| Nationality | Beauchamp, Thomas, twelfth earl of Warwick (1337x9–1401), magnate, was the second but eldest surviving son of Thomas Beauchamp, eleventh earl of Warwick (1313/14–1369), and his wife, Katherine Mortimer, both of whom died in 1369. He was born some time between 1337 and 16 March 1339, and became earl of Warwick at his father's death on 13 November 1369. His father had been one of Edward III's most celebrated companions-in-arms. He had played a leading part in the successful campaigns of the opening phase of the Hundred Years' War, and he had been a founder member of the Order of the Garter. Thomas's fate, however, was to come to manhood at a time when the war began to go badly for England, and in mature adult life his political career was played out in the reign of a king who enjoyed much less of a rapport with the nobility than Edward III in his heyday.
Early career
Little is known of Beauchamp's early life. He became heir to the earldom in 1360, when his elder brother, Guy, died, and as a younger son it is perhaps not surprising that he attracted little attention, though he figured in his father's plans for the re-enfeoffment of his inheritance in order to ensure that his younger sons received some endowment. In July 1355 he and his elder brother were knighted shortly before taking part in Edward III's campaign in northern France in 1355. At the conclusion of the campaign the king retained both young men, at a fee of £100 for Guy and 100 marks for Thomas. Thomas's links with the court remained close in the 1360s: he was described as one of the king's bachelors in 1366, and he was a knight of the chamber from 1366 until at least 1369.
Both Guy and Thomas accompanied Edward III on the Rheims expedition of 1359, but the conclusion of the treaty of Brétigny in the following year put an end to large-scale campaigning in France for the time being. Thomas was not content to remain inactive, however, and in 1367 he and his younger brother William went on crusade in Prussia with the Teutonic knights, as their father had done two years earlier, though without repeating their father's spectacular success in returning home with a captive member of the Lithuanian royal house.
When the war with France resumed in 1369, Beauchamp soon became involved in campaigning. In that year he took a small retinue to Calais with John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, at the start of the expedition that was to culminate in his father's raid into Normandy. In 1372, now earl of Warwick, he took part with a retinue of 100 men-at-arms and 160 archers in Edward III's abortive expedition to relieve La Rochelle, and in the following year he brought a much larger retinue to serve with John of Gaunt on the futile long march from Calais to Bordeaux. In 1375 he joined the expedition to Brittany led by Edmund of Langley, earl of Cambridge, and the duke of Brittany, and was accompanied by Hugh Stafford, earl of Stafford, and Edmund Mortimer, earl of March, with both of whom Warwick seems to have formed a close association. His relationship with the court now seems to have been more distant than it had been in the previous decade.
Loyalty and detachment, 1376–1386
None of these expeditions brought Warwick, or his companions-in-arms, any great fame, and he does not seem to have been as close to the king, nearly thirty years his senior, as his father had been. Indeed, his experiences on the unsuccessful Breton campaign may have inclined him to support the critique of the court that was offered by the Commons, with the support of some nobles, notably the earl of March, in the Good Parliament of April 1376. The Commons saw Warwick as a sympathizer, and he was one of the lay members of the committee of lords appointed to discuss with the Commons how best to resolve their grievances.
Warwick was not appointed to any of the continual councils that held office during Richard II's minority, but the Commons evidently regarded him as a trustworthy noble of independent mind. In the parliament of April 1379 he was appointed, along with March and Stafford, to the committee set up to scrutinize royal finances, and he was reappointed to another, similar, commission in the January parliament of the following year. According to Thomas Walsingham, the Commons in that parliament asked for Warwick to be appointed as governor of the young king, but there is no other evidence that the appointment was ever made. Indeed, in April 1380 he was sufficiently free of other commitments to contemplate joining the earl of March in the expedition to Ireland that culminated in March's accidental death the following year. If he went to Ireland, he had returned by the end of the summer, for in September he joined Gaunt on an expedition to the Scottish border to enforce the truce.
According to the Anonimalle chronicle Warwick was with the king in the Tower of London in June 1381 when the rebellious peasants of Kent and Essex marched on London, but none of the chroniclers reveal what advice, if any, he gave the young king at this moment of crisis. He may have supported the policy of confronting the rebels, for he rode with Richard to Mile End in the courageous action by which the king persuaded the Essex rebels to return home. In the November parliament of 1381 he was appointed to the committee set up to reform the royal household.
Although relations between the king and some of the nobility, particularly Richard (III) Fitzalan, earl of Arundel, deteriorated in the years after 1381, as Richard came to rely more and more upon a small group of friends at court, there was no sign yet that Warwick shared the developing hostility to the king and his favourites. The two close associates of his earlier career in politics and war, the earls of March and Stafford, were dead by 1386, but he does not seem to have formed any close links with Thomas of Woodstock, duke of Gloucester, and the earl of Arundel, whose hostility to the king was increasingly apparent in these years. His role remained that of a loyal, if rather detached, noble. His participation in the king's expedition to Scotland in 1385 was natural in view of his rank and experience, but he played no part in the disputes that punctuated and followed that expedition. According to the Eulogium, Warwick, together with Gloucester and Arundel, argued that the Wonderful Parliament of 1386 should concentrate on dealing with enemies within (especially the chancellor, Michael de la Pole) rather than abroad. However, the Eulogium's account of the parliament is inaccurate in a number of respects, and no other contemporary source attributes an active part in the parliament to the earl. He was not appointed as a member of the commission established in that parliament to supervise Richard's government for a year from 20 November 1386. He still probably maintained his position of detachment, if not remoteness, from political controversy.
Lord appellant, 1387–1388
Just over a year later, however, Warwick changed his stance and threw in his lot with the king's opponents. In November 1387 he joined Gloucester and Arundel in accusing five of the king's friends of treason, and by the end of December the three lords appellant, now joined by Henry, earl of Derby, and Thomas (I) Mowbray, earl of Nottingham, had compelled the king to submit to their demands and agree to have his favourites brought to trial in parliament. The rest of Warwick's career was to be decisively influenced by his actions in these two months, yet the reasons for them remain obscure. The events of the summer of 1387, in particular the answers given by the judges to Richard's questions about the lawfulness of the proceedings in the Wonderful Parliament, threatened those who had instigated the proceedings—notably Gloucester and Arundel—with the penalties of treason. Yet Warwick had probably not taken a leading part in the proceedings, and was not one of those who were liable to be punished 'as traitors' (RotP, 2.233). Nor, unlike Arundel, had he a history of overt hostility to those around the king, and the king's policy towards France. If he had disapproved, he had done so silently. On the other hand, the steward of the royal household, John Beauchamp of Holt, a member of a cadet branch of Warwick's family, had risen by royal favour and patronage to a position of influence in Worcestershire, culminating in the grant to him of the title of Baron Kidderminster on 10 October 1387. The office of sheriff of Worcestershire was hereditary in Warwick's family, and he had extensive estates both there and in Warwickshire. The rise of a potential rival for the loyalty and service of the gentry of the west midland counties may have been decisive in inclining Warwick to join the king's opponents. For their part Gloucester and Arundel no doubt welcomed Warwick's support. His brother William was captain of Calais, and the Beauchamp family more generally had significant social influence both in the midlands and, through marriage, in other parts of England.
The Westminster chronicler suggests that Warwick played a prominent role in the political crisis of November and December 1387. The modern editors of the chronicle, however, have argued that this part of the text may be based on a tract 'written by a member of the earl's household' (Westminster Chronicle, liv), and other chronicles, notably that of Henry Knighton, give Warwick a lesser role. According to Westminster, Michael de la Pole believed that Warwick was the instigator of the movement against the king and his friends, though there is no evidence that this is true. More credible is Westminster's suggestion that Warwick's political stance was more moderate than that of his colleagues. In particular he is said to have opposed a suggestion made about 12 December, that Richard should be deposed, and, according to Westminster, to have declared:
Heaven forfend that I should see a prince so glorious, … a prince to whom at his coronation in common with other lords of this realm I did homage and swore my corporal oath of fealty, now deposed and brought low! For ourselves, such a proceeding could win little honour or glory—on the contrary, it would be discredit for us and undying reproach for our descendants.
Westminster Chronicle, 219
In the light of his own earlier career, and that of his father, this speech has the ring of truth, and Warwick went on to advise his fellow appellants to concentrate on the most urgent matter facing them, the defeat of the army that Robert de Vere, duke of Ireland, was bringing against them from Cheshire.
The other appellants followed Warwick's advice, and de Vere's defeat at Radcot Bridge, Oxfordshire, on 20 December was probably decisive in persuading Richard to accept the appellants' demands to have the five accused and others (including Beauchamp of Holt) brought to trial. There is no evidence that Warwick dissented from the judgments of exile, death, and forfeiture handed down in the parliament: indeed, he subsequently purchased some of the lands in Worcestershire forfeited by the executed Beauchamp of Holt. Even when some nobles pleaded for the life of the king's former tutor, Simon Burley, to be spared, Warwick held out for the sentence of death to be confirmed. At the end of the parliament he was one of three lay lords appointed to the council established to supervise the king until the opening of the next parliament in September 1388.
Arrest, trial, and imprisonment, 1389–1399
Warwick's political career must now have seemed near its end: he was at least fifty in 1389, and he played no part in the diplomatic negotiations that, under Gaunt's leadership, brought England and France close to a final peace by 1394. His loss of the lordship of Gower to Thomas (I) Mowbray, earl of Nottingham, as the result of a lawsuit in June 1397 which reversed the judgment given in his father's favour in 1353, perhaps made him realize that he no longer enjoyed much influence at court. Not only did he have to restore the lordship to Mowbray, but he also had to compensate him by paying him the issues of the lordship from 1361. At Warwick, however, he seems in these years to have completed the construction of the chancel of St Mary's Church, and at the castle he probably completed his father's work on Guy's Tower and began work on the Watergate Tower.
In July 1397 Richard II arrested Warwick, along with Gloucester and Arundel. According to Walsingham, Richard prepared a banquet, rivalling that of Herod in its infamy, to which the three lords would be invited and then detained. Only Warwick accepted the invitation, however, and realized too late that he had walked into a trap. After Richard had commiserated with him over the loss of Gower, he was taken into custody to await trial in the forthcoming parliament. Richard's action in arresting the former appellants received different interpretations at the time: the story in the Traïson et mort de Richart Deux, that Warwick and the others had been involved in a plot against the king, is almost certainly baseless, though Richard may well have thought they were plotting against him and resolved to make a pre-emptive strike. Walsingham saw the arrests as coming out of a clear blue sky, and motivated by malice on the king's part, while the Kirkstall chronicler believed it was an act of revenge by the king for the events of 1387–8. This may well be true: when Warwick and the other appellants were brought to trial in parliament in September, they were charged with treason for their part in the events of those months, and it was evident that their responsibility for the execution of Burley still rankled with Richard.
Warwick's trial marks the nadir of his political career, for though he did not lose his life he forfeited not just his lands and titles but also his self-respect. Both the monk of Evesham and Adam Usk, perhaps using a common source, give a vivid account of the trial. According to Usk he behaved 'like a wretched old woman … wailing and weeping and whining that he had done all, traitor that he was' (Chronicon Adae de Usk, 161). He threw himself on the king's mercy, 'bewailing that he had ever been an ally of the appellees'. Richard was pleased by his confession: according to Walsingham he said it was dearer to him than the value of all the lands of Gloucester and Arundel. The king spared his life, but he was sentenced to the loss of all his lands and his title, and was ordered to be imprisoned on the Isle of Man. It is not known whereabouts he was held: there is no evidence to link him with the so-called Warwick Tower at Peel Castle. His lands were granted to Richard II's supporters: Thomas Holland, duke of Surrey, received Warwick itself, and was appointed guardian of Warwick's heir, Richard, and his wife.
Final years and death
With the overthrow of Richard II in 1399 Warwick was recalled and restored to his lands and honours, though he did not regain Gower. His son was knighted on the eve of Henry IV's coronation, but he himself played little part in politics over the next two years. Both the inventories of his goods, made at the time of his forfeiture in 1397, and his will, drawn up at Warwick in April 1400, suggest that he may have been in financial difficulties as a result of his loss of Gower and the forfeiture of his estates. In his will he ordered his executors to sell his goods and chattels, apart from those that were the subject of specific legacies, and his bequest of gold and silver objects to St Mary's Church, Warwick, was subject to the redemption of the mortgage on them. He died on 8 April 1401, and was buried in the collegiate church of St Mary in Warwick. His tomb was surmounted with modest brass effigies of himself and his wife, compared with the large alabaster effigies of his father and mother on their tomb: perhaps this is another indication of financial difficulties. The tomb was destroyed in a fire in 1694, but the brasses were saved and are now in the south transept of the church.
Some time before 1378 Beauchamp married Margaret, daughter of William, Lord Ferrers of Groby: the exact date is unknown. His son and heir Richard Beauchamp was born on 25 or 28 January 1382, and Richard II stood as godfather at the child's baptism. Apart from Richard their only offspring was a daughter, Catherine, who was alive in 1400 when her father bequeathed her a brooch in his will, but who died before reaching adulthood. His wife died on 22 January 1407 and was buried beside him in the church of St Mary at Warwick. |