 

 have taken place of the highwaymen who once infested the 

 .. and plundered lho-e who came to or left the fair. 

 The government of the fair is in the hands of the PrcTet 

 of the department, by whom it is solemnly opened. 



The fair was originally established for three days, but the 

 intervention of three saints' days (Magdalen, St. Ann, and 

 Si . .lames), on which, though not reckoned as business days, 

 business goes on, extends the period to six days, viz., from 

 the 22d to the 2sth July. At its close the merchants 

 depart, the Jews and Catalonians being usually the last to 

 go ; and the town is left to its ordinary dullness till the 

 return of this extraordinary scene. 



BEAUFORT, the name of several places in France, of 

 which one only is of sufficient importance to require notice. 

 Beaufort en Vallee (or Beaufort la I'ille), with its suburb 

 Beaufort en Franchise (otherwise Beaufort hori In }'////), 

 is in the department of Maine-et-Loire, about seventeen 

 miles, measured in a straight line, E. by S. of Angers, the 

 capital of the department. The town and suburb are sepa- 

 rated from each other by a branch of the little river Coesnon 

 or Couanon, which soon afterwards falls into the Authion, 

 one of the minor feeders of the Loire. The chief trade of 

 the town in former times consisted in corn ; but the more 

 modern authorities speak of manufactures of coarse li 

 nens for the use of the army, hempen cloths, series, drug- 

 gets, and hats. Hemp is grown in the surrounding dis- 

 trict, which produces also corn and vegetables. Before the 

 Revolution there were in Beaufort la Yille two parish 

 churches and a convent of Recollcts, a class of Franciscans. 

 The population, in 1832, comprehending, probably, both 

 Beaufort la Ville and its suburb, was 3288 for the town, 

 and 5914 for the whole commune. 47 2i' N. lat., and 

 13' W. long, from Greenwich. (Piganiol de la Force, 

 Dictionnai'-e Universe! de /<i 1'ruiwf.) 



BEAUFORT, CARDINAL. Henry Beaufort, Bishop 

 of Winchester and Cardinal of St. Eusebius, was a son ol 

 John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster (lather of Henry IV.), 

 b\ his mistress Catherine Swynford, whom he subsequently 

 married. His children by this woman, all born before wed- 

 lock, were legitimated by the name of Beaufort in the 

 twentieth year of the reign of Richard II. We arc unable 

 to state the exact year of Cardinal Beaufort's birth ; but 

 from the circumstance of his having been consecrated a 

 bishop when 'very young,' in 1397, and that he is spoken of 

 on his death-bed as 'an old man of eighty,' we infer that it 



..bout the year 1.17(1. He studied at Oxford, Cu inl- 

 and Aix-la-Chapelle. In 1397 he was created bishop of Lin- 

 coln (he is erroneously called bishop of London in the l\ir 

 liantfiiturij History); became chancellor of the Univcr.-ity 

 of Oxford in 1.199; and in 140-1 succeeded the celebrated 

 William of Wyckhnm as bishop of Winchester. In the 

 parliaments of 1-10-1 and 1405 he officiated as lord ch.m- 

 ccllor, an office which he filled four times during his life. 

 The bishoprick of Winchester was then, as at present, one 

 of the richest endowments in the English church; and 

 Beaufort, from habits of frugality according to some writers, 

 from sordid covetousness according to others, multiplied his 

 riches so as to become the wealthiest subject in Enghnd. 

 He advanced l.is nephew, Henry V., by way of loan, out of 



vn private purse not less than 28.000/. during hi- 

 in France; and also lent the infant king, Hei:ry VI. , 

 I l.iiUO/., sums which, the circumstances of the times being 



dcred, were of enormous magnitude. 



On the death of Henry V. in 1 122, Beaufort (with his 



brother, alti-r.vard- Duke ,>| K\e|er) was appointed guardian 



of his infant successor : Beaufort was also a member of the 



council of regency, of which the king's uncle, Humphrey. 



Duke of Gloucester, was the novninai head. The struggle for 

 supremacy between these ambitions men, which soon as- 

 sumed the character ul '. r >utt ->. i the 

 |iriimnient feature u! the intern:.! : Knghnd from 

 the year 1424 to the jear of their death, in 1 117. The pre- 

 late being a man ' well skilled in all the means prml 

 suggests to the ambitious in accomplish their ends' (v.e 

 quote the words of Rapin). ultimately triumphed in the 

 struggle, which on more than one occasion threatened to 

 inllict upon the country all the ills of civil war. The quarrel 

 first assumed a warlike aspect in 1 I2li. The riti/.uns of 

 London were of the parly of the duke. Tt> 'icui 

 the bishop strengthened the garrison of the Tower, which 

 the council, under his influence, had intrusted to the care of 

 Sir Richard W\de\ile, a creature of his own. ] 

 currcd during a temporary absence of Gloucester on the ( 'on- 

 I incut . On his return he demanded lodgings in the Tower, 

 but was refused, Wydevilc having orders to admit 'no one 

 more powerful than himself.' In his resentment the duke 

 ordered the gates of the city to be closed against the prelate. 

 The next morning the retainers of Beaufort attcmp' 

 force the gates a! London Bridge. The citizens Hew {,< . 

 and bloodshed was with difficulty averted by the Archbishop 

 of Canterbury and the Prince of Portugal, wh > happened 

 to be then in Engl .ml. prevailing upon the two parties to 

 suspend their feuds till the Duke of Bedford, the recent, 

 who had been written to, should arrive from Paris. The 

 bishop's letter to the Duke of Bedford on this occasion is 

 worth quoting : 



' I recommend me unto you with all my heart ; and as 

 you desire the welfare of the king our sovereign lord and of 

 his realms of England and France, and your own health and 

 ours also, so haste you hither : for, by my troth, if you tarry 

 we shall put this land in a jeopardy with afield: such a 

 brother you have here. God make htm a good man. For 

 your wisdom knoweth that the profit of France standeth in 

 the welfare of England. Written in great haste on Alhallow 

 Even, by y true servant to rny lives end, 



HEN. WINTON." 



(Hall's Chronicles ; the letter is also printed in the second 

 scries of Ellis's Hist. Letters.) 



The Duke of Bedford hastened from Paris to reconcile 

 the rivals, but found it expedient to refer the matter to a 

 parliament summoned for the purpose at Leicester. This 

 parliament is known by the nickname of the 'parliament of 

 hats,' a nickname which, in its origin, aptly illustrates the 

 temper of the partizans of the bishop and of Gloui 

 and throws some light on the state of manners. In order 

 to prevent the consequences of strife among armed men, 

 the members of the parliament summoned at Leicester 

 were ordered to leave their swords and other weapons 

 usually worn by the gentry at their inns: their followers, 

 however, with a view to defeating this prohibition, attended 

 them with bats, or clubs, on their shoulders ; and when 

 these also were forbidden they concealed stones and plum- 

 mets of lead in their sleeves and bosoms. (Purliamentary 

 Jli\ii,rtj, vol. i. p. 354.) 



Among other charges put forward by the Duke of Glou- 

 cester, in a bill of impeachment against his uncle Beau- 

 fort, was an accusation that he had hired an assassin to 

 take away the life of the late King Henry V., at the time 

 Prince of Wales ; and that he had encouraged the prince to 

 usurp the throne before the death of his father. Gloucester 

 professed to make this charge on the authority of Henry 

 himself; but the bishop triumphantly opposed to that ; 

 mony the fact that Henry had, to the last moment of his 

 life, honoured him with his friendship and confidence. After 

 much wrangling and recrimination, the matter was referred 

 to the arbitration of four spiritual and four temporal peers, 

 who awarded that Gloucester should be ' good lord to the 

 bishop, and have him in affection and love,' and that the 

 prelate should preserve to the dnkc ' trew and sad love and 

 affection, and be ready to do him such service as pcrlaineth 

 of honesty to my Lord of Winchester ami : ite to 



do.' A formal public reconciliation then took place between 

 the tWO disputants j but the bishop felt tin.- award to be so 

 much of a reproof, that lie resigned the chancellorship, and 

 obtained leave to go abroad, (The letter of leave is given 

 in the second seiies <.)' Ellis's ////. Letters.) Beaufort ac- 

 companied Bedford in his return to France ; and nt Calais 

 1 the welcome intelligence that the pope had raised 

 him to the dignity of cardinal, and had appointed him V 

 '! lattre, for the purpose of directing an English force in a 



