SIR JOHN BEAUMONT, 1ST BARONET

“NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project John Beaumont

JOHN BEAUMONT SIR JOHN BEAUMONT

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When Sir Thomas Beaumont, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, founder of the Beaumont family, died, a son succeeded as Sir John Beaumont. (This wasn’t the poet, who wouldn’t be born for more than a century.)

King James II of Scotland deprived Sir George de Dunbar of Kilconquhar, 11th earl of Dunbar, 4th Earl of March, of those titles. He had been the richest man in the kingdom, but all his land and possessions were forfeit. Eventually, however, five branches of this once princely house of Dunbar would attain to baronetcies:

1457

• Mochrum in Galloway (the Senior of this Line)• Durn in Banffshire• Northfield in Moray• Boath in Nairn• Hempriggs in Caithness

CLAN DUNBAR

SIR JOHN BEAUMONT JOHN BEAUMONT

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August 22, Monday (Old Style): There had been another rebellion against the deformed monarch Richard III. On Bosworth Field in Leicestershire, England in what we now consider to have been the last medieval sort of battle engagement, Henry Tudor of the House of Lancaster defeated, with a smaller army, the forces of the House of York, by killing Richard on the field when on his white horse Richard attempted to lead a cavalry charge that would dispose once and for all of the main personage of his opposition. He had arrived within swords-length of Henry Tudor when his horse got onto a piece of marshy ground and he was surrounded, and then he was dispatched by a blow to the head with a halberd wielded by a Welshman. The blow took away the back portion of his skull. The royal corpse would be stripped of its armor, repeatedly desecrated, thrown over a horse with an arrow in the back and a dagger handle protruding up from between the ass cheeks, and then dumped without casket into a grave at Greyfriars in Leicester — a grave so short that even with the corpse’s feet hacked off, its chin was forced onto its chest with what remained of the skull wedged against the dirt.

Since the first blow with the halberd had carried away the back portion of the skull, it would appear that the other head wounds would have been superfluous or symbolic, and if they were symbolic, what they would have symbolized was that this was not the head that should have been wearing England’s crown. However, since there never was any issue as to Richard’s Plantagenet lineage or entitlement, it could be suspected that the reason why this was not the head that should have been wearing England’s crown was merely that this was the head atop a deformed spine. “Only the upright shall rise above us.”

The arrow positioned in the back of the corpse was distinctly symbolic. Normally a wound in the back would indicate that one had been killed while attempting to flee, which would be taken as an indication of contemptible cowardice. “Return with your shield or upon it,” the Spartan mother instructed.

Anal penetration of the corpse by dagger would also have been distinctly symbolic.1 The corpse would be depicted as performing the role of the willing passive partner (the “female” if you will) in an act of copulation, or as performing the role of the powerless victim of an act of homosexual rape. The message to be read in this final desecration of the corpse, clearly, was “Here was a man of contemptible weakness.” We were righteous because we were able to kill him and he unrighteous because he was unable to prevent us from killing him, QED. Now that he is dead we can proceed to tell lies about him. (The lies that we will have our poets and historians and playwrights tell will portray him, of course, as the culprit rather than as our victim in order to portray us, of course, as defenders of the realm rather than as regicides.)

1485

1. In the case of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, we can see on the cellphone video that he was still being held standing as one of his captors rammed a bayonet or military knife up through his pants in the rear.

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This nastiness ended the War of the Roses by destroying the dynasty (the sole surviving male Plantagenet would be executed in 1499 by the winner, Henry Tudor, as King Henry VII) and kick-starting the following dynasty — which as we all understand would be Tudor and vastly less nasty.

Per William Shakespeare’s RICHARD III:

CATESBY: Rescue, my Lord of Norfolk, rescue, rescue!The king enacts more wonders than a man,Daring an opposite to every danger:His horse is slain, and all on foot he fights,Seeking for Richmond in the throat of death.Rescue, fair lord, or else the day is lost!

RICHARD: A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!

CATESBY: Withdraw, my lord; I’ll help you to a horse.

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Henry Thoreau would reference the soliloquy with which Shakespeare began RICHARD III, “Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious summer by this sun of York,” in WALDEN; OR, LIFE IN THE WOODS and elsewhere in his writings:

:

WALDEN: Near the end of March, 1845, I borrowed an axe and wentdown to the woods by Walden Pond, nearest to where I intended tobuild my house, and began to cut down some tall arrowy whitepines, still in their youth, for timber. It is difficult to beginwithout borrowing, but perhaps it is the most generous course thusto permit your fellow-men to have an interest in your enterprise.The owner of the axe, as he released his hold on it, said that itwas the apple of his eye; but I returned it sharper than Ireceived it. It was a pleasant hillside where I worked, coveredwith pine woods, through which I looked out on the pond, and asmall open field in the woods where pines and hickories werespringing up. The ice in the pond was not yet dissolved, thoughthere were some open spaces, and it was all dark colored andsaturated with water. There were some slight flurries of snowduring the days that I worked there; but for the most part whenI came out on to the railroad, on my way home, its yellow sandheap stretched away gleaming in the hazy atmosphere, and therails shone in the spring sun, and I heard the lark and pewee andother birds already come to commence another year with us. Theywere pleasant spring days, in which the winter of man’s discontentwas thawing as well as the earth, and the life that had laintorpid began to stretch itself.

KING RICHARD IIIWILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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John Byron, who would be the ancestor of George Gordon, Lord Byron, served in the victorious army of Henry Tudor of the House of Lancaster, who would become King Henry VII of England and Wales:

Chronological observations of America

BY John Josselyn Gent.From

the

year

of t

he W

orld

to the year of Christ 1673.

Henry the Seventh began to Raign.

SIR JOHN BEAUMONT JOHN BEAUMONT

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The buildings and lands of the suppressed nunnery of Gracedieu, near Thringstone in Leicestershire, England, were awarded to the Beaumont family (later, due to dishonorable conduct, this property would be forfeit to the Crown, but the widow would be able to recover the estate and pass it to their son Sir Francis Beaumont).

Dissolution of Glastonbury Abbey, with its buildings looted and torched and with Abbot Richard Whiting hanged atop Glastonbury Tor. After this, what was alleged to be the burial cross of King Arthur would (according to a late 17th century document, Bodleian Rawlinson B.416A, folio 10v) be alleged to lie in the “Reverstry” of St. John Baptist, Glastonbury for approximately an alleged century.

1539

JOHN BEAUMONT SIR JOHN BEAUMONT

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Henry Beaumont was born as the 1st son of Sir Francis Beaumont at the Beaumont family seat in a village known as Grace Dieu, which is near Thringstone in Leicestershire, England. The father was a justice of the common pleas.

Johannes de Laet was born in Antwerp late in the year, a son of cloth merchant Hans de Laet.

In about this year Francis Drake was knighted. In about this year his first wife Mary Newman Drake died.

1581

Chronological observations of America

BY John Josselyn Gent.From

the

year

of t

he W

orld

to the year of Christ 1673.

The Provinces of Holland again seek for aid to the Queen of England.

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Albert Alaskie, a noble Polonian, Prince of Sirad, who visited England to admire the wisdom of Queen Elizabeth, was entertained with stage-plays in the Refectory of Christchurch at Oxford.

John Beaumont was born at Grace-Dieu in Leicestershire, England, 2d son of the judge Sir Francis Beaumont (this John Beaumont would be the poet, with whom we are here most greatly concerned) (normally, being born as the 2d son of a “sir” would men that you would not yourself become a “sir,” but in this case the eldest son, Sir Henry Beaumont, would predecease).

NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT

1583

John Beaumont “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project

JOHN BEAUMONT SIR JOHN BEAUMONT

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Francis Beaumont was born as a son of Sir Francis Beaumont at the Beaumont family seat in a village known as Grace Dieu, which is near Thringstone in Leicestershire, England. The father was a justice of the common pleas.

1584

SIR JOHN BEAUMONT JOHN BEAUMONT

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John Fletcher appears to have entered Corpus Christi College at Cambridge at the age of 11, and there prepared for a career in the church.

Giles Fletcher the Elder’s OF THE RUSSE COMMON WEALTH. OR, MANER OF GOUERNEMENT OF THE RUSSE EMPEROUR, (COMMONLY CALLED THE EMPEROUR OF MOSKOUIA) WITH THE MANNERS, AND FASHIONS OF THE PEOPLE OF THAT COUNTREY (London).

1591

JOHN BEAUMONT SIR JOHN BEAUMONT

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February (1596, Old Style): The 3 sons of Sir Francis Beaumont, Henry, John, and Francis, matriculated together as gentlemen commoners in Broadgates Hall (later Pembroke College) of Oxford University. The youngest, Francis Beaumont was age 13. None of them would remain to receive a degree, each passing on instead to the Inner Temple in London for the study of law.

DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD.

1597

John Beaumont “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project

SIR JOHN BEAUMONT JOHN BEAUMONT

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Sir Francis Beaumont died and so his eldest son, Henry, became Sir Henry Beaumont. Sir Henry, John, and Francis Beaumont would leave Broadgates Hall (now Pembroke College, Oxford) without the degree and study law at the Inner Temple in London.

LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD?— NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES.

LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD.

1598

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project John Beaumont

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John Beaumont and Francis Beaumont transited from Broadgates Hall at Oxford University to the Inner Temple in London, for the study of law.

CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT

1600

John Beaumont “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project

SIR JOHN BEAUMONT JOHN BEAUMONT

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Francis Beaumont’s SALMACIS AND HERMAPHRODITUS.

John Beaumont, who had begun early to write verse, at the age of 19 was able to create an anonymous publication, METAMORPHOSIS OF TABACCO, written in couplets. In this book he addressed Michael Drayton as his loving friend, and for many years, at Grace-Dieu in Leicestershire, he would live as a bachelor while explaining himself as a man “who never felt Love’s dreadful arrow.”

THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

1602

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project John Beaumont

JOHN BEAUMONT SIR JOHN BEAUMONT

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Sir Henry Beaumont died at the age of 24 without male issue and so his younger brother, John, became Sir John Beaumont (the dramatist Francis Beaumont was the third of the brothers). Upon becoming Sir John, it is likely that he left off the study of law at the Inner Temple, and went home to Grace-Dieu in Leicestershire to live as a bachelor “who never felt Love’s dreadful arrow” and manage the family’s estates (belatedly, he would marry with Elizabeth, daughter of John Fortesque of the Queen’s Wardrobe, and the couple would somehow manage to create four sons one of whom would die in childhood).

THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

1605

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project John Beaumont

SIR JOHN BEAUMONT JOHN BEAUMONT

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Sir John Beaumont, during a long retirement on his country estates at Grace-Dieu in Leicestershire, had completed a magnum opus in twelve books entitled THE CROWN OF THORNES, which was greatly admired in manuscript by the Earl of Southampton and others (for many years this was lost, but now it has been found). In this year the Duke of Buckingham managed to persuade him to come into the court. He would be made a baronet.

WHAT I’M WRITING IS TRUE BUT NEVER MINDYOU CAN ALWAYS LIE TO YOURSELF

1626

John Beaumont “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project

JOHN BEAUMONT SIR JOHN BEAUMONT

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April 19, Thursday (Old Style): John Beaumont died.

April 27, Friday (Old Style): The body of John Beaumont was interred at Westminster Abbey. Posthumously, one of his sons, John who would succeed him as Baronet, recognized for his athleticism, would edit his father’s poems, and write an over-the-top elegy.

May 16, Wednesday (Old Style): The estate of Sir John Beaumont was probated. His son John, the athlete, would become the next Sir John, Baronet.

1627

SIR JOHN BEAUMONT JOHN BEAUMONT

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The younger Sir John Beaumont, the athlete, prepared BOSWORTH FIELD; WITH A TASTE OF THE VARIETY OF OTHER POEMS LEFT BY SIR JOHN BEAUMONT, a retrospective of his father’s poetry containing an over-the-top elegy (Bosworth Field, scene of the “A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!” battle celebrated by William Shakespeare, was near the poet’s estate at Grace-Dieu).

At about this point performances were beginning for John Ford’s The Chronicle Historie of Perkin Warbeck. A Strange Truth (perhaps in conjunction with Thomas Dekker), although this would not be printed, as we can see below, until 1634.

1629

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The playwright Ford is best known, however, for his ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore, which also began to be staged in this timeframe. This tragedy’s title would be often changed in successive stagings (sometimes it would be offered for instance as Giovanni and Annabella and eventually historians of the stage would coyly be referring to it, and its incest theme, as The Brother and Sister).

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The younger Sir John Beaumont, the athlete, was killed during the Siege of Gloucester (August 10-September 5).

1643

JOHN BEAUMONT SIR JOHN BEAUMONT

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January 17, Wednesday: Waldo Emerson checked out from Harvard Library, for Henry Thoreau, the 6th volume of Alexander Chalmers’s 1810 anthology, THE WORKS OF THE ENGLISH POETS, FROM CHAUCER TO COWPER,2 the volume that contains William Browne’s “Britannia’s Pastorals” (1613) and “The Shepherd’s Pipe” (1614), Francis Beaumont’s THE HONEST MAN’S FORTUNE, Richard Crashaw’s “Sospetto d’Herode,” Charles Cotton’s “The World,” “The Morning Quatrains,” “Evening Quatrains,” “The Tempest,” “On the Death of the Most Noble Thomas Earl of Ossory,” and “Contentment,” the poetry of Sir John Beaumont, Sir William Davenant’s preface to “Gondibert,” the poetry of Giles Fletcher and Phineas Fletcher, William Habington’s “To Roses in the Bosome of Castara,” and Sir John Birkenhead’s “On the Happy Collection of Mr. FLETCHER’S Works, never before printed.”

Thoreau would make notes on this reading in his Literary Notebook and Miscellaneous Extracts.3

1844

2. THE WORKS OF THE ENGLISH POETS, FROM CHAUCER TO COWPER; INCLUDING THE SERIES EDITED WITH PREFACES, BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL, BY DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON: AND THE MOST APPROVED TRANSLATIONS. THE ADDITIONAL LIVES BY ALEXANDER CHALMERS IN TWENTY-ONE VOLUMES. London, 1810.

3. See page 320 of the William Browne text.

PERUSE VOLUME VI

JOHN BIRKENHEAD

WILLIAM BROWNE

CHARLES COTTON

RICHARD CRASHAW

WILLIAM DAVENANT

GILES FLETCHER

PHINEAS FLETCHER

WILLIAM HABINGTON

SIR JOHN BEAUMONT JOHN BEAUMONT

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PEOPLE OFWALDEN

WALDEN: Breed’s hut was standing only a dozen years ago, thoughit had long been unoccupied. It was about the size of mine. Itwas set on fire by mischievous boys, one Election night, if I donot mistake. I lived on the edge of the village then, and had justlost myself over Davenant’s Gondibert, that winter that I laboredwith a lethargy, –which, by the way, I never knew whether toregard as a family complaint, having an uncle who goes to sleepshaving himself, and is obliged to sprout potatoes in a cellarSundays, in order to keep awake and keep the Sabbath, or as theconsequence of my attempt to read Chalmers’ collection of Englishpoetry without skipping. It fairly overcame my Nervii. I had justsunk my head on this when the bells rung fire, and in hot hastethe engines rolled that way, led by a straggling troop of men andboys, and I among the foremost, for I had leaped the brook. Wethought it was far south over the woods, –we who had run to firesbefore,– barn, shop, or dwelling-house, or all together. “It’sBaker’s barn,” cried one. “It is the Codman Place,” affirmedanother. And then fresh sparks went up above the wood, as if theroof fell in, and we all shouted “Concord to the rescue!” Wagonsshot past with furious speed and crushing loads, bearing,perchance, among the rest, the agent of the Insurance Company,who was bound to go however far; and ever and anon the engine belltinkled behind, more slow and sure, and rearmost of all, as itwas afterward whispered, came they who set the fire and gave thealarm. Thus we kept on like true idealists, rejecting the evidenceof our senses, until at a turn in the road we heard crackling andactually felt the heat of the fire from over the wall, andrealized, alas! that we were there. The very nearness of the firebut cooled our ardor. At first we thought to throw a frog-pond onto it; but concluded to let it burn, it was so far gone and soworthless. So we stood round our engine, jostled one another,expressed our sentiments through speaking trumpets, or in lowertone referred to the great conflagrations which the world haswitness, including Bascom’s shop, and, between ourselves wethought that, were we there in season with our “tub”, and a fullfrog-pond by, we could turn that threatened last and universalone into another flood. We finally retreated without doing anymischief, –returned to sleep and Gondibert. But as for Gondibert,I would except that passage in the preface about wit being thesoul’s powder, –“but most of mankind are strangers to wit, asIndians are to powder.”

DAVENANT

JOHN BEAUMONT SIR JOHN BEAUMONT

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The World.ODE.

IFy! What a wretched World is this?Nothing but anguish, griefs, and fears,Where, who does best, must do amiss,Frailty the Ruling Power bearsIn this our dismal Vale of Tears.

IIOh! who would live, that could but dye,Dye honestly, and as he shou’d,Since to contend with miseryWill do the wisest Man no good,Misfortune will not be withstood.

IIIThe most that helpless man can doTowards the bett’ring his EstateIs but to barter woe for woe,And he ev’n there attempts too late,So absolute a Prince is Fate.

IVBut why do I of Fate complain;Man might live happy, if not free,And Fortunes shocks with ease sustain,If Man would let him happy be:Man is Man’s Foe, and Destiny.

VAnd that Rib Woman, though she beBut such a little little part;Is yet a greater Fate than he,

A WEEK:

Gazed on the Heavens for what he missed on Earth.— Britania’s Pastorals.

PEOPLE OFWALDENPEOPLE OFWALDEN

WILLIAM BROWNE

A WEEK:

Man is man’s foe and destiny.— COTTON.

PEOPLE OFWALDEN

CHARLES COTTON

SIR JOHN BEAUMONT JOHN BEAUMONT

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And has the Power, or the ArtTo break his Peace; nay break his Heart.

VIAh, glorious Flower, lovely pieceOf superfine refined Clay,Thou poyson’st only with a Kiss,And dartest an auspicious RayOn him thou meanest to betray.

VIIThese are the World, and these are theyThat Life does so unpleasant make,Whom to avoid there is no wayBut the wild Desart straight to take,And there to husband the last stake.

VIIIFly to the empty Desarts then,For so you leave the World behind,There’s no World where there are no Men,And Brutes more civil are, and kind,Than Man whose Reason Passions blind.

IXFor should you take an Hermitage,Tho’ you might scape from other wrongs,Yet even there you bear the rageOf venemous, and slanderous tongues,Which to the Innocent belongs.

XGrant me then, Heav’n, a wilderness,And there an endless Solitude,Where though Wolves howl, and Serpents hiss,Though dang’rous, ’tis not half so rudeAs the ungovern’d Multitude.

XIAnd Solitude in a dark Cave,Where all things husht, and silent be,Resembleth so the quiet Grave,That there I would prepare to flee,With Death, that hourly waits for me.

“MAGISTERIAL HISTORY” IS FANTASIZING, HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project John Beaumont

JOHN BEAUMONT SIR JOHN BEAUMONT

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COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In addition to the property of others,such as extensive quotations and reproductions ofimages, this “read-only” computer file contains a greatdeal of special work product of Austin Meredith,copyright 2014. Access to these interim materials willeventually be offered for a fee in order to recoup someof the costs of preparation. My hypercontext buttoninvention which, instead of creating a hypertext leapthrough hyperspace —resulting in navigation problems—allows for an utter alteration of the context withinwhich one is experiencing a specific content alreadybeing viewed, is claimed as proprietary to AustinMeredith — and therefore freely available for use byall. Limited permission to copy such files, or anymaterial from such files, must be obtained in advancein writing from the “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo”Project, 833 Berkeley St., Durham NC 27705. Pleasecontact the project at <Kouroo@kouroo.info>.

Prepared: June 1, 2014

“It’s all now you see. Yesterday won’t be over untiltomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago.”

– Remark by character “Garin Stevens”in William Faulkner’s INTRUDER IN THE DUST

SIR JOHN BEAUMONT JOHN BEAUMONT

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ARRGH AUTOMATED RESEARCH REPORT

GENERATION HOTLINE

This stuff presumably looks to you as if it were generated by ahuman. Such is not the case. Instead, someone has requested thatwe pull it out of the hat of a pirate who has grown out of theshoulder of our pet parrot “Laura” (as above). What thesechronological lists are: they are research reports compiled byARRGH algorithms out of a database of modules which we term theKouroo Contexture (this is data mining). To respond to such arequest for information we merely push a button.

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Commonly, the first output of the algorithm has obviousdeficiencies and we need to go back into the modules stored inthe contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, and then weneed to punch that button again and recompile the chronology —but there is nothing here that remotely resembles the ordinary“writerly” process you know and love. As the contents of thisoriginating contexture improve, and as the programming improves,and as funding becomes available (to date no funding whateverhas been needed in the creation of this facility, the entireoperation being run out of pocket change) we expect a diminishedneed to do such tweaking and recompiling, and we fully expectto achieve a simulation of a generous and untiring roboticresearch librarian. Onward and upward in this brave new world.

First come first serve. There is no charge.Place requests with <Kouroo@kouroo.info>. Arrgh.